Word: russians
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...starting to seem as if the Olympic gods have it in for Russia. A month ago at the Vancouver Games, the Russian team had its worst showing ever at a Winter Olympics, leading the head of the country's Olympic Committee to resign in disgrace. Now Moscow's big chance to redeem itself - hosting the Winter Games in Sochi in 2014 - is shaping up to be an even bigger embarrassment. In the past few weeks, a number of problems have exposed the deep rot at the heart of Russia's Olympic foibles: a shortage of funds, mismanagement and widespread public...
...Grim stories like these have been showing up in the Russian press with increasing regularity in the past two weeks, prompting prosecutors in Moscow to go into damage-control mode. In a statement released March 17, the prosecutor general's office said it had already forced private contractors in Sochi to shell out 1.2 million rubles (about $40,000) in back pay. But Pechorin says he hasn't seen any of the back pay yet, and neither have any of the workers he knows...
...smiles like the ones he gave Iran's President in Tehran in 2007. But in September, Putin called Obama's decision to ax the missile shield "correct and brave," and Russia's threat to "neutralize" Bush's plan by aiming rockets at Europe was quietly put aside. The Russian public also started coming around. According to surveys by the Levada Center, an independent pollster, only 28% of Russians said they had a negative view of the U.S. in the wake of the decision, down from 55% when Obama was elected. (See pictures of Obama in Russia...
...inside the Russian government, the trend was going in the opposite direction. Medvedev and other liberals still felt trust for Obama and seemed ready to meet him halfway. But conservatives - mainly old-school apparatchiks, security chiefs and former KGB officers like Putin - began to express their doubts about the reset in relations. "It's been frustrating," the U.S. senior official tells TIME on condition of anonymity. "We came in with an aggressive reset mentality, and it was not necessarily shared by everyone in the Russian government. The Russians are overwhelmed by all the things we want to do tomorrow...
...Perhaps more disturbing is the return of Cold War rhetoric ahead of Clinton's visit. The most alarming exchanges have centered on a new missile shield being proposed by Obama to protect against threats from Iran and North Korea. The new shield would be built farther away from the Russian heartland, but it has still roused the same fury from Moscow, which last month renewed its threat to point tactical missiles at Europe. And in December, Putin suggested the possibility of a new arms race between the Cold War foes. (See action-figure pictures of Vladimir Putin...