#10
Rossiiskaya Gazeta
February 6, 2003
NO MORE GRANTS
United States is cutting off financial aid to Russia
Author: Alexander Velichenkov
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]
BARELY HAD THE IMF MISSION COME TO MOSCOW WHEN WASHINGTON ISSUED THE WARNING
THAT "FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE TO RUSSIA" WOULD BE SUSPENDED AS OF 2004.
RUSSIA HAS RECEIVED MORE THAN $1.5 BILLION OVER THE LAST DECADE, INCLUDING $160
MILLION LAST YEAR.
What happened? Who is to be pushed aside from the financial well? The money
from the American treasury was paid via the State Agency of International
Development. Russia has received more than $1.5 billion over the last decade,
including $160 million last year. Subsidies for nuclear physicists in secure
towns amounted to almost $70 million. In other words, the United States has been
safeguarding itself since the early 1990s, afraid that nuclear secrets of the
Russian Federation would reach rogue states along with scientists. It is not
afraid any longer, or so it appears.
Some money also went to assorted economic institutes set up in the 1990s,
including the Transition Economy Institute Yegor Gaidar took over in 1993.
Washington's warning is like a pinprick (because the Nuclear Energy Ministry
can cover the loss) but a pinprick beautifully timed. There is another IMF
delegation on a fact-finding mission in Moscow these days. The delegation is
pestering Russian officials with recommendations, just like before when Russia
was getting between $1 billion and $1.5 billion per year from the IMF. But
Russia has not been "financiall addicted" since 1998, and is no worse
off for that. And since IMF does not wield any influence with economists on its
payroll, and has no economists on its payroll for that matter, why would the US
Congress finance them?
Iraq is constantly cited. Russia is among the countries objecting to the
military operation. This move on Washington's part two days before the UN
Security Council meeting looks like a final attempt to blackmail Russia into
obedience.
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