Word: kozyrev
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Just over a year ago in Stockholm, Russia's Foreign Minister delivered a shocking speech announcing a return to empire and cold war. No more Mr. Nice Guy for "Greater Russia," declared Andrei Kozyrev. "The space of the former Soviet Union . . . is essentially a post-imperial space, where Russia has to defend its interests by all available means, including military and economic ones...
...speech created a sensation. Western delegates were stunned -- until Kozyrev explained an hour later that he was playacting. The speech, he said, was one Moscow hard-liners would deliver were they to seize power. He was warning of the dark future awaiting the world should Yeltsin fall...
Well, Yeltsin did not fall. The Soviet-era hard-liners Kozyrev warned against fell. Some are in jail. But now it is Kozyrev himself declaring last week that Russia should keep its troops in neighboring republics: "We should not withdraw from those regions that have been in the sphere of Russian interest for centuries...
This time he is not kidding. And because he is not, Kozyrev, a man who truly represents Russian moderation, has given the world a measure of how far Russian moderation has traveled in the past year. For months Russia has been interfering in neighboring republics, notably Georgia and Azerbaijan, to bring them under Russian domination. Withdrawal from the Baltics is stalled. And Belarus, which agreed to scrap its currency and restore the ruble, is in effect being economically annexed...
...biggest clue as to whether Yeltsin is ready to move closer to the political center will come in his dealings with such radical reformers as Gaidar, Finance Minister Boris Fyodorov and Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev. The President may decide that the time has come to jettison all or some of them from his team in the interest of building a consensus for reforms that proceed at a slower pace and demand less exacting social sacrifices. Last week he signalled his anger at the nationalists' strong showing by firing his chief legal adviser and the chairman of a television company that...