Because of its partisan nature, a recent report of the Speaker's Advisory Group on Russia, composed of 12 House Republicans, has failed to spark a serious debate about US policy toward Russia. We need such a debate, for this is a country that will remain critical to our own security and prosperity.

The report ignores solid achievements by the Clinton administration, such as the withdrawal of Russian troops from Central Europe and the Baltics and the return of Soviet nuclear weapons from Ukraine to Russia for dismantling. Nevertheless, it is clear that the administration has badly mishandled policy toward Russia. We need to understand what happened to leave us with a Russia that is less friendly, weaker, poorer, and less democratic than it was nearly eight years ago.

When President Clinton took office, nearly three-quarters of all Russians had a favorable opinion of the United States. Today, fewer than half do. At the time, Russia was seeking an alliance with the US. Today, Russian national-security documents identify the US as a threat to Russia's strategic interests.

The average Russian is worse off in socio-economic terms than he was a decade ago. The economy has diminished by 40 percent. The World Bank estimates that 45 percent of Russians live in poverty. The public health system is a shambles, contagious diseases are returning, and public schools are woefully underfunded.

Democracy has not fared well in Russia. Freedom of the press is under threat. A Moscow newspaper recently published evidence that Mr. Putin's first-round victory earlier this year was due to fraud. And the Department of State documents no significant improvement in human rights since Clinton took office.

So what went wrong? Surely, some of the problems are beyond the administration's control. Some deterioration of US-Russian relations was inevitable as the euphoria of our common victory over Soviet communism wore off. Some of the economic hardship and undemocratic behavior is due to the harsh Soviet legacy, which ruled out an easy transition to a market economy and an open society. Much of the industrial decline has come from the sharp drop in weapons productions.

But US policy did matter. The administration backed an economic course - the so-called "Washington consensus" - that did not take sufficient account of Russian political realities, including a widespread elite and popular opposition to that course. Critics were generally dismissed as communists, hard-liners, or economic illiterates. In the end, the administration found itself backing a small, unpopular group of radical reformers. Not only was the economic program not implemented, but the way it was pursued cast into doubt American support for the democratization of Russia.

Meanwhile, the US image in Russia suffered. Inexplicably, the administration condoned the Russian government's meeting its IMF inflation targets in part by not paying wages and pensions. The administration turned a blind eye to patently phony Russian budgets. The administration hyped its role in Russia's successes before the financial collapse of 1998, but thereafter it was unwilling to accept any blame for the hardships its policies had caused. Such behavior led Russians to question our benevolence, intelligence, and morality.

Our image suffered further from the way the administration dealt with foreign policy and security matters. Instead of building rapport with the Russian elites - which is critical for good relations with Russia -it manipulated Boris Yeltsin to advance our interests; we treated him like a major world leader in return for his concessions on, say, Bosnia or Nato expansion. Russian elites increasingly saw US policies as efforts to exploit Russia's weakness. Our current problems with President Putin are only the fruits of our neglect of the broader Russian political establishment.

The administration, of course, will agree with none of the above. It has steadfastly refused to acknowledge any lapses in its policy toward Russia, nor has it undertaken any systemic appraisal of its successes and failures in Russia. It is time we did that for them.

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#2
DANGER OF INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MUST NOT BE UNDERESTIMATED - PUTIN

MOSCOW. Oct 26 (Interfax) - Russian President Vladimir Putin has said he considers the position of foreign leaders who underestimate the danger of international terrorism to be erroneous.

"If anyone in the world or in Europe does not notice or for any reason is trying not to notice the danger of international terrorism, he is mistaken. I think it is a mistake that may cost very dear for the simple reason that the extremists will feel absolute impunity," the Russian president told French and Russian journalists.

He said it would be equally wrong "to mix up concepts." "Whereas during the so-called first Chechen war one could talk about Russia's imperial ambitions and attempts to curb the territories it controls, last summer, as you know, everything was different." Putin said.

Concerning the situation in Chechnya before the counter-terrorist operation, he said "the republic was divided into several parts, each led by a so-called field commander." "And there was no talk about any independence or state integrity in Chechnya. Moreover, we became a target of ideological aggression from so-called Wahhabism, a trend in Islam alien to the population of the North Caucasus. Ultimately, Chechnya became a stronghold for attacks against other Russian territories under the motto of building a new state entity - the so- called United States of Islam - sprawling from the Baltic to the Black Sea," Putin said.

Comparing the situation in Chechnya before and after the operation, he said that whereas last year "there were thousands of rebels in Chechnya, trained and equipped abroad, today "the organized resistance of the international terrorists has been beaten down and simply does not exist." "Whereas at the beginning of the operation the number of armed rebels was put at 5,000-6,000, now, in our estimate, their number has decreased to 1,000-1,200. There are only four or five scattered rebel groups in Chechnya now, the Russian president said.

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#3
RUSSIA CONCERNED ABOUT NATO EXPANSION, WELCOMES EU EXPANSION

MOSCOW. Oct 26 (Interfax) - Russian President Vladimir Putin has said Russia is concerned about NATO expansion.

In an interview with Russian and French mass media, Putin recalled that when a U.S. reporter asked him several months ago if he thought Russia might become a NATO member, Putin said "Yes. Why not?" "And we soon received an answer, unofficial but from quite a high level, that no one is waiting for Russia in NATO. If no one is waiting for us there, why should we be happy about the fact that NATO is expanding and approaching our borders? Of course this worries us. I think this is logical, understandable and obvious," Putin said.

"We are against NATO expansion," Putin said. Today "none of the reasons that gave birth to NATO exist," however, NATO itself "not only exists, but is expanding, and expanding towards our borders," he said.

On the other hand, Putin said he welcomes the expansion of the European Union. "We welcome this process. We only proceed from the fact that this process must not harm our relations with today's united Europe and our relations with [our] traditional partners in Eastern and Central Europe," he said

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#4
Jamestown Foundation Monitor
October 25, 2000
Bush might have been right about Chernomyrdin and misappropriated IMF funds.

CHERNOMYRDIN SAYS HE'LL SUE BUSH.

Viktor Chernomyrdin, the former Russian prime minister, confirmed this week that he plans to sue George Bush Jr., the U.S. Republican presidential candidate, for Bush's allegations that funds which the International Monetary Fund sent to Russia ended up in the pockets of Chernomyrdin and other top Russian officials (Russian agencies, October 23). Bush made the allegation during one of his televised debates with his opponent, Vice President Al Gore, who maintained a close working relationship with Chernomyrdin through such institutions as the Gore-Chernomyrdin Commission. Bush subsequently backed off the charge, saying that Chernomyrdin may have pocketed not IMF funds, but those from another program (Los Angeles Times, October 24).

The Republican candidate, however, received backing for his charge this week from Felipe Turover, a Russian emigre bank official who claims to have seen and documented evidence connected to a host of corrupt deals involving top Russian officials, which he handed over to former Russian Prosecutor General Yuri Skuratov and former Swiss federal prosecutor Carla Del Ponte. Turover said in an interview published this week that he doubted that Chernomyrdin would really sue Bush because of the "dirt" which such a lawsuit would unearth. Turover added, however, that he was prepared to serve as a "witness" on Bush's behalf, and claimed that not only IMF funds, but those from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the World Bank and other international institutions had been stolen by the "Family"--the inner circle of former President Boris Yeltsin which included his daughter Tatyana Dyachenko, Boris Berezovsky, Moscow banker Aleksandr Mamut, Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov Kremlin chief of staff Aleksandr Voloshin and Chernomyrdin.

Turover, who carries Spanish and Israeli passports and currently resides in Switzerland, claimed that a US$4.8 billion tranche which the IMF delivered to Russia in the summer of 1998 was misappropriated, but that it was "a drop in the bucket." "Tens of billions" of dollars in foreign credits, he said, were stolen during the Yeltsin years. Turover also claimed that Yeltsin signed a secret decree in 1993 mandating that companies and bank accounts belonging to "certain people," whom he did not name, should handle all the funds from all large export-import operations. Turover did not provide evidence for his claims, and told his interviewer that were he to return to Moscow, he would "receive a bullet immediately in the airport" (Novaya gazeta, October 23).

Turover previously worked as a debt collector in Russia for Switzerland's Banca del Gottardo, which, among other things, serviced accounts for Mabetex, the Swiss construction-engineering firm which allegedly paid millions of dollars to top Russian officials. Turover claimed last year that the bank held a "gigantic" number of accounts of top Russian officials, including Chernomyrdin, former Kremlin administration chief Valentin Yumashev, former privatization chief Maxim Boiko and former Deputy Finance Minister Andrei Vavilov. Turover also claimed that credit card accounts were opened in the Banca del Gottardo in 1993 for Yeltsin and members of his family. Russian media friendly to the Kremlin portrayed Turover as an ally of Skuratov and noted that Russian law enforcement had investigated Turover (see the Monitor, September 16, 1999). Late last year, Turover made even more sensational allegations, including that Chernomyrdin, during his tenure as prime minister, had signed secret decrees (1) sanctioning the transshipment of cocaine through Russia and (2) giving Sibneft, the oil company reportedly controlled by Berezovsky and fellow oligarch Roman Abramovich, the right to export three million tons of oil without paying any excise duty (Novaya gazeta, December 27, 1999). Turover did not present evidence in this interview, but neither did Chernomyrdin sue him. Chernomyrdin was quoted this week as saying that recent press reports accusing him of misappropriating IMF funds were "nonsense and rubbish" written by "sick people" (Russian agencies, October 23).

Meanwhile, Vasily Kolmogorov, Russia's deputy prosecutor general, said yesterday that his office had found no evidence that the IMF's US$4.8 billion credit to Russia in the summer of 1998 was misappropriated (Russian agencies, October 24). The Swiss authorities are conducting an investigation into whether some of the IMF funds intended for Russia were misappropriated and put into Swiss bank accounts. Comments by Swiss officials and various leaks in recent months suggest that the Swiss believe that they have indeed found evidence of this (see the Monitor, July 17, 21, 25, 31; August 31; September 18).

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#5
Date: Tue, 24 Oct 2000
From: Human Rights Watch Moscow
Subject: CHECHNYA: "WELCOME TO HELL"

CHECHEN DETAINEES FACE "HELL" FROM RUSSIAN CAPTORS

Europe Must Press Russia Harder on Abuses

(Brussels, October 26, 2000) -- On the eve of the October 29 E.U.-Russia summit, Human Rights Watch today released a report detailing the cycle of torture and extortion faced by thousands of Chechens whom Russian forces have detained in Chechnya. The rights group called on European states to file a case against Russia in the European Court of Human Rights, for these and other abuses during the war in Chechnya.

The 99-page report, entitled "Welcome to Hell," describes how Russian troops have detained thousands of Chechens on suspicion of collaboration with rebel fighters. Many of them were detained arbitrarily, with no evidence of wrongdoing. Guards at detention centers systematically beat Chechen detainees, some of whom have also been raped or subjected to other forms of torture. Most were released only after their families managed to pay large bribes to Russian officials. Russian authorities have launched no credible and transparent effort to investigate these abuses and bring the perpetrators to justice.

"Welcome to hell" is how guards at the Chernokozovo detention facility would greet detainees, before forcing them to undergo a hail of blows by baton-wielding guards.

"These are not just abuses of the past," said Rachel Denber, Acting Director of the Europe and Central Asia division of Human Rights Watch. "Even today, any Chechen civilian is at risk of arbitrary detention and severe physical abuse at the hands of Russian troops."

Chechens who do not have proper identity papers, who share a surname with a Chechen commander, who are thought to have relatives who are fighters, or who simply "look" like fighters, continue to be detained and abused on a daily basis in their communities or at Chechnya's hundreds of checkpoints. Many "disappear" for months as Russian officials keep them in incommunicado detention. Some are eventually released when relatives pay a bribe. Others never come back.

Fear of detention has prevented tens of thousands of internally displaced persons from returning to their homes in Chechnya. It has also confined those who have remained inside Chechnya, particularly young men, to their homes or communities.

The E.U. has sharply criticized Russia's actions in Chechnya. It sponsored a resolution at the United Commission on Human Rights urging Russia to launch a national commission of inquiry that would establish accountability for abuse. Six months after the resolution's adoption, the Russian government has failed to launch a credible investigation into human rights abuse in Chechnya, including torture at detention centers. So far, the E.U. has taken no steps to press Russia to form the commission.

"The E.U. has given Russia more than enough time to launch a credible investigation into abuses in Chechnya," Denber said. "If the E.U. wants to retain its credibility on human rights issues, it should act now."

The report closely scrutinizes abuse at the Chernokozovo detention facility, which became infamous for torture in early 2000, and then underwent a massive clean-up after an outcry by the media and international community. The report also documents abuse in facilities at Piatigorsk, Stavropol, Urus-Martan, the Mozdok and Khankala military bases, and others.

At several detention centers, baton-wielding guards formed a human gauntlet and forced incoming detainees to run through. At least one man, Aindi Kovtorashvili, died as a result of gauntlet-style beatings.

Human Rights Watch researchers also gathered testimony from several former detainees about rape and sexual assault of both men and women. A number of former detainees also gave detailed accounts of the injuries they sustained to their ribs, liver, kidneys, testicles, and feet from prolonged beatings.

Most former detainees interviewed for the report were released only after their families had paid substantial bribes—ranging from U.S.$75 to $5,000—to their Russian captors or predatory intermediaries. Such bribes were demanded so often that in many cases, detention itself appeared to have been motivated by the promise of financial gain, rather than by the need to identify rebel elements.

In February 2000, delegations of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture visited detention centers in Chechnya. Following its visits, the Committee explicitly requested Russian authorities to investigate allegations of abuse at Chernokozovo and other facilities.

It is unclear, though, whether the Russian government has done so. Human Rights Watch called on the Russian government to provide details regarding any such investigations. Human Rights Watch also called on the Russian government to make public the Committee's reports on its February and April 2000 trips to Chechnya; under Committee rules of confidentiality, only the government under investigation can make reports public.

Beginning on October 26, the report can be found at http://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/russia_chechnya4

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#6
Officer's tragic note gives glimpse of last moments of Kursk crew

SEVEROMORSK, Russia, Oct 26 (AFP) -
A note scribbled by an officer on Russia's Kursk nuclear submarine revealed Thursday that at least 23 of its 118 crew survived the explosions which sank the vessel and tried to seek safety at its rear.

Lieutenant-Captain Dmitry Kolesnikov's stark message contradicted official claims that most of the crew died shortly after two unexplained blasts sent the submarine to the bottom of the Barents Sea on August 12.

Northern Fleet Chief-of-Staff Mikhail Motsak said rescue workers found the message in Kolesnikov's pocket when they raised his body and three others from the craft.

The note was the first direct testimony to reach the outside world of conditions aboard the Kursk moments after the disaster, a tragedy which kept Russians glued to their television screens.

The reverse side of the note contained a poignant message from Kolesnikov to his new bride, which Motsak refused to divulge.

Writing blind, Kolesnikov scribbled down the phrase: "13:15. The whole crew of the sixth, seventh and eight sections have moved into the ninth.

"There are 23 of us here. We made this decision (to move back) as a result of the accident. None of us have been able to get out," he wrote.

Kolesnikov's widow Olga, who only married the 30-year-old this year, wept as she spoke of her desire to see her husband's face one more time.

"I heard the official announcement on the television at 2:00 pm," she said.

"I'm preparing to meet him. He's my dearest relative, he's my love. I want to see him one more time. I want to read his letter," she said, wiping away tears with a handkerchief.

The note was written over a 100-minute span on the day the disaster struck, Motsak said.

Kolesnikov wrote that at least two or three crew members would try to escape the craft through an emergency escape hatch. The navy chief-of-staff said flooding had probably thwarted those efforts.

The note also suggested that the crew had opted to ignore the rule book which states that all hatches separating the craft's sections must be sealed in the event of an accident to prevent flooding.

The development also undermined the official version of events surrounding Russia's worst post-Soviet maritime disaster.

Navy commanders and ministers had at first said that some Kursk survivors were communicating with rescuers by banging against the craft's hull.

The government later retracted, saying the banging had been a mechanical noise and that the rescue operation was doomed from the start because almost everyone had died in the first few minutes of the disaster.

Meanwhile, high winds and heavy seas Thursday forced divers to suspend the search for more bodies, although President Vladimir Putin vowed to continue the recovery operation "whatever the difficulties" so the state could honour "these hero-sailors."

The promise clashed with comments by Igor Spasky, whose firm designed the Kursk and signed the contract to recover the bodies.

He said the search could be halted if 23-24 corpses were found in the boat's rear compartment as proceeding further could endanger the lives of the divers.

Putin also insisted the recovery operation would be conducted "in the greatest of openness, including the (inquiry) into the causes of the catastrophe."

An official commission should confirm the most likely explanation for the tragedy at November 8 meeting, Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov said.

Navy chief Admiral Vladimir Kuroyedov said earlier this week that he was "80 percent certain" that the Kursk had been sunk by a collision with another submarine.

Washington and London deny involvement and Western intelligence reports say fuel in one of the Kursk's torpedoes probably caught fire causing the blasts that sank the craft.

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#7
Moscow Times
October 26, 2000
By Pavel Felgenhauer
DEFENSE DOSSIER: Blame Sought, Not Bodies

Russian naval divers are now doggedly working their way into the hull of the Kursk nuclear submarine, which sank in the Barents Sea in August. Officially, the reason that the divers are going into the Kursk is to retrieve the bodies of dead seamen for burial in accordance with a promise that President Vladimir Putin made to relatives shortly after the tragedy.

Recovering the bodies seems like a noble idea, but it has been harshly criticized by Russian naval experts, by Kursk crew relatives and even by some government officials. The commander of the Russian navy, Admiral Vladimir Kuroyedov, has stated that the mission may be abandoned if it becomes apparent that the risks are too high.

Why, then, did the Russian government begin this operation to recover bodies from the jungle of twisted metal inside the Kursk if the risks are so high? Why not wait until next summer when good weather would permit the navy to salvage the Kursk together with the bodies?

Instead it has become apparent that the authorities are desperate to get their divers inside the Kursk as soon as possible. They are even paying considerable sums for foreign assistance, because they do not have the equipment to get into the Kursk on their own.

This operation is not simply a face-saving exercise as many first believed f an exercise in pretending to do something and then withdrawing because of harsh weather conditions. The authorities went to the trouble of hiring the Norwegian rig Regalia, which can withstand the elements in the Barents Sea, and the Russian divers are making vigorous efforts to actually enter the vessel.

But it also seems obvious that recovering the bodies is not the real goal of the mission. The navy has not even brought a hospital ship into the area to properly deal with the 118 bodies that might be recovered. It was further disclosed that the Regalia has been engaged for a very limited time, until Nov 13 at the latest. Under normal naval-planning procedures, this would imply that the navy hopes to fulfill its mission much earlier, since they normally allow a two-week margin for unforeseen circumstances.

After reaching the Kursk, Russian divers began drilling a hole in the stern of the vessel, in the area of the eighth compartment that had an assigned crew of five. The adjoining compartments also had small crews. This leads one to think that the navy isn't trying to recover as many bodies as possible, but in fact is looking for something else: the Russian navy is actually looking for a message.

Seismic evidence indicates that there was first a weak explosion and then f a minute or so later f a strong blast aboard the Kursk when it sank. Only in the stern compartments of the Kursk f shielded by the reinforced reactor section f could crew members possibly have survived, probably wounded, for several hours. It is possible that these sailors received some information from the central command post between the explosions and had time to leave information about what happened.

At present, all Oscar-2 class submarines are confined to port until the exact cause of the disaster is determined. The navy considers this a gross strategic impediment and waiting until next summer for more information would exacerbate this situation even further. A mission to try to find an answer in the bow compartments of the Kursk would seem to be a reasonable way of solving the mystery. But the rationality of the naval command has its limits.

This week Kuroyedov told Kursk relatives: "I am 80 percent sure the Kursk collided with another submarine, and in a couple of months I will find the missing 20 percent and tell the world who it was." The commander of the Russian Northern Fleet, Admiral Vyacheslav Popov, has announced that NATO intelligence-gathering ships and planes are closely monitoring the Kursk expedition and that "foreign nuclear submarines may also be in the area."

The navy may even fear that NATO may take action to prevent vital evidence being retrieved. Instead of a hospital ship, the Regalia is escorted by one of Russia's newsest antisubmarine cruisers, most likely with orders to attack any foreign submarine that gets too close.

The divers will be looking for a message that says: "Hit by a NATO sub. Long live the Russian navy!" This would relieve Russia from any blame for the disaster and allow the Oscar-2 subs to sail. If no such message is found, the "body-recovery" mission will be aborted.

Pavel Felgenhauer is an independent, Moscow-based defense analyst.

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#8
Boston Globe
October 26, 2000
Hazing in Russia military has heavy toll

By David Filipov, Globe Staff, Globe Correspondent

MOSCOW - Kostya Lavrov's parents knew nothing about how he was doing as a draftee in the Russian military until the day they received the zinc coffin bearing the boy's body.

Later came the army's explanation that Lavrov, 18, had killed himself as a result of mental illness. The parents had trouble believing this, especially when they opened the coffin and found massive bruises and wounds covering Kostya's head and body.

Then, one by one, letters trickled in. They were from Kostya, and they told his side of the story from beyond the grave.

The letters told a harrowing tale of officers and older soldiers who had routinely beaten and terrorized younger, weaker draftees.

"I'm barely able to write,'' the last letter said. ''Everything, everywhere hurts... They broke my nose twice, they beat my head against a wall and a chair... then they got me up at night and choked me from two to five in the morning. Mom, do anything you can to get me out of here. But Mom, don't write the officers here. If they find out about this letter, understand, I'm a dead man. Mom, please try, PLEASE. I CAN'T TAKE IT ANY LONGER."

Even after the letters arrived, the military stuck by its official ruling of suicide. But there is no doubt in the minds of his parents, and in the opinions of military advocacy groups, that he is one of hundreds of Russian soldiers each year who die from brutal hazing.

The army does not acknowledge most hazing deaths, and, as the advocates charge, it tries to cover them up.

"The military tries to blame them on suicide, on illness, on anything it can," said Valeria Marchenko, director of Mother's Right, a Moscow-based foundation that investigates noncombat deaths in the Russian military. "The Army doesn't want to accept responsibility. This is the old Soviet principle at work, that people are no more than cogs in the machine. If a cog breaks, you replace it with another one."

Russia still has the world's second-largest nuclear arsenal and Europe's largest army, which keeps Moscow on the minds of US presidential candidates. But is it the right army for Russia?

The sinking in August of the Kursk nuclear submarine in the Barents Sea, with 118 men on board, and the navy's clumsy and futile rescue effort, illustrated for many Russians the idea that their country has more men in uniform than it can support. The army's inability to defeat rebels in Chechnya has raised the question of whether units have been properly trained for the kind of conflicts that Russia is likely to face, now that the Cold War threat has receded into history.

But even as divers begin raising the bodies of the Kursk crew, even as losses continue to mount in the Chechen quagmire, it is hazing that makes tens of thousands of Russian young men try to avoid the semiannual call-up, even if it means breaking the law.

Their reasoning is simple. By the time they end their compulsory service, military support groups say, more of the raw recruits will have died from the army's brutal brand of hazing than from any cause other than being killed in action.

As the story of Vladimir Murashkin's unit suggests, sometimes it is hard to tell the difference.

A mechanic who specializes in tanks, Murashkin, 38, answered a call for volunteers to fight in Chechnya last spring. The father of a son about to become eligible for the draft, Murashkin figured he could earn some money while seeing whether the rumors about hazing were true.

Conditions in the 72d brigade of the 42d division proved to be worse than he had expected. Murashkin said he routinely traded ammunition for scarce rations with poorly equipped but better-fed police units. Spare parts were non-existent, a problem he solved by getting his wife to buy $100 worth of parts in his hometown of Tula and sending them by train to the war zone.

But those were minor problems compared with the discipline meted out by a battle-hardened squad of reconnaissance troops, who beat younger soldiers - ''the canned meat,'' as the draftees were called - and kept them in a roofless, open-air cage for days.

''Soldiers are cruelly beaten with metal rods, shovels, and so on,'' Murashkin and three other former soldiers wrote to military prosecutors. ''There were times when reconnaissance forces then shot the beaten soldiers with silenced machine guns.''

One particularly cruel game was called ''Chechen Sniper'' - the commandos would hound a young soldier until he tried to run away. Then they would shoot him at a distance, and, Murashkin said, would blame a Chechen sniper.

The final straw for Murashkin and his three comrades was the death of his captain, Andrei Katradzhiyev, who was taken away on the night of July 29 and was brought back bleeding and comatose. The official cause of death was a burst ulcer.

''We believe this was this was a cold-blooded murder,'' the letter said.

A Russian military spokesman, Major Gennady Dzyuba, said the army had investigated and found that ''far from everything was true, but some of the facts were confirmed.'' A military court refused to review the case, but for Murashkin, the issue is settled. His son will not serve if he can help it.

''Why should I send him to the army?'' he said in an interview. ''So that they can call him canned meat? Why should I trade my son in for a tin can?''

President Vladimir V. Putin, sensing a groundswell of support for military reform after the Kursk sinking, has resurrected the idea of switching to a fully professional army, something first proposed by his predecessor, Boris N. Yeltsin, nearly 10 years ago.

But for now, the debate has centered on a more modest goal, whether to cut the number of servicemen - the official estimate is 1.2 million, but no one knows the exact number - by a third. As the call went out Oct. 1 for 191,655 new draftees, civilian and military leaders put off the larger, more difficult issue of whether a draft-based army is what Russia needs.

Independent analysts say the generals seem to prefer the status quo, which allows them to manage their budget of $6 billion - a pittance compared to the United States' $300 billion allocation - with little civilian oversight.

Some analysts trace Russia's failure to crush the rebels in Chechnya to the limitations of the draft-based army. Some suggest that the high incidence of deadly hazing is a function of the way the army is organized.

''In the Russian Army the officers have no other means to enforce any sort of discipline but systematic terror,'' said Pavel Baev, a specialist on the Russian military at the Institute of Peace Studies in Oslo. ''So the issue is not that the officers are unwilling to stop it - but they have to cultivate it as the method of command.''

As a result, military service, which in Soviet days was seen an integral part of becoming a man, is now widely viewed as a hellish fate to be avoided at all costs.

The rich and resourceful pay bribes of up to $5,000 to their recruitment officers to be dropped from the draft list, or somewhat less to a doctor to find an ''illness'' that disqualifies them. A few try to take advantage of a clause in Russia's constitution, unrecognized by the army, police, and most courts, allowing alternative service for conscientious objectors. Most, like Vladimir Murashkin's son, do not show up at the local draft board, hoping they can evade police dragnets that hunt for draft-age men, ages 18 to 27.

The commander in charge of the draft, General Vladislav Putilin, said evasion has become widespread. Partly as a result, cobbling together even the 90,000-man force that entered Chechnya last autumn required bringing in police units that are not trained for infantry duty, and signing veterans to new contracts when their service stint ended.

Officially, more than 2,700 servicemen have been killed in Chechnya after a year of fighting; unofficial estimates suggest the toll is much higher. For many prospective draftees, the fear that they will end up in Chechnya is enough to make them look for ways to avoid the draft.

For others, the frightening number is the 700 to 1,000 who die each year in noncombat situations, in the estimate of the military prosecutor's office. No official statistics have been made public, and independent military watchdog groups, such as Mother's Right, say the real number is as high as four times that, as many as 4,000 a year.

''Until they cancel the draft,'' Marchenko said, ''not one mother can be sure that her son will come home alive.''

Globe correspondent Dmitry Shalganov contributed to this report.

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#9
By Andrew F. Tully
Russia: Senators Question Deal On Arms Sales To Iran

The U.S. Congress is bringing public attention to a little-known, five-year-old agreement between Vice President Al Gore and former Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin. The agreement essentially said Washington would ignore Russian arms sales to Iran. RFE/RL correspondent Andrew F. Tully reports that the issue has political as well as national-security implications.

Washington, 26 October 2000 (RFE/RL) -- America's relations with Russia are coming under scrutiny in the U.S. Congress. At issue are news reports that Vice President Al Gore signed a secret deal in 1995 with Viktor Chernomyrdin -- then Russia's prime minister -- agreeing to Moscow's arms sales to Iran.

Under the agreement, the U.S. would not impose economic sanctions on Russia if it completed arms sales that already had been contracted with Iran -- as long as the transactions were complete by December 31, 1999.

Under American law, Washington must bring sanctions against any country that sells weapons to Iran if the president determines that the sale would destabilize the region. That law was co-sponsored in the Senate by Gore himself -- then a Senator (D-Tennessee).

On Wednesday, two subcommittees of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a joint hearing to discover whether the Gore-Chernomyrdin agreement violated the very law that Gore had sponsored. They also wanted to determine whether the administration of U.S. President Bill Clinton violated other laws by not informing Congress of the details of the pact.

All congressional committees are led by members of the Republican Party, which has a majority. Gore and Clinton are members of the Democratic Party. Democrats say the hearings are politically motivated, coming less than two weeks before the election in which Gore is running for president.

Senator Gordon Smith (R-Oregon) -- chairman of the Subcommittee on European Affairs -- opened Wednesday's hearing by expressing concern about the ultimate effect of the Gore-Chernomyrdin agreement.

"This agreement may reportedly have limited our response to Russia's arms sales to Iran -- a country which is a significant sponsor of international terrorism directed against the West and its allies."

But Senator Joseph Biden (D-Delaware) -- the Democratic Party's senior member on the subcommittee -- said it was important for the Clinton administration to work with Russia -- in secret, if necessary -- to limit Iran's access to advanced weapons. In fact, Biden said, the Gore-Chernomyrdin agreement apparently did just that at a time when Moscow had financial incentives to increase such sales.

"We can't control arms sales to areas of concern if we don't include Russia in that [arms-control] regime. After all, Russia has lots of weapons to sell, and they need the money."

Biden quoted from a report by a national security expert saying the weapons that Iran bought from Russia have -- as he put it -- "little military meaning." The assessment was made by Anthony Cordesman, a leading adviser to Senator John McCain (R-Arizona), the other sponsor of law requiring sanctions for countries selling weapons to Iran. McCain is a political opponent of Gore.

The first witness at Wednesday's hearing was John Barker, a senior official of the State Department specializing in restricting the proliferation of weapons. He said the substance of the Gore-Chernomyrdin agreement was communicated to Congress and to the American people. But he said some details were withheld.

"Of course, certain sensitive documents were classified and were closely held in the executive branch [the Clinton administration] -- that is, before they were published in the newspaper. This is the common practice for all administrations on very sensitive diplomatic negotiations. But the thrust of these documents was widely telegraphed [disclosed indirectly] to both the Congress and the American people."

Following Barker was Joseph DeThomas, another State Department official who told the committee that he has worked to restrict arms-proliferation under both Democratic and Republican presidents. He supported Barker's argument that Congress had been lawfully notified about the Gore-Chernomyrdin agreement, and that only very sensitive details were withheld.

Despite this sensitivity, DeThomas complained, photographs of these documents recently appeared in American newspapers. And he told the Senators that they should be careful about how fiercely they attack the Clinton administration over the issue. This, he said, would only serve the interests of Iranian and of anti-Western forces in Russia.

"The arrangements discussed here today are manifestly in the interests of the United States, and of the effort to halt proliferation. But they have powerful opponents in Moscow. A partisan brawl that drags legitimately classified material into the newspapers as photo insets can only benefit Iran and those forces in Moscow most hostile to our objectives."

Smith -- the chairman of the hearing -- said the foreign-policy implications of the Gore-Chernomyrdin agreement go far beyond stability in Iran and America's relations with Russia.

"This sort of deal-making must reawaken fears among the newly free states of Central Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia that they may become once again the objects of secret agreements between great powers. It is hardly likely to increase their confidence in the United States."

The Senate hearings -- and similar hearings in the lower house of Congress, the House of Representatives -- come at a politically awkward time for Gore, who is campaigning for president. The election is on November 7.

Gore has portrayed himself during the campaign as having far superior credentials in foreign affairs than his opponent, Republican George W. Bush, the governor of the western state of Texas.

Gore's supporters say the scrutiny of his agreement with Chernomyrdin is designed to undermine the vice president's foreign-policy qualifications. Republicans respond that their concern is not politically motivated. In fact, 11 former senior officials in the American government -- including former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski -- issued a letter saying the agreement could jeopardize the security of the U.S. and its allies.

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#10
Izvestia
October 25, 2000
[translation from RIA Novosti for personal use only]
KHAKAMADA INTERVIEWED State Duma Vice-Speaker Irina Khakamada participated in the annual meeting of the members and directors of the US-Russia Business Council. She talks about prospects for attracting American investments in Russia in an interview with Izvestia's correspondent Lyubov KIZILOVA.

Question: How do American businessmen appraise the situation in Russia?

Answer: For the first time the US appraises the situation in Russia more positively, despite the war in Chechnya and the MOST scandals. Clear signals have appeared in the sphere of our economic policy: what is declared is slowly but surely being fulfilled. The issue at hand is customs and tax initiatives and the budget, which is being adopted for the first time without strong lobbyist pressure. Nevertheless, there is still caution with regard to Russia. It is not known how the government will behave and to what degree Vladimir Putin is prepared to remain a liberal even when money is not falling from the skies, if the oil prices fall.

Question: What are the demands of foreign investors to the Russian market?

Answer: The concluding memorandum of the meeting lays down recommendations for improvements in Russian legislation. There is a keen interest in seeing profit tax payment changed. It is suggested that it should be a tax on net profits minus business costs and that the exporter should reimburse VAT, which is not often the case in our practice. The recommendations concerning unification of custom duties are, in fact, consonant with the steps our government has been taking. In the field of corporate management, which was the subject of my report, the main demands are transparency of companies and complete transition to international bookkeeping standards.

Investors are worried by the absence of a serious banking reform in Russia. There have been no open bank bankruptcies since the 1998 crisis. Banks simply transformed their assets into other companies. Foreign businessmen who were creditors of these banks and account holders have not received any compensation for the damage sustained.

There were questions about land: Will it be sold? Will the owner of a building be also the owner of the land on which it is situated or will it be only a long-term lease, the terms of which are unstable?

Question: Do you think that, judging by the results of the discussion, we can count on concrete investments?

Answer: I think we can. Representatives of largest companies participated in the meeting. They know Russia and are inclined to do business with it. The general mood of Council members is positive. Unlike the US political elite, the American business community appraises the Russian market objectively and in a non-politicized manner. By the way, a symmetrical body for interaction with the American market has been set up in Russia. I suppose it will prove its value.

For the record: The US-Russia Business Council is a non-commercial trade organization founded in the beginning of 1993. Representatives of 15 leading American and transnational companies, which are doing business and making investments in Russia attended its latest meeting. Among them were Oracle, the Bank of New York, Hullibarton and Lockheed Martin Astronautics.

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#11
RUSSIAN LANGUAGE'S UNITING ROLE IS ONE OF ITS MAIN ASSETS - LYUDMILA PUTIN

ST. PETERSBURG. Oct 26 (Interfax-Northwest) - Lyudmila Putin, the wife of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has said she thinks the uniting role of the Russian language is one of its main assets.

The Russian language, as the totality of all people who speak and think in Russian, unites them in "a Russian world," she said at the All- Russian conference "Russian Language at the Boundary of Millennia" in St. Petersburg on Thursday. She said according to her information, 300 million people now speak Russian. "And we are faced with the very important task of affirming, protecting and expanding the boundaries of the Russian language, because by doing so we protect the national interests of Russia," the president's wife said.

Lyudmila Putin said in her opinion, this should be done both in Russia and outside it. She laid special emphasis on the fact that the Russian language is "one of the main conditions for preserving the unity of Russia."

The second "important asset" of the Russian language is communication, she said. Language is a universal means of communication and understanding between people, she noted. "Only after we build a common language will we see the country rise," the president's wife said.

The Russian language can also help "reach understandings between people and authorities and agree on values." In order to do this, it is necessary to "create a common system of meaning in the Russian language," she said. For example, "today the people in our country understand certain words such as 'justice,' 'enterprise,' and 'responsibility' differently," she said. "We need to learn to speak one language," she added.

The conference, which is dedicated to the problems and development of the Russian language, is being held in St. Petersburg on October 26- 27. Russian Minister of Education Vladimir Fillipov, St. Petersburg University rector Lyudmila Verbitskaya and linguists and writers from thirty Russian regions and abroad are also taking part in the conference.

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#12
Russian help essential for Middle East peace, - Russian ex-premier
ITAR-TASS

Beijing, 26th October: The United States cannot monopolize a mediatory mission in the Middle East and will have to ask Russia for assistance, Yevgeniy Primakov, Russian ex-prime minister who chairs Fatherland-All Russia bloc at the State Duma, told journalist in Beijing. Primakov arrived in Beijing on Wednesday.

"We cannot expect the Camp-David agreements to go ahead without a hitch," Primakov said. Those who had hoped for it simply do not know the situation in the Middle East. It is obvious that the agreements had been drafted to suit President Clinton and took into consideration the pre-election situation. The present-day clashes between the Israeli and Palestinians are quite logical. The standoff cannot be terminated at once and even Arafat cannot put an end to the intifada so easily," Primakov said.

Primakov declared that the situation should by all means be brought to a settlement, but this is "a difficult process", he noted. "Anyway, monopolization of a mediatory mission in the Middle East by any of the states is hopeless," Primakov said.

"The Russian Foreign Ministry had declared that Russia was prepared to take part in the Sharm el-Shaykh summit on the same level as other participants, and the Russian president was ready to go there. But he could go there only after an invitation, for example, from the United States, but this was never done because the United States, proceeding from its internal political interests, has monopolized the mediatory mission for the time being. But now, the US has come to a deadlock, Primakov said.

The US can appeal to Russia, and I think that after the presidential elections in the United States the US will appeal to Russia, asking that Russia should actively participate in this process," Primakov said.

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#13
BBC Monitoring
October 25, 2000
Russian Communist, nationalist MPs call for "protection of democracy in USA"

Source: Ren TV, Moscow, in Russian 1030 gmt 26 Oct 00

[Presenter]The Russian State Duma deputies have come out with an unusual initiative today. They proposed that the Duma should issue a decree on protecting democracy in the USA.

[Correspondent] Dislike for the USA has united deputies of different political views: Communists and Liberal Democrats. They have stuck up together in defence of their brainchild nursed through all the insults inflicted on them by the USA. The brainchild is the following draft decree.

[Aleksey Mitrofanov, deputy head of Liberal Democrats faction] We want observers to be sent to the [US presidential] election and a Voice of Russia radio station to be launched to broadcast in the USA just like we have the Voice of America here. We are worried about human rights violations in some of the US regions.

[Correspondent] The decree mirrors what Americans have been telling Russia for years. Its authors wonder: why should not we do the same as they do. They suggest that, as part of the observers' delegation, Viktor Chernomyrdin should be sent there since he is so favoured by one of the US presidential candidates. It looks like deputies are very proud of their wittiness.

[Georgiy Tikhonov, deputy] Ivanenko said today: "That would be like a mosquito trying to bite an elephant." We cannot be compared to mosquitoes. Perhaps, just Yabloko faction.

[Sergey Ivanenko, first deputy of Yabloko faction] We must respect ourselves. We have to seek solutions that can give results. We do not want to make a fool of ourselves either in the eyes of the USA or in the eyes of the world.

[Correspondent] After a long debate, the Duma Council has decided against discussing the decree at tomorrow's [27th October] session. However, the anti-American lobby does not want to give up. If they cannot get the Duma to debate the decree they can at least try to provoke a debate about it in the house.

[Video shows deputies speaking]

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