Word: moscow
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...would be familiar to any number of affluent Russians who make the city their home. London is 31% foreign born, profiting from successive waves of the ultrarich--American bankers, Arab sheiks, Hong Kong Chinese. Now the Litvinenko case is making some Brits wonder whether the city has turned into Moscow-on-Thames, overly populated by secret agents and those who have struck it lucky at the roulette wheel of the former Soviet Union's rude, oil-soaked brand of capitalism...
Most famously, Litvinenko wrote Blowing Up Russia, which claimed FSB agents had actually planned the 1999 Moscow apartment bombings that killed over two hundred civilians and lead to the second Chechen war. Supposedly, the Kremlin had handcrafted a causus belli sacrificing hundreds of Russian civilians in order to invade Chechnya and prevent its independence. I wonder how many friends he had left at the FSB after such a thesis...
...Coming in the wake of the recent killings of former KGB man Alexander Litvinenko in London and of journalist Ana Politkovskaya in Moscow, Gaidar's episode suggests that Russian political life may be reacquiring some traditional dark patterns. All of the incidents, after all, are taking place against the backdrop of the start of a fierce struggle over who will succeed Putin, whose second (and constitutionally mandated last) term as president will end in 17 months...
...Gaidar's poisoning after the Politkovskaya-Litvinenko murders adds to gloomy apprehensions. The political atmosphere in Moscow is becoming increasingly fraught with tension as the next round of elections draws near. Until the country has resolved its political succession, few are expecting a respite from such strange and ugly events...
...case that has never been solved. Just like the Markov murder, the death of Litvinenko has already given rise to a flurry of conspiracy theories, including speculation among defenders of the government that the poisoning was arranged by Russian émigrés or Western intelligence agencies to discredit Moscow. But for many Russian élites, the whole macabre spectacle has heightened anxieties about the Putin government's backsliding into communist-era intrigue and repression. "People who question the policies of our government are increasingly targeted. People who work for human rights are increasingly under attack," says Alexeyeva. "And even people...