Word: putin
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...resignation took force immediately. Within a few minutes of the address being aired, he had handed over the powers of office--including control of Russia's strategic nuclear forces--to 47-year-old Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Russian TV showed Yeltsin, already wearing his overcoat, holding the door of his ornate Kremlin study open for his successor. "Your office," he told Putin, with a stiff sweep of the arm. Soon afterward, the traffic in central Moscow was stopped, perhaps for the last time for Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin, as his convoy sped to his country residence. And a couple of hours...
...peculiar party. Unity has virtually no platform, almost no organization (especially in contrast to the nation's Communist Party) and only a handful of visible leaders. What it does have is the backing of the Kremlin. The party was formed last September by Sergei Shoigu, who serves as Putin's Emergencies Minister, a position in which he dealt with natural and man-made disasters...
With the backing of allies, Unity will have about as many seats as the communists. The communists once again are loudly declaring victory, but Putin is undoubtedly quite satisfied. The communists do not have enough votes to block legislation, but the vote was good enough to encourage communist leader Gennadi Zyuganov to run for President again next June. This is exactly what the Kremlin wants. Kremlin controllers know that Zyuganov, wooden and thin-skinned, is a weak campaigner, and they will be able to pitch the contest as a race between the old and the new. The big loser...
...Putin basks in the afterglow of his victory, he may have forgotten some of the threats that still lurk on the path to the presidency. At the moment they seem very remote, but in Russia things change fast. There is the specter of Chechnya, where a single disaster--if it can break through the military's news blockade --could turn public opinion against both the war and the Prime Minister. The other is the truculence of Yeltsin, who tends to fire overly successful Prime Ministers. Putin's aides say this will not happen. But should Yeltsin decide to dump Putin...
Russians give presents at New Year rather than at Christmas, but none could match Boris Yeltsin?s gift to his chosen successor. Russia?s president shocked the nation by resigning Friday, handing the reins of power over to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and bringing next summer?s scheduled presidential election forward to March. "Yeltsin?s decision is plainly driven by the need to ensure Putin?s victory," says TIME Moscow correspondent Andrew Meier. "Bringing the election forward gives him a huge advantage by allowing him to ride the wave of support he built up in the Chechyna campaign to carry...