Word: kremlins
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...under attack last week. No sooner had the Russian President left Moscow on another of his notorious unannounced holidays -- this time to the Black Sea resort of Sochi -- than rumors filled the capital that his parlous state of health had inspired a coup plot. The crisis evaporated when the Kremlin launched a propaganda blitz to demonstrate that, at least for the moment, Yeltsin was still in command of his faculties. But the larger question of whether the Russian leader is in command of the country remains wide open...
...alleged ringleaders dismissed the scenario as nonsense. The document was subsequently disavowed by the Moscow paper, but it had already set off so much speculation about Yeltsin's hold on power that the Kremlin had to respond. ! Even Chernomyrdin got into the act. Breaking off an important meeting with the head of the International Monetary Fund to negotiate a $1.5 billion loan, he jetted down to Sochi on Monday to join his boss. That evening Russian television showed the two men strolling along a promenade. The next day Chernomyrdin dismissed the stories of Yeltsin's illness as "insulting" and told...
...damage control succeeded in quelling the immediate ruckus. But as fast as the Kremlin spin controllers kill one rumor, another crops up. Lately, the persistence of these stories has provoked speculation, even among supporters, that perhaps there is a flicker of truth behind all the supposed disinformation...
...there is clearly a physical change in a politician who cemented his power in 1991 by boldly scrambling atop a tank outside the besieged White House. These days Yeltsin appears increasingly lugubrious; the spring is missing from his step when he shuffles down the long red carpet at the Kremlin, and there are embarrassing pauses when he answers off-the-cuff questions. These subtle signs only heighten the sense, already gaining credence in Moscow from Yeltsin's political struggles, that the President is slipping...
...months, he has admonished Eastern Europe against joining NATO, hinted at keeping Russian troops in the Baltics and sternly warned republics not to mistreat ethnic Russians. Observers are left to speculate that the Foreign Minister's new stance may be a signal that the only way Yeltsin's beleaguered Kremlin team can undercut the appeal of the nationalists is by becoming more conservative themselves...