#1
GEORGE BUSH: USA AND RUSSIA SHOULD
NOT VIEW EACH OTHER WITH SUSPICION

WASHINGTON, July 19, 2001. /from RIA Novosti correspondent Arkady Orlov/--The USA and Russia should not view each other with suspicion, President George Bush of the USA said commenting on the Monday interview of Russian President Vladimir Putin with Italian journalists.

On Tuesday President Bush had a White House meeting with a group of journalists.

The US President said he considered "interesting" and "worthy of attention" Russian President Vladimir Putin's NATO-related statements. The US President noted that he knew what opinion the Russian President held on this issue and well remembered that Putin had already touched upon the subject at their joint press conference in Ljubljana.

Saying that Russia has no enemies in the West, Bush stressed that it would be so as long as he was president.

However, he added that NATO's expansion would continue.

Commenting on relations between the USA and Russia, the White House head recalled that he had held a very constructive meeting with Vladimir Putin in Ljubljana which allowed them to hold very sincere, very straightforward and very open negotiations.

Bush stressed he considered it necessary for Russia and the USA to seriously contemplate joint efforts to dispose of the document which had consolidated the cold war mistrust. Claiming that that very document was the Russo-American ABM treaty, the US president announced that then Russia and the USA had divided the world into two armed camps and targeted missiles against each other.

Bush said that he had suggested to Vladimir Putin creating new strategic framework for peace, since, the US President said, the threat that prompted the ABM Treaty no longer existed.

Saying that the world is now facing new threats such as cyberterrorism and fundamental extremism menacing Israel and Russia in particular, Bush added he believed it necessary to coordinate security efforts and create potentials which could answer a missile threat.

Mr. Bush emphasised that he intended to raise this subject once again at his meeting with Vladimir Putin in Genoa.

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#2
Hinting at Compromise, Russia Delays Response to US Missile Plans

MOSCOW, July 19 (AFP) - Hinting at a compromise, a top Kremlin national security advisor said Thursday that Russia would only make a formal response to US plans to build a national missile defense in October at the earliest.

"I think that in October, if not later, a (Russian missile defense) delegation will complete its evaluation process" of this month's US missile defense test, said Igor Sergeyev, the top Kremlin advisor on strategic issues.

"Only after conducting this strategic study can we begin a specific discussion about two inter-linked things -- that is the ABM and its future, will the agreement remained unchanged, or not," Sergeyev said.

"But for now, the Americans have not answered a simple question that (Russian President Vladimir) Putin has asked -- how does the ABM agreement harm anyone."

Asked by AFP whether Russia was prepared to modify the cornerstone 1972 agreement, allowing the United States to build the missile shield, Sergeyev hinted at compromise.

He appeared to suggest that a negotiation over a new agreement -- one replacing the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty -- could begin soon. "I do not know how much" the ABM treaty can be changed, said Sergeyev.

"They (the changes) are impossible if all that is left of the ABM is its name, but there is no agreement" on future strategic defense policy, said Sergeyev, who previously served as the Russian defense minister, and before then as head of the nation's strategic rocket forces.

Russia does not want "only the shell of the ABM to remain" as it is, allowing the United States to build its missile defense shield, he said.

Sergeyev's comments appear to suggest that Russia would be willing to negotiate a new strategic agreement with Washington that falls outside the scope of the current ABM agreement.

They also come against the backdrop of President Vladimir Putin's declaration Wednesday that Russia would not link up with any other nation -- including neighboring nuclear power China -- to present a joint response to the potential threat of US missile defense shield.

"As for a possible joint Russo-Chinese response to the US move -- each country can decide what to do on its own," said Putin.

"It is possible in principle. But in practice, we do not plan a joint response with any country, including China. Russia is strong enough to respond on its own to any changes in the sphere of strategic stability."

At the same time Putin noted that Russia had prepared its own tough response to the US missile shield.

And Sergeyev, echoing those sentiments, said that Moscow would view Washington as an enemy from the moment the United States deployed any missiles in space -- if not earlier.

"If missiles are deployed in space, nothing any no one says will convince Russia that these devices are not aimed against us," said Sergeyev.

And responding to a Pentagon announcement that it could break the ABM agreement as early February, when the Us begins building a missile defense center in Alaska, Sergeyev said cautiously that Moscow would at that point consider the strategic defense treaty as broken.

"If they begin pouring down concrete, then of course..." said Sergeyev, without completing his sentence.

Pressed on the issue, Sergeyev added: "I think that signs of the start of building the object -- the radar and the anti-rocket defense shafts -- will be (perceived) as a sign of infringement of the ABM."

But he quickly returned to Moscow's recently-adopted more cautious line.

"We have no intention of starting a war with the United States," Sergeyev said.

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#3
Jamestown Foundation Monitor
July 19, 2001

PUTIN MEETS THE PRESS... In his first press conference since becoming Russia's head of state a year and a half ago, President Vladimir Putin yesterday spent an hour and a half fielding questions from among the 500 domestic and foreign journalists in attendance. It was on the whole a successful public diplomacy exercise for the Kremlin in advance of the G-7 meeting in Genoa, Italy.

The Russian head of state praised the most recent session of the State Duma, which ended last week, pointing out that the parliament's lower house had passed a total of more than 200 pieces of legislation. These as a whole, he said, marked a major step toward "the modernization of the state's economy" and a "substantial contribution toward the improvement of the country's political system." Putin referred specifically to the passage of a new Criminal Procedural Code, a law governing sales of nonagricultural land, a reduction in the profits tax--he also noted that the 13-percent flat income tax effective at the start of this year gave Russia the lowest income tax rate in Europe--and measures to reduce "groundless interference by the state in the economy," including a law reducing the number of activities requiring licenses from 500 to 102. In addition, Putin defended measures he pushed through last year to limit the power of Russia's regions and a Kremlin-sponsored bill the Duma recently passed to limit the number of political parties in country.

At the same time, Putin said that his main achievement in office so far had been to maintain "stability and a certain consensus in society," which he said were a prerequisite to carrying out the country's economic and political "modernization." Following this logic, he said that he opposed removing Lenin's corpse from the mausoleum on Red Square because many Russians still "associate the name of Lenin with their own lives." The reburial of the Soviet founder, he said, would tell such people that "they had worshiped false values" and would thus upset the current political and societal "balance" (Gazeta.ru, July 18; Moscow Times, July 19).

...ANGRILY DEFENDS HIS CHECHEN POLICY. Vladimir Putin's press conference yesterday (July 18) also touched on more controversial themes. A BBC correspondent, for example, asked the Russian president about an "information security doctrine" promulgated by the Kremlin last year, which, among other things, charged that unnamed countries were trying "to infringe upon Russia's interests and dominate in the global sphere of information and "force Russia out of domestic and international information markets" and said that there was a need to "clarify" the status of foreign media and foreign journalists working in Russia (see the Monitor, September, 15, 2000). Putin admitted that some of the formulations might have been done differently, but denied that the doctrine was influencing or interfering with "the real activities of the mass media." He also criticized the fact that the U.S. government-funded Radio Liberty is allowed to operate and broadcast inside Russia while the U.S. government has refused to grant analogous privileges to Russian state-run radio stations like Radio Rossiya and Radio Mayak. After this exchange, Radio Liberty's correspondent asked the Russian president whether allegations of human rights abuses by Russian troops in Chechnya had led him to reconsider his approach to resolving the Chechen crisis. Putin said he had no intention to change his approach to the Chechnya issue, arguing that the "mestasis" of Islamic radicalism had penetrated Russia's North Caucasus and that it would be an "unforgivable mistake" to allow Chechnya to remain "a beachhead for attacks on the Russian Federation." When Alice Lagnado of Britain's The Times newspaper shouted that Putin had not answered the question and asked about alleged abuses committed by Russian forces recently during so-called zachistki ("cleansing" operations) in the villages of Sernovodsk and Assinovskaya, the head of state became visibly angry, arguing that "fundamentalists" try to provoke federal troops into committing excesses and admitting that federal troops do not "always succeed in not falling for these provocations." Putin said those who commit abuses against civilians should be punished, but countered that zachistki were simply passport checks aimed at capturing wanted criminals and that Russia should be "thanked" for intervening in Chechnya in 1999, given that people were being arbitrarily shot and beheaded there during the republic's de facto independence. Putin also claimed that the republic's judicial system had been fully restored but that the Chechen rebels had killed forty pro-Moscow religious and regional administration officials.

Putin was also asked about another controversial issue--the activities of Boris Berezovsky, the powerful Yeltsin-era oligarch who went into self-imposed exile last year after openly accusing Putin of authoritarian tendencies. After a pause, Putin responded: "Boris Berezovsky--who is that?"--an answer greeted by laughter and applause. The head of state called Berezovsky an "irrepressible, indefatigable man" who is constantly "appointing someone or overthrowing someone," adding: "Let him labor." At the same time Putin said that he welcomed Berezovsky's promises to mount a political opposition. "If he finds something that we do wrong and presents it to the public, we should be only grateful to him because it should correct our behavior," he said. "He is a clever man, maybe he will uncover something?"

In an interview published last week, Berezovsky predicted that Putin would be replaced before the end of the year by "one of the governors Putin is trying to crush while pursuing the shortsighted goal of achieving centralization" (La Repubblica, July 12). Some observers have speculated that Berezovsky, who has promised to fund the opposition political activities of disgruntled democrats and has already begun funding various civil society and human rights projects, may actually be acting as a "pocket opposition" for Putin, helping to discredit the anti-Putin opposition at home simply by supporting it while cleansing his disreputable image in the West (Moscow Times, July 16; see also the Monitor, June 4, 18).

Interestingly, presidential aide Sergei Yastrzhembsky last week held up TV-6, the television channel owned by Berezovsky, as proof that there are still independent information sources in Russia (Radio Ekho Moskvy, July 10).

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#4
Moscow Times
July 19, 2001
Isolating Uncle Sam
By Pavel Felgenhauer

President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart Jiang Zemin signed the first post-Soviet friendship treaty between the two nations this week. "The treaty will bring friendship from generation to generation," Jiang said after the signing ceremony. "This is a milestone in the development of Chinese-Russian relations."

In a joint statement, Putin and Jiang said they were hoping for a "just and rational new international order" to reflect their concept of a "multipolar" world led by the United Nations, rather than Washington.

The treaty made it clear that the two countries had no immediate plans to form a military alliance. Article 7 of the treaty specifies that Russia and China will promote military cooperation, arms trade and military technology transfers, but this is "not aimed against third countries."

The U.S. State Department was quick to announce that the Chinese-Russian pact is no threat. But behind the scenes the new closeness between Moscow and Beijing is causing serious headaches in Washington.

Two months ago The Washington Times published a story, based on leaks from the Pentagon, that alleged that a February 2001 Russian strategic exercise was in fact a preparation to attack U.S. bases in the Far East in support of China. The exercises involved Russian Tu-22 Backfire bombers that flew close to Japanese airspace.

"The Russians were practicing nuclear intervention against U.S. troops on Taiwan," said an unidentified American intelligence official, familiar with classified reports.

High-ranking Russian generals and diplomats I interviewed on the subject said that these allegations are crazy, that if and when the U.S. and China clash over Taiwan, Moscow would do its best to keep neutral.

A Chinese-U.S. confrontation over Taiwan is perceived in Moscow as a distinct possibility in the coming decade. The repeated emphasis that the new pact with Beijing is not a military alliance is a clear indication of Moscow's desire to keep out of the fray. But Russia's neutral stance will most probably be tilted strongly in favor of China.

In the last several months, Washington has been regularly probing Russian officials on the possibility of forming a closer alliance based in part on a coordinated effort to contain China — a possible threat to both nations in the future. But these advances have been rejected.

The newly signed pact specifically mentions that China and Russia will not enter any alliances that can threaten each other's territorial integrity. From Beijing's — and Moscow's — point of view, the problem of Taiwan is first and foremost a problem of China's territorial integrity, of a renegade province attempting to break away.

Russia is today supplying China with modern weapons and will most probably continue to supply arms if a conflict erupts over Taiwan. In 2000, according to industry sources, Chinese military procurement in Russia doubled to nearly $2 billion (more than 60 percent of all Russian arms exports). China is today negotiating the purchase of Russia's newest anti-ship missile, the Granit, which is deployed on Oscar II (Kursk-type) nuclear attack submarines.

There are two almost completed Oscar II subs stranded after the collapse of the Soviet Union at the Severodvinsk "Sevmash" shipyard. Finishing the subs, using Soviet-made equipment and parts, would not cost Russian industry much, but China could be pressed to pay up to $2 billion. The consequences of such a deal coming through are already strongly influencing Russian defense and foreign policies.

The Granit cruise missiles are designed to carry nuclear warheads to knock out U.S. aircraft carriers. China could equip Russian Granits with its own nukes and alter the strategic balance in the Eastern Pacific.

Russian military sources say that Granit cruise missiles have a very sophisticated computerized guidance system that uses an on-board radar and also can take in data from Russian spy and navigation satellites. Today it's reported there's a package deal being negotiated with Beijing that will involve Chinese investment to help prop up Russia's ailing military satellite constellation in exchange for data.

Russia and China are forming a relationship that is an alliance in everything but name. We will not fight for China, but we hope that our weapons and military technologies will help diminish U.S. influence in Asia and in the Pacific and promote a "multipolar world," while the proceeds of arms trade will be used to keep our defense industry ticking.

Of course such a policy may end in disaster, but the Kremlin seems ready to take strategic risks.

Pavel Felgenhauer is an independent Moscow-based defense analyst.

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#5
The Center for Defense Information
The Weekly Defense Monitor
July 19, 2001
The Sino-Russian Friendship Treaty Lectures Washington
By Nicholas Berry

There is no subtlety in the Treaty on Good Neighborly Friendship and Cooperation Between the Russian Federation and the People's Republic of China. Presidents Jiang Zemin and Vladimir Putin designed their friendship treaty, signed in Moscow on July 16, to send a loud message to the Bush administration. That message in no uncertain terms tells the White House that it has a supremely mistaken notion about what kind of world it is. And if the United States continues on the dangerous hegemonic road it is now taking, the result will be global instability, thus compelling closer Sino-Russian security cooperation.

The Jiang-Putin joint statement proclaiming that the treaty is "not directed against third countries" is a fig leaf that can be quickly discarded. The naked truth is contained in their hope for a "just and rational new order" and in their opposition to numerous U.S. policies.

The U.S. drive for world domination, Jiang and Putin agree, is revealed in Washington's decision to abrogate the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty in order to pursue national missile defense. The two leaders called the ABM Treaty a "cornerstone of strategic stability and the basis for reducing offensive weapons." A U.S. multi-layered (land, sea, air, and space) missile defense, Jiang and Putin have long argued, would make America boss by negating Chinese and Russian deterrent capabilities.

In addition, Washington's push for NATO expansion implies that Russia is a potential enemy. U.S. weapons sales and Bush's pledge to "do whatever it took to help Taiwan defend itself" could negate China's claim of sovereignty over that island. Both American moves are seen as extremely hostile.

NATO's war with Serbia over Kosovo under the guise of humanitarian intervention also put China and Russia on common ground. Their friendship treaty declares that Russia and China "stand for strict observance of the generally recognized principles and norms of international law against any actions aimed at forced pressure or at interference, under any pretext, into domestic affairs of sovereign states." In short, the United States is not the world's self-appointed policeman.

Although not mentioned in the treaty or in the Jiang-Putin joint statement, Washington's pervasive use of economic sanctions has been perceived in Beijing and Moscow as further evidence of U.S. hegemony.

In a statement after the treaty signing, Jiang said that China and Russia "believe that more active cooperation between our countries in discussing missile defenses and disarmament will enhance our efforts in building a multipolar world and establish a fair, rational international order." Will Washington understand the Sino-Russian message and move away from its unilateral policies?

Unlikely, but it certainly was worth the try.

A strong case can indeed be made that the Bush administration does not understand a globalized world. Washington acts unilaterally against the ban of land mines, the International Criminal Court (ICC), the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), the Kyoto protocol on global warming, and has successfully watered down the UN draft on the international sale of small arms. The Bush foreign-policy team view the world largely in terms of threats. The term "rogue states" is back in use. Record peacetime military budgets are in the works. A threatening world requires punishments and containment.

Bush and his team, therefore, still have one leg in the Cold War. They fail to realize that a globalized world - one with no revisionist bloc hostile to the current world order (as it was with the Soviet bloc), with an increasingly unitary economic system, and with a panoply of functioning international organizations regulating exchanges - functions according to rewards and the loss of rewards, not according to threats and punishments. Enjoying the rewards of trade, foreign direct investment, technology transfers, and strategic multipolarity and avoiding the loss of rewards from self-isolation are what keeps globalization running and virtually every country playing by the rules. The world is multipolar, economically and strategically. Bush's unilateralism rejects global integration.

Bush even clings to the view that narrow self-interest is good for the American economy, hence he opposed the Kyoto protocol by saying it would hurt U.S. economic interests. His treasury secretary has strongly criticized the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. What is needed from Washington is more cooperation and leadership and less confrontation. If the U.S. economy is the engine of the world economy, Bush is in danger of decoupling the engine from the train.

Eventually, the Bush administration may get the message implicit in the friendship treaty, especially since American allies tend to be on the same page as China and Russia in criticizing Washington's policies.

But Beijing and Moscow could overplay their hand. Although both countries made clear that the friendship treaty is not a military alliance ("The treaty will not touch military cooperation," said one Chinese official), closer Sino-Russian military ties would tend to confirm the idea current with some Bush officials that a new cold war is eminent. Especially worrisome is the following line in the friendship treaty: "In case of the emergence of the threat of aggression, the two sides shall immediately make contact with each other and carry out consultations in order to eliminate the emerging threat."

Who else but the United States could threaten aggression against these two nuclear states? Would action "to eliminate the emerging threat" be peaceful?

Washington may need a lecture, but it doesn't need confirmation of its atavistic world view.

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#6
IMF report on Russia calls for continued reforms
ITAR-TASS

Washington, 19 July: Russia's economic growth will hit about 4 per cent and inflation 17.6 per cent this year, experts of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicted after a monitoring survey of the Russian economy.

The IMF board of directors finished the review of Russia's economic situation in May, but the results were published this month. The survey lauded Russia's economic performance, with reservations.

In particular, IMF experts are of the opinion that the Russian government did not make adequate use of the good economic results of 2000 for moving forward the programme of structural reforms.

This year's growth slow-down and inflation increase indicate the need for "vigilance" and an adjustment of policy in order to retain the recent macroeconomic achievements, the experts said.

The IMF sees judicious use of Russia's present-day strong balance of payments as a key task of economic policy, so that neither the prospects of economic growth are undermined nor inflation increased.

Some IMF directors are of the opinion that the Bank of Russia should raise interest rates.

The IMF has called on Moscow to proceed with the government's bold programme of structural reforms, which is bound to attract domestic and foreign investments and curb the capital drain. The consistent pursuit of the programme could help Russia's resumption of cooperation with the IMF in 2003, when Russia's foreign debt repayments will be highest and it may need further loans.

Marking the adoption of crucial chapters of the tax code as one of Russia's major accomplishments of the last year, the IMF at the same time expressed concern that the loss of revenues because of continuing tax reform could prove too costly.

The IMF is of the opinion that an "uncertain cost of the programme of structural reforms" should not undermine the hard-won financial and budgetary stability. IMF experts backed the idea of Russia's oil stabilisation fund.

Reform of the financial sector is vital for successful development of business in Russia, IMF said. It called on Moscow to work out a strategy for enhancing the role of private banks, including foreign ones, promoting competition and adopting international accounting standards.

The IMF's press release said Russia's debt to the fund was about 10.6bn dollars as of late April.

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#7
Christian Science Monitor
20 July 2001
Caveat on Caspian caviar
Russia today froze fishing for endangered sturgeon.
By Fred Weir
Special to The Christian Science Monitor

Making preparations for her recent birthday party, Nonna, a graphic designer, knew one thing was essential: caviar.

So she popped down to Cheriomushky farmers' market, near her south Moscow flat, where a man was loudly suggesting "fresh caviar" to passersby.

Parked nearby, his battered, white Volga sedan had a trunk filled with jars of varying sizes. For a more than a pound of the oily black roe, Nonna paid 1,500 rubles (just over $50). "It was fantastic, fresh and smooth," she says. "I know it's probably a terrible thing, but everyone does it. We have so few luxuries to enjoy th ese days."

Experts say black-market trades like this one are are leading to extinction for the Caspian Beluga sturgeon, source of 90 percent of the world's black caviar, a delicacy enjoyed by czars, commissars, and high-livers everywhere.

But it's the legal fishing that's getting the attention for the moment.

As part of a last-ditch international rescue effort, Russia and three other post-Soviet states are freezing Caspian Sea sturgeon fishing as of today. Moscow has been dragged unwillingly into the moratorium - which it insists should not last beyond the end of this year.

"The moratorium is a brilliant step. But we are awaiting clear signs that it amounts to more than lip service," says Arkadius Labon, head of the United Nations-funded Caspian Regional Center for Fisheries Management. "Poaching is the big problem, and there is no sign that Russia is willing or able to do anything about it."

Last month, the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) offered the Caspian countries of Russia, Azerbaijan, Kazakstan, and Turkmenistan an ultimatum: Halt sturgeon fishing or face a ban on exports of black caviar to rich and hungry Western markets. Black caviar fetches about $2,000 per kilogram (about $900 a pound) in the US - 10 times the official price in Russia.

"The decision of CITES raises certain doubts," Russia's State Fisheries Committee complained in a statement. "We believe that our 2001 fishing quota of 500 tons was quite reasonable. But we will comply with the decision."

The only Caspian country exempted from the ban threat is Iran, which is considered by CITES to practice effective conservation and policing of its fisheries. But Iran is a small player in the caviar business, with an annual harvest one-seventh the size of Russia's.

Still, experts say legal harvesting is probably the least of the forces that have driven the Beluga sturgeon, which resembles a chainsaw with fins, to the brink of extinction. The damming of the Volga River spawning grounds 40 years ago, pollution, poaching, and drilling connected with the Caspian oil boom have been far more destructive.

"The moratorium will give a little temporary breathing room to the sturgeon, but unless there is a comprehensive environmental plan for the Caspian Sea, they are probably doomed," says Vladimir Logutov, chief Caspian expert for the Ecology Committee of Russia's State Duma (lower house of parliament.) "There has been almost no natural spawning in the Caspian by the sturgeon in 20 years."

Ninety percent of Beluga sturgeon live in the Caspian Sea, the word's largest salt-water lake. Experts say the sturgeon is a unique, prehistoric fish that predates the dinosaurs. Until recent decades, it was not unusual for a sturgeon to live 200 years and grow to weigh a ton.

Today, few live beyond their first spawning at age 10, says Georgy Ruban, an expert with the nongovernmental International Union for the Conservation of Nature. "The sturgeon are being fished ruthlessly out of existence, mainly by poachers."

Russian media regularly report on bitter turf wars among some 500 heavily armed criminal gangs that operate poaching rings along the Russian section of the Caspian coastline.

In the Volga delta, where 70 percent of all wild Belugas go to spawn, armed gangs from the ex-Soviet republics of Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, and Kazakstan also join in the scramble. Underfunded, overstretched, and outgunned, Russian police seem incapable of making a dent in the problem.

Since the collapse of strict Soviet-era controls, the sturgeon's decline has been precipitous. In the late 1980's the Caspian population numbered about 200 million fish, and a typical annual catch was around 25,000 tons. Though reliable figures are hard to come by, there are thought to be fewer than 10 million sturgeon in the Caspian today. Last year's legal harvest was only 500 tons. Legal exports of caviar from the Caspian region have fallen from 2,000 tons in 1978, to 500 tons in 1991, to 160 tons last year.

Experts, however, say illegal exports from Russia alone may be more than 400 tons annually. "A lot of money is being made by a lot of people through this trade, so don't expect it to end easily," says Mr. Labon.

The Russian government insists its program to save the sturgeon is working, and that international intervention is unnecessary. Begun in Soviet times, industrial fish farms and artificial hatcheries now account for the bulk of Russia's legal harvest and release millions of sturgeon fingerlings each year. In these facilities, caviar is extracted surgically, without killing the fish. "No country is doing as much to save the sturgeon as Russia," says the State Fisheries Committee statement.

Critics respond that fish farms may keep the caviar industry alive, but will not save the sturgeon as a species. "Studies have found that artificially bred sturgeon released into the wild do not return to the rivers to spawn," says Caspian expert Mr. Logutov.

"The genetic diversity and natural life cycle of the sturgeon are destroyed by the hatchery system. The fact that there are a few fish in the sea means nothing if their natural environment has been ruined."

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#8
Nezavisimaya Gazeta
July 18, 2001
THE WHITE HOUSE WILL HELP RUSSIA
The US reviews its aid programs for Russia
Author: Elena Shesternina
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]
THE USA WILL GO ON FINANCING RUSSIAN PROGRAMS CONNECTED WITH NUCLEAR, CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS. PERHAPS TWO PROGRAMS MAY BE SHUT DOWN OR RECONSIDERED. OBVIOUSLY, THIS TOPIC WILL BE DISCUSSED AT THE MEETING BETWEEN PUTIN AND BUSH AT THE G-8 SUMMIT IN GENOA.

The White House has completed a review of aid to Russia, including the sphere of non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and other military technologies. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher says: "We're now consulting with our Congress to get their views of these different programs." However, he refused to disclose any details, only noting that programs for preventing the spread of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons would get priority for funding. He said that helping Russia financially in this area was "in the U.S. national interest". According to Boucher, all main areas of cooperation with Russia on non-proliferation will continue.

The aid provided by the US covers 30 programs, reaching $800 million a year. Most of the programs are aimed at dismantling Russian defense plants and strengthening security wherever nuclear, biological and chemical weapons are stored. In the near future a report prepared by the US administration will be submitted to Congress. According to The New York Times, they do not rule out the possibility of increasing the total amount of financial aid in the sphere of nuclear security. Without this aid, Moscow will not manage to dispose of 40,000 tons of chemical weapons by 2012. Next year all the main items of aid will remain the same. Meanwhile, specialists who have participated in the commission on current Russian-US security projects are advising President Bush to reconsider two programs. The experts consider it necessary to cut down or restructure the "Nuclear Towns" program that has been running since 1998. One of the main purposes of the program was to stop the brain-drain of Russian scientists to Iran, Iraq and other countries. The second item to be reconsidered is a $2.1 billion effort to dispose of military plutonium. Last December Russia promised to shut down three reactors which produce up to 160 tons of plutonium; however, the reactors in Tomsk and Krasnoyarsk have not been shut down yet.

The program aimed at providing all nuclear scientists with alternative jobs is also up for reconsideration. Both these programs are sure to draw some serious criticism in the Congress.

However, though Washington is ready to meet Moscow half-way on this difficult issue, it sets out its own conditions. They are connected with the most sensitive aspects of cooperation. The White House declares that Russia has to stop supplying Iran - and other countries "hostile to the USA" - with conventional weapons. In the report to Congress, it is said that Russia and the USA have to move "from aid to partnership" in the question of controlling nuclear and other types of weapons of mass destruction. Obviously, this topic will be discussed at the meeting between Putin and Bush at the G-8 summit in Genoa. It will be much easier to find some common ground on this issue than on the other problem in bilateral relations: preventing the US from quitting the ABM treaty.

(Translated by Daria Brunova)

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#9
Parlamentskaya Gazeta
July 19, 2001
SLAVIC CHARACTER, EURASIAN SMILE
Russia enters the new millennium as a superpower - without illusions
Author: Alexei Kiva
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]
BEFORE OUR EYES, RUSSIA IS REGAINING THE STATUS OF A WORLD SUPERPOWER TO BE RECKONED WITH. THE PROCESS STARTED AFTER RUSSIA STOPPED ORIENTING ITS POLICY ACCORDING TO THE WEST'S DESIRES - OR, TO PUT IT MORE STRONGLY, LAGGING BEHIND THE US - AND STARTED TO RESUME MULTIPOLAR FOREIGN POLICY.

Before our eyes, Russia is regaining the status of a world superpower to be reckoned with. The Ljubljana meeting between Vladimir Putin and George W. Bush did not anticipate this process, but rather complied with it. The process itself started after Russia stopped orienting its policy according to the West's desires - or, to put it more strongly, lagging behind the US - and started to resume multipolar foreign policy.

The very fact that President Putin flew to his meeting with President Bush from Beijing is noteworthy and revealing. The Russian president met with his American counterpart after the creation of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (in essence, a new international center of power and influence).

In addition, Russia has stopped playing the role of an international beggar wheedling more and more loans from financial organizations and individual countries - the loans which were then not so much spent on this country's development as pocketed by thieving state officials of the Yeltsin era or used as compensation for the losses the state budget was suffering from pro-Kremlin tycoons looting national property.

No matter what pro-Western politicians and parties and supporters of the first Russian president say, in the 1990s Russia did lose the status of an independent state. Its domestic policy, whose main essence was carrying out radical free-market reforms dictated by the West, was sternly controlled by the International Monetary Fund and Boris Yeltsin's "friends". Russia's foreign policy, in turn, was built with regard to the interests of the Western countries, first of all the US, including at the expense of the domestic interests. It was only after Yevgeny Primakov became first foreign minister and then prime minister that Russia started overcoming this lopsided pro- Western orientation by means of intensifying its contacts with the East, first of all with China and India. Putin then continued this policy when appointed prime minister.

That Russia's domestic and foreign policy were handicapped in the 1990s is undoubtedly true. This is an obvious fact that needs no arguments. The question is why such a thing happened and which moves may improve the situation.

During perestroika, many foreigners were filled with sympathy for the Russians. Many of our compatriots thought highly of the West's humanitarian assistance in the period when the Soviet-era command economy had already ceased operating and a new, free-market economy was yet not built. De Gaulle's idea of Europe expanding from the Atlantic Ocean to the Ural Mountains was revived, just as the idea that the West would drag Russia out of transitional chaos. And Russian pro-Western democrats even started dreaming of a Marshall Plan for Russia. In other words, the Russian people's former mistrust for the West gave way to admiration, if not love.

This offered fertile soil for certain dangerous illusions which resulted in most negative consequences for Russia's national interests.

The first illusion is as follows: now that Communism is gone forever together with the "Evil Empire " (i.e. the world's second superpower), nothing stands between Russia and the West, led by the US.

If we are to speak about relations between Russia and the West, we should not forget about the heritage of the prolonged Cold War. Those foreigners whose well-being used to directly depend on the confrontation and arms race often turn out to be hostile to Russia. Frankly speaking, it would be quite amazing if those who believe themselves the winners in the Cold War could resist the temptation of attempting to cause as much damage as possible to the resources of Russia, the country which was a deadly threat for them for nearly half a century - if they could resist the desire to deprive Russia of the ability to play the role of a great power - for a long time, if not for ever.

The second illusion - not an illusion, even, but rather a gross fallacy: the perception of Russia as a 100% European country, which should take advantage of the opportunity to join its European home, as Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev used to say.

Russia as a great power was first of all a Eurasian country. This was its strength. Without the Asian component, Russia would have certainly been conquered by Nazi Germany. Unfortunately, no influential Western political forces have ever seriously considered the idea of letting Russia into a hypothetical European home. This idea was happily forgotten once the West had squeezed the USSR, and later Russia, for the maximum of benefits in favor of its own interests. If it had been otherwise, the West would have really helped Russia to make the transition to a free-market economy as swiftly and painlessly as possible, like the US helped restore Europe after World War II.

The third illusion: the thought that Russia has been following the wrong path for all those years, maybe even centuries. Those who voice this idea fail to understand the historical process. That process is objective. In other words, the history of Russia, its geopolitical situation and certain other factors dictated to this country the path of development it was moving along. If the British or the French had been in the Russians' place they would have acted in the same manner.

Finally, another illusion: nobody is threatening Russia.

It is true that the Cold War and confrontation between the two superpowers ceased to exist as soon as one of those powers collapsed. However, unfortunately, the factors which provoke conflicts between states did not disappear, as the aggression against Yugoslavia clearly shows.

The threat of such aggression against some country or other may be used by the US and its allies for the sake of their political interests. This is exactly what the US is doing now to certain Balkans countries.

Another thing the West favors is "punitive air-strikes" against "bad regimes" (like Iraq or Libya). We can be sure that the list of "rogue states" would certainly be much longer today if Russia did not have its powerful nuclear arsenals. On the other hand, it is quite possible that in such a case Russia itself would be considered one such rogue state.

However, new threats have emerged in the past several years, primarily the threat of terrorism.

Let's assume that the Russian army had failed to suppress the incursion by Chechen terrorists and foreign mercenaries into Dagestan - what would have happened then? The disintegration of the Russian Federation, terrorist occupation of many Russian regions, the creation of a world terrorist center on this soil. That is what could have happened if Russia did not have an army.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, many countries found themselves eye-to-eye with the united West, whose military organization, as represented by NATO, started to replace the UN more and more often. In this situation, naturally, many countries chose to ally themselves with Russia.

Moscow has suddenly become a host to frequent visits by foreign leaders. This means that the West has realized no large-scale international problem can be resolved without Russia.

(Translated by Andrei Bystrov)

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#10
The Carnegie Endowment’s Russia--Ten Years After Conference
June 8, 2001
http://www.ceip.org/files/programs/russia/tenyears/default.htm
RUSSIA'S FOREIGN POLICY UNDER PUTIN
Presentation outline
By Dmitri Trenin
Carnegie Moscow Center

Russia's foreign policy under Vladimir Putin is generally given good marks. The young and energetic President has been pursuing a more coherent policy course than his predecessor. Moreover, Moscow has scored a number of important tactical successes in its relations with the CIS countries, the European Union, Asian powers and the former Soviet allies - all that without slipping into a direct confrontation with the United States. Yet, Putin's tactical maneuvers do not add up to a strategy.

There are fundamental contradictions in the current Russian approach to world affairs. Moscow is intensifying relations with the European Union which its calls its strategic partner, while continuing to treat NATO as a potential adversary. It expands arms transfers to China while expressing concerns about the demographic dynamics in Siberia and the (still) Russian Far East. It focuses too much on America's missile defense program and not nearly enough on the WMD and missile proliferation to the south of its borders. While a natural consequence of Russia's transition and its search for a new international identity, which is by no means complete, these conflicts are becoming increasingly more difficult to manage.

Eventually, the Russian leadership will face a choice. There are basically three main options. One is self-reliance leading to self-isolation and further marginalization. Another one is anti-Western revisionism leading to a new catastrophe. And finally, integration with the advanced part of the world, which means Russia becoming progressively more compatible with the European Union.

Achieving compatibility with the EU is a necessity rather than ideology. With roughly half of its trade with the EU members or candidates, a long border with these countries and part of Russia territory soon to become an enclave within the EU, Russia has to move toward accepting many European norms and standards. Progressively, economic issues are being joined on the EU-Russia agenda by institutionalized political consultations and security cooperation. The key factor in achieving compatibility, however, is Russia's internal evolution. Refashioning Russia as a European country rather than a power in Europe is above all a domestic task for the Russian people.

Solid relations with the EU are the best security assurance against the existing suspicions regarding NATO. Moscow would serve its interests best if it avoids pointless and damaging squabbles about the new round of NATO enlargement and promotes instead an agenda for closer security ties with the Alliance. It is in the supreme Russian national security interest to work to demilitarize relations with the West. To do that, a reinvigorated Permanent Joint Council with a realistic agenda is sorely needed. Partnership for Peace should be focused on helping Russia to reform its military establishment. Lastly, peacekeeping, peace-building and rehabilitation in the Balkans could be turned into a building site for a new European security construct which would include Russia.

Russia's relations with the United States are inherently asymmetrical, and it will take time for each country to find the right approach to the other. In the near term, Moscow has to focus on the U.S. missile defense plans and the fate of the ABM treaty. It needs to proceed from two plain truths. One is that the U.S. is likely to deploy some sort of defenses which go beyond the ABM treaty. The other one is that whatever the U.S. is able to deploy will not undermine Russia's deterrence capability vis-à-vis the United States. This assessment calls for a compromise with the U.S. if one can get it, but militates against anything which smacks of confrontation with America.

A pro-integration, pro-Europe choice does not mean ignoring two other principal directions of Russian foreign policy. Relations with both the "south" and the "east" will remain essential for Russia's security and prosperity. In the south, Moscow faces the task of stability-building which is far broader than fighting rebels and chasing terrorists. Internal causes of the current problems, not only their external manifestations, must be addressed. That calls for a set of policies which focus on regional economic and social development, fostering political pluralism and reducing government corruption. In the near future, the problems of the "second nuclear age" will join those of regional instability, creating a potentially very volatile environment for Russia. This makes international cooperation a must.

Last but not least, the "east". In the 21st century, Russia's salient geopolitical problem is the fate of Siberia and the Far East. Russia's positions east of the Urals have become vulnerable as a result of a lack of an adequate development strategy to succeed czarist colonialist expansion and Soviet fortress building. In other words, Russia's Asia policy should start just east of Ekaterinburg. In foreign policy terms, the best strategy for Russia would be to open up the region to the Asia-Pacific, but make sure there is a proper mix of outside interests involved, and that the Russian authorities remain ultimately in control. This won't be easy, but unless Russia fundamentally changes its approach, it will be reduced to a Muscovy. By the same token, there is a need for maintaining a balance in power relations in Asia where Russia is weaker than many of its neighbors. Instead of designing fancy axes and triangles where she would be the junior element, it would make sense for her to learn the art of balancing, acting from a position of weakness and making sure there is an ultimate powerful ally in case of dire need.

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#11
RUSSIA STILL LOOKING FOR CAUSE OF KURSK SINKING - OFFICIAL

MOSCOW. July 18 (Interfax) - Last summer's sinking of the Russian nuclear submarine Kursk was the result of one of only three possible causes, investigators decided after discarding a "tremendous number" of surmises, a senior official said in a newspaper interview published on Wednesday.

The Kursk either collided with "an artificial underwater object - another submarine, or a torpedo," an explosion occurred in its torpedo compartment, or a mine blew up the vessel, Andrei Mayorov, deputy head of the investigation department of the Russian Chief Military Prosecutor's Office, told the Russian daily Moskovsky Komsomolets.

As for the first scenario, "no fragments of a foreign submarine have been found at the site of the tragedy," Mayorov said.

The idea that a Russian ship sank the Kursk "has been completely eliminated," he said. Stock has been taken of the ammunition on all the naval vessels in the region, and "not a single torpedo or missile" was missing.

Compartment 1, where the torpedoes were kept, was "the only vulnerable spot on the Kursk," Mayorov said. "It's a logical surmise that some kind of irregular situation occurred that entailed an explosion, but everything will fall into place only after the [submarine] is put in the dock," after being raised from the seabed. "Various fragments of the Kursk, including damaged fragments of torpedo ammunition," have been recovered, which made it possible "to learn why the people in Compartment 9 died," Mayorov said. "The only thing I can say is that it looks likely that their death was not agonizing."

The disaster might also have been caused by a mine. "One can, for example, surmise that it could have been a German mine that had been there since World War II," Mayorov said.

He said he was sure the investigators will find the cause of the tragedy. "We've come fairly close to solving this mystery, and as soon as the raising starts, we'll be able to answer most of the questions," he said.

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#12
Le Monde Views US Efforts To Bring Russia Into NATO, Impact for Europe

Le Monde
July 17, 2001
[translation fo personal use only]
Analysis by Daniel Vernet: "Will George Bush Bring Russia into NATO?"

A decade after the end of the Cold War and the demise of the Soviet Union, will George W. Bush succeed where his father failed; namely, define a "new international order?" An order in which Russia would be integrated because the area of conflicts of interests had shifted toward Asia?

We are still far from that, and a number of decisions taken by the new Republican administration would suggest, rather, that the path chosen is that of the most traditional confrontation. However, the tone has changed. During his visit to Europe, the US President could not find enough kind words for Russia and for Vladimir Putin. His entourage, although full of veterans of the East-West conflict who served their apprenticeship under Ford, Reagan, or Bush Senior, have prepared a rhetoric with resolutely innovative ambitions. From that viewpoint, Russia no longer represents a threat for US interests -- and, it is added in Washington, for those of the Europeans, which implies a redefinition of transatlantic relations. At the most, it is "a problem," to use French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine's expression.

Hence we must stop thinking in Cold War terms and believing that international stability continues to be ensured by East-West agreements; often purely US-Soviet agreements dating back around 30 years. That is true both of the 1972 ABM treaty and of the SALT and START treaties on strategic arms limitation and reduction. The aim of the ABM treaty -- which confined the two great power within narrow limits for building antimissile systems -- was to guarantee nuclear deterrence; that is, to maintain the possibility of the camps' mutual destruction by a nuclear holocaust. Who will serious believe today that Russia is preparing to launch intercontinental missiles against US cities and vice versa? asks a former senior Pentagon official who has reenlisted with Donald Rumsfeld, George W. Bush's defense secretary.

Of course the Americans would like to amend or even scrap the ABM treaty in order to be able to launch their missile defense (MD) program. But that is not just a tactical aim, the same personality continues: "To put an end to those treaties is to put an end to the spirit of the Cold War," he says.

A document such as the ABM treaty requires the existence of an enemy such as we had for 40 years after World War II. That era is over. "In order to turn our backs on the Cold War, we must put an end to the agreements which governed the military relations between two potential enemies."

The first reaction of the Russians -- and the Europeans -- is to view these fine words as a kind of camouflage aimed at pushing through decisions calling into question the international status quo.

But perhaps it would be necessary to ask ourselves whether, beyond an immediate concern, the Americans are not aiming eventually at a complete redefinition of their relations with Russia and, through that, even the setting-up of a new security organization in Europe. Decisions unpleasant in principle for Moscow are being prepared: In addition to the antimissile defense program, a new enlargement of the Atlantic alliance, starting from 2002, which could include one or several Baltic states; that is, for the first time, republics which belonged to the former USSR but also to the former czarist Russia. Will Russia receive compensation?

In 1997 -- two years before NATO's first eastward enlargement (Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic), Moscow obtained a quid pro quo: The signing in Paris of the fundamental act on relations between Russia and NATO, and the setting-up of the NATO-Russia joint council. That offer of cooperation fell short of the Russians' expectations. They had been allowed to believe, among other things, that they would have a "right of inspection" over NATO's affairs; they were hoping for a "right of veto." The Kosovo war showed them that the joint council could not prevent the Atlantic alliance's 19 members from disregarding Moscow's objections. And so the Russians stayed away from that council's meetings for several months and are now rejecting all the proposals for relaunching made by the Westerners.

Another form of compensation for NATO's expansion could be financial. Although it is not the official position, some people in Washington are talking about a cancellation of the debt contracted by the former USSR: An act of generosity which would not cost the Americans too much since Russia's main creditors are Europeans and, in the first place, Germans. In fact, when the Kremlin talks about a quid pro quo, it is thinking in political terms -- for instance, "Russia's entry into NATO's political organization," one of Vladimir Putin's spokesmen says. During his meeting with George W. Bush in Ljubljana, the Russian president took out a 1954 note in which Moscow asked to join the Atlantic alliance.

"Achieve Its Destiny"

Is that a purely theoretical view? Again in Ljubljana, George W. Bush stated that NATO's door is open, that Russia's destiny is in Europe, and that all European countries fulfilling the conditions are entitled to join NATO. A few days later, the State Department's spokesman was more precise. Asked whether the US position is still as negative as that set out by Madeleine Albright on behalf of the Clinton administration, Richard Boucher replied: "No, I do not think that I would say exactly that... I would say that this administration believes that the door should be open, and that Russia's destiny is clearly in Europe. And we intend to work with Russia in order to help it achieve its destiny."

The Russians are wondering whether this is a trick aimed at weakening their vigilance, or whether the proposal is serious, although it concerns the long term. Their conclusion is that they have nothing to lose by acting as if the US attitude were serious. If that were the case, it would bring a kind of consummation to the anti-Cold War refrains which President Bush and his advisers have struck up; it would complete the transformation of NATO as an instrument of the Cold War into a pan-European security organization. And it would force the Europeans to carry out a revolution in their strategic thinking for which they are far from being prepared.

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