Word: meier
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...with their sights firmly set on a triumphant march into Grozny, the Chechen capital. But they could be heading into a trap. "The Chechens are well-armed and well-organized, and they?re just waiting for the Russians to come onto more favorable terrain," says TIME Moscow correspondent Andrew Meier. "They haven?t made much effort to resist Moscow?s offensive on the northern flatlands, where they?re vulnerable to the Russians? superior firepower and air support. But they?ll give the Russians a fierce fight in the mountains and forests across the river...
...with their fate. What the current crop of financial scandals points to is that in the '90s rush to exorcise the ghost of Stalinism, the distinctions between government, legitimate business and organized crime became dangerously blurred in Russia. "Crime, politics and business in Russia feed off each other," says Meier. "Russia?s huge criminal organizations were born, and continue to thrive, because of their access to political power...
...Caucasus and the recent spate of apartment bombings. "The U.S. has expressed support for Russia?s fight against domestic terrorism, but it may find itself in a tight spot if Moscow goes to war with Chechnya in the name of that fight," says TIME Moscow correspondent Andrew Meier. "It?s too early to tell whether this is just bluff and bluster, but even then it could boomerang on Moscow ?- the bombing of Grozny airport is unlikely to go unanswered...
...Russia, amid the climate of panic generated by the recent apartment bombings. The authorities announced Thursday that police in the southern city of Ryazan had defused a massive bomb in an apartment building after residents reported seeing sacks unloaded from a truck with a covered number plate. But, says Meier, later in the day it emerged that the "bomb" was merely a pile of sacks of sugar. The bombs that are falling in Chechnya, however, are all too real ?- and Moscow may be on the verge of lurching back into its worst military debacle since Afghanistan...
...bombings, the renewed fighting in Chechnya and Dagestan, the mounting swirl of scandal, are all bringing the crisis to a boil," says Meier. "Something has to give. One of the world?s largest nuclear arsenals is now in the hands of a small coterie of aides terrified of losing their positions, surrounding and protecting a feeble old man whose power is steadily draining." Despite the frenzy of morbid clairvoyance sweeping the political elite, ordinary Russians remain depressed and indifferent. And that?s hardly surprising. A fourth bomb exploded in a St. Petersburg apartment building Thursday night, killing two people...