Word: meier
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...Italian newspaper on Thursday accused Russia?s president of taking bribes, while USA Today alleges that he presided over a $15 billion money laundering scheme. But the allegations are unlikely to dent Yeltsin?s already negligible popularity. "The Russian people are suffering scandal burnout," says TIME Moscow correspondent Andrew Meier. "Some of these allegations have long been aired in the Russian press ? although they?re dismissed by the Kremlin. Charges of corruption at the highest level don?t have much shock value in this country...
...generals, who claimed Wednesday to have routed Islamic separatist rebels in the restive republic of Dagestan. But even though Russian forces have recaptured the villages held by the insurgents, their victory was anything but total. "The rebels had left the villages before the Russians actually recaptured them," says Meier. "In fact, Russian forces spent two days shelling empty villages. The rebels retreated in the face of superior firepower, but they haven?t gone far; this is not over." Indeed, as Russian forces pursuing the retreating rebels bombed villages in neighboring Chechnya Thursday, Moscow risked reopening an even wider conflict...
...charged that Russian mercenaries had participated in Serb atrocities during the war, and barred their entry to the town. "For weeks now Russian forces have been taking hits from Albanian snipers, while the Russians believe NATO is doing very little to stop the perpetrators," says TIME Moscow correspondent Andrew Meier. "The ethnic Albanians are playing with fire, because there?s mounting pressure in Moscow for a forceful reaction...
...months. The Russians have been furious both about attacks on their own personnel and over the continuing ethnic cleansing targeted against the province?s dwindling Serb population. "If there?s a concerted attack on the Russian forces in Kosovo now, they?ll likely return fire with interest," says Meier. And while that might be exactly what KLA hard-liners want, it could make the Kosovo peacekeeping mission a political nightmare for NATO. Russian defense and foreign ministry statements warned last Friday that Moscow may consider pulling out of KFOR. But that wouldn?t be the easy victory the KLA hard...
...response to the uprising in neighboring Chechnya five years ago. But Yeltsin has never had any problem signing off on a little butchery in the Caucasus, and Stepashin had just returned from Washington having secured an IMF loan. "This was the most inexplicable of all Yeltsin?s decisions," says Meier. "Stepashin was a loyal servant, and Putin is simply a poor man?s Stepashin." Putin now contemplates entering the presidential race with the endorsement of the deeply unpopular Yeltsin, which is widely viewed as akin to the kiss of death. That?s if he survives the political life...