IN RUSSIA, politics was speeding up. On March 24, 1999, NATO forces began bombing Serbia in response to the Yugoslav army’s actions in Kosovo. Prime Minister Primakov happened to be on his way to the United States when the bombing began. The insult and the injury were on display. Russians had long considered the Orthodox Serbs to be their existential allies. Kosovo was, legally, a part of Serbia—a secessionist, Muslim part—and the parallels to Chechnya were obvious. Primakov was mere hours from arriving in the United States, where President Bill Clinton might at least have paid lip service to
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