Word: kremlins
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...latest and strongest signal of potential trouble, according to Kremlin watchers, was the Kremlin's February announcement that it was establishing an advisory group of professional managers to help the government handle the economic crisis. Observers believe Medvedev will use the pool of loyal bureaucrats to fill government positions abandoned by Putin's men, widely blamed for the economic policies that led to the downturn. "Medvedev is building his own power base, up to a certain point," says Alexander Khramchikhin, a senior researcher at the Institute for Political and Military Analysis in Moscow. (See pictures of Putin...
...Khodorkovsky, then Russia's richest man, was arrested in 2003 at a time when he had been funding Kremlin-opposition groups, and had been vocal about his disdain for Putin. The charges for tax evasion and fraud on which he was convicted may have applied to many of Russia's leading businessmen at the time, say critics. "The only difference between [Khodorkovsky] and any other large-scale business at the time was his anti-Kremlin stance," says Tatiana Lokshina, deputy director of the Moscow office of Human Rights Watch. "He frequently denounced Putin." Lokshina says that a further conviction...
...Gore-Chernomyrdin agreement and renewed arms dealings between Russia and Iran. Since then, Putin has signed a $1 billion arms deal with Iran and supported Iran’s nuclear ambitions. During Putin’s 2007 visit to Tehran, the first trip to the Iranian capital by a Kremlin leader since Joseph Stalin’s visit in 1943, Putin and Iranian President Ahmadinejad discussed Iran’s nuclear energy program...
...murders appear to be politically motivated. Three senior Chechen officials have been slain in Moscow in the past three years, and other figures opposed to Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov's regime have also been targets. The murder of opposition journalist Anna Politkovskaya is linked to her criticism of the Kremlin-backed Kadyrov, whose government is accused of torturing thousands of individuals. In September 2008, Ruslan Yamadayev, the brother of Sulim Yamadayev, rumored to be a rival of Kadyrov, was gunned down outside the British embassy in Moscow at peak hour. (On Jan. 13, Umar Israilov, a former bodyguard of Kadyrov...
...huge hole in Putin's economic policies. During his first term, Putin introduced modern tax and corporation laws. But he failed to spur the development of a business infrastructure that would enable Russia to shake its overreliance on energy and metals. Now, as the crisis starts to bite, the Kremlin is reacting by increasing its control over broad swaths of the economy. Through the state-controlled banks, it is bailing out selected business executives who are having trouble paying their debts--including Oleg Deripaska, a metals tycoon who until recently was Russia's richest man. It is also playing...