Word: yeltsin
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...even before the election, Putin has begun quietly dropping hints about how he views the state of affairs in Russia today. He knows it is a mess. He pledges loyalty to the man who gave him power, Boris Yeltsin. But asked recently by two Russian journalists to name his heroes, Putin singled out men who had pulled their countries out of chaos and catastrophe--neither of them Yeltsin. One was Charles de Gaulle, who created a solid, centralized state in France (and quickly pulled his country out of a colonial war in Algeria, a conflict that is often compared with...
Putin studiously avoids defining Yeltsin's legacy but hints broadly in his public appearances that central power under Yeltsin was feeble. Some regional leaders, he claims, "forgot that there was a President." Until he became Prime Minister, Chechnya was handled with "amateurism," he says, and left to fester to the point that it became a deadly danger...
...ultimate symbol of state-sponsored corruption and cynical manipulation of power is the Yeltsin "Family." It includes Yeltsin's daughter Tatyana Dyachenko; his onetime chief of staff Valentin Yumashev; and a number of powerful financiers, including Boris Berezovsky. The group played a major role in engineering Yeltsin's retirement and Putin's rise. And though corruption allegations against the Family have disappeared from most front pages, the heat is still on. A Swiss prosecutor recently told a Russian newspaper that relatives and associates of Yeltsin's remain under investigation in his country...
...license, which is up for renewal in May, or give its airwaves to the government-controlled RTR network. This will be a blow, and Berezovsky is unlikely to go without a fight. Last year, when then Prime Minister Yevgeni Primakov tried to bring Berezovsky up on corruption charges, Yeltsin fired Primakov. Putin, however, will have an advantage that Primakov lacked: he will be President...
...Czar's in what is called an election but amounts to a coronation. But make no mistake: this was not a fair fight. Putin was handpicked for this handover by a tiny cabal in the Kremlin, little different from the ways of the old Soviet Central Committee. Boris Yeltsin and his cronies needed a successor loyal enough to give them the guarantee they craved of immunity from prosecution and strong enough to make it stick. It could have been anyone. Putin happened to have the right qualities in the right place at the right time...