Word: kremlins
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...vote [in favor of Ukrainian independence from the disintegrating U.S.S.R.] went beyond the imminent creation of the fifth most populous country in Europe?52 million people, slightly fewer than in France. More broadly, the ballot seems likely to trigger the final dissolution of the Soviet Union ... Even now [the Kremlin government] is only a shell that some diplomats assert fails the test for diplomatic recognition?it does not control the territory it claims. Last week the [Soviet] central bank ran out of cash ... [and] the government may be unable to pay its employees, including the more than 3 million members...
...Yushchenko focused suspicion on his Sept. 5 dinner with the heads of the Ukrainian security service, the sbu. But that theory faded after experts noted that dioxin needs days or weeks to take effect. The plotters' identities remain unknown. Even if Yushchenko can't pin his poisoning on the Kremlin, Russia did back Kuchma and Yanukovych as energetically as the West pulled for Yushchenko, which makes for an awkward status quo. Having failed embarrassingly in his efforts to engineer a pro-Russian regime in Kiev, Putin will likely opt for a waiting game, and discreetly sow discontent among the Russian...
...orange revolution may be seeping across the border into Russia. Last week in the Siberian city of Barnaul, the capital of the Altai region some 3,500 km east of Moscow, more than 100 journalists published an open letter of protest against what they said was pressure from the Kremlin to smear Vladimir Ryzhkov, an M.P. from Altai and an outspoken opponent of President Vladimir Putin. According to Valery Savinkov, editor-in-chief of the Altai news agency Bankfax, "A gentlemen from Moscow came [in October] to offer us big rewards should we do their bidding. When I turned...
Sources well briefed on Kremlin affairs tell TIME that as protests in Kiev gathered momentum, Putin urged discredited outgoing President Leonid Kuchma--eager to secure a safe retirement amid charges of corruption and political violence--to declare Yanukovych the winner. The sources say Putin made it clear that a Yushchenko victory would not be acceptable. If the Russian President sticks to that hard line, it could provoke serious trouble, not only abroad but also at home. "The Russians have raised the stakes," says Stephen Sestanovich of the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations. "They've made this a very emotional issue...
...Kremlin regards countries like Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus as vital buffers between Russia and the West. Like Russian rulers for the past two centuries, Putin "equates security with well-defined zones of interest," says James Sherr, an Eastern Europe specialist at Oxford Uni-versity. Those zones have shrunk in recent years as the Baltic states and Georgia turned sharply toward the West. Putin doesn't want to see the same thing happen in Ukraine...