Russian

MOSCOW - An explosion apparently caused by pyrotechnics tore through a nightclub in the Russian city of Perm early Saturday, killing more than 100 people, according to emergency officials quoted by state television. It was not immediately clear if the pyrotechnics were kept in storage at the club or being used as part of a show like in the fire that killed 100 people at a rock club in Rhode Island in 2003. In the chaotic aftermath of the blast and subsequent fire, casualty figures differed.

Sen. Ben Cardin is scheduled to meet Thursday with the family of a Russian lawyer whose death sparked an international outcry over human rights in that country, renewing focus on a controversy that has complicated U.S.-Russian relations at a sensitive time. The meeting with the widow, mother and son of Sergei Magnitsky — who died in a Russian jail in 2009 after exposing corruption in the Russian government — comes just days after the State Department released a list of Russian officials barred from obtaining U.S. visas over alleged human rights abuses.

I read with dismay that the Russian spacecraft that was to supply provisions for the International Space Station, where two American astronauts are housed, burnt up in the atmosphere while our own shuttle program at NASA was recently mothballed. I heard with concern on a news program on WYPR that we don't make crucial medications in this country anymore, and thus depend on China, India and others to do it for us. The same program also mentioned that there are crucial shortages of these lifesaving medications.

The Baltimore sports scene is blessed with a bunch of talented bloggers who bring their unique perspective to the conversation. Each week, I hope to chat with one of them in a regular feature called Blogger on Blogger.  This week, we exchanged emails with Peter Hassett, who blogs about the Washington Capitals for Russian Machine Never Breaks . MV: The first couple of months of the season were not friendly to the Capitals, but they...

Washington -- TWO RUSSIAN leaders now engage our attention. One, because we think we know him well -- but don't. The other, because we do not know him at all -- but soon will.First, the well-known one, Boris Yeltsin. The predominant view of the Clinton administration is that Mr. Yeltsin is at least close to creating a real democrat, and that our interests are well served by his longevity. He will be in power a long time, they persist in saying.But behind what seems more and more to be a Potemkin facade, a new Boris Yeltsin is emerging in the eyes of the people who know him best.

BUDYONNOVSK, Russia -- Russian troops today stormed a hospital where Chechen rebels had taken up to 2,000 people hostage, freeing at least 60, but the rebels put up a ferocious defense, officials and media reports said.Heavily armed commandos swarmed the building in this southern Russian town while firing automatic weapons, and Russian military helicopters and tanks joined the attack after heavy fighting erupted.News media reports said the rebels holed up in the hospital were firing back with automatic weapons and using their captives as human shields.

MOSCOW -- Chechen fighters contemptuously spurned an ultimatum by Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin to lay down their arms as of midnight last night, but the Russian government vowed again to crush resistance there.Shortly after the deadline passed, artillery shells were fired into an area north of Grozny, the Chechen capital. But it was impossible to know who had fired the salvos, or to identify the intended target, the Russian Itar-Tass news agency reported.Russian warplanes also buzzed Grozny after the deadline, and explosions were heard northwest of the city, the Associated Press reported from the capital.

This article first appeared in the Economist: MOSCOW -- If this is victory, what would a stalemate look like? Even in winter, when the Chechen fighters were at their most vulnerable -- cold, hungry and visible through the bare trees -- the Russian forces, which outnumber them at least tenfold, failed to destroy them. Now spring is making conditions in the mountains friendlier for the Chechens. The war goes on. On April 27, Russia reported 10 dead from a Chechen ambush; another one the day before killed 15. The fighting is in areas which Russia claims to have controlled for weeks.

In the nine days between the sinking of the Russian nuclear submarine Kursk -- on Aug. 12 -- and Norwegian divers yesterday opening the vessel and determining the crew could not have survived, the Russian press has become steadily more critical of the Ministry of Defense and President Vladimir V. Putin. What follows is a sampling of recent commentary in Russian newspapers and magazines, excerpted by Will Englund of The Sun's Moscow Bureau and by the bureau staff. It's no sin to be poor, but abject poverty means damnation It appears that the list of suggested causes of the Kursk nuclear submarine's sinking has by now been finally exhausted.

Ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union, author Alexander Solzhenitsyn has been preaching a "Russian Union" of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan. That dream may come closer to realization now that Ukraine and Belarus have elected presidents who advocate closer ties with Moscow.This is a welcome development to those who favor Slavic cooperation under the Commonwealth of Independent States. But many Ukrainian and Belarusan nationalists see the outcome as a disaster. They fear an embrace by the Russian bear may suffocate their countries' fledgling freedom.

On Friday night, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra's gave, note for note, one of the most thoroughly absorbing and emotionally powerful performances of an all-Russian program since the glory days of all-Russian programs with former music director Yuri Temirkanov. Although non-Russians can certainly shine in music from that country, as we have witnessed locally in some hot BSO concerts led by Marin Alsop, Juanjo Mena and others, Russians do tend to touch some deeper nerve. Making his BSO debut, Moscow-born conductor Dima Slobodeniouk had the orchestra sounding all fired up at Meyerhoff Hall in some pretty tough repertoire that included the long, draining Symphony No. 11, “The Year 1905,” by Shostakovich.

If there is anything positive to come out of sequestration, maybe it will motivate us to take a good long look at what we spend on our military. Sixty percent of the 2013 discretionary budget proposed by President Barack Obama goes to the military including war, veterans and nuclear weapons programs. Again, that's 60 percent! In terms of dollars, it is $2.2 million every minute of the year. Presently, the U.S. Navy has 10 super carriers (with two more under construction and another in the planning stages)

President Barack Obama's call during the State of the Union address to reduce the threat of nuclear war could not have been more timely. The day before the president spoke, North Korea tested a primitive nuclear device, and the following day reports surfaced of Iranian attempts to buy technology that would greatly speed up its production of weapons-grade uranium. Mr. Obama's remarks focused on cutting the U.S. and Russian strategic arsenals in a way that maintains their deterrent function but reduces the chances of a conflict breaking out by accident or miscalculation.

To Heather and Aaron Whaley, they're already parents to a 4-year-old girl living in a Russian orphanage off the Sea of Japan. The Frederick couple have never met the child, but they've given her a name — Addie. They've hung pictures of her in a pink dress and white sandals in their house and dreamed of the day they'll throw their arms around her for the first time and bring her home — a moment that now may never come. The Whaleys, like untold numbers of families across the United States, are waiting to see whether Russian President Vladimir Putin decides to block adoptions between the two countries.

This month's passage of a new U.S.-Russia trade law has done more than showcase Senator Ben Cardin's dedication to international human rights. By sending the shock to the Kremlin - that the U.S. values prosecuting rights abusers as much as it values profits for businesses - the Maryland Democrat has catapulted human rights atop the international agenda and brought new attention to the U.S. Helsinki Commission that he chairs. The Helsinki Commission - founded amid the Cold War, just like the legislation the new trade bill replaces - once helped secure freedom for Soviet refuseniks unable to emigrate from under the thumb of Communism.

WASHINGTON -- Human rights legislation crafted by Sen. Ben Cardin and targeted at abuses in Russia sailed through the U.S. Senate on a bipartisan vote Thursday and will now be signed by President Obama. The provision requires the State Department to maintain a list of human rights abusers in Russia, freeze their assets and deny them U.S. visas. The language was attached to a broader bill that lifts Cold War-era trade restrictions on Russia. The Senate passed the measure 92-4. The bill is a significant legislative victory for Cardin, a Maryland Democrat who has promoted the measure for years and who managed to steer it through an otherwise gridlocked Congress.

I got a taste of Russia recently in Reisterstown. It was in Babushka Deli, a small store filled with American flags and Russian foodstuffs. I found the deli near a bowling alley, Bowl America, in a shopping center on Reisterstown Road just north of Franklin Boulevard.I ate a fistful of salami on a couple of slices of dense rye bread topped with pungent pickles. This was a sandwich made to chew. It was my idea of lunch.Throughout the store were handwritten signs, some in English, some in Russian, touting the whiting, the Russian "ravioly" and the Mad Ludwig, a sandwich made of smooth liverwurst, Swiss cheese, raw onion and pickle.

Vice President Al Gore's denunciation yesterday of the Russian neo-fascist, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, had a harsh, blunt, uncompromising quality that was needed to express American revulsion to the racism, anti-Semitism, militarism and ultra-nationalism that comes out of the mouth of this new demagogue on the Moscow scene.In describing Mr. Zhirinovsky, views as "reprehensible and anathema to all freedom-loving peoples," the vice president was speaking not only for his countrymen. His words were bound to resonate passionately among the Poles, Ukrainians, Lithuanians and all others Mr. Zhirinovsky, would threaten through a return to Russian expansionism.

- Legislation by Sen. Ben Cardin to pressure Russia on human rights abuses is expected to win approval in Congress Thursday despite concerns that it will hurt already tenuous U.S. relations with the Kremlin. The proposal - which requires the State Department to maintain a public list of human rights abusers in Russia and freeze their assets - has received bipartisan support in the House and Senate even though the Obama administration has largely resisted the effort. Because the language is tucked into a trade bill that is a priority for Russia and U.S. businesses, President Obama is expected to sign the measure if sent to his desk.

For anyone growing up in the 1950s, black-and-white television images of Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev threatening Western leaders with his "We will bury you!" statement were more than a little frightening. In an era when communism and the nuclear arms race were considered palpable and real threats, schoolchildren throughout the country were instructed about what to do in the event of a nuclear attack. As Civil Defense sirens whined in air raid drills that seemed to me to be held several times a year, we were instructed by our teachers at my central New Jersey elementary school to climb under our desks, as if they were a bulwark and haven from radiation and flying debris.