Word: vladimires
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President Vladimir Putin faced rising criticism Monday as Russians digested the cost of Saturday's dramatic hostage rescue. Medical authorities have revealed that all 115 hostages who died on Saturday when Russian special forces stormed a Moscow theater to end a three-day siege by Chechen gunmen were killed not by their captors, but by a mystery gas used to subdue the terrorists. Russian officials expressed regret over the casualties, but emphasized that their intervention had saved the bulk of the 700 hostages the Chechens were planning to kill - and they refused to disclose the type of gas used...
...confident, however, that in the long run President Vladimir Putin's prestige won't suffer in Russian eyes as a result. Russians really like the fact that there's a tough guy running the state. And they don't expect the state to be a benign entity - over the last hundred years, they've come to expect that any situation in which the state's authority is challenged results in a lot of unpleasantness...
...Although President Vladimir Putin immediately linked the siege with the global war on terrorism, and charged that the action was planned in a "foreign terrorist center," its roots more likely lie in a long-established tradition among Chechen insurgents of mounting dramatic terror strikes aimed at tilting the balance of power back in their favor. The latest siege is reminiscent of the hostage drama at Budennovsk in 1995, when Chechen rebels led by Shamil Basayev seized a Russian hospital in order, he later said, to make Russians suffer the way Chechens had suffered. Although 166 hostages died when the very...
...Shaky after two straight losses, Vladimir Kramnik deployed a classic anti-computer strategy. In another Queens Indian Defense, but with the sides switched, the human world champion managed to lock the pawns in the center of the board, depriving the tactical monster of the open lines it needed for a flashy attack. After only two and half hours of play, the Moscow grand master offered the Hamburg computer a draw on the twenty-eighth move and Deep Fritz immediately accepted. With the score now tied at three and a half points apiece, the eight-game match will be decided...
...filled parks surrounding large public buildings ranging from the monstrously Soviet to the stately. These include a functioning, if not always full, opera house. Another surprise is the abundance of Soviet relics still on display. Near the deserted State Historical Museum?inside, a gory ceiling mural depicts class warfare?Vladimir Lenin zealously points the way forward...