Word: kremlins
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...campaign is over before it began: Dmitry Medvedev will be Russia's next President. Only two things can stop him. One would be a serious medical emergency. This is unlikely, since the man looks as fit as a flea; it has been centuries since any Kremlin ruler - except for the incumbent, Vladimir Putin - has looked in ruder health. The second snag would be any change of mind by Putin. Medvedev owes his projected elevation to the favor of just one man. Such is Putin's dominance that Medvedev has immediately begged him to serve as his Prime Minister after...
...reduced to pawns with very little free choice. When threats, indoctrination and dishonesty are allowed to flourish, even a fake democracy loses the ability to maintain its disguise. The events of the past week would be absurd but, tellingly, they did not shock many. President Putin, hiding in the Kremlin and protected by favorable public opinion, has had a crucial opponent arrested for taking part in a demonstration. The timing could not be better: With well-known chess grandmaster turned democracy advocate Gary Kasparov behind bars in the run up to the election, Putin had one less annoying figure...
...lame duck at this stage. His second term of office expires four months from now, and the constitution prohibits him from seeking a third consecutive term. Still, nobody doubts that Russia's immediate political future will be decided primarily by the former KGB man now in the Kremlin. Some supporters have urged him to find a legal loophole to allow himself another term; others hope that, as the leading candidate of United Russia in Sunday's poll, he simply moves into the legislature in the job of Prime Minister, and inverts the constitutional relationship between the two positions by installing...
...regained his standing in Russia in recent years, becoming a frequent guest of KGB veteran Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin. Still, Vladimir Kryuchkov will be primarily remembered as the former KGB chief who, disturbed by liberal reforms, engineered the failed three-day coup against President Mikhail Gorbachev in August 1991. The brief takeover by hard-liners helped precipitate the final collapse of the Soviet Union four months later. Kryuchkov...
...Russia may hold the key to the Iranian standoff, but it is unlikely to be moved by entreaties by Western leaders for President Putin to "act responsibly" on Iran. Gone are the days when gaining Western approval and gratitude would have been a Kremlin objective. Now, Russia's response will be driven by its own agenda. And in Putin's mind, it's unlikely to be separated from his broader strategic agenda, which most certainly includes a greater leveling of the global balance of power...