Word: russian
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Putin is only marginally more experienced as a diplomat than Bush. For the Russian leader--whose key achievement has been to begin pulling his country out of an inferiority complex 10 years in the making--the meeting itself is the message. Securing quality time with a U.S. President signals that Russia remains a "great power" --if only because it retains its Soviet nuclear arsenal. Moscow lobbied hard for the meeting and wasn't pleased that Washington was slow to agree. Russian officials took note of every dismissive remark the Bushies made about Russia and were quick to point out that...
...Bush-Putin meeting is not expected to produce any grand agreements. Bush will come armed with loosely worded proposals for cooperation on missile defense and Russian membership in the World Trade Organization. But there will be little detail, and with the two-hour meeting eaten up by niceties and translation time, no deal is likely. But a deal isn't the point. What Bush is doing is setting a new tone for Europe. Five months into his term, it's time to make a better impression...
...country whose population once again declined by a quarter of a million people in the first three months of this year, whose infrastructure is on the verge of collapse and whose economy is crippled by corruption and bureaucracy. But while Bush and Putin are in their Slovenian castle, the Russian people will forget about their own problems. The image that Putin presents to the country, and the message that accompanies it--that Russia is back on the world stage--is paramount to his political agenda...
THERE Vladimir Zhirinovsky, eccentric Russian Liberal Democratic Party leader, posts a letter offering unsolicited advice "as that of an uncle to his nieces" to the Bush daughters, deriding their underage drinking as a "disappointment" and warning that he'll follow their "future life and will write letters when necessary...
...also much more polite. Though stung by slights from Washington in the early weeks of the Bush Administration, the Kremlin has been very discreet. Putin has discussed the Russian car industry and played host to Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands but kept mum about George Bush or national missile defense. His Defense Minister, Sergei Ivanov, has taken a tougher line. Although the Kremlin originally signaled a willingness to discuss changes to the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty, Ivanov now implies that there is little to discuss. Adjusting the treaty means destroying it, he warned last week, and Russia does not intend...