Word: putin
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...Istanbul that killed 63 people. The indictment called for life imprisonment for five of the accused, and long prison terms for the others. Prosecutors allege that all of the suspects belonged to a Turkish cell of the al-Qaeda terror network. Out with the Old RUSSIA President Vladimir Putin abruptly sacked Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov and his entire Cabinet, saying he wanted to introduce a new premier ahead of the March 14 presidential election. All of the ministers apart from Kasyanov were asked to stay in their posts on an interim basis. Putin, who has a near-unassailable lead...
...ordinary Russians, the scenes of carnage were numbingly familiar, yet another reminder of how dangerous the country has become since President Vladimir Putin came to power. While Putin has imposed draconian curbs on the media and created a tame Parliament, he has not been able to pacify Chechnya, the breakaway republic whose separatists were swiftly blamed for the subway bombing. In 1999 Putin, then a new and little-known Prime Minister, made his name by ordering the reinvasion of Chechnya. Military commanders promised a speedy victory; instead, a radical, fundamentalist wing of the guerrilla movement has brought...
...claimed responsibility for the latest atrocity, but Putin and his allies had no doubt as to who was to blame. Appearing on TV with Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev, a rattled Putin accused Chechnya's deposed President and secessionist leader, Aslan Maskhadov, of being behind the bombing. Putin also denounced European politicians who had earlier called for negotiations with Maskhadov. "Russia does not negotiate with terrorists," he said. "It annihilates them...
Last week's bombing, says Lilia Shevtsova, a top analyst at the Carnegie Moscow Center, "ruins the Putin image of the President in control and on top of things." While Putin is still poised to win a landslide re-election next month--his approval ratings are around 80%--the mood of those who turn out to vote for him may prove to be more fatalistic than triumphant. Just after last Friday's blast, Oksana Petrova, 32, shrugged when a reporter asked her if she was now afraid of taking the metro. "Of course, I'm scared," she said. "But what...
Until this month, the Russian presidential campaign was an occasionally amusing but tightly scripted show. Comic relief was provided by independent candidate Sergei Mironov, who repeatedly stressed his support for the incumbent, President Vladimir Putin. Meanwhile, the Kremlin-dominated media gave Putin blanket - and predictably positive - coverage. Then the script took a sinister turn: first, a suicide bomber killed over 40 people in the Moscow metro; Putin blamed Chechen separatists. Immediately after, it emerged that Ivan Rybkin, an opposition presidential candidate who, like most Putin challengers, is polling in the single digits, had disappeared. Just the week before, Rybkin...