Word: russian
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...that Stepashin has lost before. In Dagestani, a provivce that borders on Chechnya in Russia?s mountainous (and mostly Muslim) north Caucasus region, a rebel force is trying to join its Chechen neighbors in achieving a de facto independence from Russia and becoming part of Chechnya. Russian forces have begun attacking the rebels ? pooh-poohed by the official Russain news outlet as "bandits" -- with artillery and missile strikes. And Sergei Stepashin is in Dagestan, trying to get it right this time...
...trained the hit man. At times, he says, he imagines himself sitting next to the killer, checking his technique as he carries out the hit. Alexei--a pseudonym--is still in his 30s and was until a few years ago a senior officer in the Spetsnaz, the secret Russian special-forces units modeled on the U.S. Delta Force. When it comes to killing, Alexei knows of what he speaks: he was a specialist in the "physical elimination" of adversaries...
Highly classified and highly trained, the Spetsnaz once epitomized the menace and power of the Soviet state. But these days, the Russian military is in such deep decline that the dash last month by 200 of its airborne troops to Pristina airport--traveling over roads not much more dangerous than a Middle-American highway--was hailed as a major feat of arms. Morale is low throughout the Russian army, and the special forces are no exception. But unlike most Russian soldiers, the Spetsnaz have salable skills. They are snipers, explosives and communications specialists, experts in close combat and surveillance, trained...
...portrayal of modern Russia, it tells the story of a Spetsnaz-type officer who is framed by the security police and then forced to assassinate a banker planning a run against the incumbent President. The officer carries out the murder and is later eliminated by state-security thugs. Many Russians find the film plausible. Over the past year, for example, a number of current and former Spetsnaz officers from the Russian airborne forces have been arrested in connection with the 1994 murder of Dmitri Kholodov, an investigative journalist killed by a booby-trapped briefcase while he was working...
...Brigid returned to her native Britain to work on the TIME Atlantic edition, and there she truly blossomed, managing the reporters with aplomb while writing on subjects as diverse as Wimbledon and Russian art. But her greatest passion was for friendship, and her greatest pleasure came from conversation with friends, conversation that was full of curiosity about how the world worked and a moral energy about how it should work. The magazine was very lucky to have had her as a journalist all those years; we were far luckier to have had her as a friend...