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Article: UNITED STATES SHOULD MOVE CAUTIOUSLY IN REGARD TO RUSSIA'S PUTIN.(Editorial)(Column)
- Article from:
- Seattle Post-Intelligencer
- Article date:
- January 6, 2000
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2000 Seattle Post-Intelligencer. All rights reserved. Reproduced with the permission of the Dialog Corporation by Gale Group. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The Kremlin's savage war against Chechen rebels brings Russia's presidency within the grasp of a hard man who shows no pity toward those in his way. But hard can become brittle in a blink of history's eye. And Vladimir Putin still has to demonstrate which he is when things go wrong.
Putin became Russia's acting president with Boris Yeltsin's New Year's Eve resignation. The transfer of power was a deftly managed political lock-in operation:
Putin took power while his commanders were still moving forward in Chechnya, while his allies were counting their gains in December's Duma elections and while Putin was riding high above all rivals in opinion polls. ...