Word: putin
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This is gradual normalization, the phrase that Russian President Vladimir Putin's propaganda machine has come up with to describe what passes for life in Chechnya. When a mine blew up recently near the campus of Grozny University, a student looked at his watch and quipped, "Normalization is early today." Normalization is scheduled to enter a new phase this week, with the expected announcement of election results for the Chechen presidency. Chechens had little choice but to vote for Putin's hand-picked nominee, Akhmad Kadyrov, 52, head of the Moscow-appointed administration in Chechnya. The former mufti, or chief...
Once in office, the new Chechen President is to be given broad powers to run the republic, Putin recently told a group of journalists from the U.S. media, including TIME. A local legislature will also be elected. Then the Kremlin plans to announce that the war is over, reduce its troop numbers to a small permanent garrison and hand over pacification duties to the 13,000 men in the Chechen police force, which is widely viewed as Kadyrov's private army, and an undisclosed number of Kadyrov's personal security guards...
This Chechenization strategy--intended to remove the war as an issue in Putin's re-election campaign next spring--is reminiscent of the U.S.'s attempts to declare victory and get out of Vietnam three decades ago. It also has echoes in the U.S.'s current predicament in Iraq, as Bush seemed to acknowledge at a news conference with Putin at Camp David two weeks ago when he said, "Terrorists must be opposed wherever they spread chaos and destruction, including Chechnya." In Chechnya guerrillas have fended off a superior military force and used terrorist tactics to take the battle from...
...nuclear strategy, unless NATO abandons what the Kremlin calls its "anti-Russian orientation." The statements came at a conference on the reform and development of Russia's armed forces, held in Moscow last week and attended by senior state officials, military brass and national media editors. President Vladimir Putin and Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov both spoke at the conference. Ivanov said Russia should be ready to carry out preemptive strikes anywhere in the world its interests require. This is a departure from official Russian military doctrine, which currently calls only for sufficient defensive capability, says Alexander Pikayev, a security analyst...
...husband's re-election. At the end of the month, she will travel overseas alone for only the second time. After a stop in Paris marking the U.S.'s re-entry into UNESCO, she will head to Moscow for a book festival that Russian First Lady Lyudmila Putin is host to--a celebration modeled on the one Laura Bush started in America. --By John F. Dickerson