Sochi to host Winter Olympics

Congratulations to Sochi on the winning bid to host the 2014 Winter Olympics. The venue will undoutbedly be spectacular. The Moscow Times attributes the win in no small part to Vladimir Putin intervening with the type of political charisma we don't often see attributed to him in western reports.

Comments

Hernandez said…
Is this the same 'charisma' that allowed him to get away with ordering the murder of Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko? (or at least turning a blind eye to it)
5 July 2007 at 12:51
Owen Polley said…
You must have different evidence than the DPP if you want to pin that one on Putin. Maybe the extradition of Luguvoi would receive a more sympathetic hearing if 1) British intelligence hadn't a link with the dramatis personae of the case 2) Britain didn't protect an insurrectionary extortionist such as Boris Berezovsky.
5 July 2007 at 16:22
Hernandez said…
All I'm saying is that Putin would certainly have 'been aware' of Litvinenko's murder. Just as he would have 'been aware' of the scandal in which apartment blocks in Moscow were bombed in order to provide an excuse to attack Chechnya.
6 July 2007 at 13:52
Owen Polley said…
The former is completely unverifiable conjecture fuelled by the way the media has reported the case in the west. The latter is merely a wild conspiracy theory up there with Mossad perpetrating 9/11.
6 July 2007 at 14:18
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