Word: kremlins
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...campaign is the neophyte prime minister?s prime opportunity to make a name for himself ahead of next year?s presidential election. "The war against Chechen terrorism is Putin?s election platform," says TIME Moscow bureau chief Paul Quinn-Judge. "And for the moment, it?s doing just what Kremlin image-makers had hoped ? boosting Putin?s macho image and his popularity in the polls...
There was something wildly irrational in the Kremlin's thinking, starting with the notion that a second Chechnya war would be more winnable than the first one. Three years ago, a demoralized and disastrously led Russian army was savaged by Chechnya's hastily assembled guerrillas. The only obvious difference now is that there are more Chechen fighters. Since the bloody debacle of 1994-'96, the Russian army's disintegration has continued. Budget cuts and corruption have undermined its strength and reduced training to a bare minimum, while morale has dropped even lower. But by some bizarre process of mental alchemy...
What's really driving the war machine is not military necessity or strategic calculation or even the fear of terrorist attack. It is the Kremlin's politics of survival. Russia's leaders are waging a war of succession, designed by Kremlin imagemakers to prove to the Russian electorate that Prime Minister Putin, a former KGB lieutenant colonel hastily slapped into office by Yeltsin two months ago, is a real man, capable of leading Russia as President when Yeltsin steps down next year. The Kremlin logic is clear: Putin fights a short, brilliant war, his popularity rockets, and Yeltsin backers pump...
...second massive shipment of food aid, following last year's request for $1 billion in grain and meat. Although corruption scandals have created a pall of suspicion over aid to Russia, U.S. officials report that food shipments have largely escaped corruption. One bit of good news for the Kremlin came from the IMF. Despite the suspicion that his organization's aid hasn't always escaped the web of corruption, IMF president Michel Camdessus insisted Tuesday that the international lending organization was duty bound to continue helping Russia through thick and thin. Even if that were true, though, it might...
Much of the pressure to act comes from within Moscow's political class, with new prime minister Vladimir Putin making his vow to deal firmly with the rebels the centerpiece of his campaign for next year's presidential election. "The Kremlin is certainly using this crisis to paint the not-very-striking Putin to look like presidential material," says Quinn-Judge. The former KGB officer on Monday firmly rejected a call by Chechnya's President Aslan Maskhadov for political dialogue with Moscow, instead moving armor to the border. But despite their anger at the bombings, Russian voters may balk...