Word: kremlins
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Rumors, confusion and anxiety gripped Moscow so intensely last week that his Kremlin handlers just had to produce a live Boris Yeltsin. The President of Russia had not been seen publicly since his alarmingly inarticulate inaugural oath of office on Aug. 9, while all manner of confounding events were convulsing the country. See, presidential aides needed to demonstrate, he's still the boss. But Yeltsin's surprise photo op last Thursday evening provided precious little reassurance. He didn't look as frail and puffy or sound as slurred as he had in the inauguration, yet his appearance lasted only...
...nature abhors a vacuum, so too does the Kremlin. Yeltsin's latest disappearance overlapped the humiliating attack by Chechen separatists that gave them back control of their capital, Grozny. The President's absence allowed his fractious advisers to play out their own power struggle with the lives of thousands of Chechen civilians and Russian soldiers. Conflicting views within the Russian government about how to respond produced astounding zigzags in policy. Even as the Chechen war seemed to subside at week's end with dramatic news of a truce and maybe even a peace agreement, there was a sense that...
Many of Lebed's government colleagues consider him a bull let loose in Kremlin corridors, and hoped he would fall flat when he undertook the thankless peace mission. He might yet, but if he can deliver a face-saving way out of the meat-grinder war, he will become a political figure of awesome proportions just as Yeltsin's health and strength are ebbing...
...power in his hands. Lebed wants control of all army units in the Chechnya, and the authority to appoint federal officials up to the level of deputy minister. But is Lebed's aim only to end the war in Chechnya or to also consolidate his power base within the Kremlin? Lebed, who came into Yeltsin's circle only a few months ago after finishing third in the first round of Russian elections, has already made enemies in the Yeltsin camp, most notably Prime Minister Victor Chernomyrdin who resents Lebed's continuing attempts at self promotion. Although Yeltsin hasn...
While the Communists dream of power, those who wield it appear adrift, as a fin-de-regime cloud settles over the Kremlin and the maneuvering for power within intensifies. At least two members of the new Yeltsin team, Lebed and Prime Minister Victor Chernomyrdin, have obvious presidential ambitions and little love for each other. Lebed's aides in fact privately hint that Chernomyrdin will be a prime target of their planned anticorruption campaign. Both, however, are deeply wary of Anatoli Chubais, the new chief of the presidential staff. An ambitious, tough-minded proponent of privatization, Chubais in turn shares with...