August 17, 2001

This Date's Issues:   5395 • 5396

Johnson's Russia List
#5395
17 August 2001
davidjohnson@erols.com

[Note from David Johnson:
1. AP: Gorbachev Dismisses Putin Fears.
2. Interfax: Gorbachev regrets not sending Yeltsin as envoy to a banana republic.
3. AFP: Burning brightly but briefly: Yeltsin's golden era recalled.
4. strana.ru: Half of Russian population has difficulty remembering participants of abortive putsch: opinion poll.
5. Luba Schwartzman: ORT Review.
6. Interfax: Witness in Russian spy case describes defendant as "devoted patriot." (re Sutyagin)
7. Murray Feshbach: further correction to myself and 5389-Semenenko/Collapse of USSR.
8. Igor Gelbach: Nina Christesen.
9. Interfax: 1998 CRISIS FAVORABLE FOR RUSSIA'S ECONOMY - EXPERTS.
10. RIA: Russia allows glimpse into life of elite security squad as leaders meet press. (Vympel)
11. Irish Times: Seamus Martin, Russians are flocking to see a collection of paintings that has been reassembled for the first time since the revolution of 1917.
12. Reuters: Dollar-loving Russians cling to U.S. currency.
13. The Globe and Mail (Canada): Geoffrey York, Winning comes easy for a strongman. Hard-line tactics, censorship in Belarus likely to keep regime in power.
14. Moscow Times: Pavel Felgenhauer, Moscow in 1991, Grozny in 1995.
15. Business Week Online: Stan Crock, Bush and Putin: Smiles Now, Trouble Later?
16. Reuters: U.S. said divided on potential for ABM deal.]

*******

#1
Gorbachev Dismisses Putin Fears
August 16, 2001
By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV

MOSCOW (AP) - Mikhail Gorbachev, still bitter about the August 1991 hard-line
coup against him that precipitated the Soviet Union's collapse, dismissed
fears Thursday that President Vladimir Putin may re-establish Soviet-style
authoritarian controls.

Gorbachev, increasingly sharing his memories as this weekend's 10th
anniversary of the coup approaches, said the plotters ``saw that their time
was up, ... they would soon have to leave their jobs and their privileges,
and they couldn't accept it. They didn't pass the test of democracy.''

Praising Putin, Gorbachev told a news conference the Russian president is
trying to stabilize a nation rocked by a decade of chaotic reforms.

``I support President Putin and his strategy,'' Gorbachev said. ``He acts for
the benefit of national interests and in favor of the majority of the
population.''

Gorbachev said that because Putin had to grapple with the difficult legacy of
former President Boris Yeltsin's era, he couldn't avoid making some errors.

Gorbachev didn't specify which mistakes he meant, but he has criticized
Putin's government for putting pressure on NTV television. The station -
where Gorbachev served as an adviser - was taken over by the state-connected
giant gas company Gazprom this spring.

``I told the president that many people are concerned that a new
authoritarian regime may emerge,'' Gorbachev said. ``He responded that he
stands for law and order, a strong court system and multiple political
parties.''

Gorbachev said Putin was facing resistance from members of Yeltsin's inner
circle and getting bad advice from some proponents of radical reforms.

``Putin is trying to take the country out of chaos left by Yeltsin, but he's
only at the start of the road,'' Gorbachev said. ``He has gotten some
bruises, but has learned a lot already.''

Gorbachev added that his social-democratic party would support Putin if he
seeks re-election in 2004, but ruled out taking any government position
himself.

Gorbachev's political career ended when he resigned as Soviet president on
Christmas Day 1991. A decade later, Russians are beginning to appreciate his
gradual approach to change, especially after the wrenching reforms under
Yeltsin.

Ironically, some plotters of the hard-line Communist coup who briefly ousted
Gorbachev in August 1991 have similarly praised Putin for his efforts to
build a strong Russia. Gorbachev on Thursday attributed their compliments to
political opportunism rather than any similarity in ideological views.

At the time of the coup, Gorbachev said, he was too busy preparing the
signing of a union treaty that would have given more power to the former
Soviet republics and less to the center, and underestimated the threat from
some power-hungry members of his inner circle.

The coup organizers visited Gorbachev Aug. 19, 1991, while he was vacationing
at his Black Sea villa and urged him to give up power. When he refused, they
put him under house arrest, announced a nationwide state of emergency and
rolled tanks into Moscow. Yeltsin rallied resistance from atop a tank, and
the coup collapsed within three days. Four months later, the Soviet Union was
dead.

Gorbachev's dismissed the coup plotters' oft-repeated allegations that he was
in the know about their plans and even gave them the go-ahead for the action.

``They have been lying for so long that they started to believe it
themselves,'' Gorbachev said, his voice filled with contempt.

Asked why he didn't try to break out of the villa, he described the tight
security cordons and scoffed: ``Do you think I should have jumped a fence and
hung off of it from my trousers?''

********

#2
Gorbachev regrets not sending Yeltsin as envoy to a banana republic
Interfax

Moscow, 16 August: Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev believes that
complete disintegration of the Soviet Union could have been avoided.

At a news conference in Moscow jointly organized by the Gorbachev Foundation
and Interfax today, he admitted that the Soviet Union, "the way it was, was a
clumsy, impossible formation that obstructed reforms that had long been
passed in developed countries". Hence the country "should have been reformed
on the basis of centralization and expansion of democracy", he said.

"Everything could have been different," Gorbachev said expressing regret that
he and his closest supporters "were too late in reforming the Soviet Union
and the Soviet Communist Party, which initiated perestroika."

Looking back, he said he should have sent Boris Yeltsin, who became the
leader of the democrats in the early 1990's, as an ambassador "to some banana
republic".

Gorbachev criticized what Yeltsin did during his presidency, saying Yeltsin
did not "take the road of strengthening the democratic gains" of perestroika.
As for the disintegration of the Soviet Union, "Yeltsin sincerely believed
that after getting rid of other Soviet republics and relying on its rich
natural reserves and scientists, Russia would advance faster," Gorbachev
said.

On his personal relationship with the former Russian president Gorbachev said
they have not met since December 1991 when Yeltsin told him "to get out of
the presidential country house and the Kremlin office within 24 hours".

"I wondered at the time: what kind of a person is he?" Gorbachev said.

*******

#3
Burning brightly but briefly: Yeltsin's golden era recalled

MOSCOW, Aug 16 (AFP) -
Boris Yeltsin enjoyed nearly nine years guiding Russia's fortunes compared
with Mikhail Gorbachev's six years in the Kremlin, but there seems little
doubt which of the two history will judge more favourably.

No contrast could have been starker than the indifference that greeted
Yeltsin's resignation announcement on December 31, 1999, set against the
enthusiasm that accompanied him following his heroic feats during the August
1991 coup attempt.

Photographs of Yeltsin standing on an army tank -- sent in by the coup
leaders -- urging the crowd to resist and organising the defence of the
Russian parliament present a fit, determined figure, an apt symbol for an
emerging democracy.

The Yeltsin who took his leave a decade later, tiptoeing from power at the
height of the millennium party, was a considerably diminished figure, tainted
by scandal, weakened by frequent heart problems, and with a record in office
that many Russians prefer to forget.

Yeltsin's popularity ratings plummeted once the effects of his economic
team's shock therapy set in and were lodged in single figures by the time of
the 1996 presidential elections, a hurdle he overcame with some unabashed
media manipulation and with the good fortune that his only serious adversary
was a communist.

But his aura had long since been tarnished by such events as the 1993 tank
assault on the Russian parliament, or the cronyism that saw whole sectors of
Soviet-era industry privatised into the hands of a small group of insiders.

The charge-sheet also includes two Chechen wars, a financial crash and a
rampantly corrupt business culture.

Yeltsin's "golden age", one commentators believed, lasted well under a year,
roughly between his election as president in June 1991 and the resignation of
his first acting prime minister Yegor Gaidar in January 1992.

On the credit side, commentators credit Yeltsin with institutionalising free
elections, tolerating a diversity of views in the media, and confining the
Communist party to the sidelines.

On the occasion of his 70th birthday last February Yeltsin received due
honours from his appointed successor Vladimir Putin, who visited him in
hospital where he was recovering from a viral infection, and from the media
who hailed "the man of freedom", or "our first love".

But with the Putin administration currently distancing itself from most
aspects of the Yeltsin legacy, Russia's first president has displayed no sign
of wishing to play an active role in public life comparable with that of his
former adversary Gorbachev.

Apart from visiting, or receiving visits from, statesmen with whom he has
worked in the past, his ambitions appear to be limited to a stated desire to
form an "elder statesmen's club" for retired world leaders.

*******

#4
strana.ru
August 16, 2001
Half of Russian population has difficulty remembering participants of
abortive putsch: opinion poll
During the 1991 putsch, one-third of Russians were unable to get their
bearings in the situation

More than a quarter (28%) of the Russian population during the 1991 August
putsch opposed the so-called State Committee of the Emergency Situation,
known by its Russian acronym GKChP, that attempted to oust USSR President
Mikhail Gorbachev while vacationing at Foros in Crimea.

This is evident from the results of an opinion poll conducted on the eve of
the tenth anniversary of the abortive coup undertaken August 19-21 in 1991.

According to the poll, half as many Russians (14%) admitted that at that time
they sided with the putschists.

Almost a third of the Russians (31%) were unable to get their bearings in
that situation.

However, the replies to the poll questions about the present attitude towards
the GKChP are somewhat different.

Today 14% of the respondents believe the putschists acted correctly in those
days. 24% maintain that their opponents were right. 18% of the respondents
still cannot figure out what happened then. But most of the respondents (44%)
were unable to give a definite answer.

When asked to remember the names of the abortive coup, 20% of the Russians
named the then USSR Defense Minister Dmitry Yazov, USSR Supreme Soviet
Speaker Anatoly Lukyanov - 17%, Interior Minister Boris Pugo and Vice
President Gennady Yanayev - 13% each, KGB Chairman Vladimir Kryuchkov - 10%.

Some of the respondents also remember Prime Minister Valentin Pavlov (6%) and
Chief of the General Staff Valentin Varennikov (3%).

Strange as it may seem, some respondents included among the putschists also
General Alexander Rutskoi who headed the group that liberated Gorbachev
(15%), President Gorbachev himself (11%) and Prime Minister (1985-1990)
Nikolai Ryzhkov.

It is noteworthy that almost half of the respondents (49%) were unable to
remember anyone of the putschists.

Moreover, 27% of the Russians believe that if the putschists had managed to
come to power and hold it, they would be living just as they are today. 20%
believe their life would have taken a turn for the better, while 17% think it
would have been worse.

36% of the respondents were unable to give a definite answer to this question.

*******

#5
ORT Review
www.ortv.ru
Compiled by Luba Schwartzman (luba7@bu.edu)
Research intern at the Center for Defense Information
Research fellow at the Institute for the Study of Conflict, Ideology and Policy
at Boston University

HEADLINES
Thursday, August 16, 2001

- Prisoners at a Novorossiiskii isolation center say that there is one
thing that keeps them human - the pig farm staffed by the detainees. This
privileged and sought-after employment is reserved for first-time
offenders who remain on good behavior. Since the prisoner-farmers are
kept apart from other convicts, these men are less likely to be turned
into hardened criminals by their time in the isolation center.

- The first experiment with a single government academic exam (given to
high school graduates as an exit exam, and, at the same time, used as an
entrance exam for universities) was given to 36,000 students in five
Russian regions: Chuvashiya, Yakutia, Mari El, Rostov oblast' and Samara
oblast'. The Russian Education Ministry plans on applying this approach
to the entire Russian school system within three or four years.

- Russian President Vladimir Putin took a trip around Lake Ladoga on the
presidential ferry "Rossiia." His itinerary included a visit to the
monastery of the Valaam archipelago in Karelia.

- The three sailors from the Russian tanker Virgo who were detained
yesterday, have been released on bail. They are forbidden to leave the
Canadian city of St. John's until the court date of 13 September. Earlier
today, the Russian Transportation Ministry expressed its desire to
participate in the investigation of the sinking of American trawler
Starbound, in which they are implicated.

- Market vendors in the Moscow region are on strike. They are protesting
the government's resolution requiring the use of cash registers at outdoor
markets and stands.

- Mikhail Gorbachev held a press conference dedicated to the 10th
anniversary of the GKChP (State Committee for Emergency Situations) today.
At the conference he praised President Putin and appealed to the elite to
support him.

- A naval aviation helicopter took journalists over the area of the
Barents Sea where the operations to lift the Kursk nuclear submarine are
in progress.

- Today's events at the Zhukovsk international air-show were dedicated to
the Sukhoi corporation.

- General Prosecutor Vladimir Ustinov has arrived to the North Caucasus,
where anti-terrorist operations are being carried out.

- Coup d'etat attempts were thwarted in Karachaevo-Cherkessia and
Kabardino-Balkaria. Eleven active participants of a Wahhabi criminal
group have already been arrested.

- A governmental commission is still investigating yesterday's methane
explosion at a Kuzbass mine.

- Construction workers from all over the nation are arriving in Lensk to
help with the restoration of the flood-damaged area.

- For the first time in its existence, leaders of the FSB's elite and
secret Vympel division met with journalists. Vympel was created 20 years
ago on the initiative of Yuri Andropov, then Chairman of the KGB, and Yuri
Drozdov, the director of Department S (Intelligence).

- Military exercises of the Kantemirov tank division currently in progress
include evacuation from under water.

- The establishment of the Union of Russian-Ukrainian Cooperation was
announced today in Moscow.

- Sensational discovery in Kazan. Archaeologists have found the remains
of ancient buildings, which they think were the residences of old Khazan
Khans.

- A military cache with 15 kilograms of explosives was found in one of the
Karachaevo-Cherkessia canyons.

- A 230-meter tunnel was opened today on the Trans-Caucasian highway,
connecting Russia with the Caucasus.

- A special commission of the Russian Emergencies Ministry, headed by
military expert Georgii Kondratiev, has arrived in Vladivostok to
determine the damage caused by recent torrential rains.

******

#6
Witness in Russian spy case describes defendant as "devoted patriot"
Interfax

Kaluga, 16 August: The Kaluga regional court hearing the spy case of Igor
Sutyagin, former senior researcher from the Institute for the United States
and Canada, on Thursday [16 August] heard the testimony of Sergey
Oznobishchev, chief of the analytical division of the Russian Academy of
Sciences.

Lawyer Vladimir Vasiltsov has told Interfax that Oznobishchev, who had worked
with his client, gave good references and described Sutyagin as a devoted
patriot and an excellent professional. Vasiltsov said that on Friday the
court is not planning to question witnesses, but will continue examining the
materials of the case.

Sutyagin, the chief of the department for military-technical and
military-economic policies at the Institute for the United States and Canada,
was arrested in Obninsk on 27 October 1999 on suspicion of high treason. On 5
November 1999 charges of high treason in the form of espionage were brought
against him. The Federal Security Service charged him with gathering
information about nuclear submarines of a new generation and on the combat
readiness of Russia's nuclear arsenal and early-warning systems, and
transferring it abroad...

*******

#7
From: feshbach@georgetown.edu (Murray Feshbach)
Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001
Subject: further correction to myself and the Moscow Times article.
re 5389-Semenenko/Collapse of USSR

Dear David:

My brief correction the other day was necessary, but not sufficient. On
rereading the piece in the MT, I realized that I did not respond fully.

Yes, the authorship of Ecocide in the USSR needed to be corrected, but
the response was insufficient because the location of my linkage of
demographic trends, burdens and the "collapse" was not found in that
source, albeit indirectly. In addition, Ecocide was not published until
1992, after the event.

Rather, the precise location of my forecast is to be found in the
Adelphi Papers issue 257, IISS Annual Conference Papers, Winter
2000/2001, Part II, pp. 19-29, Conference on "America's Role in a
Changing World," held earlier in 2000.

I was asked by the Executive Director to confront (if not confound) the
political/military/strategic members attending the conference with my
viewpoint, about which I wrote:

"I hope this very quick, bold, wide-ranging set of pronostications about
the extent of the diffulties in the immediate period will turn out to be
wrong." This is found in the last paragraph of the article.

The first paragraph of the article, however, is to the point of the MT
article of 13 August, reprinted in the JRL of that date.

To wit: "I believe that in less than one decade, the Soviet Union as
we have understood it, and currently understand it, will no longer
exist. It will be at most a loose conferation, with at most, again, an
effort by the centre [British spelling] to control overall military
policy, overall foreign (political, but not fully in control of
economic) policy, and perhaps some aspects of telecommunications--but
not the postal service, perhaps the telegraph, and probably not the
telephone system, since the 'republics' will not wish to have Moscow
(for which read the Soviet Union, not Russia) controlling their external
and domestic communications. The so-called republics will be either
independent, or will have at most a High Commissioner as in the early
phase of the British Commonwealth, but not a Second Secretary
representing the Communist Party of the Soviet Union...."

I also made some bold if not radical predictions regarding the economy,
the nationalities and nationalism, education and the environment. But
those are not the specific point at hand. New and perhaps even stronger
negative predictions will be found in my article in the forthcoming
Joint Economic Committee volume on the Russian Economy, to be published
in November of 2001.

******

#8
From: Igor Gelbach raemathew@bigpond.com
Sent: Wednesday, August 15, 2001
Subject: Nina Christesen

Vale Nina Mikhailovna Christesen

Russianists around the world will be saddened to learn of the death of
Nina Mikhailovna Christesen on 7 August 2001, aged almost 90. Nina
Mikhailovna was born Maximova in St Petersburg in 1911. She was the founder
of Russian Studies not only at The University of Melbourne, but in the
whole of the Southern hemisphere, and remained a feisty ambassador for
Russian language and culture right up until her death. A woman of
great intelligence and charm, Nina Mikhailovna was befriended by many
interesting people, and loved by her students. She was
first and foremost a passionate born teacher, a great champion of
classical Russian literature, particularly Tolstoy, but also one of
the first to spot fresh new talent in Russian writing. In the days of
the cold war she did everything she could to promote cultural links
with the Soviet Union. In private life she was half of a formidable
Australian literary partnership with Clem Christesen, Australian poet
and founding editor of the internationally respected Australian
literary journal Meanjin. As a teacher and as a person, Nina
Christesen influenced many lives.

*******

#9
1998 CRISIS FAVORABLE FOR RUSSIA'S ECONOMY - EXPERTS

MOSCOW. Aug 16 (Interfax) - The August 1998 crisis generally had a
favorable influence on the Russian economy and helped the country
achieve its present-day results, Scientific Director of the Higher
School of Economics Yevgeny Yasin told Interfax.

"If we speak in general about the crisis of 1998, that is both
about the default, the ruble devaluation, the resignation of the
Kiriyenko government and so on, August 17 had a very favorable influence
on the economy of Russia," Yasin said.

The favorable effect of the crisis has not been used up, and "we
will keep using it for another year or two," the economist said.

Budget policy "is much more reasonable today, and everything is
more or less realistic in the draft budget for 2002," he noted.

"We will use our own funds to carry out the reforms, and this is
the largest lesson of 1998, which we have come to realize only
recently," Executive Director of the Expert Institute Andrei Neshchadin
told Interfax.

In 1993-1998, "we tried to make the reforms with foreign borrowings
and spoke about the need for about $20-25 billion in Western lending
each year," he said.

"It appears our country could not be reformed in that way, and
starting from 1999-2000, we began trying to reform society and relations
between the strata of the population," the expert said.

"The main lesson of the 1998 crisis is that the country's economic
policy cannot be yielded to the interests of financial speculators,"
Director of the Institute for Globalization Problems Mikhail Delyagin
said.

The merit of the August crisis is that default and devaluation set
Russian businesses in motion, Delyagin said.

******

#10
Russia allows glimpse into life of elite security squad as leaders meet press
RIA

Moscow, 16 August, RIA-Novosti correspondent Aleksey Berezin: The leaders of
the Federal Security Service [FSS]'s secret Vympel unit have held their first
meeting with the press. The RIA-Novosti correspondent reports that the
meeting was timed to coincide with the group's 20th anniversary.

Lt-Gen Vladimir Kozlov, deputy head of the FSS department for combating
terrorism and of the organizational and operational department, said that
"throughout its history the unit has lost only four operatives. One died in
Kandahar, Afghanistan, one in August 1996 during the defence of the FSS
department's hostel in Chechnya and another two have been lost during the
current Chechen campaign."

According to Vympel's former head, Anatoliy Isaykin, the bulk of the group's
members come from counterintelligence and have previously worked in
intelligence as well. They are all very well-trained and each is a specialist
in a particular sphere. It takes an average five years to train a member of
the antiterrorist group.

Vladimir Kozlov noted that the operatives in the special unit are more highly
paid than ordinary FSS staff, receiving R6,000 [a month], plus a bonus for
each special operation.

He said that Vympel's anniversary would be celebrated at the Dinamo sports
complex where there would be a banquet and a concert. A memorial plaque to
members of the Vympel and Alfa groups who died in the fulfilment of their
duties would be unveiled.

Vladimir Kozlov pointed out that Vympel is primarily focusing on the heads of
the rebel gangs in Chechnya. "The team's main motto is 'timing, thoroughness
and reliability'," [Russian "svoyevremennost, polnota and dostovernost"] he
said.

Vladimir Kozlov noted in particular "a member of the team who is not in
uniform". This is Vladimir Nikolyenko, a surgeon at the Burdenko hospital.
Thanks to him, a good many seriously injured members of the special-purpose
unit have not only survived but have returned to normal duties.

*******

#11
Irish Times
16 August 2001
Arts: Painting history - Russians are flocking to see a collection of
paintings that has been reassembled for the first time since the revolution
of 1917
By Seamus Martin

Prince Feliks Yusupov is best known for his part in the plot to kill
Rasputin. He and his accomplices were, after a number of attempts, successful
in ridding Russia of the self-styled holy man who had wrought such evil
influence on Tsar Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra.

He was also the heir to one of the richest families in imperial Russia and,
as such, was a prime target for the Bolsheviks in the 1917 revolution and its
aftermath. He escaped into exile and brought with him those valuable family
heirlooms that were readily portable. Vast canvases such as Giambattista
Tiepolo's Meeting Of Antony And Cleopatra were left behind in Russia, but
others, including two important Rembrandts, were smuggled out.

The paintings and artefacts were part of a collection by his ancestor Prince
Nikolai Yusupov (1751-1831), heir to the Tatar khans of Kazan and perhaps the
richest Russian of all in an era of immense imperial wealth.

Nikolai's appetite for art in the course of his Grand Tour of Western Europe
in 1808 was voracious and eclectic. It was also fortunate, for in the course
of his travels he met Voltaire, Rousseau and Beaumarchais. He also struck up
a friendship with Napoleon that ultimately saved his collection from looting
when France invaded Russia in 1812.

The poet Pushkin described Yusupov's venture in his Ode To A Grandee as a
'learned whim', and it is under this title that the collection has been
brought together from various parts of the world, for the first time since
the revolution, at, appropriately, the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow.

There are more than 300 paintings on view, with Yusupov showing a preference
for French artists such as David and Guerin, but also for the Dutch and
Flemish schools, with works from Van Dyck and the striking Drunken Brawl At
The Harbour by Jan Cossiers.

Sculpture and craftworks collected by Yusupov are also on view, including
antique clocks, porcelain and part of the prince's vast library. There are
letters from Yusupov and the artists he patronised, carefully placed in glass
cases and shielded from light by muslin drapes that each visitor must
individually lift with caution in order to view the contents.

Patrons were respected in those days, artists treating them with unqualified
deference and, often, unadorned sycophancy. One letter, from Jacob Hackert on
July 24th, 1779, expresses the artist's 'deepest respect and honour that your
magnificence should order my paintings'.

Prince Nikolai, it should be added, had what is described in certain parts of
Ireland as 'a great welcome for himself', as can be gleaned from the numerous
portraits of 'his magnificence' commissioned during the Grand Tour and dotted
around the colonnades and halls in which the exhibition is hung.

The Hermitage in St Petersburg has overshadowed the Pushkin Museum in
European and American eyes, to a large extent because of Russia's recent
isolation from the West. The Pushkin is, nevertheless, one of the great art
museums of the world and the result of the obsession of one man.

Ivan Tsvetayev devoted his life to the establishment of the Moscow museum;
his other great contribution to art was as father of the celebrated poet
Marina Tsvetayeva.

In these straitened times it is a commendable venture by the Pushkin and its
associates to have put on such a big exhibition at considerable expense. The
collection has been assembled by the Pushkin, the Arkhangelskoye Museum near
Moscow and the St Petersburg Hermitage, of which Yusupov was once director.

Rembrandt's Painting Of A Man (1658) and Painting Of A Woman With A Feather
(1660), the most important pictures in the exhibition, were among those taken
out of Russia by Feliks Yusupov. They now belong to the National Gallery of
Art in Washington DC, and it is understood that their insurance alone for the
Moscow exhibition cost dollars 40,000, at a time in Russia when every cent
counts.

The exhibition has been rewarded by an enthusiastic reception from the Moscow
public. When I went to view it, the queues reached out on to the street; a
policeman at the gate allowed people to enter in batches of 100 or so, having
counted similar numbers leaving.

In Soviet style, there is discrimination between admission charges for
Russians and for foreigners. Locals - and I admit to bluffing my way in as
one - are charged 25 roubles (75p) while foreigners have to pay 160 roubles
((pounds) 4.80).

It is worth the latter fee to see the museum itself, let alone the Yusupov
collection. The exhibition runs until November 11th, and visiting culture
vultures who concentrate on St Petersburg would be well advised to pay
attention to the capital's attractions, too.

*******

#12
Dollar-loving Russians cling to U.S. currency
By Karl Emerick Hanuska

MOSCOW, Aug 16 (Reuters) - A fall in the U.S. currency has put world
financial markets on edge, but dollar-loving Russians said on Thursday they
had few fears of a major slide and still trusted the greenback more than
their own rouble.

Faith in the dollar has seen Russians build up an estimated $50-60 billion in
savings under their mattresses since the early 1990s when it first became
legal to own foreign currency.

So with Russians holding the largest amount of dollars outside the United
States, talk of a slide could trigger concern. But people in Moscow have been
calm so far.

"How many times have we seen the rouble crash in the last 10 years? Too many
times to count that is for sure," said Lenina Feinman, who sells vegetables
at a market.

She said that before the 1998 financial crash she saved roubles, but then the
currency shed 75 percent in days, nearly wiping out her savings as they
trapped in an account in a bank which swiftly shut its doors to customers.

Feinman also recalled poorly planned currency reforms that forced surprised
citizens to queue for hours, sometimes, days to exchange cash roubles for new
bills. The only other option was to sell cheaply to speculators or see them
lose all value.

"All I can save goes into dollars now," Feinman said. "I've only got a few
years left before I have to stop working and then it will be the dollars that
I've managed to save that I will live off and not my miserly rouble pension."

Feinman is not alone in her sentiments. An informal poll carried out by
Moscow's Ekho Moskvy radio showed 80 percent of Russians put more trust in
the dollar than in the rouble.

A report released by Dresdner Bank Group <DRSDn.DE> said 65 percent of
Russians held their savings in hard currency, most of which is dollars.

EVERYONE WANTS "BUCKSI"

People walking along a key tourist street not far from the Kremlin were
unconcerned by reports that the dollar had touched a five-month low against
European currencies.

"I don't care what happens with the dollar anywhere else," said one man.
"People here have too much confidence in the dollar for it to fall. 'Bucksi'
are what everyone wants."

Olga Voronova, an office worker, blamed currency speculators for a lack of
roubles at some exchange points around Moscow and dismissed speculation that
the dollar could fall.

"People here are always speculating on something," Olga said as she changed a
$50 note to do some lunch time shopping.

She described as foolish a much-talked-about forecast by Tatiana Karyagina,
an economist who was prominent during Russia's early economic reforms, that
the dollar was poised to lose as much as 50 percent against the rouble in
coming days.

In an interview broadcast on Russian television on Wednesday, Karyagina, who
works for an institute affiliated with the Trade and Economics Ministry,
called the dollar "nothing but a pyramid scheme" set to collapse due to U.S.
economic troubles.

"That is simply hysteria and I think most people understand this," Voronova
said.

Currency dealers said there was no panic in trade and that the dollar was
steady against the rouble. The central bank set its key exchange rate little
changed at 29.35 dollars per rouble on Thursday after a previous 29.34.

*******

#13
The Globe and Mail (Canada)
August 16, 2001
Winning comes easy for a strongman
Hard-line tactics, censorship in Belarus likely to keep regime in power
By GEOFFREY YORK

MOSCOW -- He is often called the last European dictator.

His regime has been linked to death squads, disappearances and the jailing of
opponents. He has abolished a balky parliament, rigged elections, shut down
the private media and called for the revival of the Soviet Union.

But the hard-line boss of Russia's closest ally, President Alexander
Lukashenko of Belarus, seems headed for another landslide victory. He is
already predicting he will capture 90 per cent of support in next month's
vote.

Three opposition candidates are officially registered for the Sept. 9
election, but few observers doubt that Mr. Lukashenko will sweep to victory.

His most popular rival quit the race after she reportedly received threats to
her family. Independent election observers have been blocked from entering
the country for weeks.

In speeches, the 45-year-old President gives his country a simple choice:
anarchy or his own iron-fisted rule. Protesters carry the photos of
opposition leaders who have mysteriously disappeared in the past two years,
but their rallies are routinely broken up by brutal police tactics.

Belarus, with a population of 10 million, is one of the more obscure bits of
the former Soviet Union. But it occupies a strategic location near the heart
of Europe, on the eastern flank of Poland. This puts it on the border of the
North Atlantic Treaty Organization, a position from which Mr. Lukashenko has
spewed venom at Western leaders.

Since the defeat of Slobodan Milosevic in Yugoslavia last year, Mr.
Lukashenko has become the last anti-Western autocratic ruler in Europe.

He vows he will not suffer the same fate as the Yugoslav strongman, who was
toppled in a popular uprising and sent to the international war-crimes court
in the Hague.

"I will not be sitting in a bunker like Milosevic," Mr. Lukashenko said in a
recent speech. "I am not afraid of anybody."

Opinion polls suggest he is supported by 40 per cent of voters, while only 10
per cent favour his strongest remaining opponent, union leader Vladimir
Goncharik.

The President's appointees control the election commissions, allowing him to
manipulate the results and obtain huge margins of victory in every vote --
including a parliamentary election last year and a 1996 referendum that
abolished parliament and extended his term of office. Western election
monitors refused to accept the official results of either vote.

Mr. Lukashenko, a former Soviet collective farm boss with a passion for
hockey, rose from obscurity in 1994 to win a presidential election on an
anticorruption platform. Since then, he has gained control of every branch of
power in Belarus, including its feared secret police, the KGB, which has kept
its Soviet initials.

The West has been increasingly concerned about Belarus because of its tight
links to the Russian political elite. Under the Lukashenko regime, Belarus
has become the Kremlin's staunchest supporter and Moscow has signed treaties
to work toward a formal union.

Russian is the most widely spoken language in both countries, and Russian
officials are highly influential in Belarus, although there are few concrete
signs of a full union with Moscow so far.

The greatest concerns surround the fate of four opposition figures who have
mysteriously disappeared. Two of the best-known leaders, Viktor Gonchar and
Yuri Zakharenko, are among those who disappeared in 1999.

A television cameraman, Dmitri Zavadsky, vanished at the Minsk airport last
year.

An explanation for the disappearances may have finally surfaced. Two former
investigators, who worked for the Belarus prosecutor's office, defected to
the United States last month after reporting that they found evidence of a
death squad sponsored by the Lukashenko regime.

The investigators, Dmitri Petrushkevich and Oleg Sluchek, said they learned
about the death squad while probing the disappearance of Mr. Zavadsky. They
said they found the site of a grave containing his body, but the government
blocked their request to exhume it. They also said they were prohibited from
examining the files of others who disappeared.

The investigators said there were about 10 people on the death squad,
including convicted criminals and organized-crime figures. They said the
squad, under the command of the Interior Ministry and a presidential advisory
council, has murdered about 30 people so far.

Mr. Lukashenko denies the existence of a death squad, but the U.S. State
Department sees the allegations as credible.

After it granted political asylum to the two investigators, Mr. Lukashenko
lashed back, telling the State Department to "mind its own business and not
meddle in things it doesn't understand."

In addition to the alleged murders and disappearances, many activists in
Belarus face the threat of arrest and imprisonment. In a scathing report last
week, Amnesty International warned that human-rights defenders in Belarus are
"facing a relentless campaign of harassment and intimidation."

It cited a lengthy list of activists and protesters who have been arrested,
beaten, detained or faced police raids and the seizure of their computer
records. Several of those arrested should be considered "prisoners of
conscience," the Amnesty report said.

"Week in and week out, human-rights defenders struggle against a campaign of
concerted pressure aimed at wearing them down."

When a Minsk newspaper tried to print a special issue on the disappearances,
its offices were raided by intruders who seized its computer disks. Other
papers and radio stations, unable to operate in Belarus, have been forced to
work in neighbouring countries.

*******

#14
Moscow Times
August 16, 2001
Moscow in 1991, Grozny in 1995
By Pavel Felgenhauer

When the State Committee for the State of Emergency dismissed Soviet
President Mikhail Gorbachev on Aug. 19, 1991, I was the chief military
correspondent of Nezavisimaya Gazeta, one of the few uncensored newspapers
at the time. As the tanks slowly moved into Moscow that morning, I headed
to the White House on Krasnopresnenskaya Naberezhnaya — the seat of the
Russian government, parliament and President Boris Yeltsin.

I had good connections in the Russian State Defense Committee, a small
prototype Defense Ministry that was formed by Yeltsin and headed by General
Konstantin Kobets. The White House was a natural center of resistance to
the coup.

On Aug. 19, the entrances of the building were watched at first by a
detachment of extremely distressed policemen armed with sub-nosed AKS-74U
guns, the same men who usually guarded the building. These men did not want
to fight anyone at all.

A column of T-72 tanks from the Tamanskaya motor rifle division moved onto
the Krasnopresnenskaya Naberezhnaya, but before they could pass the White
House they were stopped by a crowd of Yeltsin supporters. The tank crews
did nothing then or when Yeltsin himself climbed up on one of the tanks and
appealed to Russians to defy the coup. Short of running over the defenders,
they could have done little anyway. The tanks had no ammo and even the
soldiers' hand guns were not loaded.

A separate unit from the Tamanskaya division had orders to guard the nearby
bridge. Yeltsin's men persuaded the officer in charge, Major Sergei
Yevdokimov, to move six unarmed tanks close to the White House to form a
semblance of a defense. Officers from the defense staff that was forming
around the Kobets committee immediately began phoning their military
friends, telling them "part of the Tamanskaya division has turned coat,"
creating panic and disorder in the Defense Ministry ranks.

On the same day, I attended a meeting of the Russian government. It was
short — all pledged support to Yeltsin — and then all present were
encouraged to go to another room where weapons would be handed out.

There were more than 100 guns in the White House, but mostly sub-nosed
AKS-74U assault rifles and various hand guns — no good for any serious
fighting against stormtroopers backed with armor. There were also several
Kalashnikov machine guns with ammunition.

The first thing the defense staff in the White House did was to stop
handing out guns to men who did not know what to do with them, to disarm as
many politicians as possible and to send machine-gun crews to the roof
where they could at least prevent an Mi-8 helicopter from landing an
assault party. It was obvious that the defenders inside the White House
were only capable of putting up a token resistance. Professional military
officers were awaiting what looked like an almost inevitable assault with
bewilderment: They knew they did not have a chance and that their lives
depended on the attackers' disposition to take prisoners.

But instead of stormtroopers came demonstrators, thousands of them, to
defend Yeltsin and democracy. Inside the defense staff there was an instant
surge of energy and enthusiasm: A human shield could be a serious defense
against an army reluctant to kill civilians in its own capital. The
officers also knew that their soldiers were trained to obey any order, but
still this was a glimmer of hope.

At 10 p.m. on Aug. 19, a battalion of paratroopers from the Ryazan regiment
of the Tula 106th airborne division arrived with up to 20 armored BMDs,
small armored personnel carriers. They were led by General Alexander Lebed,
who was the deputy of Pavel Grachev, the commander of the Soviet airborne
corps. Lebed announced that he had been given orders to "secure" the
building.

Colonel Alexander Tsalko, a deputy to Kobets, believed that Lebed was
moving in to attack. Tsalko saw Lebed with officers of the Alpha KGB
special anti-terrorist assault unit, who came to the White House to do
reconnaissance.

The plan, according to documents seen later, was for the paratroopers to
secure corridors through the crowd and storm the entrances, giving Alpha
room for a final room-to-room, hand-to-hand sweep of the building. A
similar plan with paratroopers and Alpha was successfully executed in
October 1993 by troops loyal to Yeltsin.

Tsalko ordered the demonstrators to stop the paratroopers with friendly
embraces 10 meters from the walls of the building. Flag-waving youths
climbed onto the BMDs and sat on the hatches so the paratroopers inside
could not suddenly go on the attack. These defenses were flimsy, but on the
morning of Aug. 20, Lebed's troops withdrew without explanation.

General Mikhail Kolesnikov was army chief of staff. His superior — the
commander of the army and active member of the GKChP, General Valentin
Varennikov — left for Crimea and Kiev, leaving Kolesnikov in charge.
Varennikov asked Kolesnikov to go to the Moscow military district staff and
help General Nikolai Kalinin, who was appointed commandant of Moscow, to
impose martial law and a curfew.

Kolesnikov later told me: "I came to Kalinin and asked his men, 'What do
you have?' They reported, and I said, 'Guys, I'm going home to have a nap
and advise you do the same — with the forces you have assembled you don't
have a leg to stand on in a martial law situation.'"

In 1989, the Chinese sent 10 full-strength divisions (over 100,000 men)
into Beijing to enforce a curfew in a city smaller than Moscow. In 1991,
the Soviet army managed to send in less than 10,000 men. Together with
airborne, Interior Ministry and KGB units, there were up to 20,000 men in
Moscow, with more than 100 tanks and up to 1,000 other pieces of armor, but
there was no effective unified command. The city police force was neutral,
and the curfew was not enforced at all.

On Aug. 20, near Mayakovskaya Ploshchad, I met a major from the
Kantemirovskaya division with 10 T-80 tanks. He told me he had not slept
for almost 40 hours, his men had no rations, no decent sanitation, and that
he, personally, was fed up.

The military brass apparently believed that just showing armor was enough
to quell all opposition. When this did not happen, they did not know what
to do. This was a sad preview of the disastrous march into Grozny in 1995:
Tanks sometimes with only a driver, without ammo, not ready for any action.
Of course, the Muscovites in 1991 did not have RPG-7 launchers to slaughter
the armor, but they began to mass-produce Molotov cocktails, drinking up to
free up the bottles.

The rebels in Moscow were becoming increasingly aggressive as the moral of
the troops sagged. An assault on the White House resulting in heavy
casualties could have caused a mass rebellion that the military would have
been unable to control.

On Aug. 21, the military chiefs decided to move the troops back to the
barracks. It was all over. We had a great party with officers from the
White House defense staff — with tons of hot pizza and other food and drink
provided to the defenders of freedom by new capitalist joints after it
became obvious who was winning.

The next morning, bewildered troops began their retreat from Moscow — a
preview of what would happen in Grozny in August 1996.

Pavel Felgenhauer is an independent defense analyst.

******

#15
Business Week Online
AUGUST 16, 2001
AFFAIRS OF STATE
By Stan Crock
Bush and Putin: Smiles Now, Trouble Later?
The U.S. is expecting big things from Russia, but the President has less
leverage than Bill Clinton and less willingness to deal

On the surface, relations between Washington and Moscow seem to have turned
almost euphoric. The year started out rocky as could be, with the U.S.
arresting a top FBI official as a Russian spy. Both countries expelled dozens
of diplomats in retaliation. But then U.S. President George W. Bush looked
Russian President Vladimir V. Putin in the eye and found him to be
trustworthy. Now they have developed a je ne sais quoi (I really am baffled
by what that is exactly, but both heads of state certainly have become
chummy.) Both seem intent on striking a deal on a new strategic framework for
dealing with missile defense and cuts in nuclear arsenals. They're even
talking about more investment in Russia -- a prospect that most American
investors have shunned like the economic rathole it is.

Sounds peachy. But this latest era of good feeling may soon be over, as the
list of U.S. demands on Russia gets ever longer. Bush has far less leverage
than former President Bill Clinton had in dealing with Putin's predecessor,
Boris Yeltsin. Equally important, the U.S. wants changes in Russian behavior
now, while the rewards for such moves would be long-term -- if they come at
all. Make no mistake: The Russians are cash-on-the-barrel folks. They like
quid pro quos in their negotiations. The result is that relations between
Washington and Moscow are more likely to become increasingly testy.

Why does Dubya have less leverage than Clinton? Mostly because Putin is in a
different position from Yeltsin's. Putin doesn't have the same domestic
opposition that Yeltsin faced. So he doesn't need the kind of political nod
of approval for a boost that Clinton could give -- or withhold from --
Yeltsin, notes Michael McFaul, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace. Nor, at this stage, is Putin looking for the
international financial aid Yeltsin desperately sought and Clinton helped
provide.

TO-DO LIST. The lack of leverage is a problem when you look at the lengthy
list of areas where the U.S. would like Russia to change its policy.
Washington wants Moscow to:
-- gut the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty
-- acquiesce in the construction of a missile-defense system
-- back "smart sanctions" against Iraq
-- accept NATO expansion to nations on its borders such as the Baltics, and
-- stop selling nuclear know-how to Iran.

That's just the international list. The Bush team also would like Russia to:
-- reach a political settlement in Chechnya
-- allow press freedoms
-- halt corruption
-- adopt the rule of law, business transparency, and corporate governance
initiatives as part of their legal code, and
-- clean up the police and courts.

That's quite a to-do list. But Bush has precious little in the way of
incentives to encourage Russian reforms. "We don't have the sticks, and we
haven't offered the carrots to change that behavior," McFaul says.

The only near-term benefit for Russia on the table is Bush's plan to slash
America's nuclear stockpile in return for Russian cuts. But it's something
the U.S. might have done even without reciprocal moves from Moscow. That's
because there's no strategic downside, and the Pentagon is looking for
savings wherever it can find them. Down the road, the Defense Dept. could
save about $2 billion a year if the stockpile shrinks from 7,000 warheads to
1,500 or so, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

What the Bush Administration does hold out is the vague promise of
integration into the West. The prospect of entry into the World Trade
Organization, the European Union, and NATO may be worth dangling before
Putin. But it would take years, if not decades, for such seismic changes to
materialize. There's little for Putin to reap now. If he supports smart
sanctions, for example, there could be plenty of downside if Iraq retaliates
by cutting Russia out of its energy-development plans.

TREATY TENSIONS. Missile defense is another potential problem area. The U.S.
and Russia may well sign a vague memorandum of understanding that backs
reductions in the number of nuclear warheads and the notion that countries
can defend themselves. But instead of formally amending the ABM Treaty and
negotiating an arms-control treaty, as Moscow wants, Washington may just
withdraw from the ABM Treaty and unilaterally cut warheads. The Bush folks
just don't like treaties. Again, Russia would be left empty-handed.

Moscow has been hoping to negotiate deals since Bush took office, figuring
the President could deal better with realpolitik Republicans than the
humanitarian Democrats. Russia was willing to go along with missile defense
if the U.S. agreed to limit NATO expansion. That didn't happen. Now Moscow is
suggesting it will go along on the strategic issues if the Administration
ignores Russian domestic matters, from press freedom to Chechnya. The
Administration has indeed talked less about domestic reforms than the broader
issues, which troubles some Russia experts who fear the Bush team might cave
on this. "The challenge for the Bush Administration is to keep all those
things in the forefront," says Fritz W. Ermarth, a former CIA Russia
specialist.

Ermarth thinks Dubya should adopt the policy of Ronald Reagan and his
secretary of state, George Shultz, who pushed for arms control, regional
security, and economic packages, but not at the expense of pulling back on
championing human rights in the Soviet Union. That, Ermarth says, pressured
then-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to liberalize his regime. And that, in
turn, helped speed the Evil Empire's downfall.

STORMY FORECAST. The Administration may do just that after an internal
struggle. Richard N. Haass, the State Dept.'s policy chief, says, "You can't
have six priorities simultaneously," suggesting the Bush folks would downplay
some of the internal issues of reform. But other Administration officials
insist Bush eventually will put more emphasis on these topics, noting that
reform in these areas is needed for real integration into the west. "If Putin
wants to be a member of the club," says Ermarth, "there are certain
requirements for membership: political, institutional, legal requirements.
You can't get around them."

But Putin knows the potential political cost of real democracy and a free
press. He wants none of it. If the Bush team raises these issues, it could
set the stage for a blowup. If the Administration doesn't, Congressional
Democrats surely will -- and blast Bush in the process for ignoring Putin's
authoritarian streak. It would be payback for GOP criticism that Clinton
turned a blind eye to corruption under Yeltsin.

The upshot: U.S.-Russian relations now may be in an era of good feelings, but
the euphoria could be short. After a memorandum on strategic issues, it could
be Tension City again. On everything from NATO expansion to Iraq to Chechnya,
a bumpy road lies ahead.

Crock covers national security and foreign affairs for BusinessWeek from
Washington.
Edited by Douglas Harbrecht

*******

#16
U.S. said divided on potential for ABM deal
By Carol Giacomo, Diplomatic Correspondent

WASHINGTON, Aug 16 (Reuters) - In the wake of a trip to Moscow this week by
U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the Bush administration is divided on
the potential for achieving a U.S.-Russia deal on missile defense and nuclear
reductions, senior officials said on Thursday.

Some officials -- mainly at the State and Defense departments -- are very
pessimistic about the chances of an agreement while National Security Adviser
Condoleezza Rice, among others, remains optimistic, they said.

Washington has been hoping for an agreement with Moscow that could calm
international fears about President George W. Bush's plans for a missile
defense system and serve as the centerpiece of a November summit with Russian
President Vladimir Putin at Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas.

But after talks in Moscow on Monday, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov
said Rumsfeld had failed to convince him that the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile
Treaty banning national missile defenses should be abandoned.

The United States has sought to get Russia to agree to a mutual withdrawal
from the treaty, which Bush and top aides consider a Cold War relic that
restrains their ability to develop limited defenses against any missiles from
what Washington terms "rogue" nations like Iraq.

This would be coupled with a unilateral, but parallel, reduction in strategic
nuclear arms in what some call a "grand bargain" that would provide a new
strategic framework for the 21st century for the two major nuclear weapons
states.

DEAL 'WON'T HAPPEN'?

"If the objective is a political declaration by the time of the Crawford
summit that describes a new strategic framework, I don't think that is going
to happen," one U.S. official said.

"If you're talking about a deal on missile defense and offensive weapons
levels in the near future, it's not going to happen," he said.

But he added that progress was likely "if you're talking about building the
basis for a much longer term conversation" on the U.S.-Russia relationship.

Some officials have concluded that Rumsfeld's talks in Moscow "established
without a doubt that the Russians are not going to agree to mutual withdrawal
from the ABM treaty."

However, Undersecretary of State John Bolton is expected to leave Washington
for Moscow on Friday for more talks.

Other meetings planned before the Crawford summit include Secretary of State
Colin Powell and Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov in New York in
September and Bush and Putin in Shanghai in October.

U.S. officials who still believe a deal is possible said Bush and Putin's
previous two meetings were productive and identified promising "common
ground."

They hope that at some point, Putin will sweep aside his own bureaucracy in
favor of an agreement.

Mutual withdrawal of the United States and Russia from the ABM is "still
possible," one senior official said.

He said some kind of "package deal (is) ... the only way that's going to
happen" and this would involve "some degree of offensive (weapons) reductions
and probably involves getting out of the ABM treaty but having rules of the
road."

That means the Russians would want a U.S. pledge to limit in some way what it
plans to do on missile defenses, he said.

While this official spoke of a "package deal" tying missile defense and arms
cuts, there seems to be differences within the Bush team as to how strongly
linked these elements must be.

Another official said Russians see a much closer link between missile defense
and strategic cuts than the Americans.

Russia has long said it cannot discuss changes to the rules on missile
defenses without tying them directly to firm agreements on further cuts in
offensive weapons.

U.S. officials acknowledged a major obstacle in Rumsfeld's talks was the U.S.
inability to say how deeply it plans to cut its own strategic nuclear weapons
arsenal.

Russia wants to know the level so it can figure out if U.S. missile defenses
could overwhelm its own nuclear deterrent.

Rumsfeld is under pressure to produce a target number for future nuclear
forces but U.S. military services are resisting reductions in their areas,
officials said.

That number may be decided by October, officials said. If so, it may arrive
on time for both sides to conclude a deal.

Russia wants to go beyond the START-2 treaty which would cut each country's
arsenal by half to about 3,500 warheads.

The administration has made clear it would continue to test missile defenses
and withdraw unilaterally from the ABM "within months, not years" if Russia
does not agree to go along.

Giving notice of withdrawal "means our bargaining leverage increases with the
Russians because the clock starts ticking (and) if they want to preserve
something they'd better reach a deal with us," the official said.

*******

Johnson's Russia List Archive (under construction):  http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson

Search Johnson's Russia List:  http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/search/

CDI Russia Weekly:  http://www.cdi.org/russia

CDI Headlines:  http://www.cdi.org/

Defense Monitor:  http://www.cdi.org/dm/2001

Weekly Defense Monitor:  http://www.cdi.org/weekly/