Word: putin
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...powered attendees. The subject of the discussion was Russia, and the participants included, among others, former U.S. ambassador to Moscow Thomas Pickering and his old boss, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. At the end of the session, I went around the table and asked a last question: Vladimir Putin - President for life...
...Putin had taken over for the doddering, inept Boris Yeltsin on the eve of the millennium (literally: December 31, 1999) and been re-elected on his own in the spring of 2000. By the following summer, the former KGB resident of East Berlin (oh, how he must pine for the days ...) was already giving off vibes that he was no democrat. Albright was the last to give her answer that day. She paused and said softly, "Probably...
...have the definitive answer: authoritarian at home, brooking no consequential political opposition, and increasingly aggressive abroad. The Russian war against the small, Caucasus state of Georgia had been frozen in time for the past 16 years (Russian troops last fought in Tbilisi, Georgia's capital, in 1992) until Putin began it in earnest again this past weekend, sending in air strikes far beyond the disputed territory of South Ossetia...
...idea that Vladimir Putin's primary impulse is to try to reassemble the Soviet Empire is one that much of the U.S. foreign policy establishment has resisted. This despite the fact that in Ukraine in 2004, Russia tried to do what it could to tip the presidential election to its approved candidate - including, many believe, poisoning with dioxin the eventual winner, Viktor Yushchenko. Just over a week ago, traveling in Central Asia for a future TIME story, I asked a senior Western official about the likelihood that the tense Russia-Georgia standoff over South Ossetia could escalate. The source acknowledged...
...Fighting broke out late last Thursday after Georgia sent its military to reclaim control of the territory, which has enjoyed de facto autonomy under Russian protection since 1992, and Russia launched its own offensive against Georgian forces. And as of Sunday, it appeared that both Russian leader Vladimir Putin and Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili had painted themselves into a corner. The Russians face the dilemma over how far to push their "punishment" of Georgia for its attack on South Ossetia; the Georgian leadership faces the reality that the stated objective of its military operation - to recapture the breakaway region...