Word: putin
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...TIME.com: So, for those around Putin, this action is broadly designed as a corrective to what Boris Yeltsin did in the 1990s, when he sold off many strategic industries at bargain-basement prices to the oligarchs in exchange for financing his election...
...What the arrest of Khodorkovsky ultimately points to, however, is the weakness of Putin's rule: Until now, he's been brilliant at negotating between different factions, playing them off against one another. But this marks a watershed, where he's taken the most dramatic action possible against the leading oligarch...
...Meier: Yes, no matter how indelicate its prosecution or how crude it appears abroad, they see the move against Khodorkovsky as a necessary corrective. The Putin line is, "We have no choice." As I explain in my book, Putin believes in the state above all. The state must survive. But the fact that he felt so threatened by Khodorkovsky that he felt forced to act in this way reveals his political weakness. Still, he knows that the West will remain engaged with Russia, because he understands the premium on non-Arab sources...
...TIME.com: So, where Yeltsin approached the West and the oligarchs as a supplicant, Putin is more assertive...
...Meier: It's a complex dynamic. In foreign policy, Putin zigzags between acceptance of the West and affirmation of Russian national interests. He has rolled over on NATO expansion, the ABM treaty, and the U.S. presence in Central Asia. Now you have NATO going into the Baltics, which had previously been a red line for Moscow. On Iraq, he joined France and Germany, but they were the bad guys and he knew he'd be forgiven. Still, at the same time he has his taboos. One is Chechnya, and another is the oligarchs. His message is, "I'll do what...