Word: yeltsin
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...BORIS YELTSIN OBLITERATED A VILLAGE last week and called it a victory. A leading Moscow newspaper described the Russian army's running battle with Chechen rebels as "10 days of pain, impotence and shame." But Yeltsin, with a flourish of newspeak reminiscent of Soviet days, simply declared himself a winner. His troops, he claimed at a news conference in the Kremlin, killed 153 Chechens, captured 28, and freed 82 hostages after besieging Pervomaiskoye, a hamlet in far-off Dagestan. "We have taught Dudayev a sound lesson," Yeltsin said, referring to Chechen separatist leader Jokhar Dudayev. Now, Yeltsin threatened, Russia will...
From the beginning it was clear that Yeltsin's primary goal was to make certain the invading guerrillas did not get back to their base. That would have left him open to a repetition of the political blow he suffered when a similar gang raided the Russian town of Budyonnovsk last June and then vanished into Chechnya's mountains. Yeltsin has been ill, and his popularity rating is low. The political medicine he needs is an image of strong leadership, so he unleashed furious force on Pervomaiskoye. Last week's operation, says General Boris Gromov, who commanded Soviet forces...
...Even elite special-operations troops bungled their task. Plucked from army, police, security and Interior Ministry forces around Russia, they found their radio systems did not allow them to communicate. Their overall commander, General Mikhail Barsukov, is a former Kremlin security chief best known for his loyalty to Yeltsin, not for his combat experience. The troops mounted uncoordinated assaults on the village and ended up shooting at one another. Forced to pull back, they simply opened up at long range with missiles, mortars and attack helicopters. When the earthshaking barrage began on Wednesday, a spokesman for Barsukov suggested to reporters...
...most part received news of these events through the filters of official spokesmen and public television. They wanted to believe the operation went well, they had no special affinity for the Dagestani hostages, and they have no sympathy for Chechen rebels. They may even have agreed with Yeltsin when he crowed that "mad dogs must be shot." But now Yeltsin and his hard-line Kremlin advisers are ready to cast aside the tentative peace agreement they worked out with breakaway Chechnya last summer...
WASHINGTON, D.C.: In a move to stay on top of an increasingly unstable political situation in Russia, Secretary of State Warren Christopher will meet Russian leaders next month, and again in March, in anticipation of a Clinton-Yeltsin summit in April. Christopher will fly to Helsinki on February 9 for talks with new foreign minister Yevgeny Primakov, a hardliner who recently replaced reformer Andrei Kozyrev. TIME's Bruce Nelan reports that a series of similar retrenchments on Yeltsin's part has "many people in Washington very worried about the course Yeltsin seems to be taking. Though some at State believe...