Viktor Chernomyrdin
Russian ex-PM Viktor Chernomyrdin dies
November 03, 2010Viktor Chernomyrdin, who served under Boris Yeltsin as Russian prime minister during the 1990s, has died aged 72. He came to political prominence as a Soviet minister for the gas industry, and then as head of Russia's new gas monopoly, Gazprom. In...
Moldova's election: Deja Vu All Over Again
July 29, 2009By Louis O'Neill Yogi Berra is hard to translate. You have to understand America. And baseball. And Yogi himself. Viktor Chernomyrdin, who understands none of these things, nonetheless coined a Russian equivalent of Yogi's famous remark that "...
Moscow Increasingly Using Non-Diplomats as Ambassadors
June 30, 2009By Paul Goble Moscow’s appointment of former Russian health minister Mikhail Zurabov in place of former prime minister Viktor Chernomyrdin as ambassador to Ukraine has called attention to the Kremlin’s increasing use of non-diplomats as...
Moscow ‘Won’t Be Able’ to Bring Ukraine Back into Its Sphere of Influence
February 11, 2009by Paul Goble Viktor Chernomyrdin, Russia's ambassador in Kyiv, says that Moscow has little or no chance to bring Ukraine back into its sphere of influence anytime soon, not only because of Ukrainian attitudes toward Russia but also because of...