Word: putin
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...Enter Putin, best known for his anonymity. A slight man of few words, the 46-year-old is a veteran of Soviet intelligence . Though he is known to have spent 15 years in East Germany as a KGB operative, little else has emerged about him. Colleagues who have worked by his side know almost nothing of his resume or private life. When a Russian TV interviewer, struggling to introduce Yeltsin's chosen heir to her audience, asked Putin for "a few words" about his family, he gave her a few: "Wife, two children. Two girls, 13 and 14 years...
...years in the KGB, Putin merited little notice among his colleagues. "He did what he was told," says a former high-ranking intelligence officer. Remarkably, in 1975, after getting his law degree in Leningrad, Putin entered the KGB and was sent abroad on his first posting. "It couldn't have been pure luck," says retired KGB Lieut. Colonel Konstantin Preobrazhensky. "He must have had family connections." As the U.S.S.R. unwound, Putin returned to Leningrad and rose through the city system to national power...
...Putin is expected to be confirmed by the Duma this week, but few give him a prayer of becoming Russia's next President. His anointment is less a strategic move in a long-range plan than a sudden turn taken by an enfeebled President preoccupied with survival. "The Kremlin's not playing chess," says Alexander Oslon, Russia's leading pollster. "They're playing checkers--they're living one day at a time." With the end of Yeltsin's second term 10 months away, the Family is beset by fear of humiliation, if not prosecution. ("The Ceausescu scenario," a Kremlin staff...
Naturally, the sudden ascent of a Federal Security Service boss has raised the specter of unconstitutional moves. Inside Russia, Putin is known as an "ice-head" or tough hardened guy--not the ideal pedigree for shoring up the nation's rickety democratic system. But while Putin and Yeltsin could declare a state of emergency, disband the Duma or cancel elections, Kremlin aides insist that Yeltsin appreciates the importance of a peaceful transfer of power...
VLADIMIR V. PUTIN Peter Lorre-esque ex-spy becomes Russian Premier. Don't unpack: predecessor lasted 82 days...