November 27, 1999    
This Date's Issues: 3646 • 3647  • 

Johnson's Russia List
#3647
27 November 1999
davidjohnson@erols.com


[Note from David Johnson:
1. The Times (UK) editorial: BORIS YELTSIN IS UNWELL. The discreet charm 
of the gerontocracy.
2. Reuters: Chechnya war hurts Russia loan chances - IMF.
3. Itar-Tass: RUSSIA'S Privatisation Results Irreversible- Chubais.
4. Moscow Times: Andrei Zolotov Jr., Luzhkov Returns Fire in TV Wars.
5. The Globe and Mail (Canada): Geoffrey York, Incompetent Russian troops
kill 
their own in Chechnya. An inconsolable father mourns his son, sent to defend 
the motherland.
6. Boston Globe: David Filipov and Dmitry Shalganov, Wounded soldiers
tell of 
Russian ineptitude.
7. The Times (UK): Richard Beeston, Warrior spirit of Cossacks invoked in 
Russia's defence.
8. The Russia Journal: Gregory Feifer, Putin poised for presidency.
But analysts say his real power may be illusory.
9. the eXile: John Dolan, Sovietology Without Soviets. (Review of
After the Collapse: Russia Seeks Its Place as A Great Power by Dmitri
Simes).] 


*******


#1
The Times (UK}
27 November 1999
Editorial
BORIS YELTSIN IS UNWELL
The discreet charm of the gerontocracy 
As happens increasingly often these days, Boris Yeltsin has been to hospital. 
Usually, any hint of ill-health has Kremlinologists predicting the Russian 
President's imminent demise. Yesterday, by contrast, no one could be sure 
whether this rugged but ageing politician, a lover of hard work and hard 
drink who has survived heart attacks, ulcers, back pains, double pneumonia 
and quintuple heart bypass surgery, was actually ill at all. 


Media sceptics suspect that their leader was just skiving off work to avoid 
signing a controversial treaty with Russia's neighbour Belarus in which he 
has now lost interest. Conspiracy theorists favour the darker view that 
Russia's disgruntled generals, their blood up after seizing large chunks of 
rebel Chechnya, may have mounted a coup. 


Both ideas are more entertaining, and possibly more plausible, than the usual 
earnest official explanation that Boris Nikolayevich is unwell, but just 
needs a few folk remedies (bed rest and milk-and-honey drinks) to put things 
right. As an apologetic Kremlin aide put it on TV: "This is really and truly 
a cold, not a diplomatic illness." 


Well might he sound apologetic. Last week, Mr Yeltsin was well enough to 
engage in vigorous debate at the OSCE summit in Istanbul,; his spirited 
defence of his army's incursion into Chechnya included colourful, though 
offensive, comments on the virtue of Bill Clinton's mother. Today he was 
diagnosed with bronchitis, but sent home afer brief treatment at the Central 
Clinical Hospital in Moscow. He has gone to ground at one of his country 
homes; he has cancelled all appointments till Monday week. 


Kremlin PR is back in the USSR as firmly as it was when the glassy-eyed 
Chernenko and Brezhnev were declared in tip-top form up to the moment of 
their deaths. During a confrontation with his parliament in 1993, Mr Yeltsin 
vanished with a "nose problem" when things turned nasty. Since then his aides 
have so often been caught being economical with the truth about Mr Yeltsin's 
health that only the gullible would believe them now. 


*******


#2
Chechnya war hurts Russia loan chances - IMF
By Laura Urrutia

MADRID, Nov 27 (Reuters) - International Monetary Fund Managing Director 
Michel Camdessus said on Saturday negative world reaction to the Chechnya war 
could put Russia's IMF loans at risk. 


``We cannot go forward with the financing if the rest of the world doesn't 
want to,'' Camdessus told reporters at a business seminar in Madrid. 


Russia has been pressing the IMF to release the second $640 million tranche 
of a $4.5 billion loan package agreed in July. 


But a nine-week-old Russian military offensive in the breakaway republic of 
Chechnya, which has caused numerous civilian casualties and created a refugee 
crisis, has aroused international condemnation. 


Russian officials insist their forces are only fighting militants they accuse 
of waging terrorist attacks against Russian targets. 


``The violent military campaign in Chechnya is creating very negative 
reactions against Russia in the world,'' Camdessus said. ``I suppose when the 
time comes for a decision on the (loan) programme, IMF directors will reflect 
world opinion on this matter.'' 


Russian officials had said earlier they expected to receive the new loan 
tranche before the end of the year unless politics stood in the way. 


First Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Khristenko was quoted in a newspaper 
interview as saying IMF talks were complicated by Western concerns over 
Chechnya and by requirements for financial reforms following a U.S. 
investigation of alleged Russian money laundering. 


``As a human being and a friend of Russia, I want this country to find a 
solution (in Chechnya) more closely linked to human rights using peaceful and 
political methods,'' Camdessus said. 


Camdessus also said he was not sure whether Russia had yet complied with the 
technical requirements needed for release of new funds. 


*******


#3
RUSSIA'S Privatisation Results Irreversible- Chubais.


ST. PETERSBURG, November 27 (Itar-Tass) - Anatoly Chubais, chairman of the
board of the United Energy System of Russia, said "the results of
privatisation in Russia are 100 percent irreversible". 


Speaking at a press conference on Saturday, Chubais said mistakes and
violations of the law made during this process should be studied "not by
politicians, but the judiciary". 


The situation at the Vyborgsky pulp-and-paper plant, where its owners have
been prevented from entering the grounds by workers for two years,
testifies to the "weakness and helplessness of authorities". 


"Authorities should, of course, take into account the mood of the people
but cannot argue whether or not the law upheld by the court ruling should
be observed," he said. 


Chubais stressed that "court rulings on questions of ownership are the
ultimate authority and they must be backed up by the might of the state". 


Speaking about further reforms, Chubais noted that irrespective of who
becomes the next president and who is elected to the next Duma, there is a
need for "huge transformations -- building the Russian state". 


"Such state institutions as police, the prosecutor's office and the
judiciary are still in an embryonic state," he said. 


*******


#4
Moscow Times
November 27, 1999 
NEWS ANALYSIS: Luzhkov Returns Fire in TV Wars 
By Andrei Zolotov Jr.
Staff Writer


The all-out propaganda war between the Kremlin and Moscow Mayor Yury 
Luzhkov's Fatherland-All Russia bloc spilled over into legal battles this 
week as Luzhkov marshaled a counteroffensive to the Kremlin's bruising 
onslaught. 


In addition to answering with propaganda of their own, Luzhkov and his allies 
are using court battles and legal pressure to try to force his enemies to 
tone down their sharp criticism - because Luzhkov's own media weapons are 
much weaker in their outreach to Russia's regions than state-owned giants ORT 
and RTR, fighting on the Kremlin's side. 


The State Duma, Moscow's tax police, the Press Ministry and the courts have 
become players in a game in which there are two principal rivals: On one 
side, President Boris Yeltsin's entourage, which has been fiercely attacking 
leaders of Fatherland-All Russia in loyal news outlets, mainly Sergei 
Dorenko's analytical program on ORT and Nikolai Svanidze's Zerkalo on RTR; 
and on the other, Luzhkov together with the city's government and his 
regional allies. 


The attacks on ORT and RTR, which have accused Luzhkov of everything from 
ties with a religious sect to corruption, appear to have had some effect, 
because Luzhkov's ratings have slipped outside Moscow. But he and his party 
colleague, Bashkortostan President Murtaza Rakhimov, have found ways to fight 
back. 


On Sunday, the Bashkortostan parliament, with Rakhimov's support, simply 
pulled the plug on Dorenko and Svanidze, running movies in their place. 


Yeltsin's press minister, Mikhail Lesin, threatened legal action against 
Bashkortostan television transmitters that followed the order of the 
republic's parliament. Justice Minister Yury Chaika also wrote asking the 
Bashkortostan parliament to reconsider what he called an illegal decision. 


That set up a showdown meeting set for Saturday, at which Lesin, Rakhimov and 
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin will try to reach an understanding. 


The two sides are cautious in their statements regarding the unprecedented 
situation because the legal situation is peculiar: A treaty between the 
Russian Federation and Bashkortostan leaves broadcasting in a dual 
jurisdiction. 


On one hand, the Kremlin realizes Rakhimov is setting a dangerous - for the 
Kremlin - example for other governors, many of whom are part of Luzhkov's 
camp. On the other hand, there is little the Kremlin can do about it, given 
the substantial autonomy of the stronger regional bosses. 


One possible outcome of the meeting: Rakhimov could back off, but the Kremlin 
could tone down some of its attacks - which would be a victory of sorts for 
the Moscow mayor. Luzhkov has his own TV station, TV Center, but its reach 
into the regions is limited, curtailing his ability to respond in the court 
of public opinion. 


Bashkortostan state secretary Eldus Adigamov appeared to signal how the 
conflict could be settled. He was quoted by Kommersant newspaper Friday as 
saying that if ORT and RTR listen to the opinion of the Bashkortostan 
parliament and start broadcasting "in a normal regime and not as propaganda 
collectives," the republic's parliament might reverse its decision. 


Lesin, at the same time, has become embroiled in Moscow tax police attempts 
to inspect records at VGTRK , the government television holding which runs 
RTR. Lesin was VGTRK's first deputy chairman before heading the new ministry. 


After Communist Duma deputy Alexander Kravets said he had documents exposing 
what he claimed was Lesin's role in funneling abroad VGTRK's funds, Moscow's 
branch of the federal tax police gave VGTRK a five-day ultimatum to show them 
financial documents covering 1994-99. 


Mikhail Shvydkoi, VGTRK's chairman, was quoted by the Vedomosti newspaper 
this week as saying that although the company would comply with the tax 
police's demands, they were "another act of political fighting without rules, 
the use of dirty electoral tricks." 


Moscow's tax police issued a statement Friday saying that after the 
inspection is over - which usually takes about 30 days - it will send the 
case to the Moscow Prosecutor's Office. There was no mention of the five-day 
ultimatum in the statement. 


Tax police spokesman Vitaly Gapon accused Shvydkoi on Friday of unleashing a 
"falsification campaign" and vehemently denied any connection with 
Fatherland-All Russia. "The tax police has never been used in any 
campaigning," he said. 


In addition, Luzhkov has sued ORT and Dorenko for slander in the Ostankinsky 
Municipal Court in Moscow, demanding a huge sum of 450 million rubles ($17 
million) in damages. The demanded compensation is the sum Luzhkov was accused 
of stealing in the three Dorenko programs in question. 


Previewing the trial opening on his program last Sunday, Dorenko accused 
Luzhkov of keeping Moscow's judges on his payroll and of involvement with the 
Scientology sect - because Luzhkov's lawyer in court, Galina Krylova, has 
defended the group. 


The State Duma got into the act, voting to freeze ORT's bank accounts until 
ORT gives access to the Audit Chamber, which has wanted to inspect its books. 


Lesin's ministry this week turned off Radiosport and Govorit Moskva, two 
minor FM radio stations owned by the Sistema holding company, seen as closely 
connected with Luzhkov. The ministry said the stations violated licensing 
agreements. 


Lesin denied the decision was politically motivated. Vyacheslav Drozdetsky, 
general director of Sistema, said Friday that the Press Ministry's decision 
was a "misunderstanding" caused by some "excessively politicized officials" 
at the ministry who "misinformed" their boss - more remarks suggesting 
compromise was possible. 


*******


#5
The Globe and Mail (Canada)
27 November 1999
Incompetent Russian troops kill their own in Chechnya
An inconsolable father mourns his son,
sent to defend the motherland
GEOFFREY YORK
Moscow Bureau


Moscow -- Nikolai Vlasov raised his son on tales of Russian patriotism and 
military valour. He urged the boy to follow in the footsteps of his 
grandfather, a decorated hero who had fought the Nazis in the Second World 
War.


It was a proud moment for father and son when 19-year-old Stanislav Vlasov 
left school this spring to join the Spetsnaz -- the elite military force of 
the Russian interior ministry.


He could have postponed his mandatory service for educational reasons. Most 
young Russians take desperate measures to avoid the draft, even paying bribes 
or forging medical certificates. But the teenager from the Volga River region 
was so determined to enlist that he took his exams ahead of schedule.


Less than six months later, Stanislav Vlasov was lying dead in a morgue in 
Dagestan. He was killed by his own army.


In one of the most disastrous blunders of the new Caucasus war, Russian 
helicopters and warplanes fired rockets and bombs at their own troops for 
several hours on the night of Sept. 9. Dozens of Russian soldiers were killed 
or wounded by their own aviators, and half of the entire 80-man unit was 
wiped out.


For Nikolai Vlasov, the death of his only child was the beginning of a 
bureaucratic ordeal that continues today. He says he feels betrayed by his 
motherland.


His story, according to a group of Russian soldiers' mothers, is far from 
unique. The campaign in Chechnya, they say, has been tainted by a repeated 
pattern of official neglect, chaotic disorganization, shortages of basic 
supplies, and virtually no compensation for the families of dead soldiers and 
wounded survivors.


The military propaganda machine has assured Russians that this war is 
different from the last one. The generals have promised no repetition of the 
catastrophic Chechnya war of 1994-96. This time, they have pledged to protect 
their soldiers. They do not even call it a war, but a surgical "antiterrorist 
operation."


The parents of the soldiers disagree. "To say it's a different war is a lie 
and a myth," said Ida Kuklina, a co-ordinator at the Association of Russian 
Soldiers' Mothers Committees.


"It's the same old war, dressed in different clothes. It's an inhuman war, 
grinding down the most defenceless and vulnerable. Once again, untrained 
young soldiers are being sent to fight, and of course they are the majority 
of the casualties. It will be a long, tough, cruel war, with unpredictable 
results."


In August and September, there were at least three major incidents of 
friendly fire -- Russian warplanes bombing their own soldiers. It was the 
inevitable result of the disorganization of the many different branches of 
the Russian defence and interior ministries in the Caucasus, and the lack of 
proper radio and electronic equipment for the troops, analysts say.


Ms. Kuklina glimpsed this confusion when she visited a Russian military base 
in the Caucasus. When dead soldiers from the interior ministry were flown to 
the base, the defence ministry refused to handle the corpses. Instead they 
had to be sent onward to an interior ministry base. "There is no 
co-ordination between the interior and defence units," Ms. Kuklina said.


On Sept. 9, Stanislav Vlasov's detachment of the Spetsnaz (special purpose 
troops) was ordered to seize a hill in Dagestan. It was a strategic height, 
dominating the region, and the Russians had been planning to attack it for 
days.


There are varying accounts of what happened next. According to one version, 
five Russian helicopter gunships appeared in the sky at 7:45 p.m., as the 
Spetsnaz troops were preparing for their assault. The helicopters began 
firing unguided rockets and machine guns at the troops below. They were 
followed later by Su-25 fighter jets that attacked the same troops again as 
they were locked in battle with the Islamic guerrillas on the hill.


According to a different version, the Russian troops managed to capture the 
hill before the bombing began. Seven were killed by the first rocket from a 
Russian helicopter. Later, they were attacked again by helicopters, firing 
guns and submachine guns, at a lower altitude.


In the end, almost half of the 80 soldiers were killed by the Russian 
warplanes and the Islamic militants who took advantage of the chaos, while 
most of the rest were injured or missing.


One soldier, Igor, saw two of his friends killed in the disaster. Later, when 
he wrote to their parents, he told them their sons had been killed by the 
rebels. He swore to avenge their deaths. But he acknowledged to Russian 
television later that he had invented the story to ease the grief of the 
parents.


Mr. Vlasov learned of the death of his son a week later. It was the beginning 
of a long nightmare.


He said he had to make "numerous and insistent demands" over the next two 
days before the military finally found someone to open the morgue and escort 
the body to the railway station for the journey home.


When the corpse arrived at a train station in the Mari-El region on the Volga 
River, the local military commander said he could not afford gasoline to 
transport the body the remaining 120 kilometres to Mr. Vlasov's home. The 
father was forced to rely on help from friends and colleagues.


Mr. Vlasov, an auditor in a local bank, spent about $1,500 on his son's 
funeral. The military said it was unable to pay any of the costs, although it 
did dispatch a brass band to play at the service.


The Russian commanders were "indifferent and hostile" during the entire 
process of delivering the body and holding the funeral, Mr. Vlasov wrote this 
month in a letter to the association of soldiers' mothers.


He remembers his son saying how much he liked his military service and his 
commanding officers. "All of them betrayed him. His commander left him to die 
in a combat operation. The air force commanders bombarded his unit. He was 
betrayed by his motherland, which he had loved and defended."


In his letter, he asked the mothers' group to help him file a legal complaint 
against the Russian military, seeking damages for his son's death. He also 
wants a criminal investigation into the commanding officer of his son's unit.


"My only son was killed. He was my future. I raised him on the principles of 
patriotism. I believed that military service was an obligation for any real 
man. I gave the country the most precious gift I had in my life, and in 
return I got a miserable pittance, not enough to buy food for a farewell 
dinner."


After many weeks of lobbying, Mr. Vlasov has now learned that Russian 
military prosecutors are investigating possible charges of negligence against 
some Russian officers in connection with the friendly-fire incident.


His ordeal, however, is not over. The military commanders at the base in his 
region are threatening to sue him for slander.


"I'm fighting not just for my son, but for all the guys who were with him in 
his detachment and are now invalids," Mr. Vlasov said in an interview.


"Nobody is helping the survivors. One of them is paralyzed, one had his leg 
amputated. If I achieve anything in finding the guilty ones, this is my duty 
for the guys who are still alive. This is the only thing that keeps me alive. 
I still cannot believe that I lost my son. He was everything to me. I really 
don't know why I should continue living."


THE DEATH TOLL MOUNTS
More than 460 Russian soldiers have been killed and almost 1,500 injured in 
four months of fighting in Chechnya and Dagestan, according to official 
Russian figures.


If these figures are correct, the Russian death toll is already approaching 
the monthly levels the Soviet Union endured in its invasion of Afghanistan 
from 1979 to 1989.


The death toll, in fact, is probably much higher. The figures fail to include 
casualties from the interior ministry, along with anyone who dies in a 
hospital after being removed from the war zone.


Groups of Russian soldiers' mothers have estimated the death toll is at least 
twice as high as the official number. One group has calculated that about 925 
Russian soldiers have died so far.


The Chechens say they killed 200 soldiers in a single ambush last week. One 
correspondent in Chechnya saw at least 43 Russian corpses on a videotape of 
the ambush.


Meanwhile, about 300 unidentified Russian corpses are still being held in a 
military morgue in the city of Rostov. They were killed in the last war in 
Chechnya and their remains are still unclaimed.


A legal foundation representing the soldiers' mothers has spent four years 
trying to file lawsuits against the Russian military in connection with the 
deaths in the last war. It has filed a total of 250 suits against the defence 
and interior ministries in the past four years, but no court has accepted 
even one of the cases.


Families of sons who were killed get as little as $6 a month in additional 
pension payments.


"By paying so little for the lost lives, the state makes it possible to 
continue the policy of sending young boys to wars and getting them killed," 
said Anna Valagina, a lawyer for one of the committees of soldiers' mothers.


*******


#6
Boston Globe
27 November 1999
[for personal use only]
Wounded soldiers tell of Russian ineptitude 
By David Filipov, Globe Staff and Dmitry Shalganov Globe Correspondent, 


ROSTOV-ON-DON, Russia - The 10 men in Sergeant Alexander Levenkov's unit, 
draftees near the very end of their two-year hitch in the Russian Army, had 
almost made it safely through the war in Chechnya when everything went very 
wrong last week.


First, their armored personnel carrier broke down on a steep hill near the 
frontier with the southern Russian region of Dagestan, forcing them to call 
for a slower moving, defenseless truck to get them out. Then, Chechen 
guerrillas attacked from somewhere nearby. Levenkov never saw them; he just 
knew they were not supposed to be there. And then the explosions hit.


''The next thing I knew, I was lying on the ground, the guys were lying 
everywhere,'' Levenkov, 21, recalled Wednesday. ''Some were stuck in the 
truck. Someone was saying on the radio we were under mortar attack. Then I 
lost sense of time.''


It is the kind of story many Russian soldiers tell after returning from 
combat in Chechnya: a tale of faulty equipment and outdated weapons, 
confusion on the ground, and an unseen enemy that launches deadly surprise 
attacks, seemingly whenever and wherever it chooses. While soldiers in all 
armies grumble, these stories sound remarkably like the ones that Russian 
soldiers told after the failed campaign in Chechnya in 1994-1996.


Two months after launching a withering artillery and air assault in Chechnya, 
Russia says it is winning its campaign to wipe out separatist militants it 
calls ''terrorists.'' The offensive has flattened villages, killed hundreds 
of civilians, and forced more than 200,000 to flee.


Military commanders confidently predict victory by the end of the year, and 
jubilant politicians speak about the ''revival of the Russian Army.'' The 
Russian public seems glad to have something to celebrate after years of 
post-Soviet setbacks. And most people say they believe their soldiers are 
fighting the good fight by wiping out Islamic rebels who twice invaded 
neighboring Dagestan this summer and whom Russian leaders blame for bombings 
that killed 300 people in Russia in September.


But the stories that Russian soldiers themselves tell contrast sharply with 
the heroic images and upbeat reports of Russia's main television stations, 
where most of the country gets its information.


''Everything they are telling you on TV is a children's cartoon,'' Levenkov 
said from his hospital bed in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, 
where he is recovering from wounds to his legs and arms suffered in the 
ambush.


On Thursday, the lead Chechnya story on the television news was the daring 
escape and dramatic rescue of a Russian aviator whose Su-24 jet was shot down 
by a shoulder-fired missle on Oct. 4. At a press conference in the Russian 
military's main staging center in Mozdok, Russian air force Lieutenant Sergei 
Smyslov described how he ejected from the plane, then evaded rebel fighters 
hunting him for several weeks. Although he was captured and threatened by 
execution by a rebel commander, Smyslov was eventually freed and escorted out 
by local villagers. The report finished by saying Smyslov was awarded a medal 
for heroism.


But for each Smyslov, there are dozens like Yury Toichkin, a sniper from 
Kursk region in southern Russia, who made a recruit's mistake - he said he 
forgot to turn off his night-vision goggles while on a reconnaisance mission 
- and paid for it with a bullet in his right hip.


As he rested in the Rostov hospital, in a cast from his right toe to his 
chest, Toichkin said Russia is right to be in Chechnya, but wrong about the 
way the war is being fought.


The generals ''said that if the army goes into Chechnya, they'll give us the 
latest weapons, but what they gave us was old and falling apart,'' Toichkin 
said. He said he carried three grenades in order to be sure at least one 
would work when he needed it. One tank in his unit had to be towed into 
battles.


''They'd drag it in, then drag it back out again, then they'd put it there on 
the front line as a prop, for looks,'' Toichkin said. ''This is how we go to 
war - with tanks as props, to fight. The Chechens have better weapons than we 
do.''


''Russia makes the best weapons in the world. Where are they? '' Toichkin 
said. His conclusion: Someone in the Russian leadership is dumping old 
weapons and making money in the process.


Toichkin described a moment when his unit, the 245th Motor-Rifle Brigade, had 
a group of Chechen guerrillas surrounded.


''But we never got the order to shoot, and so they got away,'' he said. 
''That happens a lot. ... I wish'' the Russian press ''would write what we 
are saying.''


Three years after withdrawing from Chechnya in humiliation, Russian forces 
have claimed success after success since returning to the breakaway region in 
September. The military has advanced quickly to the outskirts of the capital, 
Grozny, and taken large chunks of territory without serious resistance.


But the military has lost over 2,000 men dead and wounded, and has yet to 
engage in a major battle with the rebels. The Russian generals say they have 
learned their lessons from the last war, and are bombarding the lightly armed 
Chechens from a distance rather than engaging them in close combat. Unable to 
respond, the rebels have retreated without offering major resistance. Some 
towns have surrendered without a fight. But the conflict does not end there.


''One day we clean out a village, but the next day the fighters are back 
dressed as refugees,'' Levenkov said. ''They shoot us in the back.''


Often the attacks come in places the soldiers have already cleared of 
guerrillas. Private Nikolai Zolotaryov, 20, was standing on a ridge near 
Chechnya's western frontier, which had been long under Russian control, when 
a sniper shot him and two comrades in the back.


''We were moving our position. We sat on our troop carrier and then there was 
a report and someone yelled, `Who is shooting? Who is shooting?''' said 
Zolotaryov. ''But who there ever knows who is shooting?''


Independent analysts are increasingly raising the possibility that Russia 
will suffer heavy losses in a protracted guerrilla war as the rebels retreat 
to the mountains in the south.


Analysts also said the poorly equipped Russian units will suffer in the 
winter weather. 


If the casualties continue to mount, public support for the war may turn 
sour. It already has for Ludmila Saveleyeva, whose son Vadim, 19, had both 
legs amputated at the knee after suffering shrapnel wounds on a ridge 
overlooking Grozny. A Chechen guerrilla sneaked past two Russian lookouts who 
had fallen asleep and managed to drop a grenade in Vadin's trench.


''Why do they have to kill off young men? How long can this go on?'' 
Savelyeva said. ''They told him he was going on a monthlong tour. They didn't 
say he would be serving three months. Why do they need to fool people? Why do 
they need to take our children there?''


*******


#7
The Times (UK)
November 27 1999
[for personal use only] 
Warrior spirit of Cossacks invoked in Russia's defence 
FROM RICHARD BEESTON
IN VLADIKAVKAZ
FORTY little arms shot up when the class of 11-year-old cadets was asked who 
wanted to fight for Russia. "Anyone afraid of the Chechens?" barked the 
teacher, a retired army major who was discharged after being wounded in the 
stomach during the assault on Grozny five years ago. "No, Sir!" came the 
shrill reply as, one after the other, the children named the combat units 
they hoped to serve in. 


While most Russian boys spend their formative years thinking up ways of 
avoiding the notoriously unpleasant and dangerous military service, here in 
the ancient Cossack lands of the northern Caucasus the military traditions 
that have been dormant for 80 years are being reignited. 


"We are not saying that everyone should serve in the army," said the 
headmaster, Kim Yezeyev. "But here in this region we regard it as a rite of 
passage. If you do not put on a uniform you do not become a man." 


The dressing-up in uniforms, the military exercises and the lessons in 
marksmanship would probably appeal to many boys of their age the world over. 
But here, just a few miles from the war raging in Chechnya, the tuition is 
deadly serious and almost certainly some of the pupils will have to put their 
training to real use one day. 


The Cadet School in Vladikavkaz opened last year and is already 
oversubscribed. It is part of a trend among the former Cossack communities of 
Russia, whose fearsome ancestors colonised the imperial borderlands, and 
whose descendants are being called on to guard the frontier again. 


"Everyone likes to see Cossacks dressing up in their traditional costumes, 
singing their songs and reviving their culture," said Vadim Lesin, commander 
of the Terek Cossacks, whose communities straddle the hotly contested 
borderlands dividing the Orthodox Russians in the north and the Caucasian 
Muslim nations in the south, such as the Chechens, Dagestanis and Ingushis. 
"But we actually have a job to do. We need resources, arms and training to 
keep our ancient lands or else the banditry we have witnessed in Chechnya 
will spread and we will be driven from the homeland which we settled. What 
our forefathers taught us is that these people only understand the language 
of force." 


His remarks are echoed in the Cossack villages which have taken the brunt of 
attacks by Chechen rebels. 


With half-hearted support from the state, Cossack volunteers fought in the 
first Chechen war, helped to drive out Ingush civilians in 1992 and took up 
arms in the name of Slav nationalism in Moldova and even Bosnia, on the side 
of the Serbs. Even today they man home-guard units alongside Russian forces. 
Their cause has been championed by Aleksandr Lebed, the former general, 
President Yeltsin, who backs their calls to arms, and Yevgeni Primakov, the 
former Prime Minister, who this week supported them during a campaign tour 
through the region. 


Many Russians, however, are fearful of unleashing a movement known in its 
Tsarist heyday for bloody pogroms against the Jews, suppressing peaceful 
protests and generally causing trouble on sensitive borders in the Caucasus, 
Kazakhstan and Ukraine. One parliamentarian said re-arming the Cossacks to 
defend Russia's borders was "tantamount to treating a sore throat by putting 
a noose around your neck". 


Some 500 years ago, Cossacks escaped the authority of Moscow by populating 
the borders of the expanding Russian empire as unruly frontiersmen. They were 
brought into the military establishment by Catherine the Great and helped to 
subdue the local tribes in a long war that sowed the seeds of today's 
conflict between the Russians and local Muslim nations. 


The romantic image of the Cossacks, immortalised by Tolstoy's The Cossacks 
and Mikhail Sholokhov's And Quietly Flows the Don, is one of courage and duty 
in the service of the Tsar. 


A truer picture was possibly recorded by Alexandre Dumas, who witnessed the 
death of a Chechen at the hands of a Terek Cossack in 1858. "The Cossack 
dismounted, drew his sword, bent over the body and a moment later stood 
waving the severed head, while the other Cossacks cheered wildly," he wrote. 


Mikhail Kamus, a Terek Cossack of a more peaceful disposition, insisted that 
the community today should maintain some traditions, but added: "We should be 
proud that we can coexist with other people, rather than take up arms and 
make them our enemies." 


*******


#8
The Russia Journal
November 29-December 5, 1999
Putin poised for presidency
But analysts say his real power may be illusory
By GREGORY FEIFER / The Russia Journal


Zero to 41 in just four months: According to one public opinion rating, 
that's how much Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's standing rose as a percentage 
among possible voters in next summer's presidential elections.


And that's just the start. Russia's allegedly most popular politician in 30 
years has the support of the army as well as political parties bitterly 
opposed to the Kremlin that appointed him.


The chief question now is whether the ride will last long enough to catapult 
Putin into the Kremlin after presidential elections next June.


Putin was appointed prime minister last August as President Boris Yeltsin's 
loyal supporter. Since then, he has been accused of being trapped between the 
Kremlin and a military intent on setting its own policy in Russia's campaign 
in the breakaway region of Chechnya.


Nikolai Petrov, a political analyst at Moscow's Carnegie Center says that 
notwithstanding the prime minister's colossal ratings and resulting support 
from practically all of the country's politicians - who are afraid of 
frightening off their electorates - Putin's power is not as great as it may 
seem.


"Putin is a very good indicator showing how Russian society in its current 
condition is ready to instantly and forcefully support a person who's not 
real, but is practically a cardboard cut-out figure," Petrov said. "He's a 
person about whom relatively little is known, including his position on many 
questions."


But there's no question about his stance on one issue - Chechnya.


Following two incursions into the southern republic of Dagestan by militants 
from neighboring Chechnya last August followed by a series of apartment 
building explosions in Russia blamed - without proof - on Chechens, Putin 
championed Moscow's so-far successful military campaign in Chechnya.


As the country remains mired in economic paralysis, increasing poverty, 
rampant corruption and stuck with a diminished presence on the international 
stage, Putin - a steely former KGB spy - has issued hard-line rhetoric and 
seen it backed up.


And the Russian population has responded to the welcome decisiveness with its 
overwhelming support - the extent of which is backed up by several polling 
agencies.


The Public Opinion Foundation gave Putin a 75 percent approval rating this 
month; VTsIOM gave him 78 percent.


In the run-up to presidential elections next June, the Public Opinion 
Foundation gave Putin 41 percent of support. The ROMIR agency gave him 37.6 
percent, which left runner-up Communist Party chief Gennady Zyuganov in the 
dust with 13.3 percent. Former Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov - until 
recently Russia's most popular politician - came in third with 9.5 percent.


Praise from OVR


Meanwhile, the powerful Fatherland-All Russia (OVR) bloc - the Kremlin's 
greatest threat and most bitter opponent, led by Primakov and Moscow Mayor 
Yury Luzhkov - can't get in enough praise. "Putin's rating is increasing and 
I hope it reaches 100 percent," Nezavisimaya Gazeta recently quoted Luzhkov 
as saying.


At the same time, Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu, leader of the 
Kremlin-founded Yedinstvo (Unity) bloc, said last week that his party might 
support Putin's presidential candidacy jointly with OVR.


That fairly astounding fact alone - given that Yedisnstvo was founded 
precisely to oppose OVR - shows how much influence Putin has.


The support of prominent liberal politicans and ex-reformers such as former 
Premier Sergei Kiriyenko and UES chief Anatoly Chubais - who opposed Russia's 
first Chechen war in 1994-1996 - is small change.


Popularity questioned


But Putin's popularity is fraught with nagging questions.


The prime minister has been accused - by Luzhkov, for one - of taking 
practically no part in the country's life aside from the war in Chechnya.


"He doesn't play much of a role in the economy," Petrov said. "Moreover, it's 
clear that sometimes at least, what goes on in the government takes place 
against his will."


Addressing the Duma on Wednesday, his 100th day in office, Putin tried to 
rectify that image by announcing he would play a greater part in economic 
affairs and by telling appreciative deputies that Russia's gross domestic 
production rate will grow 1.5 times this year.


But that largely comes because after last year's financial collapse, there 
was nowhere to go but up. And prices for oil, Russia's chief hard-currency 
export, are at a 30-year high.


Putin also pledged another $100 million for the war effort.


Deputies were significantly less happy with Putin's announcement to reporters 
the same day that he would support Yedinstvo in Duma elections in December.


But despite that latest show of solidarity with the Kremlin, things are not 
completely smooth with Putin's political patrons. The prime minister was 
against the Kremlin's recent forcible replacement of oil company Transneft's 
general director in defiance of shareholders' wishes. Moreover, Putin's 
relations with Kremlin favorites First Deputy Prime Minister Nikolai 
Aksyonenko and Fuel and Energy Minister Viktor Kalyuzhny are far from cozy.


Kremlin poses threat


Analysts say the Kremlin is now paradoxically one of the prime minister's 
greatest threats. Yeltsin recently fired four premiers within two years, most 
likely because their popularity threatened his own perceived political 
dominance. "They became natural candidates to replace him," Petrov said. "In 
that regard, it doesn't make sense to entertain too much hope that the 
Kremlin is now cultivating especially warm feelings toward Putin."


Vyacheslav Nikonov, a top OVR adviser and ideologue, said it's hard to say 
exactly how much power Putin now has. "He's a very influential figure with 
the support of the army," Nikonov said. "But his main problem is that he 
depends on the Kremlin and the 'family' [of Kremlin insiders]."


But Petrov says Putin's role solely as Yeltsin's appointed political "client" 
will have to change after elections to the State Duma lower house of 
parliament on Dec. 19, when a stronger chamber is expected to come to office.


According to the Constitution, the president cannot use one of his most 
powerful weapons, dismissing the Duma, six months before presidential 
elections. On the other hand, the Duma can lead to procedures to dismiss the 
government by taking a confidence vote in the Cabinet.


"The premier will have to answer the question of his loyalty to the Kremlin 
as well as his readiness to demonstrate loyalty to the Duma," Petrov said.


Analysts have also routinely pegged Putin's ratings to the course of Moscow's 
Chechen campaign. As winter sets in along with a potential ongoing guerilla 
war, the prime minister's ratings might sink if Russian bodybags start piling 
up.


Observers also say Putin's popularity will decline if he is fired in the near 
future and presidential elections are held as scheduled next June - if for no 
other reason than that the prime minister has no political organization of 
his own.


But Nikonov said that given the Kremlin's current unpopularity (92 percent of 
those polled by VTsIOM say they don't approve of Yeltsin), it might also plan 
to fire Putin while supporting his candidacy for president from behind the 
scenes.


One looming question is whether Putin would be able to unite the 
all-important support of Russia's regional governors, something Primakov had 
so recently looked set to accomplish for OVR.


The unanimous answer so far is yes. Nezavisimaya Gazeta recently opined that 
Putin will indeed lead a political transconfiguration in Russia by wooing 
regional leaders away from OVR and undermining Primakov's stature.


"Putin is better than any other possible candidate for that post," Petrov 
said, adding that the prime minister spent several years cultivating 
relations with regional leaders while serving in the presidential 
administration and then as head of the Federal Security Service.


"He actively takes part in maintaining those relations, constantly meeting 
with regional leaders and taking part in regional associations' conferences," 
Petrov said.


Nikonov agrees. "Regional leaders are pragmatic," he said. "They'll support 
the victor in the campaign and will try to jump on the train as soon as they 
can."


As far as what Putin will do if he becomes president, analysts say the prime 
minister does have a chance of becoming an independent-minded politician if 
elected. "But before then, it's unlikely," Nikonov said.


*******


#9
the eXile
November 18 - December 2, 1999 
Book review
By John Dolan
Sovietology Without Soviets


After the Collapse:
Russia Seeks Its Place as A Great Power
Dmitri K. Simes
Simon & Schuster 1999
$25.00
What's a poor astrologer to do when the stars go out? In other words: what's 
a Sovietologist supposed to do once there's no Soviet Union? If the 
Sovietologist in question is Dmitri K. Simes, he lands a cushy job at the 
Nixon Center, "a prominent foreign-policy think tank in Washington, D.C.," 
and pops out the odd book like this one, in which he pursues the avocation of 
all former Sovietologists: making incompetent predictions about what Russia 
is going to do.


The Sovietologists had an uncanny track record: in the seventy years that 
their object of study existed, they never once guessed right about its future 
course. Every single step the USSR took was news to them. And yet they 
managed to keep the money coming in by the same means that other soothsayers 
use: persuading everyone to ignore their past failures by making 
ever-more-lurid new predictions. Like astrologers, they made a living by 
persuading frightened, dim clients that there was a supernatural shortcut to 
understanding complex phenomena.


Their profession has shrunk recently, because no one in the US fears Russia 
as they did the USSR. Who needs an astrologer when you own the world? But 
there is always a place for a man like Simes, who possesses a trait even more 
valuable than predicting the future: the ability to flatter powerful people 
shamelessly and at length in print. Simes is a born toady. He just goes all 
gooey when he describes the big players, above all his hero Nixon, who 
apparently adopted Simes as his lapdog in the latter years of his exile. 
Simes' unctuous, bearded face is shown on the back cover of this book leaning 
deferentially toward Nixon, brushing Mister President's jacket for lint like 
the good little lackey he is.


There are those who claim that Mr. Simes supplements his income from the 
Nixon Center with a regular stipend from another would-be scary employer: the 
CIA. This view was advanced by Limonov himself in a recent eXile column, 
which described Limonov's dinner with a drunken Simes and wife, in which 
Simes broadly hinted that he worked for the CIA and considered himself far 
superior to the yokels in the FBI. Ah for the old days, when GRU and KGB 
spent most of the working week slagging each other! No wonder Simes made such 
a wonderful adjustment to his new home on the Potomac. One of the features of 
this book is the easy way that Simes equates his former life inside the 
Soviet bureaucracy with his present job at the Nixon Center. He repeatedly 
refers to "the Moscow Beltway" when describing the HQ of the Old Regime. 
Clearly, he sees DC and Moscow as twin towers; he's just stepped across the 
elevated walkway for a while.


This book is written in the language of those gray Soviet-style journals for 
which Simes writes: Foreign Policy, U. S. News & World Report. He mentions 
former Secretaries of Defense as if their names would be remembered, and 
invokes the living dead (like Kissinger) with outright reverence. Much of 
this book consists of Simes' reconstruction of his trips to Russia with 
Nixon, in which Nixon appears as a noble figure, compassionate and profound. 
It's an odd story, most of all because Simes, for all his claim to 
Americanism, still thinks and writes in a very Soviet way. He longs to find 
some Great Helmsman who can tell him what to think about everything, and in 
whom he can invest his talent for sycophancy, and it's no accident that he 
found it in Nixon--because Nixon, for good or ill, was a very Soviet figure. 
That's why Philip K. Dick made the Nixon-character in Radio Free Albemuth 
into a Soviet agent; as always, Dick saw more clearly than the rest, 
realizing that Nixon's basic characteristics--servility, sentimentality and 
ruthlessness, intermittent nihilism in unstable suspension with provincial 
moralism, deep self-loathing and desperate pride--were Soviet traits. They 
made Nixon feel utterly at home in Moscow. He never looked more relaxed than 
on his detente trips. He was home and he knew it.


In Simes' story, it's Nixon who sees clearly that America shouldn't try to 
run post-Soviet Russia and who warns the Russians to pursue their own path. 
Nixon is contrasted with Reagan and Clinton, who come across as arrogant and 
uninterested in Russia. (Nixon, by contrast, claims that, having briefly 
studied Russian in 1959, he's able, in 1991, to understand spoken Russian. If 
it's true, he was a linguistic genius. Or--and much likelier--he was just a 
sad little guy who needed to lie to sycophants like Simes in order to feel OK 
for a few minutes.)


But Simes doesn't keep Nixon around for sentimental reasons. Simes is 
involved in palace intrigue: a Byzantine secret war within the Sovietology 
world. Nixon is the banner identifying his faction. Against Simes and Nixon 
are other presidents and their own little viziers, Simes' rivals: Brzezinski 
the hated Pole and his Methodist owner, Jimmy the Carter; Bush and his Master 
of Assassins, James Baker; the evil Strobe Talbott, Russian viceroy of that 
overage Student-Body president, Clinton. Simes writes about the tyrants and 
their little gray eminences with the deep hatred of a courtier out of power 
who has the chance to smear the character of more successful rivals. His 
topic, of course, is the inevitable one: Who Lost Russia? His conclusion: 
everybody but me and Nixon.


Half of the story seems absolutely true: the bad half. The whole "How We 
Fucked Up Our Dealings with Russia throughout the Nineties" part. Talbott's 
an arrogant fool...sounds right to me. Clinton knows nothing about Russia and 
cares less...yup, wouldn't doubt it. It's the good half that's so doubtful, 
above all the idea that a groveller like Simes would have done any better. 
The most interesting thing about Simes' tale of American incompetence in 
handling aid to Russia isn't his self-serving claims but the fact that he's 
willing, in the cause of embarrassing rival apparatchiks, to disclose many 
trade secrets of US "aid." There are times when this book reads almost like a 
beige-ified synopsis of eXile articles from 1997, attacking the Oligarchs and 
"predicting" the fall of the inflated Russian economy. But the eXile 
predicted the economic collapse BEFORE it happened; In this book, which 
didn't come out til 1999, Simes is "predicting" only in the way 
Sovietologists always have: after the fact. His book is in fact a prophecy in 
the past tense: he "predicts" the fall of the Russian market in the late 
nineties. The only thing which prevents this from being quite in Nostradamus 
territory is the fact that he is predicting something that already 
happened--not a terribly impressive feat, but no worse than Sovietologists' 
past predictions. They were very good at predicting Kruschev's speech--five 
years after he made it--and Brezhnev's victory over Kosygin--ten years after 
it was over.


These brave predictions of past disasters do enable Simes to play the role of 
virtuous outsider, one not easily accessible to a Nixon crony with some 
dubious intelligence-community connections. Simes tells all, when it comes to 
the "Young Reformers" and particularly Chubais. He clearly hates Chubais 
above all, and for the most basic of reasons: the hatred of one unprincipled 
courtier for another who has done far better. Here's a sample of Simes, 
criticizing the American media whitewash of Chubais:


"...American journalists described the Davos deal as a "Faustian bargain" for 
the reformist politician [Chubais] and suggested that Chubais nobly held his 
nose while cutting a deal with the [Oligarchs]...This description misses the 
mark, however. First, there is simply no evidence that an arrangement with 
the tycoons was distasteful to Chubais in the slightest. He was, if anything, 
the mastermind...Second, the magnates were hardly strangers to him. They 
were, if anything, creations of his own privatization policies,...Chubais' 
own manufactured political base..."


All absolutely true, and nobly said--three years late. It ain't just what you 
say, it's when you say, how you say it, and why you say it. Snitching on 
fellow con-men who have already been busted to the whole world just to keep 
your hand into the sleazy game...not quite the done thing, Dmitri old boy. 
Not quite the straight bat, eh?


*******