Word: vladimir
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...rights defenders in Russia today" would have been taken as a chilling development whenever it had occurred. The fact that it coincided with Kremlin efforts to drum up hostility toward neighboring Georgia following the arrest of four Russian military officers on spying charges make it even more so. President Vladimir Putin's tenure has seen a systematic rolling back of many of the freedoms attained by Russians after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Russians have watched their legislature and judiciary become increasingly subordinate to the Kremlin, which also claimed the power to run the regions by directly appointing governors...
...regions back into the fold unless Tbilisi make that choice look more attractive to the Ossetians and Abkhaz than alignment with Russia. Saakashvili's heavy hints that he might force the issue has allowed Moscow to accuse the Georgian leadership of threatening aggression. And it has certainly helped President Vladimir Putin rally the Russian public behind a nationalist cause. A poll taken by the Moscow-based Echo Moskvy radio station late last month found that 40% of its typically liberal audience believe that Russia's national interests justify any hard line on Georgia. Such jingoism could work as smartly...
...evacuated its personnel, and put its approximately 4,000 troops still in Georgia on high alert, ordering them to shoot to kill if they needed to defend themselves. "These people [Georgians] think that under the protection of their foreign sponsors they can feel comfortable and secure," intoned Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday in televised remarks. "Is it really...
...DIED. Vladimir Tretchikoff, 92, globetrotting, self-taught painter dubbed the "King of Kitsch" for massively popular works including Chinese Girl, one of the best-selling art prints in history; in Cape Town. Born in Kazakhstan, Tretchikoff fled to Manchuria with his family after the Russian Revolution and traveled widely in Asia, settling in South Africa in 1946. While critics blasted his colorful paintings of exotic beauties, fans lined up to buy his cheap reproductions, prompting the painter to remark that the main difference between himself and Van Gogh was that he was rich...
...report by Russian MP Yuri Savelyev contradicts the official history of the tragedy, in which Russian President Vladimir Putin and his military never planned on assaulting the seized school, but only joined the fighting once terrorists' bombs went off inside. Savelyev states that the shots, allegedly fired by the Russians in response to explosions, could not be physically fired from their stated positions. Instead, he insists that the government forces shot first, using bazookas, flamethrowers, and then tanks and choppers, and it was in fact the first bazooka and flamethrower shots that led to the massive explosions inside the school...