#1
Ukraine government falls victim to Communist-tycoon alliance

KIEV, April 26 (AFP) -
Ukraine plunged Thursday into its worst political crisis since independence 10 years ago when parliament voted overwhelmingly to oust reformist Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko and his entire cabinet.

An unlikely alliance of Communists and parties supported by tycoons who felt the brunt of Yushchenko's economic reform efforts easily mustered 263 votes in the 450 chamber, ousting the government.

Under Ukraine's constitution, Yushchenko's cabinet will now have to be removed from office within 60 days.

The vote thrusts Yushchenko, 47, into the role of unofficial leader of Ukraine's opposition to President Leonid Kuchma, casting a politician with a squeaky-clean image against a president embroiled in a journalist murder scandal.

"I am going, but I will be back. I am not going to leave politics. I am going to fight on," Yushchenko told a crowd of some 10,000 people who had come to support him outside the parliament building.

"I am convinced that democracy in Ukraine has suffered a serious setback," he said.

"The political elite, represented by those who voted against the government, is unable to come to terms with a lawful economy and public politics."

Ukraine giant neighbor Russia issued an initially cautious response to Yushchenko's ouster, calling it an internal affair that should not affect the at-times testy ties between the two former Soviet states.

Ukraine's Communists accused Yushchenko -- a former central bank chief who came to head the government in December 1999 -- of impoverishing the country by pushing through land privatization and other reforms supported by the International Monetary Fund.

But analysts believe Kuchma loyalists were behind the move to oust Yushchenko in a bid to wrest control of government policy from the liberal premier.

Together with his former deputy Yulia Timoshenko, who was sacked after her arrest on corruption charges, Yushchenko is well placed to rally dissident groups campaigning to impeach Kuchma for his alleged role in the murder of a journalist.

Kuchma has been effectively marginalized as a political force by the long-running scandal over Georgy Gongadze's death, but no single figure has emerged in Ukraine to spearhead opposition moves to unseat the president.

Analysts say the business tycoons -- known here as "oligarchs" -- together with centrist factions such as Trudova Ukraina, are backing the Communist motion as part of a Kuchma-inspired plot to wrest control over government policy from Yushchenko.

But public support for Yushchenko was evident Thursday as thousands chanted "Hands off Yushchenko" while waving Ukrainian flags.

Timoshenko now heads the opposition center-right Batkivshina (Motherland) party, but analysts believe Yushchenko would pose a stronger challenge to the pro-Kuchma establishment in a forthcoming election.

The jury is still out as to whether Timoshenko is an innocent victim of official skullduggery or an opportunist whose hands are as muddied as the president's, while Yushchenko has a reputation for honesty almost unprecedented in Ukrainian politics.

Meanwhile, fears that Yushchenko's ouster will see Ukraine drift back into the Russian sphere of influence, turning its back on the West, prompted IMF chief Horst Koeller to speak up in support of the beleaguered prime minister.

The no-confidence vote would stall Ukraine's reform efforts and see the country "lose time" in its efforts to modernize the economy, Koehler was quoted as saying by Interfax.

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#2
BBC Monitoring
Russia: Former USSR president attends environmental conference in New York
Text of report by Russian NTV on 26 April

[Presenter] And now more news from the United States. A visit by a Russian politician whom the Americans like more than anybody else, Mikhail Gorbachev, has become a high-profile event of social life in New York. This time he came to fight for environment. Vladimir Lenskiy gives the details.

[Correspondent] Mikhail Gorbachev came to New York as an environmentalist. He is a chairman of the Russian branch of the Green Cross, and represents the organization at the annual world forum Global Green.

[Gorbachev, speaking at a news conference] Without people's participation, without their position we can become hostages of erroneous decisions by politicians and businessmen.

[Correspondent] However, nobody forgets that Gorbachev is a politician in the first instance. The prime minister of Iceland [David Oddsson] reminded the journalists that the first meeting between Soviet and American leaders [Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan] took place in his country, in Reykjavik, in 1986. Three American presidents succeeded each other since then. Gorbachev says that it would be premature to assess George Bush, Jr. following the first 100 days of his presidency.

All speakers were thanking Gorbachev for more than just his contribution to environmental protection.

[Galina Novikova, captioned as Gorbachev's representative in New York] His name means so much for any field of activity, including the Green Cross. Of course, something important can be done with his participation for protection of the environment in the whole world.

[Correspondent] America really sees Gorbachev as a person of global importance, an architect of reforms which changed the world. Gorbachev's popularity in the West only grows as years are passing. The very fact of his presence can make any event more prestigious.

[08'34'40"] [Video shows the news conference in New York]

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#3
The Journal Gazette (Indiana)
April 25, 2001
Lugar urges renewed focus on U.S.-Russia relations
By Sylvia A. Smith
Washington editor

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration shouldn't put relations with Russia on the back burner, Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., cautioned Tuesday.

"We must resist the temptation to simply continue the status quo or shift to a more limited, constrained conception of Russia as simply a bundle of problems," he said.

"Instead, I would recommend an agenda for the renewal of Russian-American relations," Lugar said to an audience attending a two-day conference on relations between the two nations.

During the meeting Lugar and former Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., received an award from former Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev, now president of Global Green, for creating a 10-year-old program to reduce weapons and materials of mass destruction in Russia and the former republics after the Soviet Union broke up.

The Bush White House hasn't explained how it plans to deal with Russia, said Blair Ruble, director of the Kennan Institute for Russian Studies at the Woodrow Wilson Center.

"They really haven't articulated a Russian policy. They haven't taken a position one way or the other," he said, agreeing with Lugar that the Bush administration shouldn't ignore Russia.

In his speech, Lugar said the core of U.S.-Russian relations should be the countries' mutual interest in reducing the threat of weapons of mass destruction.

Lugar applauded the Bush administration's announced plan to re-evaluate U.S. policy regarding Russia. But he said the final product should emphasize - not minimize - the non-proliferation programs.

"We must continue to place a priority on redressing the instability of the former Soviet arsenal by continuing and expanding joint approaches to eliminating weapons of mass destruction in Russia and in other countries all over the world," he said.

He encouraged President Bush to spend more, not less, on U.S. efforts to reduce nuclear proliferation.

Although Bush's budget proposal calls for increasing the Nunn-Lugar spending from $440 million to $490 million next year, it recommends Congress allocate 14 percent less for other programs aimed at "loose nukes" in Russia.

Lugar said the benefits of spending the money is obvious: 422 ballistic missiles, 83 bombers, 425 long-range nuclear air-launched cruise missiles, 308 submarine missile launchers, 184 submarine-launched ballistic missiles and 18 strategic missile submarines have been destroyed since Nunn-Lugar began; 194 nuclear test tunnels have been sealed; and 5,336 warheads that were on strategic systems aimed at the United States have been deactivated.

"When the Soviet Union collapsed, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakstan became the third-, fourth- and eighth-largest nuclear powers in the world," Lugar said. "Without Nunn-Lugar, they would still have thousands of nuclear weapons. Instead, all three countries are nuclear weapons free.

"To put it in perspective, Nunn-Lugar has dismantled more nuclear weaponry than the countries of Great Britain, France and China currently possess in their stockpiles and arsenals combined."

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#4
Moscow Times
April 26, 2001
Paying for War in Chechnya
By Pavel Felgenhauer

Russian troops began the "antiterrorist operation" against separatist forces in Chechnya in 1999 at the same time as the Defense Ministry was preparing a special all-volunteer airborne brigade to serve as peacekeepers in Kosovo under NATO command. Russian peacekeepers in Yugoslavia are paid lavishly in comparison with troops serving at home - up to $1,000 per month. In the fall of 1999, President Vladimir Putin announced that the solders fighting "terrorists" would be paid no less - up to 950 rubles per day (more than $30).

In fact, many kontrakniki who enlisted to serve in the Balkans in 1999 were sent instead to fight in the Caucasus. Later it became customary to send to Kosovo soldiers who had already served a tour in Chechnya. Among Russian airborne forces, a tour as peacekeeper in Kosovo or Bosnia is considered a well-paid vacation that must first be earned in the slime of Chechen.

But the Russian force in Kosovo is only 3,616 men and the Bosnia contingent numbers some 1,500 more: In Chechnya, at the height of the fighting last year, there were over 100,000 servicemen. Perhaps back in 1999 the Kremlin really thought that the war in Chechnya would be over quickly and the bill for extra pay wouldn't amount to that much. However, as the campaign has dragged on, the tab has ballooned to about 3 billion rubles ($110 million) per month.

Finance Ministry officials say that in fiscal year 2000 the extra-budgetary expenditure on the war in Chechnya amounted to 60 billion rubles ($2.2 billion). Some 30 billion rubles was spent on extra pay, 7 billion on "reconstruction of Chechnya" and the rest on extra equipment procurement, supplies, transportation of troops and so on.

The extra-budgetary expenditure on operations in the North Caucasus in 1999 adds some 30 billion rubles more to the total. Today the war in Chechnya is in its third fiscal year with total costs fast approaching $4 billion. But even that doesn't give the whole story. The official exchange rate does not fully reflect the real purchasing power of the ruble, which was grossly undervalued after the sharp devaluation in 1998. The corrected dollar equivalent of all extra-budgetary expenses on the "antiterrorist operation" in Chechnya may be estimated to be at least $10 billion - a cost that Russia can hardly afford.

The Finance Ministry has been trying to get a grip on this growing bill. Putin has announced that beginning in May, extra combat pay will be abolished and replaced by a cheaper system of bonuses. But will this solve the problem?

Since 1994 Russia has been fighting an intermittent war in Chechnya without any serious procurement of heavy equipment or munitions. Instead the Defense Ministry has each time dipped deeper and deeper into Soviet Cold War stocks.

The troops in Chechnya have made extensive use of heavy artillery, and this has severely depleted munitions stockpiles, as there has been no serial production of heavy shells in Russia for a decade. During the 1994-96 Chechen war, officers complained that they were using shells produced in the 1980s. In the present conflict, shells produced in the 1970s and even the 1960s have been supplied to the front. It has been reported that in December 1999 the government released 8 billion rubles ($285 million) for the purchase of new heavy shells, but the defense industry apparently has not yet managed to resume serial production.

Reports from Chechnya say that Russian troops are running out of ammunition for the most-used heavy gun - the 122mm D-30 howitzer. One of the remedies being considered by the General Staff is to bring the pre-World War II M-30 122mm howitzer out of strategic storage. Millions of rounds of shells for this weapon have been kept in storage since the 1940s.

It is often said that wars speed up military-technical progress. In the North Caucasus, the opposite is happening. The army is degrading both morally and technically. Bad training, badly organized logistical support and constant marauding by the troops is producing poor discipline. Poor discipline and bad training means that equipment is badly maintained. The increasingly outdated equipment that is being used in Chechnya constantly breaks down even when it is properly managed. Outdated munitions misfire, killing and maiming troops and further affecting morale.

Today the armed forces in Chechnya are trapped in a vicious cycle of degradation. And Putin's new pay scheme isn't going to do anything to break it.

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

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#5
Christian Science Monitor
April 27, 2001
Caucasian minorities find hostile home in new Russia
A recent, fatal skinhead rampage forces Russians to confront growing racism.
By Fred Weir
Special to The Christian Science Monitor

If they would listen, Gasan Makhmudov could tell Russians shocking facts about how their society has changed.

"Russians used to be tolerant and easygoing, but now they seem tense and full of hate," says the former construction worker, who sells fruit in Moscow's Dorogomilovskaya market. He would rather stay home in his native Azerbaijan, a former Soviet Caucasus republic, but there are no jobs there, he says, and he has a family to feed.

Russians "despise all Caucasians," Mr. Makhmudov says. "You have to behave in a certain way - keep your eyes down. Never contradict a Russian. If you talk back to a policeman, you'll be beaten for sure."

Human rights experts say Russia's new racist mood often spills over into violence against the darker-skinned people from the Caucasus, who are the majority of Moscow's market traders. Often the violence is meted out by police, with no official report made.

But even President Vladimir Putin took note last weekend, after gangs of racist "skinhead" youths killed one person and seriously injured at least 10 others in rampages said to be in honor of Hitler's birthday, April 20.

Words vs. deeds

In Russia, which lost 26 million people fighting the Nazis in World War II, the news hit like a bombshell. "In a multiracial society like Russia, this is absolutely unacceptable," Mr. Putin said in televised remarks. He added that police would get orders to extend greater protection to minorities.

Analysts and human rights workers say that while Putin's words are welcome, he has not correctly identified the problem. In post-Soviet Russia, the Caucasus has become the main area of political and ethnic instability, and the Kremlin's strong-armed attempts to assert control have done much to brutalize and divide Russian society. Two savage wars to put down a secessionist rebellion in the Caucasus republic of Chechnya have killed tens of thousands, and made "Chechen" a synonym for "terrorist" and "criminal" in the minds of many Russians.

"We find popular hatred toward Caucasians, and Chechens in particular, rises and falls according to the news from the war front," says Lev Gudkov, a sociologist with the VTsIOM public opinion agency in Moscow.

On one level, the growing "skinhead" violence against Caucasian minorities in Russian cities may be seen as the aping of an Internet-driven worldwide movement of fascist-minded youths. Russia's faltering economy also plays a role: Market reforms have led to mass poverty and disillusionment for many youth, who then target relatively prosperous Caucasian market vendors as scapegoats.

"The fascism emerging here wears a Russian face, it wields Russian passions and prejudices, and its roots are in our own conditions," says Denis Dragunsky, an expert at the National Project Institute, a Moscow think tank

Analysts and human rights activists say that if Putin is serious about combatting racism, he must recognize that the state is a major part of the problem.

"The readiness to use extreme force in dealing with interethnic problems was demonstrated by the Russian government, and that's the example before the whole society," says Andrei Zdravomyslev, an ethnic expert with the Moscow-based Institute of Social and National Issues.

Many Caucasian market vendors say they fear the Moscow police much more than the small groups of skinheads roaming the streets. Liana, a vegetable vendor from the Caucasus republic of Karachayevo-Cherkessia, who asked that her last name not be used, says police beat up her son "because he was too slow in showing his documents."

Calls for change

An antiracist educational campaign, beginning with the police forces, would be one sign the Kremlin is ready to start tackling the issue, say experts. "We need special programs for the security forces, the Army, local government officials and the population at large," says Mr. Zdravomyslev. "Tolerance and cooperation need to be learned all over again in this society."

Efforts to promote minorities are also needed, he says. "We have a multiethnic society, but this is not well reflected on Russian state TV, or in the Kremlin for that matter. If we are to believe in change, then it is urgent to see ... fresh examples in these places."

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#6
The Russia Journal
April 20-26, 2001
Why the generals don’t want a professional army
For Russia’s top brass, conscripts keep the defense cash coming in
By Alexander Golts

Over the past couple of weeks, police in the Moscow metro have not only been stopping dark-haired "people of Caucasian nationality" for document checks. Young men with typically Slavic looks are also drawing their share of police attention. This means that in Moscow and throughout the country, conscription time has come round again.

In Moscow today, as in the towns of 18th-century Europe, the hunt is on for new recruits. With police help, draft-office officials aren’t sparing any effort to ensure they fulfill their conscription quotas. The Defense Ministry plans to call up 188,000 new recruits this year.

A scientist with a sense of irony once said that Soviet agriculture was a social and not an economic problem. In the same way, the conscription issue has long since ceased to be a defense matter and has become a pressing social concern.

The reality of the matter is that compulsory military service in Russia is not compulsory for everyone. According to Gen. Vyacheslav Putilin, head of General Headquarters’ Chief Recruitment Department, 88 percent of young men who are called up get their service deferred.

It’s no secret that many educational establishments exist for the sole purpose of granting these deferrals. A whole industry of bribes exists, with doctors and draft-office officials getting their palms greased to authorize deferrals of military service.

Putilin also finds himself forced to admit that the new soldiers heading off for the Army are far from the best. More than half of the draftees have never studied or had a job. It’s pure fantasy to imagine that these young men will become the soldiers of the 21st century.

But despite all this, the Defense Ministry is doing all it can to prevent the changeover to a professional army. One official argument the top generals give is that a professional army would mean drastically increasing the defense budget.

But this is not true. When France changed over to a professional army its defense budget rose only slightly. India and Pakistan, neither of which are rich countries, both have professional armies. Some Russian defense officials have let it slip that contract soldiers rather than conscripts would require an additional 24 billion rubles - not an impossible sum.

True, the same officials hastened to add that the Army could become professional only if the state could guarantee housing for all servicemen. In today’s Russia this is an impossible task. Any government ministry setting itself an aim like this would find itself rapidly defeated.

The Defense Ministry estimates that detailed studies on how much a contract army would cost will be completed next year. But one thing observers can bet on is that the generals will forget to mention the fact that it is no cheaper to run a conscript army.

No one has ever calculated how much it costs in finances and material resources to give new conscripts elementary military training every six months. Each fresh influx of conscripts is estimated to cost 80 million to 100 million rubles. Regional authorities cover a large portion of this money, and this gives military officials the impression that conscription doesn’t cost anything. In reality, the cost is high, and it is struggling Russian industry that pays the price as money continues to be wasted on conscription.

But defense officials say these sacrifices are needed to ensure that, in the event of a buildup to war, the armed forces would be able to mobilize millions of citizens. This, however, has repeatedly proved to be flawed logic. The strategic resources needed to keep an army of this size armed and equipped have long been exhausted.

Defense officials know this but stubbornly cling to the old myths. As if this wasn’t enough, they actively try to discredit the idea of contract soldiers. President Vladimir Putin himself was forced to fly to Chechnya to clear up the tangled system of payments for participating in military operations.

It looks a lot as if the aim is to make the idea of a "professional soldier" synonymous with the term "mercenary." Instead of creating an army formed by trained professionals, military officials wait until military action breaks out and then lure volunteers from round the country with the promise of good money. As soon as the action quiets down, these volunteers find their payments reduced. The military officials, meanwhile, proceed to complain about these contract soldiers’ lack of discipline and their criminal leanings, presenting this as proof that a professional army just doesn’t work.

The truth of the matter, however, is that changing over to a professional army goes against the interests of a large number of senior officers. With the armed forces currently at 1,200,000 men, of whom 800,000 are conscripts, there is one officer for every two soldiers.

Even with cutbacks being implemented to bring the armed forces down to 800,000 men, Gen. Putilin insists that conscription will nonetheless continue over the coming years and won’t be reduced. This could mean that already today there are far less men in the armed forces than is officially stated. It’s easier to fiddle the figures for conscripts, who don’t get paid a wage, than for contract soldiers. This all gives generals the chance to make it look like their services are still needed in the armed forces.

Keeping a conscript army is also the only way to maintain in place the strange situation in which the Russian Army has as many if not more colonels than lieutenants. The logic in this is that these officers, who spend their time shuffling paper in various military institutions, would be able to command regiments and divisions formed by men called up from the reserves.

If the armed forces are being cut back but conscripts are still flowing in, chances are they will be snatched up by the horde of government agencies run on military lines, which survive through using what amounts to conscript slave labor. The Defense Ministry in fact suggests sending young men who want to do alternative military service to these government agencies.

There’s been a lot of talk recently that new Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov was given the job in order to push through military reforms. But no reforms are possible so long as the police are out hunting future soldiers as if they were criminals.

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#7
gazeta.ru
April 26, 2001
Duma Moves to Limit Freedom of Foreign Speech
By Ivan Petrov

The State Duma has preliminary approved the draft bill to restrict foreign ownership in Russian media outlets. If the bill becomes law, foreigners and foreign companies will be banned from holding more than 50% of Russian media companies’ shares and seriously damage Russia’s investment prospects in many fields other than the media.

The author of the approved draft, State Duma deputy Alexander Chuyev, announced on Thursday that the reason he had submitted the draft bill to the lower house was “to protect speech in Russia” and that it was essential to provide “protection of the state’s informational security.”

As a result of the NTV affaire, at the beginning of April the Russian lawmakers came up with a variety of initiatives relating to the media and almost simultaneously three groups of deputies introduced draft bills of amendments to the effective law on mass media.

The first draft was put forward by a group of largely pro-Kremlin deputies from Unity, Communists’, LDPR, OVR, People’s Deputy and Regions of Russia factions. That group was headed by Alexander Chuyev. His draft stipulates for foreign ownership of Russian media companies to be restricted to a 50% stake in any one outlet.

Another draft bill submitted by Andrei Klimov of the Regions of Russia faction proposes that Russia should ban foreign states and legal entities from establishing media outlets in Russia. The ban would also partially pertain to Russian legal entities: they would not be allowed to establish a media outlet in which a foreigner would hold more than a 30% stake. Authors of the third draft - Viktor Pokhmelkin of the Rightist Forces and Petr Shelishch of Yabloko - insist that restrictions on media ownership should apply to all media owners, both Russian and foreign. Their draft stipulated that no founder of any media outlet should be allowed to hold over 25% of the concern’s shares.

Many deputies from the Rightist Forces and deputies from other factions admitted that the first, collective draft, which restricts foreign media ownership to 50%, had the highest chances of being approved. Some deputies and observers said the draft was a Kremlin order, for enactment thereof would prevent US media king Ted Turner from taking control of NTV.

Ted Turner abandoned his interest in investing in NTV soon after the draft bills were made public.

Finally on April 26th the lawmakers reviewed Chuyev’s draft and approved it in the first reading.

Alexander Chuyev asserts that his bill is based on foreign media legislation and is not aimed at creating obstacles against foreign capital entering Russia, but is aimed at ‘reasonable restriction’ of foreign involvement in Russia’s media.

Andrei Klimov, the author of another variant, on Thursday backed Chuyev’s draft and revoked his own.

An official at the Russian Media Ministry informed Gazeta.Ru that at present the ministry is elaborating a list of ‘incorrect’ media outlets in which foreigners hold stakes higher than 50%. However, ministry officials do not know yet what action, if any, will be taken against them.

The deputy Press Minister Mikhail Seslavinsky has said that the adoption of Chuyev’s draft “would immediately decrease the number of potential investors in the (Russian) media market”.

Seslavinsky says the State Duma should refrain from “emotional legislative initiatives pertaining to the mass media”, since enactment of such laws could entail disaster for many media outlets.

Judging from the text of the bill, if it is passed, Russian media would encounter colossal problems.

The draft is aimed not only at keeping foreign media moguls like Ted Turner away from the Russian market. The draft stipulates for the restrictions to apply not only to foreign private persons, but also to persons with dual citizenship, and foreign companies.

The draft contains a retroactive clause, which would invalidate any previously concluded acquisition, which means that shareholders in such media outlets as, for instance, Vedomosti newspaper in which Dow Jones (WSJ) and Pearson (Financial Times) each hold a 33.3% stake, would have to sell back part of their stakes. Sweden’s Modern Times Group media holding which has just clinched a deal to purchase 75% stake in the Daryal-TV network, would have to abandon their ambitious investment plans.

Boris Berezovsky who has dual citizenship and controls 75% stake in TV6 television company undoubtedly be affected.

Fortunately, the bill still has a long way to go, and will probably be seriously altered if is passed at all. But Ted Turner has turned away without even knocking on the door. And the Daryal-TV entertainment network is not likely to turn into a voice critical of the Kremlin. As for Boris Berezovsky, sooner or later he will probably sell off his TV6 stake, once he is offered a price that suits him that is.

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#8
Nezavisimaya Gazeta
April 25, 2001
[translation from RIA Novosti for personal use only]
MOSCOW, WASHINGTON HAVE A CHANCE TO UNDERSTAND EACH OTHER
US President's Russian Policy Unclear Yet
By Andrei FEDOROV, director for political programs,
Foreign and Defense Policy Council

Washington hosted the fifth regular Russian-US dialogue early this April; that conference was organized by the Foreign and Defense Policy Council and the Aspen strategic group. The conference involved active and retired politicians of our two countries, who managed to discuss topical issues of Russian-US relations, as well as international affairs, in a rather candid manner.

Despite the current crisis in US-Chinese relations, the Russian delegation was met by Condoleezza Rice, who serves as National Security Adviser to the US President, Secretary of the Treasury O'Neill, top State Department executives, Senate and Congress members. Moreover, Ms. Rice conferred with the program's Russian coordinator Karaganov, who also chairs the afore-said Foreign and Defense Policy Council, face-to-face. All this highlights the fact that the US side regards such a dialogue as something really important.

Russian-US relations have now cooled off a great deal; however, Washington, which obviously takes Russia seriously, doesn't want to disregard it. Naturally enough, the entire approach toward Russia is going to change; objectively speaking, various issues of Russian domestic development are now receding into the background; besides, the United States no longer doubts the fact that Russia won't revert to the Soviet period. Nonetheless, the US Administration will be watching the situation with freedom of speech on Russian territory rather closely.

Russia's negotiating partners hinted unequivocally that Russia cannot and should not expect any substantial US aid, as well as that from international financial institutions, in the near future. Such aid can become well-nigh impossible, unless the Russian leadership rectifies the economic situation, and unless it starts fighting corruption (that impairs business operations on Russian territory) in real earnest, the US Treasury Department stressed.

Judging by the latest conference and subsequent official meetings, the US Administration views subsequent Russian behavior on the international scene as more important than other issues. Will Russia aspire for a constructive dialogue with the West? Or will it start sliding down in the direction of those specific countries, which cause justified US concern, e.g. Iraq and Iran (to quote a high-ranking Administration official)? Well, the US side would like to learn the answer to these questions.

Among other things, a possible Russian-US summit was viewed from precisely this angle. Many of our partners believe that such a summit should not be ruled out prior to the forthcoming G-8 summit. However, any bilateral summit should take place only if the sides manage to hammer out a positive agenda just because it would now be inappropriate to discuss a priori contentious issues at this stage.

At any rate the White House makes it clear that top-level dialogue will still constitute an important component of Russian-US relations; moreover, personal contacts between the Presidents of Russia and the United States are an objective necessity. Indicatively enough, but, given all those current differences on specific issues, not a single US official doubts the need for Russia's continued G-8 membership.

The Russian side inquired whether it was possible to re-establish a joint commission for trade-and-economic cooperation that would be reminiscent of the Gore-Chernomyrdin commission. However, the Americans replied unequivocally that the latter example was more than enough, and that it would be inexpedient to re-live that largely negative experience. However, existing accords should be used for dealing with separate international and economic issues; moreover, the sides can create temporary mechanisms of their interaction.

The US side sent out a clear message to Moscow, noting that Russia should not assess the new US Administration's Russian policy in line with its first steps. That policy is now being asserted, albeit with difficulty. Consequently, it would become possible to talk about the new US President's Russian line only after all vacancies are filled, and after the entire mechanism starts operating as one single whole.

One thing is also clear -- the so-called "democratic romanticism" is now history; from now on, our relations will, first of all, be dominated by a pragmatic approach stipulating clear-cut spheres of cooperation and spheres of mutual differences. This, too, was emphasized during all meetings in Washington.

Quite a few cooperation spheres exist at this stage; their list includes the struggle against the proliferation of nuclear weapons and missile technologies, efforts to counter trans-national crime and illicit drug trafficking, interaction in the field of space research, the Balkan situation, the Mideastern situation, North Korea, etc. I'd like to emphasize the fact that the relevant US position concerning support for Russia's intention to become a full-fledged WTO (World Trade Organization) member was voiced for the first time ever. The US intention to assist Russia within the framework of the Nunn-Lugar program was also noted.

However, a number of traditional differences, e.g. the ABM (Anti-Ballistic Missile) issue, NATO's expansion, Iran and Iraq, should also be mentioned. Clearly enough, it has already been decided to admit new NATO members. As far as the ABM issue is concerned, the United States, which is ready to talk on this issue, apparently doesn't want to discuss it. Therefore one can safely say that the Russian-US dialogue will face the greatest problems in precisely these spheres because the US side will merely heed the Russian position.

Interesting, as it may seem, but the US side kept saying during the discussion of ABM issues that Putin's latest proposals dealing with a European ABM system imply that the President of Russia de facto shares US concerns over the current situation. Well, the US side kept using this argument quite often.

Behind-the-scenes conversations implied that the NMD (National Missile Defense) program should play the part of a new hi-tech "locomotive" for the United States; consequently, it would become possible to drastically expand the US economy, expediting its development in the hi-tech field, as well.

In the obtaining situation, the Russian-US dialogue should not boil down to official contacts alone; on the contrary, such dialogue should be beefed up by a large-scale system of bilateral contacts, including unofficial contacts that would make it possible to more adequately comprehend each other's positions. Well, this is seen as an issue of paramount importance; meanwhile both sides have the required potential for doing this.

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#9
Jamestown Foundation Monitor
April 26, 2001

RUSSIAN ARMS SALES: THE PUSH IS ON. Russian press reports published over the past month have highlighted what they say is a new push by the Kremlin to diversify the country's arms export client base. Current estimates place total Russian arms export revenues for last year at between US$3.68 billion and US$4 billion. That is a gain over the 1999 figures, which Russian sources put at approximately US$3.4 billion. Those sales have gone overwhelmingly to India and China, however, which over the past decade have been by far the largest purchasers of Russian military hardware. According to one report, Russian arms exports to India and China last year amounted to approximately 90 percent of Russian arms exports overall. Given that arms exports to these countries are not expected by Russian experts to remain at these high levels over the medium and longer term, Moscow now faces the urgent task of finding new customers for its military hardware.

If Russian reports are to be believed, this need will take Russian arms merchants to the far corners of the globe, where they will seek not only to renew military-technical cooperation with former Soviet client states, but also to peddle arms in earnest for the first time to a host of Asian, African and Latin American countries. With respect to Latin America, this policy could bring Russian arms into the backyard of the United States, and exacerbate tensions between Moscow and Washington. More generally, Moscow is said also to be willing to consider arms dealings with countries considered by the United States to be "rogue states"--another move likely to set Russia and the United States at odds.

And the push could be an aggressive one. Russian sources have long made it clear that a restructuring of Russia's arms export hierarchy, which President Vladimir Putin launched late last year, is aimed to a significant degree at improving the sector's ability to peddle weapons abroad. And one top Russian defense official, Boris Kuzyk, director of the New Programs and Concepts industrial holding company, has said recently that Russian defense firms could increase the total value of their exports to US$6 billion if they clawed their way back into markets lost after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Kuzyk called for building a long-term foundation for Russian arms sales by maintaining cooperation in this area with China and India while also stepping up military-technical cooperation with Iran, Egypt, Algeria and Syria. In a new book published by a group which includes Kuzyk, Russian authors reportedly argue that the export of arms is one of the sole niches in the world high technology market in which Russia can compete in effectively, and that the government should therefore invest in the sector accordingly.

Other analyses of likely Russian arms export policies point to a new push by Moscow to sell arms in Africa and Asia. One report suggests that in Africa, the targeted markets are Nigeria, Angola, Libya and South Africa, while attention in Asia will be focused on South Korea and Vietnam. It was with this strategy in mind, the reports observes, that Russia's president used a host of recent bilateral meetings to push arms deals with the leaders of Nigeria, South Korea and Vietnam. Those deals have not been finalized, but could provide a significant boost to Russian arms export efforts.

Moreover, according to articles published in recent days, Moscow has launched a new push this month to increase arms sales to Latin American countries. This effort is apparently keyed to the LAD-2001 arms fair near Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, where the Russian state arms trading company Rosoboroneksport intends to display a wide variety of Russian weaponry, including helicopters and fighter planes. According to one Russian source, sales to Latin America currently total between US$80 to US$140 million per year, and make up only 3-4 percent of total Russian arms sales. Russian arms experts suggest that the region could become fertile ground for Russian arms dealers, and point especially to what they say have been promising talks with Brazil, Argentina and Chile. Moscow also held arms talks earlier this month with Venezuela during a visit to Moscow by that country's Defense Minister. Moscow apparently sees tensions between Venezuela and the United States as a potential opening for sales of Russian weaponry to Caracas (The Russia Journal, April 6; Nezavisimaya gazeta, April 21; Vremya MN, April 18, 24; Reuters, April 17; Military News Agency, April 18).

Whether these stepped up Russian efforts to peddle arms will bear fruit is another question. Poor organization and a failure to control competing interest groups have hampered Russian arms sale efforts over the past decade, and the degree to which the Kremlin recent reforms are successfully at rooting out these problems will help determine Russia's future success in the arms export arena. But those were not Moscow's only problems, and the others may be harder to overcome. They center particularly on the government's financial difficulties, which have constrained its ability to invest in the development of new military technologies while simultaneously precluding it from offering attractive credit terms for arms purchases. The last has been a particularly serious impediment to increased arms sales. The Russian government's currently more healthy fiscal situation could help to overcome some of these obstacles, but is no guarantee that Moscow will make inroads into what has been a contracting and increasingly competitive international arms market. But the stakes for Russian arms producers is high: Procurement and research and development funding in Russia is set to rise only modestly over the next few years, which means that the survival of many of Russia's hundreds of defense concerns could depend in large part on their ability to make money abroad.

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#10
Transitions Online
www.tol.cz
A Most Ingenious Paradox
Russian media may be facing a contradictory new era: more independence, less freedom of expression.
by Alexei Pankin
Alexei Pankin is the Russian editor of Sreda media magazine in Moscow and a member of the TOL advisory board.

MOSCOW--The more one tries to take an objective look at the Russian media scene, the more one has reason to believe that he or she has developed a bad case of multiple personality disorder.

On the one hand, we witnessed a year-long struggle of the authorities and their proxies against the privately owned Media-MOST empire and its banner national television station, NTV. The campaign included criminal cases raised and dropped by the Prosecutor General's Office, raids by masked men on Media-MOST headquarters, arrests, property and bank account seizures, dubious court decisions, and finally, a hostile takeover of the station by its government-controlled shareholder, Gazprom. All those actions would seem to indicate that the Putin administration--in a striking departure from the attitude of Yeltsin's regime--is hostile to freedom of the press and is silencing the voices of the opposition. In many of Russia's regions, the new approach in Moscow has been interpreted as a clear signal, and local governments have now adopted a similar stance on their own local media.

Yet, on the other hand, the very same administration has done quite a lot to lay the ground for the economic independence of the media. Since March 2000 the level of tax deductions for advertising expenditures has been raised twice--first from 3 to 5 percent, and then up to 7.5 percent of a company's turnover. That approach has stimulated growth in the advertising market and expanded the media's revenue base. It also represents a sea change from the years of Boris Yeltsin, when tax benefits were given directly to media outlets, enabling them to save rather than to earn.

Another revolutionary step was taken just this month with the formation of the Media Committee. Initiated by the Press Ministry, the Media Committee consists of representatives of broadcast companies, professional associations, advertisers, and advertising agencies and is intended to establish control over the process of producing television ratings. If the committee is able to work out a unified system of audience measurement that is acceptable to all competing interests, it would make the market considerably more transparent and help advertisers optimize their ad spending. In the past, all such initiatives have been successfully torpedoed by Video International, the near-monopolist on the television ad sales market.

Nowhere does the duality manifest itself better than in the debate over foreign ownership of the Russian media. The majority of the world's free-market democracies do not have "information security doctrines," but they do have rather strict limitations on the rights of foreigners to own broadcast media. Russia, though, has an information security doctrine, but no limitations on foreign media investment. Several weeks ago, however, when bills were introduced in the State Duma that would have limited the foreign ownership of Russian media, high-ranking government representatives publicly opposed the move.

It's no wonder that--unless you choose to take a clear cut pro- or anti-government, or pro- or anti-NTV stance--your head begins to spin.

"The present administration does not see freedom of the press or the government's role in ensuring it as a priority. I would note, though, that conflicts between the state and the media generally arise when media owners attempt to play an independent role in public politics, says Yevgeny Abov, member of the board of the World Association of Newspapers and one of Russia's most respected newspaper managers. "Otherwise, the state doesn't take an interest in the press. And one more observation: Whenever editors try to handle the business side of media, it doesn't work. Yevgeny Kiselyov--NTV's star presenter and general director--is the best example. All the same, even without the help of the state, the media market is becoming more civilized. The number of qualified managers is growing, and new, interesting products are appearing--products that are oriented toward the consumer rather than just serving as PR."

But the chaos of coexisting contradictory trends is usually a sign of transition--a sign that says the current system is in crisis and a new one is about to take shape.

The main feature of the existing system is that media in Russia have not been shaped as businesses. During the glasnost era, journalists adopted an egocentric view of themselves as missionaries, for whom expressing whatever they had on their minds was by far more important than satisfying the information demands of their audience. Economic support for them in the Yeltsin era was provided either by different branches of the government or by the national or local oligarchs. It was a kind of supply-side media where pluralism and diversity had little to do with public demand, consumer purchasing power, or the volume of the advertising market.

In other words, freedom--or rather pluralism--of the press was based on a shaky foundation of official tolerance, not on the strength of the media enterprises. That has changed under Putin, who does not seem to be tolerant of criticism, and simultaneously, seems to be immune to pressure from the media. He gave a push, but the system collapsed by itself because it was not viable.

Still, there are at least two encouraging signs. One is that a close observation of the situation of the media in Moscow and in the regions indicates that while pressure is applied evenly, those media outlets that were originally launched as businesses--catering to the volume of their markets and possessing sound financial management--are withstanding this pressure quite successfully. Second, irrespective of how intolerant the Putin administration may be of criticism, its commitment to building a liberal economy in Russia will force it to gradually create a friendlier business climate for the media.

Russia may be entering a paradoxical period when it is going to have a more independent media--just with less freedom of expression.

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#11
Itogi
No. 16
April 2001
STAR WARS: EPISODE 2001
Russia is better prepared for Star Wars than is usually believed
Looking at missile defense plans in Russia and the United States
Author: Oleg Odnokolenko
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]
MOSCOW SHOULD TRADE ITS CONSENT TO REVISION OF THE ABM TREATY FOR PERMISSION TO OUTFIT TOPOL MISSILES WITH MIRVS. IN ORDER TO SEE AND RECOGNIZE THE ADVANTAGES OF REVISING THE ABM TREATY, WE SHOULD FIRST ADMIT THAT THIS IS NOT A "CORNERSTONE OF STRATEGIC STABILITY".

Sergei Ivanov, recently appointed defense minister, has not given any reason to believe that he wants the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty of 1972 revised. It means that if the Americans encroach on the "cornerstone of strategic stability" and go ahead with a national missile defense, Russia will retaliate. The response is promised to be "asymmetric", i.e. cheap but effective. Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov elaborated on this subject recently by saying that "the answer was not planned when the United States declared its intention to set up a missile defense system, but it had included in the theory of creating strategic missile systems."

Former defense minister Igor Sergeev, for example, did his best to promote his pet Topol-M system. This ICBM can carry three warheads at once (with a total force equivalent to 22 Hiroshima bombs) and maneuver during the ballistic part of its trajectory, baffling any US missile defense satellites. Vladimir Dvorkin, Director of the 4th Research Institute of the Defense Ministry, Sergeev's ardent supporter, and acclaimed "trend-setter" in the ballistic missile sphere, hints that making a Topol-M one stage shorter would turn it into an analog of the medium-range Pioneer missile. Another General Staff senior officer went even further along these lines. He openly said that if Washington created a missile defense, Moscow would withdraw from the treaty on short- and mid-range missiles and promptly restore its group of such missiles. That general was publicly reprimanded for this openness. It turns out, however, that the general revealed only part of what the Kremlin has in store for the Americans.

The General Staff has worked out around three dozen retaliatory measures. Whenever needed, Moscow will challenge the United States on the ground, on the seas, in the air, and in space. Satellite orbits will be "mined" (attack satellites would be disguised as ordinary communications satellites), various anti-satellite systems would be used, space debris would be actively used (at a velocity of 15 kilometers a second, an ordinary bolt will pierce tank armor), and so on.

Professor Vladimir Belous, Director of the Center of International Strategic Surveys, has no doubts that space warfare will become inevitable if and when the United States withdraws from the ABM Treaty. He considers that the proposed US national missile defense does not guarantee interception of all warheads in the final and ballistic parts of their trajectories. Warheads will evade interceptors in the final part of their trajectories because they are equipped with a range of evasive measures. A missile will maneuver. Just try to distinguish it from chaff or decoys at a velocity of up to 3 kilometers a second. There will be many more decoys deployed in the ballistic part of the trajectory. Warheads may both maneuver and fly within a target imitator. Of course, it is possible to deploy an anti- missile with nuclear warheads against all this, but electronic equipment will fail in this case, and the "friendly" combat control system could be no exception.

That is why destruction of ICBMs in the active part of the trajectories (between the launch and disengagement of warheads) is universally viewed as the most reliable means of missile defense. Both the warheads and hundreds of decoys are destroyed at once. Moreover, it is much easier to hit a huge ICBM than a combat block two meters long...

Belous emphasizes that in order to be able to hit ICBMs at all, the Americans will be forced to establish a space component of the missile defense system - tracking satellites, space battle platforms, and so on. Creating a truly effective missile defense system necessitates an arms race in space, and that is why Russia should stick to the ABM Treaty and thwart all attempts to revise it, Belous says. However, there is the question of Washington's attitude to Russia's opinion on the matter.

Washington may decide to go ahead and ignore the Kremlin. Well, the Space Forces were formed this year on the president's orders, an amalgam of what used to be the Missile-Space Defense and Military Space Forces in the recent past. Their absorption by the Strategic Missile Forces several years ago is recognized as a mistake now.

President Putin made it clear at the celebrations of Space Exploration Day in Zvyozdny that defence capacity and the use of space were two closely-related concepts. The hungry generals of the military-industrial complex can be optimistic about their future now. As far as they are concerned, Star Wars is guaranteed budget funds and a chance to implement the most fantastic projects.

By the way, Russia is much better prepared for Star Wars than the United States. Colonel Grigori Kisunko came up with the idea of guaranteed interception of a warhead in the late 1950s, and the first successful intercept test was actually done in the Soviet Union on March 4, 1961, forty years before the Americans managed it.

In the 1960s, the Soviet Union was the leader in designing shuttle-type spacecraft. Project Spiral originated in Artyom Mikoyan's design bureau. Herman Titov, cosmonaut and future deputy commander of the Military-Space Forces, was not exactly involved in the project, but even that helped when the Buran was built years later. Moscow assumed, quite correctly, that the Space Shuttle could be used as a space bomber. That is why the Buran is an analog to what the Americans planned, but an automatic analog. That makes it more expensive. These days the Buran is an attraction in Gorky Park...

Titov received the Lenin Award for his participation in the Zenith missile system tests. Its automatic launch was what attracted the military so much to the "booster of the 21st century". The Zeniths were expected to be able to take satellites into orbit all on their own, without being manned. Even the most apocalyptic option was not ruled out - automatic launches when everything on Earth was already destroyed. The missile exits the hangar on its own, gets to the launch pad, and launches...

The Almaz, the world's first space battle platform, was built with Titov's participation as well. Titov once commanded the Cosmonaut Team, its members trained in reconnaissance missions for the Defense Ministry from the space station. The Almaz allegedly had a cannon which was to be used in space...

At least, maneuverable warheads were actually tested. Only one country, the Soviet Union, could afford it. Two testing grounds, at Kapustin Yar and Lake Balkhash, were used for this. The Soviet state planners alone knew how much money was spent on the so-called Zinger curve (the curve guided combat blocks were supposed to follow). In any case, the amount must have been astronomical...

The Americans were the first to initiate the Strategic Defense Initiative. In doing so, they opted for Hollywood-like fantasies instead of fantastic expense. Even so, their innocent pranks in space (innocent compared to the Soviet space projects, that is) cost almost $60 billion.

In the last years of his life, Titov (sometimes jokingly referred to as the "major space militarist") admitted that not all space spending had been justified. Indeed, some space projects were pursued only because their architects commanded respect and could pull strings in the Kremlin. Other projects were provoked by the Americans - and the arms race in space completed the economic collapse of the Soviet Union. These days, Star Wars is coming back, with the decision of the US administration to create a missile defense system...

Skeptics who distrust the Americans and their real intentions point out the following. The Americans will need thousands of satellites in order to monitor all Russian silos and launch pads. Perhaps even more than that. No one knows for sure, because no one has done the sums. But even when a satellite detects and reports a launch, the Americans lack the technical means for its destruction in the active part of the trajectory. More time is needed to achieve this. Even a preventive strike does not guarantee a complete and final victory. At least one ICBM will cross the ocean in the direction of the American coast in any case. It follows that the most effective missile defense method the Americans can use nowadays is a commando team - elite soldiers discovering an ICBM somewhere in the taiga and blowing it up.

Exotic weapons (like lasers) deployed in space are another hypothetical option for destruction of enemy ICBMs. And yet, this particular option will be too expensive, even for the wealthy United States

If Russia is foolhardy enough to allow itself to be lured into Star Wars, resistance to Washington's plans to deploy a missile defense will be a considerable headache. The Americans launch their military satellites from F-15s, Russians from the ground. Entering the plane of the enemy satellite's orbit immediately is impossible due to Russia's geographic position. Actually, this process could take days.

Responding to any politically incorrect gesture in space with a strike with MIRV-tipped ICBMs (like the Satan) is much easier. MIRVs will surely pierce any missile defense system and reach their targets within half an hour. Under START II, however, all Russian "heavy" ICBMs should be decomissioned and dismantled by 2005. Their production is beyond restoration now, because the Yuzhmash plant was left to Ukraine. In any case, officers and generals say that trading amendment of the ABM Treaty for the right to equip mono-block Topols with MIRVs is a possible solution. Provided parity is maintained, of course. It would be really cheap and effective.

In order to see and recognize the advantages of revising the ABM Treaty, we should first admit that this is not a "cornerstone of strategic stability", because it has never taken into account the interests of all nuclear states, even at the time it was signed. The nuclear weapons non-proliferation treaty could be viewed as such, but that treaty is no longer valid. India and Pakistan have tested nuclear weapons. This means that Moscow and Washington have to start negotiations all over again and reach some sort of agreement. Perhaps the meeting of our presidents in Genoa will provide a chance for such an agreement. Otherwise, Star Wars will become a grim reality. (Translated by A. Ignatkin)

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