Word: moscow
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...attacks began the day Estonian authorities removed a controversial Soviet war memorial from a park in the capital, Tallinn. Estonia has stepped back from directly accusing the Kremlin of exacting high-tech revenge, and Moscow has denied any role. But Estonian officials claim to have traced many of the attacks to computers in Russia. Whoever the perpetrators were, the sophistication of the bombardment was unprecedented, and it marked the first time the power centers of an entire nation were targeted simultaneously...
Polonium-210 has a half-life of 138 days. Yet 30 weeks after the substance was administered to Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko, its potency seems undiminished, contaminating relations between two former imperial powers and pitting the demands of justice against the exigencies of realpolitik. London's request to Moscow on Tuesday to extradite Andrei Lugovoi as chief suspect in Litvinenko's murder drew a response that's increasingly familiar to Kremlin watchers: an abrupt no. There were some obvious reasons for Russian intransigence. The case is a skein of disputed plots and subplots. Lugovoi and one companion - or two, according...
...Moscow has helpfully suggested that its own authorities investigate the crime - an offer met with skepticism in Britain, given that Litvinenko, on his deathbed, blamed the Kremlin itself for his fate. His accusation has fed fears that Russia increasingly operates by its own rules. That's a view promulgated by billionaire Boris Berezovsky, an opponent of President Vladimir Putin. Some Russians believe in another conspiracy: that Berezovsky, who has claimed asylum in Britain since 2000, engineered Litvinenko's murder to embarrass Putin. Berezovsky strongly rejects these claims and has donated $1 million to a foundation set up by Litvinenko...
...separatism theme is played differently by Moscow in different contexts: Russia brutally burns out separatism in Chechnya, but it endorses the efforts of Abkhazia and South Ossetia to break away from pro-NATO Georgia, as well as those of Moldova's breakaway region of Trans-Dniestria. Russia uses these separatist entities to turn up heat on Georgia and Moldova, and the separatist movements in all three demand Russian recognition, and subsequent incorporation into Russia. Hence, Moscow's headache: Should it go along with the Ahtisaari plan, it must insist that the same approach be applied to Russian allies, lest...
...face and in a lot of trouble for all its pains. Even with the current rise of Serbian nationalism, piqued by the West's position on Kosovo, Belgrade is more likely to cut a deal with the West and opt for the EU's patronage rather than for Moscow...