#1
Putin hails World War II victory by "great nation"

MOSCOW, May 9 (AFP) -
Russian President Vladimir Putin hailed his countrymen's role in the defeat of Nazi Germany in commemorative ceremonies on Red Square Wednesday and stressed that the victory entailed responsibilities as well as honour.

Presiding the annual ceremonies for the second time since his election on March 26 last year, Putin said the war that ended in Europe 56 years ago this week was, for Russia, "a great victory by a great nation, a victory of justice over evil and violence, of liberty over enslavement."

The lessons of the war in which upwards of 20 million Soviet citizens died are that "a balance between force and reason" is needed, and that "the pursuit of violence and extremism leads to horrible tragedies," he said.

And he added, in an aside that appeared to refer to US plans to build a national missile defence shield: "Postwar history shows that nobody can build a safe world only for oneself, even less so at someone else's expense."

Victory Day, as May 9 is called in Russia, was marked with its customary solemnity as Sergei Ivanov, Russia's first civilian Defence Minister, reviewed the troops on Red Square from an open-topped car, watched from a podium in front of Lenin's Mausoleum by Putin and several leading military and state officials.

Among the dignitaries were Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov and the speakers of the upper and lower houses of parliament, Yegor Stroyev and Gennady Seleznyov.

Unlike last year, neither Putin's predecessor as Russian president Boris Yeltsin nor the last Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev were present.

Putin is the first occupant of the Kremlin to have been born since the end of World War II, though he lost a brother during the three-year siege of Leningrad, now called Saint Petersburg.

He watched impassively as an honour guard paraded the red Soviet flag said to have been planted on the Berlin Reichstag during the last stages of the war in front of the massed ranks of soldiers from the three armed forces.

Following a series of national embarrassments last year, notably the sinking in an as yet unexplained accident of the Kursk submarine and a fire that badly damaged the country's main broadcasting tower in Moscow, Putin has attempted to boost Russia's self-image by emphasising its traditions and achievements.

In 1945, he said, "this nation possessed a unity and a will that brought the rest of the world into the fight against fascism. We have no right to lose that spirit today. ... Not every nation has scored such a victory. To be its heir is a responsibility as well as an honour."

His calls for unity and warnings of the dangers of extremism can be seen as references to the conflict in Chechnya which Moscow has failed to resolve despite a military intervention in October 1999 ordered while Putin himself was prime minister.

Earlier in Grozny, the Chechen capital, pro-Moscow officials inaugurated a monument to Chechnya residents who died in World War II, all previous monuments having been destroyed in fighting between Russian forces and separatist guerrillas,

Moscow has been attempting, with little success, to convey an impression of a return to normality in the war-ravaged republic, but further casualties were reported among Russian troops there even as the Victory Day ceremonies were being conducted elsewhere in the country.

At a reception after the parade, the Interfax news agency, Putin said that Victory Day's significance as a unifying force "increases from year to year."

The lessons of the war "speak against cruelty and intolerance," he said.

With its huge toll, the 1941-45 conflict between Stalin's Soviet Union and Nazi Germany and the May 9 anniversary still hold immense significance for most Russians.

Russia marks the end of the war from the date on which its military leaders signed a protocol marking Germany's capitulation, a separate document from that signed by its Western allies a day earlier. The war in Asia ended three months later.

Back to the Top


#2
Analysis: war memories still move the Russians
By PAUL GOBLE

WASHINGTON, May 8 (UPI) -- Three out of every four Russians today recall that they or their relatives fought in World War II. This is remarkable testimony to that conflict's continuing importance in Russian lives -- especially since fewer than three million Russians are still alive who actually fought in that war.

The enormous Russian contribution to the Allied victory over Adolf Hitler in World War II -- marked Tuesday as it has been every year since 1945 as Victory Day -- is not only one of the defining experiences for all Russians, including those born long after the war's end, but also the most important touchstone of Russian national unity.

Even when they have been unable to agree on anything else or even on how that war was fought, Russians have been unanimous in their assessment of the decisive Russian contribution to victory in the European theater of World War II. And they still view their role more than a half-century ago as having continuing significance.

That attitude sets Russia apart from most other combatant countries that took part in World War II and indeed from virtually all other countries in virtually all other wars throughout history. And that distinction inevitably raises the question as to why this should be so.

The answer must begin with what that conflict cost the Russian people -- and also what it gained them. The German invasion led to the deaths of more than 25 million Soviet citizens, Russians as well as non-Russians. It laid waste to the Soviet Union. And it left a generation united by the suffering it had undergone.

Few have suffered as greatly as did the people of the Soviet Union under the Nazi onslaught. But at the same time, that war made significant contributions both to the Russian people and to the Soviet state, unifying the one and elevating the other in ways that might never have happened had there not been a conflict.

The German invasion and even more the resulting atrocities on Soviet territory unified Russians long divided by the policies of their own government. Faced with the evil of Nazism, Russians ceased to be split by class and came to view themselves as a nation in arms.

Many Russians both then and later have recalled that after the horrors of the Soviet system, the war for a time restored them to a kind of normal and moral existence, one in which they could act against evil and not just be subject to it.

Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin was only too willing to sponsor this new feeling of national unity as a means to defeating the Nazis, but ever sensitive to challenges to his power, he and his successors moved against it almost as soon as the guns were silent.

And at the same time, the end of the war found the Soviet Union not only recognized as one of the "Big Three" nations in the world, a status very different from its outcast role of only a decade earlier, but also as a major power in control of half of Europe and with pretensions to much else.

Indeed, it was precisely the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany that created the conditions for the rise of the Cold War competition between East and West that lasted for most of the succeeding 50 years.

But the full answer for why so many Russians continue to observe Victory Day must be sought elsewhere, in three other realities with which all Russians must wrestle.

First of all, Victory Day serves as a continuing testimony of what the Russian people can do as a united nation.

As even Stalin acknowledged to British Prime Minister Winston Churchill near the end of the war, Russians had not fought for him or for communism, they had fought for Russia and for themselves. And because they could do so then, celebrations now suggest, they may be able to do so again.

Second, Victory Day serves as a bittersweet occasion to recall Russia's lost power in the world. No country that has suffered the kind of decline Russians have experienced over the past two decades can view such a process with dispassion. Victory Day thus becomes the occasion for remembering a more glorious past.

And third, and almost certainly most important, Victory Day for most if not all Russians is an opportunity to reassert their own moral authority. Given all the horrors of Russian history in the past 100 years, Russians can be proud that they fought and helped to defeat a regime even more obviously evil than their own.

For all those reasons, Russians seem certain to mark Victory Day not only this year but for many years to come, recalling an ever more long-ago time when they or their ancestors reclaimed some of the moral authority their own regimes had striven so hard to take from them.

(Paul Goble is deputy director of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. The views he expresses are his own and not those of RFE/RL.)

Back to the Top


#3
ACADEMICIAN ENCOURAGES PUTTING MEMORIAL
TO VICTIMS OF POLITICAL REPRESSION ON
LUBYANKA SQUARE

MOSCOW. May 8 (Interfax) - Academician Alexander Yakovlev, chairman of the Committee for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repression under the Russian president, has encouraged the Russian administration and the people of Russia to put a memorial to the victims of Soviet repression on Lubyanka Square in Moscow.

"Having restored the Church of Christ the Savior and built the Victory memorial on Poklonnaya Gora, today's Russia should finally pay tribute and repentance to the victims of the horrible political repression that took place in the USSR under Soviet power," Yakovlev said in an interview with Interfax on Tuesday.

The 77-year-old scientist and politician, who is considered to be the main ideologist and "architect" of Gorbachev's program of perestroika of the late 1980s, stressed that, as chairman of the commission, he has "all grounds to believe" that over 20 million people were affected by political repression in the former USSR.

According to Yakovlev, among them were 1.5 million Soviet prisoners-of-war (former prisoners of Nazi concentration camps, who were put in Stalin's gulag as "spies and traitors" after they had returned to their country).

Yakovlev believes that the only place where the memorial to victims of political repression should be built is on Lubyanka square, because "this horrible place is where the mechanism of Stalin's evil deeds was launched" and from where Russia has finally removed the Iron Felix [Felix Dzerzhinsky, head of the VChK, or Military-Revolutionary Committee] and sent him to the rubbish heap of history."

"A modest Solovets stone" has already been placed on Lubyanka Square, but at the beginning of the twenty-first century a memorial to victims of political repression in the twentieth century should be placed, he said.

He believes that this memorial "should by no means be pompous, but on the contrary, should be reserved and sad." Yakovlev believes that the construction of this memorial will not be a very big burden on the budget. "Our people will raise the money for this good cause, kopeck by kopeck," he said.

The scale of the political repression that took place in the former USSR will be determined by an interdepartmental working group, which was supposed to be set up by order of the Russian president. However, the documents necessary for it and the materials provided by the committee he heads to the office of the Russian president "are at the moment collecting dust on the desk of some Kremlin official."

In the meantime, Yakovlev's committee admits that historians and politicians still have different opinions on the number of victims of political repression in the former USSR. Their estimated number ranges from one million to 50-60 million people.

Back to the Top


#4
Christian Science Monitor
May 9, 2001
"Loose nukes" get shortchanged?
Some Russia experts say money for a missile shield
should be spent on nonproliferation programs.
By Scott Peterson
Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

It is the biggest nonreligious holiday on the calendar, when Russians relive past military glory to celebrate the World War II defeat of Nazi Germany.

But today's traditional Victory Day military parade in Red Square is but a shadow of its former Soviet-era self. No strategic missiles will lumber ominously past the Kremlin gates; no tank battalions will rumble over the worn cobblestones.

While the show may signify that Russia is no longer a superpower - a point often made by President Bush's policy team - analysts warn that administration plans to trim US funding for nonproliferation programs dangerously neglect the threat that Russia's vast remaining nuclear arsenal still poses.

Mr. Bush pledges to spend tens of billions of dollars to build a new missile defense shield. But proliferation experts argue that a fraction of that spent to control Russia's "loose nukes" - and to prevent the spread of bomb-grade enriched uranium, plutonium, and scientific expertise - may be a better bargain.

"When you consider the contributions these programs are making to US security, they cost far less than one-half of 1 percent of the defense budget - it's small change," says James Clay Moltz, a director of the Monterey Institute's Center for Nonproliferation Studies in California.

"We're seeing the [US] defense budget increasing for new weapons," Mr. Moltz says, "but decreasing for the kind of cooperative security approaches that really will reduce the long-term threat."

A bipartisan task force commissioned by the Energy Department noted in January that Russian weapons or nuclear material could be sold to "terrorists or hostile nations" - and that "dozens" of attempts to do so have been thwarted in recent years. This is the "most urgent unmet national security threat to the United States today," it found. "It really boggles my mind that there could be 40,000 nuclear weapons ... in the former Soviet Union, poorly controlled and poorly stored, and that the world isn't in a near-state of hysteria about the danger," Howard Baker, the former Senate majority leader and task force co-chair, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee a month ago.

The panel called for a four-fold funding increase to $3 billion per year for the next decade. Bush's proposed 2002 budget chops some 10 percent off nonproliferation funding for Russia, which now stands at $874 million.

The debate is emerging as the administration is conducting a comprehensive review of all such programs for Russia. The political atmosphere, too, is acrimonious. US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has taken a tough stance, accusing Russia of being an "active proliferator." Moscow complains that Washington is gripped by the "spirit" of the cold war.

Russia has been a chief opponent of Bush's missile defense plans, and President Vladimir Putin has made a point of improving relations with US arch-foes from Cuba to Iran. Tension grew further in February over the tit-for-tat expulsion - begun by Washington - of 50 diplomats from each side for spying.

One result, analysts say, is that politics is mixing with security concerns. Under the microscope is Russian transparency - especially in nuclear dealings with Iran and India - and access by American officials to sensitive sites.

"The danger is still there, it's a serious problem, and US assistance has been important in dealing with it," says Oleg Bukharin, a proliferation expert and researcher at Princeton University in New Jersey. "The problem is that if you stop this train, it might be very difficult to get it moving again."

Russian political support for US nuclear-control programs could fall away too, he says, and while "Russia does not behave politically correctly all the time," the US should not forget that Russia holds a unique strategic card. "If you look objectively at threats, the only possible scenario in which the US could be destroyed is if Russia launched its nuclear weapons," Mr. Bukharin says. "All other threats, like terrorism or rogue missiles, are nothing [in comparison]."

Just days before the Bush inauguration, that point was made by the Russia task force. While citing "impressive results thus far," it said that if funding wasn't boosted, there would be an "unacceptable risk of failure" that could lead to "catastrophic consequences."

Hardest hit are those programs that focus on finding alternative work and payment subsidies for scientists, to minimize the risk that they apply their knowledge elsewhere.

Such programs include the Nuclear Cities Initiative, which seeks to convert military facilities and jobs in 10 "closed" cities. While it is a regular target of critics, supporters say it provides a key blueprint. "This is the best strategy to guarantee that Russia's nuclear reductions are irreversible," says Alexander Pikayev, head of nonproliferation at the Carnegie Moscow Center. "Cutting this program undermines the solution itself."

The "human factor" is the reason, he says, citing cases in which guards - meant to be monitoring US-funded video surveillance systems - might not show up for work in winter.

"The long-term solution is not just to deliver these technical systems, but to do something about the human factor." Failure to do so, he warns, will cause "significant leakage of [Russian] materials and expertise that could trigger nuclear missile development" in rogue states, which in turn could undermine Washington's missile defense plans.

"This acceleration would be very high," Mr. Pikayev says. "This is why, by the time the US would be ready to deploy an efficient missile shield, those [hostile] countries might already have strong nuclear and missile capabilities."

A study by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace illumines the risk. Surveying scientists in five Russian nuclear cities, it found that 62 percent earn less than $50 per month. Also polled were experts in missile enterprises, 21 percent of whom said they would want to work in a foreign military complex.

Changing such attitudes has been the aim of US nonproliferation policy. And while Russian analysts say Moscow is more aware of the problem and is increasing its own funding, it is the tip of the iceberg. "There is not enough money for anything in Russia, even for nuclear arsenals, which deserve much more attention," says Vyacheslav Nikonov, head of the independent Politika Foundation think tank in Moscow.

"The idea of punishing Russia by not cutting its nuclear arsenal is a strange idea, with a strange logic," he adds. "If you spent half of that sum [proposed for the US missile defense shield] on Russian disarmament, you probably wouldn't even need the shield."

Back to the Top


#5 The Scotsman (UK)
8 May 2001
Everything OK in Putin's Russia
BY CHRIS STEPHEN IN MOSCOW

RUSSIA'S Chechnya policy may be in tatters and economic growth slowing, but the 10,000 children who gathered in Moscow's Red Square yesterday to celebrate the anniversary of President Vladimir Putin's inauguration had a simple message: Everything is all right.

The children, from the organisation Going Together, were bussed into the square and stood in the spring sunshine sporting T-shirts in red, white and blue, each with a picture of Mr Putin with the slogan "Everything Is All Right" printed below it.

"Today we celebrate one year of Putin and one year of our organisation," said the Going Together leader Vasily Yakimenko. "Putin is a strong unifying figure. As the most powerful man in the country, he is the one we must support."

He said Going Together backed Mr Putin because of his tough stance on drugs, morality and anti-racism.

With the staged chants, the pre-printed placards and secret funding, the rally will remind many of the "spontaneous" Communist youth rallies of old. But the rally was also a reminder of the yearning of ordinary Russians for a return to the power and relative prosperity of the Communist years.

Elsewhere in the country, there was little to celebrate. More than 15 targets were hit by Chechen rebel ambushes at the weekend, leaving ten soldiers dead and 20 wounded. The defence minister, Sergei Ivanov, said the planned pullout of three quarters of the 80,000 troops has been cancelled.

In 12 months, Mr Putin has removed the rights of regional governors to sit in the upper house of parliament, and appointed seven "super governors" to watch over them. He has brought old KGB colleagues into the Kremlin.

But the economy remains riddled with corruption with poverty is the lot of many ordinary Russians. Only high oil prices have kept Russia in the black. Inflation is running at 20 per cent and the government warned last week that an encouraging spurt of growth last year has petered out with industrial production falling.

Back to the Top


#6
Novoe Vremya
No. 19
May 2001
WE ARE ON THE RIGHT TRACK
Latest poll results indicate no serious opposition to Putin
Author: Nikolai Popov
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]
RESULTS OF AN OPINION POLL CONDUCTED BY A. MILEKHIN'S MONITORING.RU GROUP SHOW THAT SUPPORT FOR PRESIDENT PUTIN REMAINS HIGH. IF A PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION WERE HELD NOW, MOST OF THOSE WHO VOTED FOR PUTIN LAST YEAR WOULD DO SO AGAIN. AND THE PRO-PUTIN PARTIES WOULD EASILY WIN A PARLIAMENTARY ELECTION.

Vladimir Putin's first year in the Kremlin was marked by the public's trust and "approval of his actions". On the eve of the first anniversary of Putin's inauguration, nearly 60% of respondents approve of Putin's performance. Actually, this level of support has never fallen below 55% in the past year.

Various opinion polls indicate that if a presidential election was held tomorrow, over 50% of voters would vote for Putin - just as many as a year ago. Putting the question differently, 80% of those who voted for Putin a year ago would vote for him again. To a certain extent, Putin owes this high rating to the lack of other prominent political figures in Russia. Voters do not see any political leaders capable of seriously challenging Putin in an election. Putin's closest rival, Communist leader Gennadii Zyuganov, would only get 10%; and all other politicians would get even fewer votes.

Support for Putin spans all social categories and political preference groups. It is clear that most Unity supporters voted for Putin, but that is not all. Half of Fatherland - All Russia voters, and almost a third of Yabloko and LDPR voters, also voted for Putin. Moreover, 20% of Communist voters backed Putin.

It is difficult at present to decide which promises he has kept or broken. Around 60% of respondents believe that "the president is doing his best" to keep his promises.

Support for Putin is based on expectations that "he alone will restore order in the nation." Around 25% of respondents have always thought so. Around 70% of respondents consider that a strong hand is needed for this, and 42% of them think "all power should be concentrated in one person right now." In other words, they are confident that no matter what kind of government hierarchy Putin builds, it will only benefit the nation.

More than anyone else, Putin is associated with "restoration of Russia's greatness". This concerns Chechnya, trips abroad, meetings with foreign leaders, and even restoration of the almost-Soviet anthem. The latter was backed up by 51% of respondents.

Among other things, in the course of the presidential race voters expected oligarchs to be removed from the corridors of power. Around 40% of respondents assumed that Putin would diminish oligarchs' influence in the government, or even force them to keep an equal distance from the centers of power. For the time being, assessment of Putin's achievments in this sphere is not very good - only 14% believe that "the president has rid himself of the oligarchs' influence", while 55% do not. The nation should wait a bit longer. The latest conflicts with Berezovsky and Gusinsky, and their exile, are supposed to show the people that the Kremlin is working on it.

In any case, in appraising 2000, most respondents called the presidential election the event of the year. And 41% called Putin the Man of the Year, while only 5% chose Nobel Prize winner Alferov.

Putin's second year in office does not promise him political troubles. The Duma is not popular with the people. Only 19% say it is doing a good job; 53% say it is not, and 28% are uncertain. There is no serious opposition in Russia. If a parliamentary election were held today, the Communists would get 28% of Duma seats, Yabloko 11%, the Union of Right Forces 9%, and the alliance of Unity and Fatherland - All Russia would get 49%.

Boris Berezovsky is active again, trying to form an "opposition in exile" abroad. He made a similar attempt six months ago, but only 4% of poll respondents viewed his efforts as "really necessary". Half of respondents saw this as "a trick to regain political influence". At the same time, 15% of respondents consider it a ploy by the Kremlin, aimed at forming a "tame opposition". (Translated by A. Ignatkin)

Back to the Top


#7
Jamestown Foundation Monitor
May 9, 2001

A RED BOOMLET IN THE CIS. The Communist revanche in Moldova, followed by an international communist congress in Chisinau of a kind not seen since Soviet days, is only the most visible symptom of a growing assertiveness by communist parties in a number of post-Soviet countries.

With the partial exception of Moldova, there is no discernible correlation between economic conditions and the popularity or self-confidence of communist parties. Rather, these parties' assertiveness and political impact depend on a variety of local factors, which also include the level of national awareness (sufficiently low in Moldova to facilitate the electoral landslide of a Russified party), historically formed national perceptions of Russia and the Soviet Union, attitudes of the local post-Soviet elites toward the respective communist parties and availability of tactical allies within the ruling establishments or among opposition forces.

Georgia, for example, is as deeply impoverished as Moldova, but the United Communist Party of Georgia, for all its vociferousness, remains hopelessly marginal. In Georgia as in neighboring Azerbaijan, the governing elites and opposition forces alike refuse to consider any tactical alliances with communists. These two countries' communist parties are perceived as Moscow's fifth column. While the Georgians bear the reputation proudly, the Azerbaijanis try half-heartedly to jettison it. In Armenia, the national tradition of reliance on Russia means that the local Communist Party has neither a stigma to lose nor a distinct card to play.

Ramiz Ahmadov, chairman of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan, declared last week that "we are Narimanovists, followers of the national, cultural and economic ideas of Nariman Narimanov." Narimanov was a moderately nationalist and leftist Azeri leader of the 1920s, and is viewed in retrospect as a forerunner of "national communism." But Ahmadov declared in the same breath that communists everywhere owe "international solidarity" to "socialist Moldova," just as they owe it to Cuba, in order to help both of those countries "survive in an imperialist encirclement." In Moldova's case, Ahmadov expects that "isolation will not last long, considering that the left wing's prospects are improving in Russia and Ukraine."

In Ukraine, some oligarchic groups at the core of the ruling establishment have recently made a tactical alliance with the Communist Party in order to topple reformist, Western-oriented Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko, and potentially to reduce President Leonid Kuchma to a figurehead. That tactical alliance may turn strategic if oligarchs and Communists share portfolios in the new cabinet in the runup to the parliamentary elections. Such a turn of events could reverse the historic defeat which Kuchma--with those same oligarchs' help--inflicted on the Communist Party in the 1999 presidential election.

Belarus is a special case of Soviet continuity by presidential regime without a ruling Communist Party. The country has two rival communist parties: one which cooperates however uncomfortably with the democratic opposition, and one which plays a minor role in President Alyaksandr Lukashenka's "vertical power system."

In Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, the Communist Parties have found allies among opposition forces. Kyrgyzstan has two parties of unequal size and influence, which are now partially reconciled with one another on the basis of shared pro-Soviet and pro-Russian views. Local opposition groups claiming to be democratic made electoral alliances with both of those communist parties in last year's parliamentary and presidential elections. That alliance has continued past the elections. On this year's May Day in Bishkek, the Communists and putative democrats jointly paid homage at the monuments to Lenin and other Bolshevik heroes. It is unprecedented for noncommunists to participate in such a spectacle in a post-Soviet country. That they did so in Kyrgyzstan is perhaps a consequence of their dependence on Communist voting power and on ex-Chekists' campaign organization.

On May 4, the Communist Party of Kazakhstan urged general support to a proposal by Georgia's Communists for the "political rehabilitation" of Stalin. His "errors" and "omissions" notwithstanding, Stalin "made invaluable contributions, as leader of the Soviet people, to the edification of the Soviet state and its role as a great power." The Kazakh communist leader and member of the upper house of parliament, Serikbolsyn Abdildin, made that statement following a Central Committee meeting.

Under Abdildin's leadership, the Communist Party accepted to join forces with former Prime Minister Akezhan Kazhegeldin, the wealthy oligarch who fell out with President Nursultan Nazarbaev and created an opposition political bloc. The bloc includes Kazhegeldin's Republican Party, the Communist Party and several smaller groups, including communist fronts and Russian nationalist organizations. The bloc seems inactive at present, but it adds to an emerging pattern in which oligarchs--whether in power, such as those in Kyiv, or in opposition, such as Kazhegeldin--as well as anti-presidential forces of other types, such as those in Kyrgyzstan, find it politically acceptable and useful to enter into alliances with increasingly assertive communist parties (Itar-Tass, May 4; UNIAN, April 28-29; Snark (Yerevan), May 2; Zerkalo (Baku), May 3; Kyrgyz Television, Kabar (Bishkek), May 1-2; see the Monitor, March 12, 26, April 30, May 7).

Back to the Top


#8
Rossiiskaya Gazeta
May 5, 2001
[translation from RIA Novosti for personal use only]
WHAT U.S. WITHDRAWAL FROM ABM TREATY
MIGHT MEAN TO RUSSIA

Sergei ROGOV, director, Institute of U.S.A. and Canada Studies:

U.S. President George Bush's speech at the National Defence University has ushered in a new stage in Russian-American relations. We are now in for a serious political struggle on the question of preserving and upgrading the arms control regime with regard to defensive and offensive strategic armaments.

Bush has declared his political intentions in a very tough tone, which is typical of the new administration. He talks of anti-missile defense as if the final decision had already been made on this issue. He thus tries to create the impression that "the train has already left" avoiding at the same time any concrete aspects which concern the structures or the time schedule of anti-missile defense deployment.

While sharply criticizing the ABM Treaty, the American President does not say that his country is withdrawing from it. He has made it clear that Washington is ready for a dialogue with Russia on this question. If this is really so, such a dialogue could begin after the Russian and U.S. presidents met. It is difficult to say whether the Sides succeed in finding a compromise solution, but such a possibility must not be excluded, because the U.S. could start deploying its anti-missile defense only in the end of the current decade.

Vladimir LUKIN, State Duma committee deputy chairman:

It is necessary to hold joint negotiations on the preservation of a strategic balance between Russia and the U.S. and the situation of guaranteed retaliation in the event of first nuclear strike. This is our main task, and there can be no compromises in this context. Taking into account the opinion of Russia would create a certain base for such serious negotiations.

Viktor DELIA, rector of the Russian Academy of Socio-Economic Forecasting and Modelling:

The striving of Washington to gain technological superiority over Western Europe and Japan in addition to other countries, is not the last of the goals pursued by its plans to deploy national anti-missile defense. The aim of all this is crystal clear: while talking of deploying such a system and claiming that the 1972 ABM Treaty is "a relic", the U.S. tries to prepare world public opinion for a calm acceptance of tremendous financial injections into the American military-industrial complex.

Ivan VASILENKO, full member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, State Research Center of the Russian Federation (Biophysics Institute):

Demand for a ban on deployment of nuclear materials in outer space should be the pivot of Russian-American ABM negotiations.

Delivery of fissionable materials in the warheads of missile interceptors or energy blocks of laser pumps is fraught with great and real danger. The very presence of uranium or plutonium in space will jeopardize global civilization. Even if these fissionable materials are not used for military purposes, they will inevitably get into the near-Earth atmosphere and then reach the surface of the Earth as a result of man-made catastrophes.

Back to the Top


#9
Vremya Novostei
May 7, 2001
KEEP QUIET!
Russia keeps secret its answers to proposed
US national missile defense system
Author: Yuri Golotyuk
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]
SERGEI IVANOV FORBIDS RUSSIAN GENERALS FROM COMMENTING ON GEORGE W. BUSH'S STATEMENT ON ANTI-BALLISTIC MISSILE DEFENSE SYSTEM.

So far, Russian generals have been fairly reserved in their reaction to the speech of the US president concerning Washington's determination to launch a national anti-ballistic missile defense system. Military sources of Vremya Novostei say Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov issued a curt and simple order - ignore all provocations and do not comment on "our response to the American war-mongers". Ivanov made it quite clear that he is not going to put up with impromptu speeches like the one made by Lieutenant General Romanov recently. "We are not going to mince words with authors of statements like that. Before making speeches they had better send in their resignation letters," Ivanov said.

Moreover, the military says "there is nothing to discuss as yet, because all of that are provocations" and that is why "keeping one's temper is what counts". It does not take a genius to see that Bush's speech was prepared by real professionals - it adheres to the textbook principles of the "peacekeeping genre". The US president does not say that the United States is going to withdraw from the 1972 Anti- Ballistic Missile Defense Treaty. Instead he even talked about the possibility of reducing nuclear arsenals.

A well-informed source says that Russian military-political leadership "has prepared itself for the oncoming consultations". Four "basic options for future bilateral relations have been considered - "the worst", "the bad", "the satisfactory", and "the good".

The source said that "in 2000, we received orders from the Kremlin to consider our capacities for responding to a possible deployment of an anti-ballistic missile defense system by the United States. The military worked together with scientists (a special team from the Russian Academy of Sciences worked out new estimates of the destructive capacities of the current nuclear arsenals with the secondary destructive factors taken into account), and diplomats (the Foreign Ministry had been instructed to intensify its work with Beijing and New Delhi on establishing a "big Euro-Asian axis" of resistance to anti-ballistic missile defense systems). And finally, we worked with economists who were supposed to check the military's appetites because the president had ordered "our reply to America" to fall within the framework of the 3.5% of the GDP allocated to national defense...

In principle, there is nothing new about the prepared major postulates of Russia's response. (Save "the worst" scenario to which Sergeev was referring to when he spoke in February about possible reanimation of the "three powerful programs of asymmetric response" drawn by the Soviet Union in the period of Reagan's Star Wars.) The Russian military believes that "the Americans' unconstructive position" in the near future may only force the Kremlin to up the number of warheads it can deploy on land and marine ICBMs and perhaps even revise the obligations assumed on unilateral restriction of tactical nuclear arms by Boris Yeltsin in 1992. (Translated by A. Ignatkin)

Back to the Top


#10
The Atlanta-Journal Constitution
May 9, 2001
Military luster fades in Russia
Service seen as required ordeal
Margaret Coker - Cox Washington Bureau

Moscow --- Mothers, fathers and girlfriends were gathered at a scraggly plot of grass beside a rundown soccer stadium, waiting for their young men to be taken away.

"To your health," a father toasted, clinking bottles of beer with the small crowd huddled at dawn on a recent morning.

"To your return," called out a friend.

"To your return alive," added Galina Ivanov as she hugged her 19-year-old son.

Valentin Ivanov, his head freshly shaved and his eyes red from drinking all night, was desperate for a painkiller to help him and four friends face the rest of the day, their first in the Russian army.

Despite Russia's honored military tradition, young men today look upon their service not as a chance to defend their nation, but as a grueling rite of passage. Life in the armed forces is so tough that majority of young Russians now clamber to avoid it.

All Russian men from the ages of 18 to 27 are required to serve two years in the military. Conscripts make up 70 percent of Russia's 1.2 million-strong military, according to military analyst Dan Goure of the Lexington Institute, a Virginia-based policy study group.

Today, Russia commemorates Germany's surrender, which ended World War II in Europe, and pays tribute to the estimated 25 million who were killed defending their homeland against the Nazi invasion. Russians often rate this glorious military past and ferocious display of patriotism as their chief national virtue.

"You grow up quick and learn to be independent," said Igor Kusnetsov, a 30-year-old architect. "Everyone should serve, if only to strengthen his character."

But young men, their families and their friends point to a stream of horror stories about the state of the military, ranging from often fatal hazing to the threat facing soldiers in the Russian republic of Chechnya, where more than 3,000 soldiers have died and more than 5,000 have been wounded since war with rebels resumed in 1999.

Although President Vladimir Putin has promised to end mandatory service eventually, he has ordered the call-up this spring of 189,995 conscripts.

Only about 10 percent of eligible young men have answered their draft summonses, defense officials say, leading military officials to complain openly for the first time that the army is facing a manpower shortage.

"Today we cannot call up as many people as the armed forces need," Vladislav Putilin, the deputy army chief of staff, said recently. "Soon there will be no one we can call up."

While there are many reasons to back out of the draft, just one major factor separates those who serve and those who don't. Money.

Those who can afford it enroll in a university or buy a medical exemption, which can be obtained for a bribe of between $300 and $5,000, according to Vorobyova Fyodorovna of the Soldiers' Mothers Committee, an advocacy group.

But those who, like Valentin Ivanov, can't afford such payoffs have no choice but to heed their induction notices and show up at the designated time at buildings like this stadium in Moscow's southeastern Lyublino district.

Ivanov, a mail courier, said he was not averse to what he called "performing my duty." But his mother wished his fate was different.

She said that she couldn't afford to buy a medical release. The parents and the two children still living at home survive on a monthly income of $300, most of which comes from Valentin's job.

"We even had to borrow 1,500 rubles (worth $60) to organize his going-away party," she said, balancing bottles of beer and a handful of tissues.

Galina Ivanov has special reason to worry. Valentin is the fourth of her sons to be drafted, and she has heard the horror stories that await him, like poor quality food and mind-numbing assignments that at best will have him stationed in the middle of Siberia, or at worst in a hot spot like Chechnya.

"My oldest son returned ill after serving in Tajikistan, a little crazy and with sores all over his skin," she said. "Valentin's not afraid, but he's young and doesn't understand."

Tajikistan is a strife-torn former Soviet republic that gets military help from Russia.

The only comfort that Galina Ivanov could offer her son was the extra salami she thrust into his tiny Adidas sports bag as he walked, waving goodbye, toward a green military bus.

Soon, the bus puttered away into the morning rush-hour traffic.

"The army is a tough life," said Valentin's childhood friend Sasha Simonov, who is 18. "We are afraid he'll come back not a better person for doing his duty, but worse off --- maybe ill or wounded. But better being wounded than knowing you turned your back when your country called."

Back to the Top


#11
The Russia Journal
May 4-10, 2001
SPECIAL REPORT: Signals of reform, but under Soviet principles
Military must go further to bring about real changes in Russia
By Alexander Golts

A common expression employed in Russian military circles is "to signify." It’s used during military exercises when one thing often signifies another. A running soldier, for example, can signify an armored personnel carrier on the move. A shot from a grenade launcher during maneuvers can signify a round of heavy artillery fire.

If military reform doesn’t go beyond the measures listed by new Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, then what we will see is not military reform but something that "signifies" military reform.

Ivanov’s proposals – cutbacks in numbers, changes in the command system of the armed forces and structural reorganization – are all important aspects of reform, but unless they’re made part of a single overall objective, they will lead only to the imitation of reform.

Over the coming years, the armed forces are to be cut by 365,000 servicemen. Given that the state can’t even properly feed and arm all its soldiers, this looks like a perfectly rational decision. But let’s not forget that this is the third major cutback since Soviet times. The armed forces have shrunk by 500,000 men over the past three years, but this hasn’t led to any proportional increase in effectiveness.

Military authorities are following a simple logic in their planned cutbacks – if they can spend more money on each soldier, servicemen will serve better and have more resources. The catch is that this logic doesn’t work. The problem is that the reform program’s authors haven’t veered an iota from the principles on which the Soviet army ran.

Designed as mass army

But the Soviet army was designed as a mass army. All strategic plans were based on the idea that if need be, millions of reservists could be called to arms. This is why conscript soldiers were and still are given only the most basic training – the assumption was (and is) that they only had to be able to fight just one battle.

The significance of the cutbacks under way requires new approaches in the armed forces. Once the cutbacks have been made, there will be no more than 10 ground-forces divisions to defend the whole of Russia. What’s more, the demographic situation in the country over the past decade means it’s no longer possible to draft large numbers of people into the armed forces.

But so long as the conscript system remains in place, there won’t be any real quality improvement among soldiers. No sooner do conscript soldiers get a grasp of basic military skills than their military service comes to an end. Meanwhile, having to endlessly teach new conscripts the military basics has a negative effect on officers.

Compensate for cuts

The only way to compensate for cutbacks in the armed forces would be to increase the effectiveness of each soldier and officer and the mobility of Army units. But conscripts make up a quarter of any subdivision’s men, and this means that in a crisis, instead of being able to relocate troops fast, time would be wasted on reorganizing these subdivisions.

Keeping the conscript system also means keeping in place the current detrimental and top-heavy ratio of officers and soldiers. At the moment, senior officers outnumber junior officers and there is one officer for every two soldiers – a system beneficial only to military bureaucrats. The only explanation anyone can give for this distortion is that if war breaks out, all the colonels who usually spend their time shuffling paper would become division commanders. Essentially, what this all boils down to is that cutbacks in the armed forces won’t result in any serious change.

In appointing a retired KGB general to head the Defense Ministry and making a senior woman official from the Finance Ministry one of his deputies, President Vladimir Putin claims to have begun demilitarizing Russia. In reality, however, the appointment of one or even several civilians to top defense posts could end up doing more to discredit the idea of demilitarization rather than furthering its cause.

Back in Soviet times, civilian Central Committee Secretary Dmitry Ustinov became Defense Minister, but this had not the slightest impact on a society militarized to its very core. Kremlin officials, unfortunately, don’t seem to realize that having a genuinely civilian defense minister isn’t some kind of Western whim, but is a necessary condition for building a thriving democratic society.

The issue at stake is genuine civilian control over the armed forces. But the president and new defense minister are so obsessed with secrecy that even the military reform plan is labeled top secret. The political and military authorities don’t feel any need to inform the public on what is going on in the military.

As a result, it is the Soviet military elite that goes on setting defense policy in today’s Russia. It is they who feed Putin fables, leading him to come out with nonsensical public statements on the lines that no country in continental Europe has a professional army.

So long as key information and decisions remain hidden from the public eye, putting a few civilians in the defense ministry won’t change anything. Indeed, the situation looks to be worsening.

Convincing Putin

Anatoly Kvashnin, head of General Headquarters, has managed to convince Putin and Ivanov that command of the armed forces would be improved by separating the functions of General Headquarters and the Defense Ministry. Under this plan, the Defense Ministry would take on political and administrative functions, while General Headquarters would be responsible for operative command of troops.

There isn’t sense in these proposals. The next link down in the command chain is the military districts, which have both administrative and operative functions. Kvashnin’s proposals would simply fragment command of the military districts.

But if these plans are useless, they certainly aren’t without risk. If they are implemented, Putin, as commander-in-chief of the armed forces, would lose his direct link with the troops. At the same time, General Headquarters – the agency responsible for planning military operations for every occasion – would get the chance to meddle directly in political life.

In essence, General Headquarters would obtain the same rights as German General Headquarters had at the beginning of the last century. We all know what that experiment led to – German generals followed a consistent line of confrontation, drawing Germany into a world war and subsequent defeat.

If this "reform" goes ahead in Russia, civilian society will lose all control over military life for a good while to come. Putin believes he can control the armed forces, but this is an illusion. Putin and Ivanov can control the armed forces in the sense that they wouldn’t let some kind of military coup happen, but without civilian control, the corruption that already infects the military will only spread. This will mean that money spent on the military will continue to vanish goodness knows where.

Right when implementation of the plans to separate the Defense Ministry’s and General Headquarters’ functions began, the Kremlin finally realized what dangers lay in wait and began trying to make changes on the spot. As a result, the Chief Command of Ground Forces has now been made responsible for military training of all the armed forces. This decision will only add to the already tangled situation.

The introduction of a single arms-procurement system will likewise lead to increased waste of money in the military. Previously, chief commands of the different branches of the armed forces set their own arms-procurement requirements within the framework of the overall military budget. A chief command interested in production of a particular weapon or piece of equipment would set up a whole chain of suppliers to produce component parts.

Now, all these different projects are to be brought under one department, and this means the different branches will no longer be able to set their own priorities. Had the chief commands been able to continue working as they had and take on civilian officials from the military-industrial complex to focus on arms procurement, they could have eventually become more like the U.S. Army, Air Force and Navy departments, but this opportunity has now been lost.

Structural changes

Officials present structural changes as the third main element of reform. Three years ago, officials were saying that abolishing the Chief Command of Ground Forces and handing its functions over to General Headquarters was a major step toward reform, as was the decision to merge the Military Space Forces with the Space Missile Defense Forces and Strategic Missile Forces. Now, Chief Command of Ground Forces has been revived and the Space Forces are being separated from the Strategic Missile Forces and this is called a major step toward reform. But everyone is forgetting that three years ago, when this structure still existed, the armed forces weren’t exactly flourishing.

Ivanov’s explanation for why these latest structural reorganizations are necessary looks naive, to say the least. Ivanov told journalists that the immediate priority is to concentrate on the Space Forces – a new branch in the armed forces. The Space Forces are to be formed by the Military Space Forces and Space Missile Defense Forces splintered off from the Strategic Missile Forces.

Ivanov spoke perfectly seriously about how the Space Forces could back up armed-forces subdivisions at a tactical level. But someone obviously hasn’t been briefing Ivanov very well. Were he better informed, Ivanov would know that the Russian Space Forces have half the satellites of U.S. Space Command, which really does provide tactical support for army troops. Ivanov would also know that more than 70 percent of our satellites have already expended their service life. It’s not at all certain that they can ensure in full their previous tasks – strategic intelligence, early warning of missile attacks and communications. It’s extremely unlikely the Defense Ministry has the money just to maintain the satellite group let alone increase it.

None of these structural changes do anything to rationalize the overall military structure in Russia. The Kremlin hasn’t found the courage to even begin demilitarizing the dozen-odd ministries and agencies run on a military basis. The changes going on at the moment are no more than the results of bureaucratic battles – in this case, the victory of Kvashnin’s group over the strategic missile group, headed by previous Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev.

No longer superpower

The outcome of these reforms will be that in a few years time, the Russian Army will be a quarter of the size of the Soviet one but will be just as inefficient. The problem lies in the fact that to really reform the armed forces, the Kremlin would have to admit that Russia is no longer a military superpower and will not be one in the coming decades.

Admission of this unpleasant fact would imply abandoning the idea of trying to stand up to the world’s most powerful countries with the help of a huge army. It would imply giving up conscription and moving toward a professional army. Were conscription to be abolished, the military-district commands could take on more strategic-command functions as they would be freed from having to carry out conscription and mobilize troops. And it’s not General Headquarters that should command them, but a civilian Defense Ministry. (Hundreds of civilian officials should begin training for future defense posts right away). As for General Headquarters, it should be the main analytical and advisory body.

Sooner or later, the Kremlin will realize the need for these reforms, which all developed countries have gone through at some point or another. It would be a good thing if this realization comes before the armed forces disintegrate beyond redemption.

Back to the Top