Word: putin
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...Putin has noticed such criticisms, he gives little sign of it. He has turned the Duma, political parties and regional governments into elaborate rubber stamps. "The separation of powers has been dismantled," says Vladimir Ryzhkov, one of the very few independent liberal deputies left in the Duma. "All power belongs to the President and his administration, and 1.3 million federal bureaucrats." People don't go to jail for expressing deviant views anymore (though a bill about to pass through the Duma will soon make that possible), but organized politics have been switched off in favor of direct rule. People...
...Balancing Washington For putin's policymakers, the U.S. remains the instinctive adversary, the country whose preponderance the Kremlin yearns to balance. Russia, of course, is not alone in seeking that goal; French President Jacques Chirac regularly advocates a "multipolar" world (and compared to many other G-8 leaders, has been markedly uncritical of Putin's record). But the intriguing thing about Putin's policy has been the way in which he has aligned Russian interests with those of another natural rival to the U.S., China. Putin and China's President Hu Jintao meet frequently - five times in the last year...
...Council on Foreign Relations in Berlin, says economic issues have come to predominate. "Merkel can't conduct a pro-human rights, pro-ngo policy toward Russia because then how can she defend German business?" Yet even Merkel, raised in East Germany, publicly criticized repression in Chechnya while meeting with Putin in Moscow. She is "cooler and more pragmatic" toward Russia than Schröder, says Rahr. Polenz argues that her government "is more clear-eyed about Russia's record on democracy and freedom of expression, not to mention Chechnya." Despite Germany's interest in placating Russia and doing business there...
...Sept. 11, many in the U.S. began looking to it as a potential major alternative energy source to the Middle East. Now the Chinese, too, are clamoring for much larger deliveries of Russian oil and gas. But dependence on Russian energy comes at a political price. Russian President Vladimir Putin doesn't hide his ultimate goal. Russia "must aspire to claim world leadership in the realm of energy," Putin told his Security Council last December. For the Kremlin, energy security equals Russian national security, and it won't shy away from making oil and gas significant tools of its foreign...
...acquired from an unknown finance company whose address was a café in the city of Tver, it has become the nation's third largest oil company, producing 1.5 million bbl. per day. While president Bogdanchikov is an oil-industry expert, the chairman of the board is Igor Sechin, Putin's deputy chief of staff. Gazprom, the state company that controls almost 90% of Russian gas production, is similarly tied in to the Kremlin. Its chair of the board is Dmitri Medvedev, the First Deputy Prime Minister, who is widely seen as a possible Putin heir. After its brush with...