Posted by Sean on October 22, 2005
—Who will, if anyone, replace Putin after 2008? This is the question that has been on almost everyone’s lips for weeks, if not months. Opinions have vacillate between speculations about Putin changing the Russian Constitution so he could run again, or a candidate hand will be picked by Putin to run for President. That person would be an instant favorite. Both scenarios are possible. But it seems that the latter is the most likely. Putin himself was hand picked by Yeltsin. It appears that he is going to continue the tradition.
The question then becomes who? And further what kind of person will it be? The Moscow Times has an article suggesting that whoever Putin picks, it will probably be a compromise between him and the siloviki and an unnamed progressive St. Petersburg group. The siloviki are a Kremlin call of St. Petersburg intelligence officials who are the base of ..read more
Posted by Sean on October 22, 2005
—Who will, if anyone, replace Putin after 2008? This is the question that has been on almost everyone’s lips for weeks, if not months. Opinions have vacillate between speculations about Putin changing the Russian Constitution so he could run again, or a candidate hand will be picked by Putin to run for President. That person would be an instant favorite. Both scenarios are possible. But it seems that the latter is the most likely. Putin himself was hand picked by Yeltsin. It appears that he is going to continue the tradition.
The question then becomes who? And further what kind of person will it be? The Moscow Times has an article suggesting that whoever Putin picks, it will probably be a compromise between him and the siloviki and an unnamed progressive St. Petersburg group. The siloviki are a Kremlin call of St. Petersburg intelligence officials who are the base of ..read more
Posted by Sean on October 20, 2005
One of the main architects of perestroika, Alexander Nikolaevich Yakovlev died on Tuesday. He was 81. Born in the village of Korolevo near Yaroslavl in 1923, Yakovlev was of the first generation reared under the Soviet system, and ironically, was instrumental in bringing its collapse. Like so many of his generation, he fought in the Great Patriotic War at 18 years old, where he sustained disabling wounds in 1943 fighting near Leningrad. He joined the Communist Party in 1944 and his Party membership gave him the opportunity to earn a doctorate in history from the Academy of Social Sciences in Moscow. Like so many ambitious Party members of his generation, Yakovlev was quickly shot up the State apparatus. When Khrushchev gave his “secret speech” denouncing Stalin’s cult of personality in 1956, he was a member of the Central Committee. In 1958 he studied at Columbia University as part of an ..read more
Posted by Sean on October 19, 2005
News reports are confirming the obvious: last week’s attacks in Nachlik were carried out, or at least according to his own words provided “operational guidance”, by Shamil Basayev, Islamist, terrorist, and, since the killing of Aslan Maskhadov, defacto leader of the Chechen nationalist movement. One report from Radio Free Europe however is of special interest.
The title of Jeremy Bransten’s article poses a simple, yet vital question: Who carried out the Nalchik raids and why? Most of the time the answer we get is simple: Islamists who use terror to strike fear in Russia society because they are evil, inhuman etc, etc. Unfortunately, for the Russians the answer just isn’t so and as long as they take a Bushite analysis of Chechnya they will never extricate themselves from that quagmire.
Bransten quickly points out that whether Basayev masterminded the attacks or simply provided operational guidance means little. The truth of the ..read more
Posted by Sean on October 15, 2005
Nalchik has rightly dominated the news this week. But a lot of other newsworthy events have occurred. Here is the brief weekly rundown of some of things that I found interesting.
—In Voronezh, a Peruvian student was a killed and two other foreign students were injured in an attack by skinheads. In response, 200 Voronezh students rallied this week to denounce racism and xenophobia. This is just coming over Interfax: on Friday, a group of skinheads recently attacked a group of Muslim prayer house in Sergiyev Posad in Moscow and brutally beat up leader of the local Muslim organization Arsan Sadriyev.
—It seems that the U.S. government is trying to save face after being thrown out of Uzbekistan. As I reported last week, Condi Rice dropped Uzbekistan from her Central Asian trip. Now she says that the U.S. doesn’t need those bases anyway ..read more
Posted by Sean on October 15, 2005
Nalchik has rightly dominated the news this week. But a lot of other newsworthy events have occurred. Here is the brief weekly rundown of some of things that I found interesting.
—In Voronezh, a Peruvian student was a killed and two other foreign students were injured in an attack by skinheads. In response, 200 Voronezh students rallied this week to denounce racism and xenophobia. This is just coming over Interfax: on Friday, a group of skinheads recently attacked a group of Muslim prayer house in Sergiyev Posad in Moscow and brutally beat up leader of the local Muslim organization Arsan Sadriyev.
—It seems that the U.S. government is trying to save face after being thrown out of Uzbekistan. As I reported last week, Condi Rice dropped Uzbekistan from her Central Asian trip. Now she says that the U.S. doesn’t need those bases anyway ..read more
