Word: russian
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...packing on sudden notice, his rivals have spoken with solemn delight of Yeltsin's diminishing physical and mental state. Last week, however, when he fired his fourth Prime Minister in 17 months, even former loyalists joined Yeltsin's opponents in naming the culprit behind the latest beheading: Agoniya. The Russian word is usually translated as agony. But it means death throes. "This is not just another shake-up," said a former top Kremlin aide. "This is the beginning...
They weren't the kind of deposit one slips through the slot at the ATM. According to the New York Times, Russian mobsters are thought to have laundered billions of dollars through an old-line American financial institution, the Bank of New York. Investigators, tipped off by British authorities, spotted some $4.2 billion flowing through one account in more than 10,000 transactions from October to March of this year. The total could be as high as a staggering $10 billion ? double the size of Russia's latest IMF bailout check. The target of investigators is Semyon Yukovich Mogilevich...
Having remained in Boris Yeltsin?s fickle employ just long enough for Russians to get attached to him, Yevgeny Primakov is back ?- and he?s brought nearly all of Yeltsin?s enemies with him. The former foreign minister, ex-KGB spymaster and sometime prime minister announced Tuesday he would head up the broad Fatherland-All Russia coalition just formed by Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov. With Yeltsin having promised to step down in 2000 but looking to install a chosen successor (possibly prime minister du jour Vladimir Putin), Primakov's candid 10-minute speech ?- remarkably full of detail for a Russian...
...Russians may pay heavily for the nation?s latest little war in the Caucasus -- with their political freedom. Although Moscow has admitted losing only 10 troops in a week of fighting and has vowed to drive Islamic insurgents out of Dagestan within two weeks, Russian reinforcements pouring into the region amid intensified fighting Friday suggest a longer and more brutal conflict. Back in Moscow, there?s widespread speculation that President Boris Yeltsin will use the Dagestan fighting as a pretext to declare a state of emergency -? which would allow him to cling to power by canceling December?s parliamentary elections...
Yeltsin on Friday asked the Duma, the Russian parliament, not only to approve his appointee, intelligence chief Vladimir Putin, as prime minister, but also to approve a new law simplifying procedures for declaring a state of emergency. "The situation in the North Caucasus shows that this law is essential," a Yeltsin spokesman said. Putin can significantly boost his political prestige by swiftly resolving the Dagestan crisis. But if it drags out into another bloody war, it will ruin the election chances of Yeltsin?s anointed heir -? and that may, in turn, tempt the president to avoid the election altogether...