Word: meier
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Meier: From an economic point of view, this came at the worst possible time. The economy was flush, Russia's credit rating was rising, the stock market was the hottest in the world. The White House had forgiven Russia over its opposition to the war in Iraq, and the outlook appeared rosier than it had been for years. The trouble is, in a system where there's no clear definition of private property, a pliable legal infrastructure and weak political institutions, elections are catalysts for crises - they have been since the fall of the Soviet Union...
...Former TIME Moscow correspondent Andrew Meier is the author of 'Black Earth: A Journey Through Russia After the Fall...
...Meier: Yes, no matter how indelicate its prosecution or how crude it appears abroad, they see the move against Khodorkovsky as a necessary corrective. The Putin line is, "We have no choice." As I explain in my book, Putin believes in the state above all. The state must survive. But the fact that he felt so threatened by Khodorkovsky that he felt forced to act in this way reveals his political weakness. Still, he knows that the West will remain engaged with Russia, because he understands the premium on non-Arab sources...
...Meier: It's a complex dynamic. In foreign policy, Putin zigzags between acceptance of the West and affirmation of Russian national interests. He has rolled over on NATO expansion, the ABM treaty, and the U.S. presence in Central Asia. Now you have NATO going into the Baltics, which had previously been a red line for Moscow. On Iraq, he joined France and Germany, but they were the bad guys and he knew he'd be forgiven. Still, at the same time he has his taboos. One is Chechnya, and another is the oligarchs. His message is, "I'll do what...
...Meier: Yes, he went into his first election as a virtual unknown, but he won it on the basis of his tough military campaign in Chechnya. And an attack on the oligarchs will play out even better in the hinterland than going to war in Chechnya. Ordinary Russians shed no tears for the oligarchs, although in some quarters Khodorkovsky's arrest could turn him into a martyr. But unlike in the West, in Russia he's not seen as an icon of the new breed of businessman. For common Russians he's an icon of all the sins...