Word: specter
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...leaders are desperate to capture Grozny, and they?ll eventually do it," says TIME Moscow correspondent Yuri Zarakhovich. "But the Chechens will make it a lot bloodier, and a lot slower, than the Russians expect." Part of the reason for Moscow's new sense of urgency is the specter of European economic sanctions, which may be imposed as early as next week. "While Europe wouldn't stop humanitarian supplies, sanctions may limit the commercial importing of food," says Zharakovich. And that could raise the domestic political cost of the war on the eve of the March presidential election...
...popularity of the Chechnya campaign has made Putin the hot favorite in presidential elections scheduled for March, but the specter of mounting Russian casualties in a Caucasian quagmire could eat away at his support. Still, suspending the assault - out of a sudden concern for the city's civilian population after six weeks of indiscriminate bombing - doesn't necessarily eliminate the risk. Russian generals have already conceded that Chechen forces are actively harassing their troops deep inside areas over which Moscow has ostensibly established control. Which means that right now there's no politically safe way forward - or back...
...Although the early phases of the campaign - in which Russian losses were minimal due to a heavy-bombardment strategy - earned then-prime minister Putin unprecedented popularity for a neophyte government official, fierce Chechen resistance has slowed Moscow's momentum and raised the specter of heavy Russian casualties. That could pose a problem for Putin's bid to win the presidency in elections that have been brought forward to March by Boris Yeltsin's resignation. "Putin's people know that as much as the Chechnya campaign has sent his popularity rocketing among Russian voters, it could fall just as quickly...
...Phillips was the first American museum director to go deep and seriously into U.S. Modernism. "I do not collect American paintings because they are American," he said, "but because they are good and often great." It was a declaration that few U.S. collectors, haunted as they were by the specter of provincialism, would have made. He began with those two heroes of realism, Thomas Eakins and Winslow Homer. But Phillips' taste was more for the visionary, especially for the dark, light-mottled sea pieces of Albert Pinkham Ryder, and for the younger painters they inspired--Arthur Dove, Marsden Hartley, John...
...Putin basks in the afterglow of his victory, he may have forgotten some of the threats that still lurk on the path to the presidency. At the moment they seem very remote, but in Russia things change fast. There is the specter of Chechnya, where a single disaster--if it can break through the military's news blockade --could turn public opinion against both the war and the Prime Minister. The other is the truculence of Yeltsin, who tends to fire overly successful Prime Ministers. Putin's aides say this will not happen. But should Yeltsin decide to dump Putin...