Word: moscow
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...while the old Cold War allies may still want to counterbalance American influence, Moscow and Beijing are linked by 21st century economic concerns. "We cannot be as close as we were in the 1950s," says Han. The communist neighbors grew apart starting in 1956, and even after the fall of the Soviet Union, trade between Russia and China remained slow. In recent years it has expanded rapidly, from $10.7 billion in 2001 to $56.9 billion in 2008. "Half of that is energy," says Zweig. "Energy is a very important component of the bilateral trade relationship. In many ways...
...alone, the number of "grievous or especially grievous" offenses committed by the mob - contract killings and kidnappings - climbed almost 10%. So even if the reigning dons do get locked up, replacements will likely be easy to find and the violence will probably continue, says Yury Fedoseyev, former head of Moscow's Criminal Investigation Department. "The men I put away in the early 1990s for extortion, racketeering, murder - they're all getting out now," he says. "And I doubt they're going to retire." (See 10 things to do in Moscow...
...statute, the men would have faced charges just for showing up for the meeting. According to local law-enforcement officials who were quoted in the Russia media, the purpose of the gathering was to discuss Oniani's turf war with Aslan Usoyan, leader of a rival clan in Moscow. Weeks later, the reputed godfather of the Russian mafia, 69-year-old Vladislav Ivankov, was shot in the stomach in northern Moscow by a sniper who fired across eight lanes of traffic. Ivankov, who died on Oct. 9 after spending two months in the hospital, had recently sided with Usoyan...
...between the Oniani and Usoyan factions, authorities say. Police say the tensions between the two men date back to 2007, two years after Oniani returned to Russia from Spain when police broke up his racketeering operations there. As Oniani sought to re-establish himself in Moscow, he started encroaching on Usoyan's territory, and Usoyan's top lieutenants began turning up dead. One of them, Alek Minalyan, an Armenian allegedly in charge of extorting money from construction firms working on projects for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, was gunned down in western Moscow on Feb. 6. The bodies...
...most influential figures in the Russian criminal world. According to the FBI, he ran an international mafia syndicate from his apartment in the Brighton Beach neighborhood of Brooklyn, N.Y., in the 1990s and served eight years in prison in the U.S. for extortion and conspiracy. When he returned to Moscow following his release in 2004, he was set on retiring. "I met with him a few times, and he told me honestly that all he wanted in Russia was to rest," says Alexander Dobrovinsky, a Moscow attorney and an old friend of Ivankov's who helped prepare the defense...