#2
Jamestown Foundation
April 10, 2002
RUSSIA'S WEEK: News and analysis from Russia and the former Soviet States
Foreign policy: westward ho?

WESTERN EXPOSURES....

President Vladimir Putin's pro-Western foreign policy has been a source of much speculation, and even wonderment, among both Russian analysts and Russia-watchers in the West. According to one school of the thought, Putin has proven almost visionary in rejecting the reflexive anti-Americanism of his country's political class and steering foreign policy unequivocally westward--a shift best illustrated by his strong support for the antiterrorist campaign launched by the United States in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks. For some of the adherents of this view, Putin's move in this direction has been heroic, given that it has powerful opponents throughout Russia's foreign policy, military and security establishments, not to mention its parliament.

The other, more cynical view of Putin's foreign policy shift was perhaps articulated best by Pavel Felgenhauer, the independent Russian defense analyst. Putin's westward turn in foreign policy, he wrote last month in the Moscow Times, was aimed at winning the West's acquiescence to the suppression of press freedom, vote-rigging and human rights violations domestically. Felgenhauer even suggested that Kremlin propagandists were deliberately fanning nationalistic opposition to Putin's foreign policy in order to convince the West that he is surrounded by "nationalistic and anti-Western wolves" and thus deserves increased support.

Putin, meanwhile, addressed the issue himself this week during a wide-ranging interview he gave to German and Russian journalists prior to leaving for talks in the German city of Weimar with Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. Unlike during the Soviet period, "Russia is cooperating with the West not because it wants to be liked or receive something return for its position," Putin told the journalists. "We are not standing with a held-out hand and not asking anybody for anything in return. I am carrying out this policy only because I believe it completely corresponds to Russia's national interests." Putin added he was certain an "overwhelming majority" of Russians supported his foreign policy line and that he always considered the views of "Russian diplomats, Russian politicians and Russian military men" before taking any major steps.

CLOSER, BUT NOT TOO CLOSE....

Still, several developments over the past week underscored how Putin's foreign policy shift has not meant a complete reorientation westward--far from it. On the same day that President George W. Bush was denouncing Iranian "arms shipments and support for terror" for fuelling the Middle East conflict, his Russian counterpart was warmly welcoming Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi to Moscow. Russia's Foreign Ministry, meanwhile, reiterated that the program to help build Iran's Bushehr nuclear reactor, which Washington fears will help Tehran build a nuclear weapon, would continue, and Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov dismissed as unproven the U.S. charges that Russian entities have leaked ballistic missile technologies to the Iranians. Ivanov also restated his government's disapproval of Bush's designation earlier this year of Iran, Iraq and North Korea as an "axis of evil."

On top of all this, a row broke out between Moscow and Washington after the latter froze millions of dollars in funding for Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) projects, citing in the U.S. State Department's words, "serious concerns about Russian chemical and biological weapons activities." Russia's Foreign Ministry said it was "deeply bewildered" by the U.S. decision, insisting that Russia "adheres very strictly" to the treaties banning chemical and biological weapons.

CHECHEN WITH AN AMERICAN ACCENT....

Another cold front threatening the warmth between Washington and Moscow that has prevailed since September 11 appeared on the horizon last week, when Radio Liberty, the U.S. Congress-funded radio station, began broadcasting in three languages of Russia's North Caucasus region--Circassian, Avar and, most controversially, Chechen. The broadcasts had been delayed for a month at the U.S. State Department's request, but once the decision was made to proceed, Russia's Foreign Ministry lodged an official protest before the broadcasts' launch date, calling them "incompatible with the common fight against terrorism" and "the spirit of the partnership that is forming between Russia and the United States."

Russian officialdom's reaction to the first broadcasts was even more outraged. Akhmad Kadyrov, head of Chechnya's pro-Moscow administration, predicted the Chechen-language programming would become a "direct Udugov trumpet"--a reference to Chechen rebel ideologist Movladi Udugov--while both Chechen Prime Minister Stanislav Il'yasov and anonymous Russia's Defense Ministry officials were quoted as saying that if the broadcasts included "false," "dangerous," or "nonobjective" information, they would be jammed. The State Duma's international affairs committee reportedly began drafting an appeal to the Russian government asking it to revoke Radio Liberty's broadcasting license. Russian officials have previously hinted that the station, which has frequently interviewed various Chechen rebel leaders, could lose its license for violating Russia's antiterrorism law, which allows a court to order the withdrawal of a broadcasting outlet's license if it has received more than two warnings for interviewing or quoting "terrorists."

The Kremlin was not much happier over Radio Liberty's new Caucasus focus. Sergei Yastrzhembsky, Putin's spokesman on Chechnya-related issues, noted that Radio Liberty's maiden broadcast in Chechen had featured excerpts from an article by Anna Politkovskaya, Chechnya correspondent for the biweekly Novaya Gazeta, concerning human rights abuses allegedly committed by Russian troops during a "zachistka," or antiguerrilla sweep, in the Chechen village of Starye Atagi this past January. Why, he asked rhetorically, hadn't the broadcast covered the order recently given by the commander of the Russian forces in Chechnya, Lieutenant General Vladimir Moltenskoi, setting out guidelines for forces carrying out such special operations aimed at increasing oversight and accountability and therefore reducing the possibility for abuses against civilians? All of this suggested, Yastrzhembsky said, that the "pessimistic prognoses" about the new Radio Liberty broadcasts were "beginning to come true."

For his part, President Putin, perhaps regretting having commented on the detention of Radio Liberty correspondent Andrei Babitsky back in early 2000, remained above the controversy. He even played good cop, insisting during his interview with German and Russian journalists in Moscow that he welcomed Western expressions of concern over Russian actions, including those in the Caucasus. He continued, however, to insist that Moscow's war in Chechnya and the U.S.-led war against international terrorism were one and the same, and, during an appearance with Gerhard Schroeder on a German television talk show, argued that it was impossible to avoid human rights violations while carrying out an antiterrorist operation. These comments came just days after Memorial, the Russian human rights group, reported that more than 2,000 people had disappeared in Chechnya, mostly as a result of antiguerrilla sweeps, since the start of the military operation there in September 1999. Meanwhile a chilling account by Anna Politkovskaya of alleged rapes, beating, torture and extortion by Russian forces during the security operation in Starye Atagi this past January appeared in various Western publications, including Britain's The Observer newspaper. In it, Politkovskaya, an honest journalist as well as a brave one, noted that inhabitants of the village had also been victimized by Islamist rebel forces, who entered the village just days after the Russian forces had completed their antiguerrilla sweep there (apparently unsuccessfully) and withdrew.

BACK TO THE TOP    #201 CONTENTS    NEXT SECTION