Word: putin
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What's inside the Putin doll? Russian craftsmen have long since satirized their politicians by painting their likeness onto traditional hollow "matryoshka" dolls, each of which houses a smaller doll in descending sequence. And where cynics might have expected to find the likeness of arch-oligarch Boris Berezovsky inside a doll representing the president he helped bring to power, Putin may instead contain figures unpalatable to the media tycoon. Indeed, the new president's campaign against some of the other oligarchs - politically powerful billionaires who, like Berezovsky, accumulated their fortunes by questionable means in the Wild West early years...
...exclusive interview with TIME this week, Berezovsky set out the aims of what he insists will be a loyal opposition. It's not that he wants to bring Russia's current order crashing down, it's more that he fears that Putin has chosen a self-destructive path that will bury all of Russia - and therefore the interests of the oligarchs, too - in the debris. Three aspects of Putin's policies concern Berezovsky...
...believes the Chechen war is a quagmire. Berezovsky may have backed Putin to the hilt in using his media outlets to spin the war as a vote-winner for candidate Putin, but he now believes Putin is pursuing a disastrous course by seeking to impose Moscow's rule on the Chechens. The tycoon now insists negotiation is the only solution, and that it's pointless to have Moscow talking to its own handpicked Chenchen puppets - negotiations have to be with those who are fighting...
...Moscow Chechen chief Kadyrov listens as Russian President Putin says...
...issue has led to a flurry of diplomatic byplay. Putin is offering to cooperate with NATO on a "boost-phase" antimissile system that would shoot down large missiles on their way up (easier to target with the fiery exhaust plume trailing them) rather than when their much smaller warheads are in mid-flight, as in the U.S. plan. Putin's proposals are sketchy, but Europeans, worried about being left out of a U.S. shield, are listening. American officials advise caution and note that Moscow does not have the financial wherewithal for such a scheme...