An Agenda for Renewal: U.S.-Russian Relations
A Report by the Russian and Eurasian Program of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Format: Paperback, 52pp.
Pub Date: December 2000

About the Publication

U.S.-Russian relations are in a period of change. An Agenda for Renewal: U.S.-Russian Relations, produced by the Russian and Eurasian Program of the Carnegie Endowment, sets out an innovative agenda for the renewal of the U.S.-Russian relationship, based on policies that capitalize on areas of mutual interest and affirm the long-term vision of a Russia integrated into Western economic, political, and security structures.

This report is a product of the Russian and Eurasian Program of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The following persons contributed to it through writing or discussion: Anders Ãslund, Thomas Carothers, Thomas Graham, Stephen Holmes, Andrew Kuchins, Anatol Lieven, Michael McFaul, Martha Brill Olcott, and Jon Wolfsthal

Executive Summary

A decade after the end of the Cold War, U.S.-Russian relations are less friendly and close than many Americans hoped they would become after the demise of Soviet communism and the breakup of the Soviet Union. Many areas of disagreement exist between the two countries--from U.S. plans for a national missile defense to Russian nuclear exports to Iran. Yet despite the tensions, the United States and Russia are on fundamentally different, and better, terms than the United States and the Soviet Union ever were. With the current leadership transition in the United States and the recent one in Russia, U.S.-Russian relations are moving into a new period. One cannot talk of a "clean slate," as much of what has complicated relations in the recent past--from Russian misuse of International Monetary Fund (IMF) credits to NATO expansion--is still very much on people's minds. But the leadership transition in both countries coincident with the start of a new century represents a potentially critical juncture in what is arguably still the most consequential bilateral relationship in international politics.

The new U.S. administration will confront a Russia at a crucial stage of its own history. Vladimir Putin, Russia's forceful but still opaque president, manifests the complexities and contradictions of Russia's entire post-communist path. On the political front he is centralizing power and weakening Russia's already shaky democratic institutions. Yet on economics he has assembled the most pro-reform team since the start of the 1990s and has already pushed through some ambitious market-oriented reforms. In foreign policy he seeks a more independent, assertive role for Russia while trying to come to terms with the sobering reality of the weakness of the Russian military and the need to maintain a positive relationship with the West. Despite the startling shrinkage in Russia's economic, political, and military weight in the past ten years, Russia still matters very much to the United States. This is true not just because of manifold issues relating to nuclear security but also because of Russia's role in matters ranging from the future of NATO and European security to the new challenges arising in Central Asia and the Caucasus.

As it seeks an appropriate framework for its Russia policy, the new administration should eschew the temptation just to continue the policy status quo or to shift to a more limited, "black-box" conception of Russia as merely a bundle of security problems. Instead it should pursue an agenda for the renewal of U.S.-Russian relations. This policy should aim at the consolidation of a cooperative, productive relationship based on the significant confluence of interests between the two countries, and it should affirm a long-term vision of Russia's integration into Western economic, political, and security structures. Implicit in this approach is placing a significant value on the U.S.-Russian relationship and not sacrificing it for the sake of special issues that arise, based on a misguided assumption that Russia will always end up falling into line no matter what the United States does.

The core of a policy of renewal must be bold steps in the security domain, to break away once and for all from Cold War habits and mindsets. Simply stated, the U.S.-Russian nuclear relationship must be put on a new footing, one that does not assume mutual enmity. Our recommendations in this domain include: Augment the traditional, bilateral arms control treaty framework with a broader agenda, including unilateral steps to reduce nuclear arsenals and enhance cooperation on strategic stability and threat reduction; Replace the Cold War hair-trigger operational deterrence posture, thus reducing the danger of an inadvertent nuclear strike; Double the resources allocated to the dismantlement of Russian weapons systems and the prevention of the proliferation of weapons and fissile materials from the former Soviet Union; Sustain the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty unless the missile threat environment changes substantially; Refrain from extending NATO membership to states on the territory of the former Soviet Union before 2005; and Shift away from reflexive rivalry to real cooperation with Russia in Central Asia and the south Caucasus, including the adoption of a genuine "multiple-pipeline" policy on Caspian oil.

At the same time that it revitalizes and advances the security agenda with Russia, the new administration should revise and strengthen its support for Russia's domestic transformation. American expectations about the speed and ease of Russia's attempted transition to democracy and market economics were clearly unrealistic in the initial years after the end of the Cold War. Yet the goals are the right ones for Russia, so the United States should now reaffirm a commitment to helping Russia achieve these goals and reshape U.S. support to fit the current context. Among the steps we recommend: Sharpening U.S. diplomatic efforts to support democracy in Russia and greatly increasing U.S. democracy assistance to the country; Focusing an enlarged democracy assistance effort on Russian society rather than the Russian government, with programs that give Russians a greater role in design and implementation and that stress exchange and education; Deemphasizing IMF support for Russia's economy and focusing on increasing trade and investment in Russia, such as through efforts to encourage Russia's entry into the World Trade Organization; Revitalizing rule-of-law assistance to Russia, by focusing on the challenge of helping turn law-on-the-books into law that is reliably enforced in practice; and Undertaking a special initiative to support the renovation of Russian higher education.

These two halves of a policy of renewal will necessarily involve different institutions and tools and will move at different speeds. The security issues are of undeniable urgency and consequence. Russia's political and economic evolution is inevitably a very long-term process and one in which the United States' role will be modest. Nevertheless, the two halves of the policy are mutually reinforcing. In the years ahead, America's many security concerns with respect to Russia will find real resolution only to the extent that Russia achieves a healthy, well-functioning economy and a stable, deeply rooted democracy.

A policy of renewal will require significant American leadership, engagement, and initiative. And this must occur at a time when issues of great importance from other regions all demand high-priority attention. It will also require not only a sus-tained vision of the long-term goal but a clear sense of priorities along the way. As differences and tensions arise between Russia and the United States, as they will, the United States must pursue its interests forthrightly. At the same time it must treat policy differences as predictable elements of a complex relationship, not crises that call into question the overall nature and value of the relationship. Finally, a policy of renewal must be built on a rediscovery of bipartisanship on policy toward Russia. More than almost any other major area of U.S. foreign policy in recent years, Russia policy has been subject to partisan infighting that does little to contribute to the advancement of America's core interests.

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#2
Moscow Times December 7, 2000
Chechnya: No End in Sight
By Pavel Felgenhauer

Last week the Audit Chamber finished an investigation on how government funds are being spent in Chechnya. Audit Chamber head Sergei Stepashin told the news media that some government funds have been misappropriated, that the chamber will ask the prosecutor's office to initiate criminal proceedings and that "there has been no reconstruction in Chechnya whatsoever."

Stepashin, as director of the FSB in 1994-95, was deeply involved in the planning and execution of the first Chechen campaign. In 1999, as interior

minister and then prime minister, Stepashin helped plan the present war. Last week Stepashin told journalists: "According to my experience, military force alone cannot solve the Chechen problem" and that "the situation there is deadlocked."

Russian military commanders in the North Caucasus have repeatedly announced that the war in Chechnya is practically over and that it marks a resounding victory for federal forces. Some Russian generals may even believe that they are winning and that after several more "mopping-up" operations the "last bandits" will be eliminated and Chechnya will be pacified.

In 1995, General Anatoly Kvashnin, who is today the No. 2 man in Russia's military hierarchy, told me: "We will beat the Chechens to pulp so that the present generation will be too terrified to fight Russia again. Let Western observers come to Grozny and see what we have done to our own city so that they shall know what may happen to their towns if they get rough with Russia. But you know, in 20 or 30 years, a new generation of Chechens that hasn't seen the Russian army in action will grow up and they will again rebel, and we'll have to smash them down all over again."

Of course, in 1996 the Russian troops under Kvashnin's overall command were defeated in Grozny and forced to withdraw. But in 1999, Kvashnin, as chief of the General Staff, masterminded his revenge and pushed through the most aggressive battle plan.

From the beginning of the Chechen war, Russian forces have done their best to terrorize the Chechens into submission by the unrestricted use of air power and heavy artillery. The terror did not stop when the troops moved in to occupy Chechen towns or villages. Russian soldiers and officers not only randomly attack civilians and mistreat prisoners, but have in fact established a regular racket of arresting Chechens as "terrorist suspects" for ransom. They also routinely collect bribes from anyone trying to pass through military checkpoints.

Russian officials regularly tell their Western counterparts that they want to stop the abuse of civilians in Chechnya. But such actions are in fact officially tolerated since they are an integral part of the Russian strategy, which is modeled on Soviet and tsarist patterns of brutally suppressing internal rebellions.

Last month in Berlin, while briefing the NATO Parliamentary Assembly's political committee on the situation in Chechnya and Central Asia, I showed a video of Russian war crimes in Chechnya: the bombing of a Chechen village by air-delivered fuel-bomb explosives, which are forbidden by the 1980 Geneva Convention. The tape showed the destruction of houses and civilians, including children, being killed by the bombs.

The head of the Russian delegation -- the first deputy speaker of the Duma, Lyubov Slizka from the pro-Kremlin Unity faction -- declared that my evidence was irrelevant "since this episode happened long ago -- last February" and because the general who was then in charge -- Vladimir Shamanov -- is no longer serving in Chechnya.

Indeed, Shamanov is today far from the front. He was made a Hero of Russia and is now running for governor in the Ulyanovsk region, supported by Slizka's Unity. Shamanov has not been indicted for war crimes. Nor has any other Russian officer. This official policy of turning a blind eye has undoubtedly encouraged still more war crimes, abuse of civilians and looting by the troops in Chechnya.

Russian officers tell reporters that the Chechen resistance is "in agony" and will soon be wiped out. And, indeed, the term "agony" is a good description of the state of the Chechen nation today. But desperation will more likely fuel stubborn resistance than surrender. The ultimate goal of the invasion of Chechnya -- to persuade the population to accept Russian sovereignty -- seems today still less attainable than it did a year ago.

Actually, Chechen attacks in recent weeks have become more frequent, geographically widespread and effective. This increased activity may only be a dark hint of bigger trouble to come.

Pavel Felgenhauer is an independent defense analyst based in Moscow.

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#3
Rights group slams "carnage" in Chechnya, holds out hope in Balkans
WASHINGTON, Dec 7 (AFP) -

The international community failed to act to stop the "civilian carnage" in Chechnya and has done little to prevent the rise of authoritarian regimes in central Asia, US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in its annual report Thursday.

The report, published ahead of Human Rights Day on Sunday, painted a bleak picture of the overall human rights situation in parts of Europe and Central Asia.

But HRW said it held out hope for peace in the Balkans, following the ouster of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic and the death of Croatian President Franjo Tudjman.

"Milosevic's departure from power meant new hope for the rule of law and human rights protections in Serbia," the report said.

It issued a stinging rebuke, however, against Western governments for turning a blind eye to Russia's crackdown in breakaway Chechnya.

"The blatant impunity for war crimes in Chechnya cried out for accountability, but there was none," the report said. "The international community lacked the political will to exercise leverage with Russia to press for a halt to the massive abuses perpetrated by Russian forces in Chechnya."

It said that unlike the situation in the Yugoslav province of Kosovo, where world leaders acted quickly to stem the conflict and help ethnic Albanian refugees, the civilian population in the Chechen capital Grozny has largely been left to fend for itself, with food, medical care and other needs provided haphazardly.

The rights group denounced the fact that Western governments failed to condition economic aid to Russia to halt the violence in the small north Caucasus republic.

Russia poured forces into breakaway Chechnya on October 1, 1999 in a bid to wipe out separatist fighters blamed for a series of apartment bombings throughout Russia and for rebel incursions into neighboring Dagestan.

"The international community often lamented that it had no significant influence over Russia, but squandered real opportunities for leverage or sanctions in favor of political expediency," Human Rights Watch said.

The report noted that little had been done to prevent the further entrenchment of authoritarian governments in Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and other parts of the former Soviet Union.

"Once again, the international community chose not to use available policy tools to effect change or take a principled stand," it said.

It lamented that torture was also still widely used in various European countries, including Uzbekistan, Russia and Turkey.

"Torture remained common in Turkey and was used to coerce testimony and confessions in both common criminal cases and security-related cases," the report said.

However, one positive development was the publication this year by the Turkish parliament's Human Rights Commission of several reports documenting the persistence of torture, the report said.

While it hailed positive political developments in Serbia and Croatia, it regretted that following the fall of Milosevic, the international community had wavered in its commitment to press for cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

It also pointed out that rights violations had been reported by ethnic minority groups returning to Bosnia and Croatia.

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#4
Jamestown Foundation Monitor
December 7, 2000
RUSSIA-NATO RELATIONS IMPROVING?

A visit to Brussels this week by Russian Defense Minister Igor Sergeev appeared to mark another small step forward in what has been a slow process of rebuilding relations between NATO and Moscow. Sergeev's talks with defense ministers from NATO countries under the auspices of the NATO-Russia Permanent Joint Council were apparently conducted in a friendly fashion and included a host of suggestions from Sergeev regarding possible areas of Russian-NATO cooperation. Sergeev's visit to the Belgian capital also afforded him a chance to meet bilaterally with U.S. Secretary of State William Cohen. Those talks also proceeded in an apparently constructive fashion, and produced some assurances from Sergeev regarding Moscow's intentions with regard to possible arms sales to Iran.

The tone of Sergeev's visit offered the hope that the permafrost which has enveloped relations between Moscow and the alliance since the start of NATO's air war against Yugoslavia may finally be starting to thaw in earnest. For all of that, however, tensions between Russia and NATO--and between Russia and the United States in particular--lay not far beneath the surface. Indeed, the Sergeev's cooperative demeanor suggested that Moscow may now be interested not so much in mending fences with NATO as in presenting itself as a reasonable partner to the alliance's European governments.

In so doing Sergeev may have been aiming to bolster already well-developed Kremlin efforts aimed at exploiting differences between the United States and Europe on a host of security issues. As some Russian sources suggested, the timing for such a move is especially propitious now, with a change of presidential administrations looming in Washington and with European countries on the eve of a crucial summit meeting in Nice. More specifically, Moscow seems likely to continue to play on European nervousness over U.S. plans for a national missile defense system, plans which Europeans warn could ultimately decouple European and American security interests. Against that background, Sergeev reportedly repeated to alliance ministers an earlier Russian proposal calling for the creation of a joint European-NATO-Russian nonstrategic air defense system in Europe.

In addition, Russian officials have probably watched with some satisfaction as Europe and the United States clash over European proposals for the creation of a 60,000-strong European rapid reaction force. In remarks to European defense ministers in Brussels on December 5, Cohen highlighted U.S. concerns that the new force could undermine cohesion within NATO and ultimately endanger the alliance itself. A development of that sort, obviously, would cause little hand wringing in Moscow, where government officials have argued since the dissolution of the Soviet Union that NATO is a relic of the Cold War and should be transformed or dissolved.

That Sergeev may have been sugarcoating Moscow's real sentiments was suggested by the neutral tones he used in speaking of a proposal--one agreed upon by both sides on December 5--by which Russia and NATO would explore possible cooperation on possible joint submarine rescue efforts. Reports out of Brussels said that Sergeev had been careful to avoid blaming the West for the August 12 disaster which sunk the Russian nuclear submarine Kursk. That restraint was a bit unexpected, given that Russian defense officials, and Sergeev himself, have in large part embraced the theory that a collision with an American or British sub was the cause of the tragedy. Indeed, senior Russian officers have continued to complain about the unwillingness of the American and British navies to allow inspections of the three submarines--two American and one British--which were reportedly in the vicinity of the Kursk at the time it went down.

Underlying Russian-NATO tensions were also exposed in remarks Sergeev made to Russian reporters on his arrival in Brussels. While confirming that relations with the Western alliance were indeed improving, Sergeev nevertheless renewed Russian criticism of NATO's enlargement plans and warned the alliance specifically against admitting either the Baltic states or countries in southeastern Europe (Russian agencies, December 4-6; Izvestia, Kommersant daily, AFP, Reuters, December 6; Nezavisimaya gazeta, December 7).

The picture was similarly mixed with regard to Sergeev's talks with Cohen. The U.S. side reportedly pressed for Moscow to live up to a now well-publicized 1995 agreement by which it had committed to end arms shipments to Iran by the end of 1999. Moscow failed to live up to that agreement, and had more recently announced its intention to renounce the pact altogether. Cohen did win assurances from Sergeev in Brussels that Russia would not sell offensive arms to Iran. Sergeev reportedly also said that Moscow's arms dealings with Tehran would be largely limited to the servicing and maintaining old Soviet equipment (Reuters, BBC, December 6).

If that is true, it would certainly seem to contradict statements coming out of Moscow in recent days that Russia could earn some US$7 billion from arms sales to Iran, and that those deals could include purchases by Iran of Russian S-300 anti-aircraft missiles, Mi-17 combat helicopters and Su-25 fighter planes (AFP, December 6).

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#5
UPI
December 7, 2000
Analysis: Russia's foreign debt: Time to pay?
BY ARIEL COHEN

WASHINGTON, Dec. 7 (UPI) -- Is Russia, flush with cash from the windfall oil revenues, still looking for ways to delay repayment of the Soviet-era debt? Or has Moscow, which owed hundreds of billions of dollars to the West, decided to mend its ways and start paying up?

In fact, a debate is developing in Moscow between those who recognize that debt repayment may benefit Russia economically and politically, and those who automatically look for ways to stiff creditors.

Sources in the Russian Finance Ministry told UPI that President Putin advocates repayment, which will diminish Russia's dependence on the United States and the West in general.

On the other hand, Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, an experienced debt negotiator, supports tough bargaining and possible default on $100 billion Soviet-era debt.

The Russian Cabinet's rising stars -- First Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, and Economics Minister German Gref, both Putin loyalists -- understand that debt repayment will improve Russia's credit rating (currently a generous B- from Thompson).

Decreasing debt will also encourage foreign investment Putin hopes to get. But they are concerned that Russia will lack funds to repay higher amounts due in 2001-2003.

Unexpected oil revenues are a bonanza which allowed Russia to decrease its foreign debt by three percent, or $4.3 billion in the first six months of the year 2000 alone. The debt dropped from around $150 billion in January 2000, to $141.1 billion on July 1.

The Soviet-era debt is the largest chunk of the total, and comprises $97.7 billion. Russia owes most of it to sovereign creditors, which are members of the so-called "Paris Club", the group of creditor nations, primarily from the West.

The debt to the international financial organizations, including the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank has decreased by $2 billion to $17 billion. The debt to the IMF is over $10 billion and to the World Bank, $6.7 billion.

Germany, to whom Russia still owes over $30 billion, is adamant that Moscow pays. During recent meetings in Berlin and Moscow, German Chancellor Gerhardt Schroeder told Putin that Russia is not an impoverished nation, and therefore does not qualify for debt forgiveness. Putin seems to have taken the hint.

According to media reports, the Russian president said that the longer Russia drags out its foreign debt payments, the costlier they become. This is true, as the interest rates on state debt is usually between 4.5 percent and 6.5 percent.

"Some people suggest to emphasize social issues and address economic questions later," said Putin, but "there is another philosophy. It is to first address problems that are burdening the economy and not to slide into new debts."

Putin's philosophy of self-reliance is hardly surprising. In the past he called for rejecting International Monetary Fund loans, but not for submitting to Western demands.

This approach seems to be working: Russia recently defied the United States by abruptly abrogating the 1995 agreement between Vice President Al Gore and then-Prime Minister Victor Chernomyrdin.

According to the recently disclosed document, the United States agreed to ignore Russian weapons sales to Iran, as long as Russia completed them by the end of 1999. Russia recently announced that it goes ahead with the sales of sophisticated SA-16 anti-aircraft shoulder-launch missiles and annulled the agreement.

Putin also refused to get the alleged U.S. spy Ed Pope off the hook despite repeated please from President Clinton.

Russian foreign debt payments are due to increase, and reach $12-15 billion level in 2003 and beyond. If the oil prices come down to under $20 per barrel, Russia is likely not to have revenue to sustain the debt repayment schedule.

Prime Minister Kasyanov, who successfully negotiated a 30 percent forgiveness of the Russian debt to the London Club of private creditors, is known to take a different position that his boss Putin.

Kasyanov believes that Russia, as a member of the Paris Club and a creditor of dozens of developing countries during the Soviet period, should demand forgiveness of all, or at least one-half of the Soviet era debt, which make the repayment schedule much easier.

The West will never get repaid by the economic basket cases, such as Afghanistan or Laos. These countries owe tens of billions to Russia. Russia should swap their debt to Western creditors for its own, and get a discount, Kasyanov says.

A prominent Russian expert Sergei Rogov, Director of the Moscow USA-Canada Institute, believes that if the Western allies were generous to Germany and Japan after World War II, they should be generous to Russia now.

Moscow, after all, was on the loosing side in the Cold War. Otherwise, the creditors will encourage the emergence of a so-called "Weimar Russia," echoing the disastrous experience of the german Weimar Republic between 1918 and 1933. If Russia follows the Weimar Germany pattern, it could develop into an irredentist, anti-status quo power which may follow in the steps of Hitler's Germany.

Scary tactics aside, Russia wants to be the Soviet heir. It claims to be a legal successor to the Soviet Union as far as the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty is concerned and it wants to keep all Soviet property abroad. And with adoption of the Stalinist national anthem, the picture is all but complete.

But U.S. critics -- particularly among the Republcians who retain control of both Houses of Congress, counter that the Kremlin is attempting the oldest trick in diplomacy. They say it is trying to have its cake and eat it too.

(Ariel Cohen is a research fellow in Russian and Eurasian Studies at the Heritage Foundation.)

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#6
YELTSIN AGAINST REVIVAL OF SOVIET-ERA NATIONAL ANTHEM

MOSCOW. Dec 7 (Interfax) - Russia's first President Boris Yeltsin categorically opposes the revival of the Soviet-era national anthem. At the same time, he disagrees with assertions that current President Vladimir Putin "has forced Russia" to accept the melody of the old Soviet national anthem.
"I disagree with the wording 'Putin has forced Russia' [to accept the old national anthem]," Yeltsin said. "It's true, many people, particularly the older generation, like the old national anthem. But I am categorically against the revival of the Soviet-era national anthem," Yeltsin said in an interview with the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda. "Under Stalin people sang one set of words, then Khrushchev came, cut out the line about the father of the nation and saved the melody. Under Brezhnev, changes were made in the lyrics again. Shall we have yet another text now? I don't think all this should be treated jokingly," Yeltsin said.
"There is only one thing which I associate with the old national anthem - party congresses and party conferences at which the power of the party bureaucrats was consolidated," he said.
"As to the athletes who are often mentioned in this context,, they want the national anthem to remain unchanged and to have lyrics. I'm sure our athletes don't think about the old Soviet-era national anthem. They are young people looking into the future, not in the past," Yeltsin said. He praised chief of the Unified Energy Systems of Russia power grid, Anatoly Chubais, for aptly remarking that "the president must not blindly follow the moods of the people, but must actively influence them." "The national anthem is a complicated issue. Really, shall I myself sit down and write the lyrics and the music?" the first Russian president said.

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#7
ALMOST 50% OF RUSSIANS OPPOSE IDEA TO RESUME ARMS TRADE WITH IRAN - POLL

MOSCOW. Dec 7 (Interfax) - Almost half (47%) of Russians do not approve of Moscow's idea of resuming military-technical cooperation with Iran, while 34% hold the opposite view.
Most of the opponents of the idea of resuming arms trade with Iran are women (53%), people under the age of 35 (54%) and rural dwellers (54%). Men (47%) and people with higher education (also 47%) support the idea.
Interfax has obtained these results from a nationwide poll conducted December 2 by the Public Opinion Foundation. A similar poll was carried out a year ago in connection with the supply of the S-300 rocket system to Cyprus. The United States and other NATO countries protested the move, but the majority of Russians backed up their government, with 48% of those polled saying they supported the supplies and 25% not.
At present Russians doubt the economic sense of military cooperation with Iran. The question "Do you think that Russia will see more benefits from trade with Iran than losses from international sanctions?" was asked of the polled, 39% of them said that losses would be larger, and 24% hoped that benefits would outweigh the losses. There is no consensus in the attitude to arms trade as such, and there is no trend toward greater or lesser support to arms shipments abroad.
The poll showed that 39% of Russians maintain that the country's arms trade should be expanded in December 2000, while the index for March was 48%. Another 37% percent favored curtailment of the arms trade in December, and 42% said March.

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#8
Pentagon admits Russians buzzed Kitty Hawk then e-mailed pictures

WASHINGTON, Dec 7 (AFP) -
The Pentagon admitted Thursday that Russian fighters flew several hundred feet directly over the USS Kitty Hawk October 17 in the Sea of Japan, taking photographs of the deck that were later e-mailed by the Russians to the aircraft carrier.

The black-and-white photographs were sent in November by a regional Russian military command along with a "very short and not particularly remarkable" message, said Rear Admiral Steve Pietropaoli, chief of navy public affairs.

The Pentagon last week had said the Russian aircraft had not flown directly over the Kitty Hawk, as senior Russian officials had boasted last month, but to one side of it at altitudes of several thousand feet.

On Friday, however, Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon acknowledged that on October 17 "they did fly very close to the carrier, within several hundred feet," he said.

"They did take some pictures. They did e-mail the pictures to the Navy and to the ship actually, and I would refer you to the Navy for those pictures," he said.

The Navy refused to release the pictures, which officials said showed the ship's deck.

Russian officials had said the carrier was taken by surprise, and that the pictures captured the panic on deck as their aircraft flew over.

The Pentagon has acknowledged that Kitty Hawk's planes were not immediately scrambled, saying the carrier was refueling at the time and not traveling fast enough to launch aircraft.

But it denies that the Kitty Hawk was taken by surprise.

Pietropaoli said the Russian aircraft -- four SU-24 Fencers and SU-27 Flankers -- were detected and tracked by radar almost from the time they took off from bases in the Russian far east, adding that the carrier took "a calculated risk" that the flights bore no hostile intent.

"There is nothing about this incident that constitutes a threat," he said.

The October 17 incident was one of three in which Russian aircraft have flown over the Kitty Hawk.

The first incident occurred on October 12, the same day a US destroyer refueling in Yemen was devastated by a suicide bombing. The last incident occurred November 9.

Neither the Navy nor the Pentagon has filed a protest over incidents, which officials said violated no international conventions.

But Bacon said the Kitty Hawk has changed its alert posture in response to the incidents.

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#9
Christian Science Monitor
December 8, 2000
Chernobyl closes, legacy endures
The official shutoff is Dec. 15, 14 years after a disaster that shook industry,
East-West ties.
By Scott Peterson Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

The warning lights began to flash at Chernobyl's notorious nuclear power station, indicating a high-pressure steam leak. As a result, the complex's last reactor was shut down unceremoniously at 11:04 a.m. on Wednesday, just days before it was due to be officially decommissioned.

Declaring it a "historic moment," officials say they are not sure if the plant will be revved up again, just to hit the "off" switch Dec. 15.

Chernobyl is the site of the world's worst nuclear accident. The Soviet-era meltdown on April 26, 1986, immediately killed some 30 people and spewed radioactive material across Europe. Radiation is blamed for at least 6,000 subsequent deaths and health problems affecting millions in Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus.

But part of Chernobyl's legacy, analysts say, is positive: The disaster was a critical event that shook the nuclear power industry out of complacency, threw a spotlight on East-West differences, and brought a new sense of caution as well as tougher safety rules.

"Chernobyl was a real eye-opener that made people think about the apparent contradiction between safety and production," says Mark Hibbs, the Bonn, Germany based Europe and Asia editor for Nucleonics Week, a specialist magazine based in Washington, D.C. "The Soviets saw safety as putting limits on production, but today we know that the safer a reactor is, the more productive it will be."

If that was a primary lesson from Chernobyl, analysts say, the emergency shutdown this week is a case in point. In the past - with plans for the big finale that feature President Leonid Kuchma well under way - engineers would have thought twice about turning off the reactor early. The leaking pipe caused an increase in temperature and humidity in a sealed room. It was not serious, engineers say, though fixing it required turning off the reactor until the room cooled.

"Anyone would have been punished in 1986 for shutting down for such a small thing," says Sergei Pavlovsky, head of Chernobyl's external relations department. "The priority then was electrical output, not safety. The accident changed all our thoughts."

Ukraine inherited Chernobyl with the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. Russians and Ukrainians have fond memories of trips before the accident to the vast forests nearby, not to mention the good mushroom picking. Today, a barbed-wire fence encircles an 18-mile "exclusion zone" around the plant. Immediately after the accident, 100,000 residents were evacuated, though a few thousand have returned. Much of the zone is likely to be relatively safe in 100 years, officials say. But it may be thousands of years before plutonium contamination dissipates in an inner, six-mile ring, where no one is allowed to live.

Ground zero is Unit Four of the Chernobyl complex, where an estimated 200 tons of "hot" radioactive material is encased in a huge concrete and steel tomb called the sarcophagus.

In front of the plant's main office, a large silver head of Lenin sits defiantly on a plinth, a holdover of an earlier era. These days, every worker must also pass elaborate radiation detectors, and a small black dosimeter is clipped to every lapel.

Western experts have sought to "imbue a safety culture" at former-Soviet reactors for more than a decade, and the "absolute key" driving force was the Chernobyl blast, says Gordon Fowler, Ukraine officer for the US Nuclear

Regulatory Commission.

"The goal is very, very large: to change the way people are thinking," says Mr. Fowler. The NRC began work in the Soviet Union in 1988, and while NRC-supported local regulatory bodies are beginning to work, it is a long-term process. "We are a lot further along, but you've got to stay in there with them," he says.

Though there are a dozen reactors in Russia and Lithuania of the same RBMK design as Chernobyl, Ukraine has come under the heaviest Western pressure to close its plant for good. Unit Four was destroyed by the 1986 blast, and two other reactors have since been shut down.

But after one of Chernobyl's best years in memory - operating at above 82 percent capacity, until frozen electrical wires forced an initial shutdown on Nov. 28 - many here argue that closing Unit Three will deprive Ukrainians of much-needed electricity and thousands of well-paying jobs. Winter beginning to bite is a further complication.

"It's a political decision to shut it down, which doesn't meet the interests of Ukraine or the people who work here. It's a demand of the West," says Artun Zakharov, a leading project engineer. The plant provides 5 percent of Ukraine's energy and so will deprive 5 percent of the population of electricity, he says, because there "is no power that can take its place."

Western donors promised to provide alternatives, but directors of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development only met yesterday to vote on a $215 million loan for two new nuclear plants. Russia has made clear that - despite anxiety in the West about its RBMK plant design - it won't consider shutting down its reactors. Yevgeny Adamov, Russia's atomic energy minister and one of the RBMK designers, last week accused Ukraine of bowing to Western pressure. "There is a tradeoff or compromise between Ukraine getting loans and pressure to close the plant," Mr. Adamov said. "There are no grounds - technical or safety - to close the Chernobyl nuclear power plant."

Western experts disagree, citing design weaknesses that contributed to the disaster. Russia has "taken a lot of steps" and "corrected the most egregious" problems," says the NRC's Fowler, but "the West would still not license those plants." The poor state of the economies of Russia and other former Soviet states make changes tough, he notes, and applying Western standards in such conditions is difficult.

Closing may be a symbolic victory, but the accident here also sparked calls for a more open understanding of such facilities. Western governments found that, when Soviet authorities finally acknowledged the 1986 blast two days later, they knew almost nothing about the plant's design - and could offer little help. Transparency is one lesson from Chernobyl, says Mr. Hibbs, that is still being learned. "Some people feel that a few nuclear programs are just as isolated today as the Soviets were 15 years ago." India, for example, has refused safety inspections by the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency, and "a lot of people say it is an accident waiting to happen."

As the Chernobyl reactor cools down - possibly for the last time - its legacy may put an end to a Soviet joke popular before the accident that "even a gas stove should be as safe as the nuclear industry."

"Back then, society was quite calm, maybe too sure, of their nuclear power stations. But now people are quite aware of their responsibility," says Vladimir Komarov, a senior director at Chernobyl. "This [shutdown] decision has a political and psychological basis, to show that the thing that happened could never ... be repeated here," he says. "But the sarcophagus will remain, and the problem will remain here."

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#10
At least 10 years needed for Russian military reform

ITAR-TASS

Moscow, 7th December, ITAR-TASS correspondent Anatoliy Yurkin: It will take at least 10 years to reform Russia's military organization, Russian Security Council Secretary Sergey Ivanov believes. He said this on Wednesday [6th December] when visiting the headquarters of the Moscow Military District (MMD), where there was a conference of the commands of the MMD, the Moscow Region air force and air defence and the Moscow District of internal troops of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs. The conference discussed implementing decisions made on improving the state's military organization made at recent Russian Security Council meetings.

The Security Council's press service reported that Ivanov said that "over the next decade we have to transform the state's military organization into a compact, mobile and technically well-equipped structure which is well-trained and capable of effectively defending the country and ensuring the security of the state".

Sergey Ivanov said that "we must provide adequate social support for servicemen and civilian staff, but the upkeep of the military must be affordable for the country's economy".

The head of the Security Council met representatives of the Central Federal District's law-enforcement bodies. The president's authorized representative in the Central Federal District, Georgiy Poltavchenko, took part in the conference.

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#11
The Russia Journal
December 3-9, 2000
Secret funds for secret budget
By Alexander Golts

The people who plan Russia's military policy deliberately put their stakes on total and absolute secrecy. They see no need to inform the public about how military reform is to be carried out.

Despite the fact that President Vladimir Putin's address to a recent gathering of generals, and Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev's speech to the State Duma lower house were both made public, nothing is known of exactly how military reform will be implemented.

What is known is that cutbacks are planned -- 365,000 servicemen and 135,000 civilian specialists. It's also known that by 2005, the armed forces will comprise only three branches -- the Air Force, Navy and Army. The strategic missile forces will lose their status as a separate branch. But neither cutbacks nor organizational changes are reforms in themselves.

In any other country, an issue like military reform would be widely discussed in parliament. It is parliament, after all, that distributes (or should distribute) finances and can therefore exercise control on the government. But, even among the Duma deputies, only a privileged few know how every fourth budget ruble is to be spent. The thing is that of the four pages that give a more or less detailed breakdown of the main items of defense expenditure, only one figure -- general defense expenditure -- is not considered secret.

Chairman of the Duma Defense Committee Andrei Nikolayev said he is fighting for the defense budget to be made open, at least within the limits of what Russia annually reports to the United Nations on its defense spending. If this happens, then Russian citizens (and not so privileged deputies) will finally get access to the same information on Russia's defense spending as foreign specialists have.

The Defense Ministry also supports making the budget more open, taking the view that then people will know how little Russia spends on its armed forces. Only Deputy Finance Minister Lyubov Kudelina at one point said that "open information on defense spending would increase lobbying, and this would complicate normal work on the budget."

But those who need to know are fully aware of how much the state plans to spend on this or that military program. It's another matter that the various participants in the process would very much like to divide up the budget money among themselves, without any public attention.

This wish is intensified by the fact that, for perhaps the first time in Russia's post-Soviet history, the state has some significant funds at its disposal that could go to priority sectors. The military budget has already been increased by more than 40 percent. Everyone knows, however, that this money comes not from economic growth but from favorable world oil prices.

There is, then, no guarantee that the government will have similar amounts of money next year. In the end, it was decided not to take any risks and leave things as they are. The secrecy surrounding the defense budget is just a cover for the emptiness it contains and lack of ideas that would require a concentration of funding.

"The 2001 defense budget is better than last year's, but it is a budget of stabilization, not of reform," said Duma Defense Committee Chairman Nikolayev. "It has no clearly identified priorities. It should improve the state of affairs, but isn't able to really resolve a single problem."

The budget sticks to the previous structure, with around 70 percent of all funding going to maintaining the Army. Next year, as in past years, the state plans to continue propping up a cumbersome and ineffective military machine. At the same time, as the Security Council decision on reform dictates, General headquarters will make cutbacks of 200,000 servicemen.

At least half of these people are likely to be officers and warrant officers who, according to the law, are supposed to receive an apartment and decent financial compensation if they are laid off. Most of the money budgeted under "military reform" will therefore go on this, rather than on structural reform of the armed forces.

Chechnya is another black hole in the budget. Acting out of political considerations, the Kremlin and Finance Ministry wanted to hide expenses on restoring (and maintaining) constitutional order in Chechnya among the current expenses of various ministries, including the Defense Ministry.

As a result, the armed forces are left with not so much money for their own development â?" 30 billion to 40 billion rubles. It is for this money that a battle is now under way in the Duma. The interests of the armed forces and the military-industrial complex have come into conflict.

Nikolayev thinks a maximum should be spent on military training. "To judge by the budget, it looks like we conscript people into the armed forces just to feed and clothe them. What's the point of training military pilots if they're then not going to fly a plane for the next five years. We've lost around two dozen aircraft in Chechnya, and half were just because the pilots don't know how to fly."

For these reasons, Nikolayev calls for a three-fold increase in supplies of fuel purchased, which is essential for effective training.

Nikolayev's main opponent is the chairman of the Industry, Construction and Technology Committee, Yury Maslyukov, who has been trying to prove that all additional income should go into buying military technology as the share of modern weapons in the Russian arsenal continues to decline.

But producing single models of tanks and planes is an absurd waste of money. Moreover, it makes no sense to produce arms today that don't fit into the general arms system, which must have common intelligence and information backup.

As for supporting the military-industrial complex, a giant step has already been taken in this direction. On the Duma Defense Committee's initiative, the state has promised to pay 5 billion rubles in Defense Ministry debts to defense industry companies. Another 27 billion rubles of Defense Ministry debt will become state domestic debt securities.

However it's looked at, next year's defense budget is a tribute to the past -- it is all about patching up the holes and paying back debts. The Kremlin thinks that this will clear the way for real reform to begin. But the question is, will there be the money for this reform in the future?

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#12
Veteran Russian spy anticipates pardon for US businessman
Interfax

Moscow, 7th December: Veteran of the Soviet intelligence service Mikhail Lyubimov has said he is "absolutely convinced" that the Russian leadership will in the end "make the humane gesture" and pardon US citizen Edmond Pope, who was convicted on spy charges on Wednesday [6th December].

The Russian authorities are unlikely to be interested in keeping Pope in prison in Russia and "have an enemy in the person of the US administration", Lyubimov told Interfax today.

Moscow City Court found the US businessman Pope guilty of spying activities for the US and sentenced him to 20 years in high-security prison.

"The Russian special services have done their job and the trial has been carried out, in other words, all legal routine has been observed, and the goal now is releasing Pope graciously," the retired intelligence officer said...

Lyubimov "flatly excluded" the possibility of exchanging Pope for US citizens sentenced for spying for Moscow, among them Aldrich Ames, who was sentenced to life in prison for spying for the KGB.

"The US president cannot do that without a court order, and America has very tough law in this respect," Lyubimov said.

What is more, "the American public will be unable to countenance, say, the release of Ames, because it is known in the United States that his work for Moscow resulted in the execution of several CIA agents, among them a general of the Main Intelligence Department who was a resident agent in India, in 1986."

Speaking about the Pope case, Lyubimov noted that "apparently, the fact of espionage took place".

In the opinion of the retired intelligence agent, the US businessman's arrest is connected with the general tendency "to bring order to Russia, to kickstart the work of the law enforcement agencies".

According to Lyubimov, he does not understand "why the American received such a tough sentence", although, as Lyubimov said, "it is hard to judge the graveness of Pope's actions, not being familiar with the secret materials of the investigation".

In any case, "if an intelligence agent has gone into business, he should not deal with spheres connected with state secrets", Lyubimov said.

According to the former intelligence agent, now he would "advise all our special services to warn" all former US intelligence agents who have gone into business and are working in Russia "to stay away from sensitive areas".

Lyubimov worked for Soviet intelligence in Great Britain, from where he was deported as persona non grata in 1965. He worked in Denmark twice (the last time as a resident Soviet intelligence agent). He retired in 1980. Lyubimov holds the rank of colonel in the KGB.

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