Word: viktor
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Minutka Square battle was the first real setback for Russia's military since it launched its "counter-terror operation," as Moscow insists on calling the war against Chechen independence. Russian generals are once again figures of respect, not the butt of jokes. The three ground commanders, Colonel General Viktor Kazantsev, Lieut. General Gennadi Troshev and Major General Vladimir Shamanov, were recently named heroes of the Russian Federation. The country's self-confidence has flourished along with its armed forces. And Putin's supporters happily predict that a victory will propel him to the presidency next July...
...Russia would serve as Exhibit A in proving his readiness to step into the President's job. Now it makes him accountable for the Administration's decisions. He will face questions about where the money that he helped pump into Moscow actually went and about his friendship with Viktor Chernomyrdin while the former Prime Minister was suspected of stashing away millions. Administration officials concede that they underestimated the groundswell of corruption that came with Russian privatization. They had plenty of intelligence about the kleptocratic shenanigans, but didn't want to let it derail more important business like nuclear security...
...Yeltsin, meanwhile, was smarting at what he felt was Bill Clinton's condescension toward him. Sometime that day, Yeltsin was briefed on the talks, and he asked, as he often does, if anyone had any ideas. Chief of staff General Anatoli Kvashnin conferred with his aides and Lieutenant General Viktor Zavarzin, Russia's representative to NATO, and sketched out a surprise idea: a fast breakout by Russian troops stationed in Bosnia. Yeltsin was shown the plan, military sources said, and grunted a comment that they construed to be approval. They were probably right: Yeltsin's ability to not leave fingerprints...
...personal survival is your war aim, then surrender is always an option. We will never know exactly when the decision took root in the contrarian lobes of Slobodan Milosevic's brain. But three weeks ago, his body language changed. For weeks, whenever he received Russian special envoy Viktor Chernomyrdin, the Serbian leader would loll arrogantly back in his seat and hold forth, filling the room with his self-serving discourse. Since launching a diplomatic shuttle on April 14, Chernomyrdin had spent dozens of fruitless hours with Milosevic, most of them listening. Then on May 19, the Russian detected a subtle...
...people last week were as anxious as Al Gore about the peace initiative of Russia's Viktor Chernomyrdin and Finland's Martti Ahtisaari. As the Vice President campaigned in New Hampshire, the topic of the day was to have been health care for the elderly, but at every stop Gore met questions about the peace plan that had just been accepted by the Yugoslav parliament. Gore maintained a cautious face publicly, warning that it was premature to claim victory. Still, several times in private he dashed to a secure phone line to get the latest, increasingly optimistic assessments from...