#1
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
January 7, 2003
Transcript
Russia's year in the wars

JILL COLGAN: For Russians, this has been a year of too many surprises. When it began, their greatest hope was a year with no surprises at all.

VIATCHESLAV NIKONOV, ANALYST: That was an expectation of a stable good year, nothing special. People are sick and tired of whatever reforms, changes. They just wanted stability and they expected stability.

JILL COLGAN: But 2002 got off to a grim start. Hundreds died in the cold as the country suffered its worst winter in 20 years. The death toll tripled from the year before. Though the economy was inching forward, millions still lived in poverty, struggling to afford the basics of food, heating and shelter. The year moved on to a distant backdrop of fighting in the breakaway Republic of Chechnya, but the Russian Government confidently assured its people the war would soon be over. It had full military control, it said, and the remaining rebels would not last long. The months ahead would prove how wrong that was. As the weeks passed, Russia warmed to a new role in the international arena. Led by President Vladimir Putin, the country set a course for closer economic, defence and political ties with the West. The remnants of post-Cold War fear and suspicion were finally being cast aside. In May came the historic summit between President Putin and US President George W. Bush. They reaffirmed their co-operation in the war against global terrorism and signed a landmark treaty to drastically cut their stores of nuclear weapons.

GEORGE W. BUSH, US PRESIDENT: President Putin and I today ended a long chapter of confrontation and opened up an entirely new relationship between our countries. Mr President, I appreciate your leadership. I appreciate your vision. I appreciate the fact that we've now laid the foundation for not only our governments but future governments to work in a spirit of co-operation and a spirit of trust.

VLADIMIR PUTIN, RUSSIAN PRESIDENT (TRANSLATION): Today we are speaking about an absolutely new quality of our relationship regarding questions of security, reducing our strategic potentials and creating a new, secure world.

JILL COLGAN: The economy began picking up - Russians could see just a little more in their pocket. One handy cash earner for the Government was the US$20 million paid by South African Internet billionaire Mark Shuttleworth to become the world's second space tourist.

REPORTER: Is there one moment that you're looking forward to most?

MARK SHUTTLEWORTH, SPACE TOURIST: Lift-off. That's when, you know, it'll be - there'll be no returning. So, yeah, lift-off.

REPORTER: What about touchdown?

MARK SHUTTLEWORTH: Touchdown - as they say in Russia (speaks Russian) - here's to a soft landing.

JILL COLGAN: Other flights involving Russian aircraft soon proved disastrous. The nation was horrified by the midair collision above southern Germany of a Tupolev passenger yet belonging to Bashkirian Airlines and an American DHL cargo plane. Seventy-one people died, including dozens of young schoolchildren all from the one tiny republic of Bashkiria. Swiss Air traffic controllers were blamed. Just weeks later came another tragedy involving a Russian aircraft in neighbouring Ukraine. This time the world watched as amateur video replayed the catastrophic accident at a military air show attended by hundreds of local families. Eighty-three people were killed and dozens more injured. Next, Russia suffered its worst military air disaster in history. More than 100 Russian soldiers were killed when Chechen rebels shot down their overloaded helicopter near the capital Grozny. Suddenly the distant war in Chechnya loomed larger and government reassurances rang hollow. Doubts about the Government ran even deeper when, after two years of investigation, the Russian Prosecutor-General finally delivered his findings on the Kursk submarine disaster.

RUSSIAN PROSECUTOR-GENERAL: As a result of the second explosion all sailor-submariners whose bodies were found in the second, third, fourth and fifth compartments died within a very short period of time as determined by the experts from tens of seconds to several minutes.

JILL COLGAN: All 118 submariners died when one faulty torpedo detonated the sub's entire torpedo stock, plunging the vessel to the bottom of the Barents Sea. Families learnt 23 of the men survived the initial explosions only to perish while they waited in vain for rescue. The Russian prosecutor found no-one should be held responsible for the disaster and declared the case closed. In September, Russia's military past again came back to haunt it. Deep in a forest near St Petersburg, members of human rights group Memorial began pulling skulls and other human remains from the soil. They believe they've finally found the graves of more than 30,000 Russians killed during Joseph Stalin's reign of terror in the late 1930s. Back in Moscow, attention again swung to Iraq and the mission of weapons inspectors. British PM Tony Blair arrived, trying to convince the Russian President to back a tougher stand against the Iraqis in the UN Security Council. But Russia, with France, stood firm, insisting the new UN resolution exclude the right to use force. Soon the Russian President's focus was on a war in his own backyard. All else was forgotten as the drama unfolded at a theatre in the middle of Moscow and brought the year's events to a bloody crescendo. More than 40 heavily armed Chechen men and women had seized the theatre, taking the cast and audience hostage - around 700 people. The rebels had strapped explosives to their bodies, planted bombs and threatened to kill everyone unless the Russian Government withdrew it troops from Chechnya. That faraway war was now on the streets of Moscow. President Putin faced the biggest crisis of his leadership. Yet there was little doubt he would refuse the rebel demand. In a pre-dawn raid, Russian special forces stormed the theatre, killing every rebel before they could detonate their explosives. But the Russian military used a gas to subdue their enemy before the raid - a gas that killed 120 of the hostages. Among the lucky survivors, Australian man Professor Alex Bobik.

PROFESSOR ALEX BOBIK, SURVIVOR: It's the fear of not knowing, the fear of, um, you know, what would happen to people. Everything was unpredictable.

JILL COLGAN: Even the high death toll failed to tarnish President Putin's standing.

VIATCHESLAV NIKONOV: You know, in Russia, the public can forgive almost anything to the leader except one thing - that is, weakness.

JILL COLGAN: But with the hostages died hopes for a peaceful end to the war in Chechnya.

VIATCHESLAV NIKONOV: The majority of the Russian public opinion was for peaceful solution. After the siege of the musical theatre, public opinion changed back. It is now extremely anti-Chechen. And most of the public would support a war solution, and it's quite understandable. After September 11, there were not so many supporters of peaceful talks with bin Laden and the US.

JILL COLGAN: In the dying days of the year came a terrible sign the rebels have not been beaten. The headquarters of the pro-Russian government in Chechnya - the most heavily guarded buildings in the Republic - were hit by two Chechen suicide bombers. More than 80 people died as the rebels proved yet again they could hurt the Russian Government and all those who support it anytime, anywhere. Russians have emerged from this year more vulnerable than before. Confidence in the country's security has been shaken, even though their trust in their President has grown. They will end the year on the same note they started it.

VIATCHESLAV NIKONOV: Russian people want stability. They don't want any experiments on them. They don't want any great breakthroughs, big leaps, you know, democratic reforms.

JILL COLGAN: No nasty surprises?

VIATCHESLAV NIKONOV: No nasty surprises, no nice surprises - whatever surprises. Let it be predictable, stable, normal.

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