Word: russian
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...Their marriage, already strained, now splits at the seams, and everything tumbles into catastrophe. This tragedy is played out in beautiful settings and photographed with a graceful assurance, as if the world were blooming while the couple's love withers. Their banishment, in this fine, supremely Russian film, could be from Eden...
Polonium-210 has a half-life of 138 days. Yet 30 weeks after the substance was administered to Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko, its potency seems undiminished, contaminating relations between two former imperial powers and pitting the demands of justice against the exigencies of realpolitik. London's request to Moscow on Tuesday to extradite Andrei Lugovoi as chief suspect in Litvinenko's murder drew a response that's increasingly familiar to Kremlin watchers: an abrupt no. There were some obvious reasons for Russian intransigence. The case is a skein of disputed plots and subplots. Lugovoi and one companion - or two, according...
...endorses the efforts of Abkhazia and South Ossetia to break away from pro-NATO Georgia, as well as those of Moldova's breakaway region of Trans-Dniestria. Russia uses these separatist entities to turn up heat on Georgia and Moldova, and the separatist movements in all three demand Russian recognition, and subsequent incorporation into Russia. Hence, Moscow's headache: Should it go along with the Ahtisaari plan, it must insist that the same approach be applied to Russian allies, lest it loses face both with them and with its own increasingly nationalist population. But should Russia derail the Ahtisaari plan...
...that "Kosovo will never again be part of Serbia. It's not possible." And Russia does not have sufficient leverage to change that reality - although it can use its U.N. Security Council veto to freeze the process, once the Ahtisaari plan is put to vote. Off the record, Russian officials indicate that this is, indeed, what Russia will most likely do, for the lack of other options...
...might be too hasty seeking to have both peoples integrated into the EU before they have learned how to co-exist. Helping develop functioning - and inevitably cooperative - economies in Serbia and Kosovo might prove a necessary prerequisite. It takes time. In this respect, the likelihood of a desperate Russian veto may be a blessing in disguise for the region...