Russia Weekly Issue 100

1. Christian Science Monitor: Fred Weir, Calendar clash: Candles and sickles and flags, oh my! As Russians flock to Easter observances this week, the May Day red flags start to look like quaint Soviet folklore.

2. AFP: Putin to consolidate hold on power after inauguration.

3. Moscow Times: Pavel Felgenhauer, Inaugurating an Era of Hope and Denial.

4. The Russia Journal: Alexander Golts, Russia's military learns to go it alone. Putin takes rational approach.

5. Prague CTK: Havel: Chechnya Should Hold Referendum on its Future.

6. In These Times: Jeffrey St. Clair, Wasted. (re nuclear waste)

7. Novye Izvestia: AMERICA AND WE HAVE MORE SIMILARITIES THAN DIFFERENCES IN OUR VIEWS, IVANOV, (Interview with Foreign Minister Igor IVANOV)

8. Interfax: Poll: Russians Divided on START-2.

9. RFE/RL: Frank T. Csongos, U.S./Russia: Arms Talks Face Tough Challenges.

10. Program on New Approaches to Russian Security (PONARS): Sarah Mendelson, Explaining the International Community's Response to the War in Chechnya.

Calendar clash: Candles and sickles and flags, oh my!

As Russians flock to Easter observances this week, the May Day red flags

start to look like quaint Soviet folklore.

The streets of Moscow are empty, as they always are in the first week of

This is the onset of northern spring, and no Russian czar, commissar or

president could ever have prevented folks from making for their country

gardens to put down the tomatoes, cucumbers, and beets.

But beneath the silence, ideologies are clashing mightily over the soul of

Millions of Russians marched Sunday with crosses, icons and candles in the

ancient Kryostni Khod (Stations of the Cross) processions around to mark the

beginning of Easter, which follows a different calendar here than in the

West. Confined to a few showplace churches during Soviet years, the

celebration is rapidly reconquering Russia's popular consciousness.

Easter masses in the beautiful Orthodox cathedrals of Moscow and St.

Petersburg were crammed this year. Famous and powerful people, like

President-elect Vladimir Putin, made sure they were prominent among the

crowds. During this entire week one believer meeting another offers the

salutation: "Khristos Voskres" (Christ has Risen). "Vo Istina" (Truly),

On the other hand, tens of thousands of other Russians still took up hammer

and sickle emblems, red flags and portraits of the Soviet Union's founder

Vladimir Lenin to march in May Day parades in cities across the country.

a key holiday on the Soviet calendar, the international workers' day of

solidarity is still an official day off. It is important to people who

"We fought, we worked, we built a great country," said Svetlana Kortunova, a

pensioner in her 70s, marching in a Communist-led Moscow parade. "They may

have destroyed the Soviet Union, but they will never take away the peoples'

Russia's official calendar is a crazy quilt of Soviet-era political

commemorations, ancient religious festivals, and holidays grafted-on by

former President Boris Yeltsin. The only real tension occurs at moments when

the church and the Communists are both vying for attention, like early May.

No one seems to know the significance of the holidays invented by Mr. Yeltsin

in a futile bid to create a post-Soviet political tradition. One example is

Independence Day on June 12. "Independence from whom?" Russians ask.

A survey conducted last week by the independent VtSIOM agency last week

suggests prerevolutionary tradition may be decisively winning the battle for

possession of early May. About 84 percent of respondents in the poll said

they planned to take part in the week-long celebration of Orthodox

Easter....Just 45 percent said they would mark May Day.

Of course, that still means there must be millions who honor both the

religious festival, drenched in the Russian church's medieval color, and the

Politicians trying to straddle the fence should beware. Arriving at a

workers' rally, a tired-looking Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov was

greeted by followers who eagerly congratulated him with May Day. Mr.

Optimists say these contradictions will go away by themselves in time.

"Already young people have stopped regarding these Communist marches as some

kind of threat," says Olga Zaretskaya, a specialist in Russian cultural

studies. "They see it more like an outdoor exhibition of Soviet folklore."

And when Mr. Putin is inaugurated Sunday, it won't just be a dour ceremony.

there will be an elaborate and glittering Kremlin party. Maybe it will

become the first of a whole new wave of holidays.

Putin to consolidate hold on power after inauguration

Vladimir Putin will be sworn in as president of Russia on Sunday, and is

expected to move swiftly to consolidate his hold on power to allow him a

free hand in pushing through vital economic reforms.

The first task of the 47-year-old former KGB spy, who won a comfortable

election victory on March 26, will be to nominate a prime minister and

The top candidate for the PM post is Mikhail Kasyanov, the country's de

cabinet chief since Putin, who currently holds the post, became acting

president on the snap resignation of Boris Yeltsin on December 31, 1999.

The first deputy prime minister, who could win cross-party support in the

State Duma lower house of parliament, which must approve the president's

nomination, said Wednesday the new government should be in place by the end

The Duma is expected to hold a confirmation vote on the candidate on May 19.

Some of the suggestions put forward provided for "fairly large changes" in

Putin, a political unknown when he was catapulted into the prime minister's

seat nine months ago, is seen as likely to concentrate on stamping his

political authority in Russia before embarking on overhauling the economy.

"Real power will remain vested in the Kremlin, and with a tame Duma and

little real opposition, the key word will be centralisation," commented Eric

Kraus, chief strategist at NIKoil Capital Markets.

If Putin has learned one thing from Yeltsin's era, it is that under Russia's

current chaotic political system it has proven all but impossible to devise,

implement and enforce a coherent programme of reform.

Pressing though the economic agenda is, analysts thus expect Putin to start

by consolidating his power, bringing Russia's robustly independent governors

to heel, placing his own men in strategic posts in the government White

House, the Kremlin administration and law enforcement bodies.

The Kommersant newspaper leaked an internal Kremlin memo on Wednesday which

set out plans to boost the powers of the presidential administration and

increase the role of the secret services in running the nation's affairs.

"Russia will become an even more presidential republic. The government will

be restricted to a modest role: carrying out economic tasks and not straying

from the political line," the business daily commented.

"Russian liberal economists will be immune from criticism, just like in

under Pinochet," it added, describing Putin's approach as relying on

Putin's greatest challenges are crushing inequality, corruption, economic

muddle and habitual political anarchy that has allowed a clutch of shadowy

business tycoons to pull the strings of power.

So far the new Kremlin chief has not set out his economic platform in any

But the government has already promised sweeping tax cuts next year and

has vowed to cut the country's swollen bureaucracy, which has grown to 2.7

million, as well as improve the legal climate for foreign investors.

Analysts point to the choice of ultra-liberal Andrei Illarionov as a top

economic adviser to Putin as proof of his intentions.

On the foreign stage, Putin will face his first big test at the beginning of

June when US President Bill Clinton visits Moscow for a summit that will be

dominated by the two countries' dispute over arms control.

Moscow is continuing to threaten to pull out of nuclear disarmament talks

should Washington press ahead with a plan to build an anti-nuclear shield

that would violate the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

Meanwhile tensions with the West continue to simmer over the brutal Russian

crackdown in breakaway Chechnya, although the war remains popular at home

despite mounting casualties from rebel ambushes.

On Sunday, Vladimir Putin will be inaugurated as president. No doubt, he

will receive congratulations from world leaders, and not all of them will be just

a curtsy. Putin is a strong leader who can deliver: The ease with which the

long-beleaguered START II arms limitation treaty got through parliament has

made foreign leaders who need something from Moscow flock to meet the new

One of the first to come was Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori. Of

the Japanese have been trying for decades to get back the South Kuril

islands. It is rumored in Moscow that, in the late 1980s, when the

of Mikhail Gorbachev was struggling to get Western credit to fill an

increasingly bankrupt Soviet budget, the Japanese received a tentative offer

from Moscow to make a deal on the Kurils - with a price tag that was

reportedly in the tens of billions of dollars.

The cautious Japanese decided to bargain and delay, apparently believing the

sum too extravagant and the offer to buy what they considered rightfully

theirs too straightforward for Japanese business culture.

At the same time, former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl paid on the spot when

the opportunity arose and got a unified Germany without delay. The Japanese

missed a historical opportunity and have been biting their nails ever since.

Gorbachev had the power, the need and the basic inclination to solve the

Kuril problem for good. The next occupant of the Kremlin, Boris Yeltsin, was

constantly bickering with parliament, and was too busy and too

to deliver anything concrete to anyone who was not an oligarch.

Moscow nevertheless took Japanese aid money, and Yeltsin solemnly promised

clinch a peace treaty to formally end World War II before 2000, which would

have solved the Kuril problem to everyone's satisfaction.

But the Kremlin not only did not deliver a "peace treaty" as promised, it

did not even pretend it was trying to deliver.

Today, the Japanese hope they have in Putin a ruler who, like Gorbachev,

needs the money and can make it happen. And the Kremlin seems to have a

propaganda machine set up that is able to sell virtually anything to the

One Western statesmen after another has said after meeting Putin that he is

person one can do business with. The present U.S. administration badly wants

to modify the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, so next month U.S.

President Bill Clinton will also be coming to Moscow, hoping for a deal.

Yet Western leaders may find Putin to be a shrewd negotiator, not like the

softhearted Gorbachev. Putin may not deliver either on ABM or on the Kurils.

And there is another problem that Western leaders have largely neglected to

date: Evidence is accruing - gathered by human rights activists, journalists

and diplomats - that increasingly connects Putin's government with

premeditated war crimes and the mass slaughter of civilians in Chechnya.

It is also increasingly evident that Putin is not just some bad guy who has

smitten poor good old Russia with PR tricks. Many Russians have succumbed to

a nationalistic revenge fever, almost as Germans did in the 1930s. More than

60 percent of Russians fully support the brutal campaign in Chechnya despite

growing military personnel casualties. Furthermore, a 1999 poll showed that

31 percent of Russians agreed that "Russia is currently a superpower," while

65 percent said "no." But in a poll conducted last month, 53 percent said

"yes," that Russia is a superpower, while only 43 percent responded "no."

Of course, the nation does not have much today that can truly make it a

superpower. All it can brandish is a crumbling nuclear arsenal and a will to

kill, as demonstrated in Chechnya. But an impotent desire to be a superpower

may make a revisionist, nationalistic Russia an even bigger threat to the

world and to itself than it was in the Soviet period.

A growing gap between aspiration and capability can cause neurotic,

increasingly unstable behavior. In the Soviet era, Moscow did not need to do

anything special to make the world shudder. Today, a growing number of

Russians believe that the world will soon be afraid of us again. But what

happens if the world fails to get agitated?

It seems that Western leaders think they can safely channel resurgent

nationalistic energy into Chechnya or some other Eurasian backwater by

keeping Putin "engaged" and that lucrative deals may be signed with Moscow

Pavel Felgenhauer, an independent, Moscow-based defense analyst, writes a

weekly column on defense issues for The Moscow Times.

Unlike the former Soviet Union or the United States, Russia lacks military

allies � something that gave former President Boris Yeltsin an inferiority

complex. The CIS leaders took advantage of this, winning concessions from

Yeltsin and making only a purely symbolic show of unity under Moscow's

That time, it seems, has come to an end. Speaking to officers of the Black

Sea fleet, President-elect Vladimir Putin said, "Without the Army and the

Navy, Russia has no allies." This paraphrases a statement ascribed to one of

the Russian tsars: "Russia has only two allies � the Army and the Navy."

Putin has made it clear that he knows the real � very modest � value of

military alliances with any of the former Soviet republics. Putin's choice

make his first visits abroad to Belarus, Russia's closest military ally, and

Ukraine, which is consistently scaling back military cooperation with

Neither Minsk nor Kiev have understood that times have changed. Just before

Putin's visit, the two countries were busy doing their best to show

continued loyalty to their respective lines. Belarussian President Alexander

came out with a sensational statement that Moscow and Minsk would soon

a 300,000-strong joint group armed with cutting edge weaponry. Lukashenko

said the group would form the first strategic line of defense before NATO's

In Kiev, meanwhile, talk resumed on Ukraine's potential integration into

structures. U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was in Ukraine just a

day before Putin, and the Ukrainians tried to give her visit symbolic

significance. Ukrainian leaders discussed with pleasure the possibility of

closer relations with NATO and brought up for the umpteenth time supposedly

serious problems linked to the Russian Black Sea fleet's being based in the

Neither Lukashenko's statements nor Kiev's insistent hints have anything to

do with reality. Belarus has an army of 80,000 men, and even adding the

100,000-strong forces of the Moscow military district, the numbers

wants still aren't there. It's completely unrealistic to imagine that

still at war in Chechnya, would spend money on relocating additional troops

to ward off a mythical threat. Especially not when this would also mean

having to develop smooth-running single command and operations management

and holding maneuvers for which neither Russia nor Belarus has the money.

Putin made clear what's what in Minsk when he said that any joint projects,

including military projects, are impossible when the two countries have such

differing economic systems. After this, Lukashenko's statements about secret

and highly important agreements look like no more than an attempt to save

All the more so as when Putin returned to Moscow, he definitively buried

Lukashenko's idea, saying that there would be no joint command. Russian

troops would obey Moscow, Belarussian troops would answer to Minsk. As for

joint operations, Putin said they could be required only "in circumstances

Ukraine's hints at military integration with NATO likewise had little

practical significance. Putin realizes that Kiev's NATO blackmail has no

weight behind it than Minsk's readiness for joint operations. Bringing the

Ukrainian army up to NATO standards would require spending the equivalent of

the entire Ukrainian budget as well as making considerable changes to the

What are referred to as the "problems of the Black Sea fleet" are not

significant, having mostly to do with obstacles created by the Ukrainian

authorities in replacing military technology, pensions for retired

living in Sevastopol and attempts to artificially raise utilities prices.

The Black Sea fleet itself plays a key role in Ukraine's security.

Belarus and Ukraine are both Russia's debtors, are unable to pay for their

energy supplies and are each in their way trying to play on Moscow's mostly

irrational fear of NATO expansion. But the moment Putin raised the serious

issues of economic relations, all the military castles in the air just fell

The discussion on Ukraine's Russian gas debts was so tough that Ukraine's

President Leonid Kuchma did not even give Putin a chance to answer the

question of the Black Sea fleet's debts, hastening to say that "The Black

Sea fleet's debts to Sevastopol are not comparable to Ukraine's debts to

Putin has taken a rational approach to military issues. He said that "we will

protest if NATO moves towards our borders," but keeps this protest free of

hysteria and exaggeration. No sooner did NATO stop seeing Moscow as a source

of evil, than Russian military policy began to look more rational.

Havel: Chechnya Should Hold Referendum on its Future

SZEKESFEHERVAR, Hungary, April 28 (CTK) - Central

European presidents have not yet found a reliable recipe for peaceful

coexistence at their summit today, but President Vaclav Havel said that

one of steps towards the coexistence was for each nation to determine its

He said that Russia did not sufficiently realise its own identity and

therefore denied Chechnya inhabitants the opportunity to make a free

"Russia must realise where it begins and where it ends" and take into

consideration that Chechnya is a nation with different traditions,

history and religion, Havel told Czech journalists after the summit.

"In a democratic environment it would be appropriate to ask the

nation whether or not it wants to be part of the empire. But no

referendum has been held there, but only a hard military was attack was

launched which targeted not only terrorists, but the whole nation," Havel

"To me this reflects an insufficient awareness of one's own

This, Havel said, is also proved by Russia's unclear stands on NATO

enlargement. "Russia...should seek partnership relations with the

others, particularly with the alliance," Havel said.

During his visit to Slovenia on Thursday, Havel said that much would

depend on what attitude the international community would take to new

Russian President Vladimir Putin right at the beginning of his

presidential era which, he said, might last for decades.

Havel said today that he did not like the lax attitude of some states

"The presence of observer missions should be stronger in Montenegro

where there is a potential danger," Havel said.

The 7th summit is attended by the presidents of 11 states while

Italian President Carlo Anzeglio Ciampi has excused himself as

negotiations on the formation of a new government are underway in Italy.

The attending presidents represent Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech

Republic, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia

The informal meetings of central European presidents were initiated

by Havel. The first took place in Litomysl, east Bohemia, in 1994.

Back in October, In These Times reported on a scheme hatched by the Russian

nuclear agency to import spent nuclear waste from commercial reactors in

Europe and Japan for storage in the Russian outback (see "Hot Property, Cold

Cash," October 17). This story finally has grabbed the attention of the

national press. On April 12, the Boston Globe reported that Russian Minister

of Atomic Energy Yevgeny Adamov is proceeding with plans to import 20,000

tons of radioactive waste for storage and eventual recycling at the Mayak

Adamov boasted that the deal would generate more than $21 billion over the

next 10 years, a figure nearly equal to the Russia's entire 1999 budget.

deal is extremely beneficial for the ministry," Adamov said, "and we are

The main stumbling block is a 1992 law passed by the Duma that prohibits

Adamov's agency from importing nuclear waste from countries outside the

former Eastern Bloc. But Adamov claims to have the blessing of new Russian

President Vladimir Putin and, according to Russian greens, has vowed to

overturn the ban in the upcoming legislative session. Last year, Adamov was

accused of offering Russian legislators a variety of bribes for their votes,

including cash, trips to France and prostitutes.

Adamov never enjoyed a particularly close relationship with the Yeltsin

government's inner circle. But he and Putin have been close since the

president's days in the KGB. Russian greens rightly fear that the

Putin/Adamov alliance will prove dangerous to both the environment and

Under Putin, the FSB - the KGB's successor - has interrogated and locked up

several anti-nuclear organizers on trumped-up drug charges, or the absurd

pretext that they are aligned with Chechen separatists. And Putin's state

prosecutors have continued to harass Alexander Nikitin, the nuclear

whistleblower acquitted of violating Russian secrecy laws in December. The

new crackdowns have given a chilling context to Putin's vow to lead the

country through "the dictatorship of law."

Jeffrey St. Clair is a contributing editor of In These Times.

[translation from RIA Novosti for personal use only]

Foreign Minister Igor IVANOV Was Interviewed in

Question: Before you came to the US the American mass

media actively criticized Russia for its Chechen policy. Did

American officials raise this question during talks with you?

Answer: This may surprise you but we practically did not

discuss Chechnya at all. Neither President Bill Clinton nor US

Senators asked me any questions about it. Though they signed an

appeal on Chechnya, we did not broach on this issue during our

conversations. I think this is largely the result of the

explanations made by the Russian side. In addition, the

campaign of misinformation conduced by Chechen patrons in the

territory of the US has proved to be ineffective. I think the

Question: What was the American reaction to the adoption

of the anti-Russian resolution in Geneva, which accuses our

country of human rights breaches in Chechnya?

Answer: I think that those who voted for that resolution

did not read it at all. I emphasized precisely this in my

conversations with American colleagues. The resolution talks of

the "parties to the conflict," thereby actually equating

Russia's federal forces and bandits and terrorists. This means

that the conflict with Basque separatists in Spain and the

Northern Ireland problem in Britain can be regarded at the same

Those nations, which signed a resolution of condemnation of

Russia, have thereby created an extremely dangerous precedent

in international relations. As I see it, though Americans have

voted for that resolution they will realize the danger

emanating from its text and the criticisms they trained on

Question: Your American colleagues must have asked you

about President-elect Vladimir Putin. How has their attitude to

Putin changed since he has been elected President?

Answer: Americans practically did not ask me any questions

about Putin as a person. I suppose more than enough information

about him became available before my arrival in New York. By

the way, at the disarmament session, which the UN

Secretary-General opened, Russia was more than once commended

for the ratification of the START II Treaty. It is largely

thanks to Putin that the treaty, which was in a state of

suspense for so many years, has finally been ratified. This

became a serious step towards convincing the West and America

that it is possible to do serious business with Russia. So, I

think Putin introduced himself to America, and it now knows him

Question: The ABM Treaty was the main stumbling block at

your negotiations in Washington. Have you succeeded in getting

Answer: Yes, Americans demand a substantial revision of

the 1972 ABM Treaty. As you know, within the framework of

preparations for the deployment of their own ABM system the

last missile launching is to be made during President Clinton's

visit to Moscow in June. I want to remind you that it is not

the first serious conflict in connection with the ABM Treaty

since its adoption. I do not think that the desire to amend it

is prompted by any real threats to America from anyone. It is

connected with the interests of the US military-industrial

complex. We for our part are carrying out active work to

explain the danger of such a course. We do not say No to

Americans but offer a real alternative to the deployment of

such a system. It is important that they do not flatly reject

our arguments; they take them seriously and listen to them. It

goes without saying that it is a very complicated and

principled issue. However, I want to emphasize that the game

has not been lost, and we naturally want the best scenario to

Question: What if President Clinton signs the law on the

deployment of a national ABM system before his term expires?

How would Russia be able to meet such a challenge then?

Answer: I want to recall that we have adopted a law,

according to which we will not feel bound by START I, START II

and other arms control agreements, if the 1972 ABM Treaty is

violated. Where would this lead? Naturally, this would lead to

a growing arms race and other rather unpleasant consequences.

This is unquestionably a very bad course of developments but we

Question: Heated debates are on concerning the

reorganization of the UN and the increase of the number of its

Security Council members. What is the position of Russia on

this question and will Moscow be for the preservation of the

Anwer: I think a reform of the UN is quite timely. But

there should not be reforms for the sake of reforms. The idea

is to improve the efficiency of this organization. If its

Security Council has many members, it will have great

difficulties in adopting operative decisions. It is proposed to

increase the number of its members to 21. I think this will be

Germany and Japan are obvious candidates. We think that one

representative from Asia, one from Africa and one from Latin

America must be added. But regardless of the expansion of the

Security Council's membership, the veto right should be

Question: When in Washington you met with Republican

candidate George Bush Jr. What have you discussed with the man

Answer: During our meeting and talking with journalists

later the Governor of Texas came out for the relations of

partnership between our two countries. He realizes very well

that a great deal depends on US-Russia relations in today's

world. He also said that Russia should be a strong and

prospering nation and that both Russia and America would stand

to gain by this. It is difficult for me to predict what policy

he will conduct if he becomes the President. As for now, as an

American citizen and as the governor of a large state he

clearly understands the need to maintain good partnership

Question: Has President Clinton told you which questions

he is going to discuss with Putin during their summit meeting

Answer: I suppose the START-ABM problems will be the most

important questions of their conversations. It is natural that

experts will continue preparations for this summit. While in

the US, we have already explained Americans in detail our

position on and possible consequences of the deployment of the

US national ABM system. This will be undoubtedly the key issue.

Clinton also made it clear that during the time, which is left

to the summit, he would actively stimulate American companies

to return to the Russian market and continue working there. The

two presidents will also discuss problems of international

terrorism and a whole package of bilateral ties. By and large,

the Moscow summit will be very important, and the future of our

bilateral relations will largely depend on its results.

Question: Americans believe, nonetheless, that the

question on the deployment of their national ABM system has

practically been decided. Suppose President Clinton comes to

Moscow and confronts it by the fact that the 1972 ABM Treaty is

being already violated, what real possibilities might Russia

Answer: I want to stress again that we are not going to

sit on our hands and wait. It goes without saying that we will

And I absolutely disagree with some media, which claim that

Washington is trying to entrap Moscow. You must not think that

we do not realize what is happening around us. Professionals

conduct negotiations with Americans on our side, and even if we

have only one chance out of a hundred, we will fight one,

trying to persuade Americans that our position is correct. When

what can we use except a dialogue, I answer: right now we are

fighting by political methods. If the US adopts its ABM

program, Russia will resort to other, non-political, methods.

We have the means and the possibilities for this, and Americans

MOSCOW. April 28 (Interfax) - A clear majority

of Russians, 70%, are aware of the START II ratification by the State

Duma. This figure was derived from a national poll of 1,500 Russians

conducted by the Public Opinion survey fund immediately after the

ratification, on April 15. The results of the poll were made public on

According to the survey, the respondents' opinions were divided as

regards the question whether the coming of START II into force would be

advantageous for Russia or not. Nearly a third of Russians, or 32%,

take the view that the ratification of the document will do Russia good,

while 29% hold the opposite position. However, the largest part of the

At the same time, the respondents were quite clearly aware of famous

Russian politicians' positions towards START II ratification, which

became evident from the answers to two questions about the supporters and

In the respondents' view, the ratification was first of all approved

of by Russian President-elect Vladimir Putin (30%), Liberal Democratic

Party of Russia (LDPR) leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky and Yabloko leader

Grigory Yavlinsky (14% each), while Russian Communist Party leader

Gennady Zyuganov was virtually the only opponent of the ratification

U.S./Russia: Arms Talks Face Tough Challenges

U.S. President Bill Clinton is scheduled to hold a summit with Russian

Vladimir Putin in Moscow on June 4-5. The top issue is expected to be

arms. The U.S. is seeking to amend a nearly three-decade old treaty that

prohibits both sides from building a shield to intercept nuclear

also seeks to further cut nuclear weapons. But there are key disagreements

several fronts. RFE/RL's Senior Correspondent Frank T. Csongos looks at the

Washington, 3 May 2000 (RFE/RL) -- U.S. and Russian officials are exploring

ways to further limit nuclear weapons, while at the same time leaving the

door open to deal with potential threats from third countries.

The discussions have centered on the Cold War-era Anti-Ballistic Missile

(ABM) Treaty that forbids both sides from building defenses aimed at

down incoming rockets. The idea behind the ABM treaty was to make a nuclear

war unthinkable in light of the fact that each side had thousands of

But with the collapse of the Soviet Union a decade ago and the emergence of

new potential nuclear powers, the U.S. now argues that today's realities

mandate different approaches. Earlier this year, the U.S. presented Russia a

proposed draft agreement that would allow the United States to deploy a

The U.S. says it needs to protect itself against the threat of attacks from

the so-called rouge nations of North Korea, Iraq, Iran and Libya.

A summary of the U.S. Administration arguments given to Russian officials

says the U.S. national defense system would be limited and intended to

against only a small number of missiles. It said the proposed shield would

incapable of threatening Russia's strategic nuclear deterrence, which still

commands thousands of warheads and the means to launch them.

White House spokesman Joe Lockhart said Monday the Russians have nothing to

"We've made a public argument and a private argument that this limited

national missile defense does not pose a strategic threat to the Russians

it is designed to counteract an increasing threat from rogue nations."

Lockhart also said that the U.S. considers its strategic relations with

Russia pivotal and seeks further nuclear cuts.

"It is our policy to not only make sure that we're doing everything we can

develop solid relations with the Russian government; it's also our policy

our arms control strategic goal to reduce the number of missiles that the

Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, who held talks in Washington last week

with U.S. President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright,

said Moscow is opposed to amending the 1972 ABM treaty. President Clinton is

expected to focus on arms reduction issues during a planned summit in Moscow

next month with recently elected Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Last month, the Russian state Duma ratified after a long delay the START II

treaty that cuts nuclear weapons on both sides. But Russian lawmakers made

ratification conditioned on the U.S. abandoning plans to build a limited

anti-ballistic missile system. The U.S. Senate already has ratified the

Several members of the U.S. Congress met on Tuesday in Washington with a

visiting Duma delegation. They expressed concern about the Duma's

Congressman Doug Bereuter, a Republican from Nebraska and a member of the

House International Relations Committee, summed up Congressional feelings

"In my view not only does such linkage put a dire risk to the implementation

of the Start II treaty but it also calls into question the prospects for any

Republican Senator Jesse Helms, the chairman of Senate Foreign Relations

Committee, said last week that the Senate will not ratify any arms treaty

with Russia during Clinton's remaining term in office that ends in January.

Treaties must be ratified by the Senate in order for them to go into effect.

Helms summed up his views this way in remarks last week on the Senate floor:

"With all due respect, I do not intend to allow this president to establish

his legacy by binding the next generation of Americans to a future without a

Helms said Clinton is trying to lock the U.S. into a system that cannot

"For nearly eight years, while North Korea and Iran raced forward with their

nuclear programs, and while China stole the most advanced nuclear secrets of

the United States, and while Iraq escaped international inspections,

President Clinton did everything in his power to stand in the way of

The Heritage Foundation, a conservative U.S. think tank, said in a recent

study that Clinton should go ahead as rapidly as possible with the

anti-missile defense system. Heritage research fellow Baker Spring said the

technology already exists to begin deploying it.

A Congressional Budget Office study estimates that the total price tag, over

15 years, for the Clinton administration's limited ground-based missile

Presumed Republican presidential nominee George W. Bush, who also met with

Ivanov in Washington, says he favors development of a U.S. defense system to

protect Americans and their allies "against a rogue missile launch, against

any missile launch. It's part of redefining a post Cold War era."

Bush said he made it clear to Ivanov that if elected president his first and

foremost priority would be to keep the peace between the two countries.

Program on New Approaches to Russian Security (PONARS)

Explaining the International Community's Response to the War in Chechnya

In between his night at the opera with Tony Blair and his tea with Queen

Elizabeth, Vladimir Putin refused to see Mary Robinson, the UN High

Commissioner for Human Rights, when she was in Russia in April. That Putin

was able to snub a representative of the UN investigating war crimes but

was embraced (literally) by Western statesmen and royalty is one of many

reminders that this war is not front and center for policymakers dealing

Why is this the case? Most Westerners believe that the war in Chechnya,

however horrible, is an internal matter and should not interfere with or at

least not influence the West's relations with Russia. Many add that given

Russia's nuclear weapons, what could the West do anyway? NATO is hardly

to rush in. Yet the international community does sometimes interpret human

rights abuses as worthy of decisive response, and there are many options

available to states and international organizations short of using force. So

why the comparatively muted response to Chechnya? I argue that few of the

conditions necessary to stop human rights abuses have yet been created.

Certainly one influence on how the war is perceived inside and outside

is the fact that the Russian government has done a masterful job of

controlling the media, a lesson policymakers learned from the last war in

Chechnya. The Russians packaging this war for the media are the same ones

fashioned the brilliant re-election campaign of Boris Yeltsin in 1996

(remember: this was a candidate who polled in the single digits six months

before the election and who won reelection while secretly in the throws of a

heart attack). These people now run Rosinformattsentr, the one-stop-shop

where you can get all you need to know about the "anti-terrorist" operation

To achieve this media control, the Russian government is doing what all

states do: control public access to the battle zone. Such control, in

should ensure that the West believes what the Putin government wants it to

However, abundant and consistent testimony gathered by organizations such as

Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Physicians for Human Rights, the

Russian group "Memorial," the French groups "Doctors of the World" and the

Nobel Peace Prize Winner "Doctors Without Borders," indicates that something

else is going on. Testimony points to systematic and indiscriminate use of

force against both civilians and those who care for the wounded. Evidence

suggests that Russia is in violation of the Geneva Convention and the

Among the most powerful pieces of evidence is a survey done by Physicians for

Human Rights (PHR). This organization recently interviewed 1140 refugees from

Chechnya who were displaced by the war to Ingushetia. Compared with a similar

one they did in Macedonia with Kosovar Albanians in the summer of 1999, the

PHR survey suggests that the level of violence committed in Chechnya by

Russian Federal Forces against the civilian population is quantitatively

greater (with as many as four times the number of civilians killed) than in

Kosovo--a situation which roused the international community to action.

A few Western journalists have also witnessed the nature of the violence.

French journalist Anne Nivat--who had been in Chechnya for much of this

latest war until she was escorted out by the FSB in the middle of

February--painted for me a particularly vivid picture of a Russian

bombardment that she experienced on February 1 from 11:30 a.m. until 5:15

p.m. in Alkhan-Kala (which was said at the time to be controlled by Russian

forces). Her account is very similar to those gathered by Western

non-governmental organizations (NGOs) detailing bombardments in late

January-early February in places such as Katyr-Yurt and Aldi. Nivat

considered it a miracle that she had lived through it. Not a house was left

So, if violations have been documented, and the international community

responded recently when presented with a smaller degree of violence, why

isn't more being done about Chechnya? The reasons for this are numerous and

First, the victims have no clear face in the West. The plight of the

population in Chechnya blurs for most people with the violence of the

Put simply, the Chechens have a PR problem. For the most part, they have a

terrible image in the West, and they have done little to change it. To the

outside, the government of Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov tolerated

kidnapping and lawless-ness. The videos that the Russians show on TV (and

have been seen in the West) reveal Chechen rebels executing and even

decapitating victims, many of them Russian troops.

Then there is the human rights community inside Russia. Anyone who has been

involved with Russian political and social activists--as I have both as a

practitioner and a scholar for the last six years--knows well how

disorganized they can be. What is really striking is how, in contrast to the

PR machine that runs the Kremlin, these groups are not even sure what a

"media strategy" is, let alone have one that they are trying to

One must hasten to add that even if Russian NGOs mounted a media campaign,

they need a media to which they can gain access. Placing stories is

according to all reports. Many journalists are reluctant to cover stories

free, especially if they contradict the Kremlin line. Add to this the fact

that many Russian journalists have been frightened by the treatment of

Babitsky, the reporter for Radio Liberty who was beaten and called a traitor

by Putin for his critical reporting of the war in Chechnya. The Kremlin's PR

machine has convinced many Russians that Babitsky was in collusion with the

rebels, and deserved the torture he experienced in Chernokozovo, a

Western NGOs are experiencing constraints as well in mobilizing a campaign

against the abuses in Chechnya. These groups are so busy documenting

atrocities that there is little time or money to mount a campaign to stop the

war--though it is unclear that they even see this as part of their mandate.

Make no mistake; they have proof of crimes committed against civilians that

need to be investigated. They have lots of evidence of Russian

with international norms and humanitarian laws. But they have yet to link up

with the human rights community inside Russia on these issues. And they have

yet to circulate this information in a compelling, coordinated way to

international organizations and states that do have the power to put

pressure on the Russian government to investigate the allegations of atrocities.

An unfortunate example of not getting information out in a timely way

occurred recently. Physicians for Human Rights should have had their powerful

survey on the desks of the UN Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) in Geneva in

April as the Commission debated a response to the war. While the UNCHR did

pass a resolution (25 in favor, 7 opposed and 19 abstentions) calling for a

national investigation into abuses, the resolution might have been more

strongly worded with more states in favor if members of the Commission had

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, is also responsible

for how this resolution was worded and its vote. After all, the vote followed

her visit to Russia. There, she was prevented from seeing what she wanted to

see, and Putin refused to meet with her. But instead of insisting in strong,

clear language on the need for an international and a national independent

commission to investigate human rights abuses, she mumbled something about

the need for an investigation (for how could she not). According to human

rights groups around the world, and most importantly inside Russia, she

dropped the ball: without an international commission working along side a

national one, few think a national review will be independent of the Russian

The UNCHR is joined by NATO in sending contradictory messages to the

Russians. As more and more evidence of atrocities and filtration camps in

Chechnya surface, one realizes that NATO Secretary General Lord Robertson's

rapprochement with Putin in February occurred during some of the worst

I learned in a series of meetings with NATO officials that they grow weary

when they are told that evidence from Chechnya suggests a situation more

gruesome than the one that prompted them to respond with force in Kosovo. "We

need to have good relations with the Russians," they plead. I argued that

they need to make every encounter count. As is, NATO engagement with Russia

appears permissive of non-compliance with international laws and not just in

Chechnya. NATO sends mixed signals to the Russians on many different levels.

For example, NATO consistently categorizes the interaction of NATO troops

with Russians serving in Bosnia as a success. Yet many human rights groups

have evidence that Russian SFOR troops in Bosnia are trafficking in women

from Eastern Europe. For the most part, NATO officials in Brussels and in

Bosnia do not deny that trafficking occurs, but most shrug their shoulders

over what to do about it. One high ranking military official even took a

Of course a different response is possible: several years ago, when

confronted with Russian troops trafficking in Eastern Slovonia, Croatia,

Jacques Paul Klein, now the UN Mission head in Bosnia, flew to Moscow and

threatened to make this story public unless the Russian General Staff

disciplined its soldiers. The Russian military responded immediately by

replacing their troops. The trafficking stopped, and the Russians were

instrumental in catching an individual indicted for war crimes.

In terms of abuses in Chechnya, the problem is not that international

organizations are doing nothing. The problem is that the response is

inconsistent and uneven. While NATO pursues a business as usual approach,

the UNCHR issues a resolution guaranteed to make no one happy, the

Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) suspended Russia's

voting rights. Although in May PACE will take up the matter of Russia's

expulsion from the Council, most observers think this slap on the wrist is

To date, several important ingredients necessary for stopping human rights

abuses are absent in the case of Chechnya. The victims are difficult to

distinguish from the villains. From studies on other human rights campaigns

around the world, from Chile and Argentina to China and Burma, the presence

of an organized domestic NGO community is necessary and must be linked up

with the transnational NGO community. In Russia, the NGO community is

fractured and disorganized. Scholars who have studied the abolition movement

in the United States, the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, and other

human rights campaigns tend to agree that states generally follow civil

society in condemning these situations. States, international organizations,

and specifically decision-makers tend to respond to pressure from civil

society--from NGOs, both local and transnational. This is not to say it is

all the responsibility of civil society to stop abuses; states have the

ultimate power to do this. But in this case, the absence of coordinated

strategies from NGOs both in Russia and the West and inconsistent responses

from the international community have done little to effect change in Russia

It is worth thinking about the lessons Russians are likely to take away from

this second war in Chechnya. Surely, one is that the use of force against its

own civilian population actually costs them very little in their dealings

with the international community. For those inside and outside Russia that

have a stake in Russia developing as a democracy, that is a tragedy.