Word: russians
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Russia is not a land accustomed to elections--to say nothing of electoral surprises. But last week the country got a big one. Within an hour of the polls' closing in Russian parliamentary elections Sunday night, a new and fairly mysterious party called Unity took the lead and held it for most of the night as results came in from across Russia's 11 time zones. And though in the final tally Unity had slipped behind the Communist Party, it was an astounding upset. A group that was founded just three months ago and that had scarcely campaigned will...
...exercise in political ruthlessness. The TV marathons that tracked Unity's surge were the nearest to Western-style elections that these polls got. Much of the campaign was an enigma. There were few rallies, cross-country tours by party leaders, debates or televised appeals. Instead there was what Russian politicians euphemistically call technology: a stream of invective on state TV. Most of this was instigated by the Kremlin and aimed at discrediting the one bloc thought to present any risk to Boris Yeltsin: the Fatherland-All Russia coalition, led by former Prime Minister Yevgeni Primakov and Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov...
...though, Moscow is winning the home-propaganda battle. Opinion surveys show that around 60% of Russians support the war as a necessity to quell Chechen militants. The generals are sure their Prime Minister will back them to the end. But while "there is political and military consensus on how to do this right," says Sherman Garnett of Michigan State University, an expert on the Russian military, "whether it works or not is another matter...
...Chechens will try to kill as many Russians as possible in Grozny, then retire into the hills to wage guerrilla warfare with hit-and-run strikes into occupied towns and cities. The Russians say they are strangling the rebels in a ring of steel, but squeezing Jell-O is a better analogy. As Russian troops advance, Chechen guerrillas slip through the lines to harass them, even in the northern plains that Moscow claims are completely Russian controlled...
...dollars it has given to help Russia's faltering economy have been spent on political corruption and on bombs and bullets for the Chechen war? George W. Bush and John McCain are right in suggesting that aid to Russia should cease if the war in Chechnya continues. The Russian presidential front runner, Vladimir Putin, has no tolerance for Western interference but apparently feels free to accept Western dollars, spending $115 million on Russia's military. How long will it be before the U.S. is once again facing a hostile enemy prepared to wage war against it with U.S.-financed weapons...