#6159
[Second Issue of the Day]
#3
USA Today
March 27, 2002
After 2 years at the top, Russia's Putin still an
enigma. His economic prowess is praised, but critics question his commitment to
democracy
By Bill Nichols
cover story
MOSCOW -- Several weeks after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States, Russian President Vladimir Putin confronted a historic choice.
His top advisers pushed him to extract concessions from Washington in exchange for Russia's help in the U.S. war on terrorism, officials close to Putin say. His response was startling: No. Instead, the Russian president would offer unconditional cooperation to strengthen bonds with the West.
''He said to this crowd, 'This is not about price lists. This is not about bargaining. This is about something else,' '' says Grigory Yavlinsky, a leader in the Russian Duma, the lower chamber of Parliament.
The ''something else'' Putin seeks is a new Russia, a Russia that is regarded as a full partner by the same Western nations that were mortal enemies of the Soviet Union.
That this former KGB officer -- who marked the second anniversary of his election on Tuesday -- would try to build such a Russia has shocked diplomats around the world, turned traditional East-West relations upside-down and left global leaders wondering what Putin will do next.
Perhaps nothing surprises Westerners more than Putin's success in turning around his nation's economy, particularly in Moscow, where a once drab and listless communist capital has come alive with glittering streets and vibrant commerce: sushi bars, store windows displaying trendy designer clothes, Manhattan-like traffic jams.
Russia was on the verge of economic ruin and political anarchy during Boris Yeltsin's last years as president. Now, Putin wants his rejuvenated nation to be at the table with other Western nations.
Western leaders, however, aren't sure whether to trust Putin. Many still question whether he is committed to a Russia that embraces capitalism and democracy.
Russia's new prosperity, for example, is limited to Moscow and a few other large cities. Critics at home and abroad say Putin's record is poor on civil liberties, such as press freedom. Rights groups say Russian troops continue to commit atrocities in the breakaway republic of Chechnya. Senior U.S. officials here say they question whether Putin believes in democracy at all.
Some Russians have the same doubts and question whether he is merely building a new authoritarian system. ''(Putin) has started to restore what we had before, but in an even uglier way,'' says Tatiana Chubrikova, 52, a translator for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. ''He thinks he knows what is good for everyone and then tries to impose it.''
Many Russians, long accustomed to living under a schizophrenic communist system that delivered far less than it promised, say the inscrutable Putin is another enigma for them to unravel. Officials close to the former spymaster say a normal day might find him talking to President Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and a group of his former KGB cronies -- and giving equal weight to each conversation.
'Very far away'
''Putin's very far away from us,'' says Eugin Dashkin, 52, a department manager in a sugar production company. ''It's very difficult to tell the difference between his deeds and his words. It's difficult to feel if it's real or not.''
Few Muscovites doubt that the economic turnaround is real. The economy has improved steadily since Putin, 49, became interim president when Yeltsin retired on New Year's Eve, 1999. Putin was elected three months later.
It helps that Russia is getting higher prices for oil, its largest export. But that is not the sole reason for the stronger economy. Manufacturing, for example, is on the upswing, too. The recovery is all the more remarkable considering that the economy almost collapsed during the ruble crisis of 1998, when the value of the Russian currency plummeted relative to Western currencies. Banks went under and the nation had to default on its crushing foreign debt.
The economy grew 8% in 2000 and 5.5% more last year, and Russia is on schedule to pay this year's portion of its $130 billion foreign debt without international aid. Conservatives worldwide laud Russia's new 13% single-rate ''flat'' income tax, an idea long promoted without success in Washington.
Moscow's air of prosperity ends at the city limits, however. Much of Russia, although slowly moving toward a market economy, is still racked by poverty, crime and a lingering communist mentality.
Russian courts barely function, despite a judicial reform project launched by Putin. Low salaries and ancient equipment plague a military that can't afford barracks for 93,000 officers. They must house themselves. U.S. firms based there continue to be plagued by crime and legal shenanigans.
Even after several years of recovery, the Russian economy has a long way to go: According to government statistics, unemployment is about 10%, and 35% of the country's 145 million people live in poverty, which is defined as personal income of less than $40 a month.
But compared with the desperation Russians experienced in 1998, when the ruble lost 80% of its value, living conditions are dramatically improved -- at least in major cities such as Moscow.
Densely packed ramshackle kiosks built by residents to sell meager possessions or crops for cash have been replaced by five-star hotels, tony restaurants and chic shoppers in leather pants.
''Most people still have a 'you have to prove it to me attitude,' '' says Peter Pettibone, an American lawyer based in Moscow who for 30 years has been a leader in promoting U.S.-Russia business relations. ''But I think most people agree that this is the most stable period we've ever had here.''
Hope for the future
Many ordinary Russians, even those who haven't seen Putin's reforms improve their lives, say he gives them hope for the future. ''Things have been less antagonistic. And then, most people couldn't stand Yeltsin,'' says Irina Sorokina, 65, a retired geologist. Most Russians felt Yeltsin's drunken antics were a national embarrassment.
Even so, Putin's efforts to restore order to Russian society after the instability and uncertainty of the Yeltsin years have produced a disturbing side effect: a crackdown on basic rights, such as freedom of the press, critics say. Russia's two major independent TV networks -- TV-6 and NTV -- were shut down a few months ago. Russian officials insist the stations fell prey to financial pressures, but Putin's critics say he moved to silence criticism of his regime. In Russia, ''there is simply no democracy or what you might call quasi-democracy,'' Yavlinsky says. ''It's a Potemkin village.''
Many are willing to live with Putin's authoritarian style, however, because of the order and dignity he has brought to the presidency.
His political prowess has marginalized the Communist Party at the national level and turned it into a political relic. U.S. officials marvel at his diplomatic pragmatism, demonstrated by a willingness to aid Washington's war on terrorism by giving his blessing for U.S. troops to go into former Soviet republics in Central Asia.
Since Sept. 11, Putin has answered virtually every request from Bush. He was the first world leader to call the U.S. president after the attacks. He has granted Washington significant intelligence support for the war in Afghanistan. He issued only a meek protest when Bush announced that the United States would pull out of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty because it bans a national missile defense, which Bush wants to develop. Russian officials had urged Bush not to withdraw from the U.S.-Soviet accord, and his action remains deeply unpopular here.
Putin also muted Russia's opposition to NATO expansion into former Soviet states, and he closed bases in Vietnam and Cuba.
''Putin is showing much greater capability than a lot of people in this country, including his own military and security services, to look at things objectively and judge the possible benefit for Russia,'' says a senior U.S. diplomat who requested anonymity. ''That's why he overruled the bulk of his advisers and most of the politicians he consulted in September.''
He still has critics
Putin's critics, however, say that while he makes nice with the West, the Russian military remains bogged down in a civil war in Chechnya that Putin and Yeltsin launched in 1999 to rein in the breakaway republic.
Human rights activists around the world bitterly complain about abuses allegedly inflicted by Russian soldiers on civilians in Chechnya. Russian human rights leader Oleg Orlov visited Chechnya late last month and videotaped scenes of Russian soldiers looting and burning Chechen homes.
Orlov claims evidence of even worse cases. ''People are being killed through summary executions. Detainees are being taken to temporary camps, where they are badly beaten and tortured. Some of the detainees simply disappear.''
Russian officials say this complex portrait of Putin offers uncertain guidance on how he might govern in the years ahead. Politicians close to him say he sometimes seems to have one foot in the past and one in the future.
''He's absolutely Westernized as far as foreign policy is concerned and absolutely Byzantine as far as domestic policy is concerned,'' says Boris Nemtsov, leader of the Duma's Union of Right Forces, a centrist party. ''Putin is quite a complicated story. It's not American black and white.''
Yet Nemtsov and other political insiders believe Putin's post-Sept. 11 moves are essential to Russia's future. They say Western encouragement of the Russian president's diplomatic overtures is crucial if his country is to truly transform itself into a democracy.
''Putin is a very lonely person,'' Yavlinsky says. ''He's in the same position that (Soviet President Mikhail) Gorbachev was, where he was so far ahead of his so-called elite. . . . Sometimes, I have the feeling that he is almost isolated.''
Putin has gotten benefits from moving closer to the West: help in combating Islamic terrorism in nearby Central Asia and fewer U.S. complaints about human rights abuses in Chechnya. The Bush administration has redefined the civil war as partly a fight against terrorists linked to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network.
But Putin needs more rewards from the West, officials here argue, to build sufficient political support for continuing the courtship.
Some here contend that Washington should push for Russia to join NATO or devise a post-Cold War security system in which Russia is a full partner.
That's unlikely, but lesser measures are possible. When Bush and Putin meet here and in St. Petersburg in May, Putin will be under enormous political pressure to sign a nuclear pact in which the two countries would agree to reduce their arsenals from a current level of 6,000 warheads each to between 2,200 and 1,500 a piece.
During his visit, Bush will find a Russia in which anti-American feelings still churn. But many Russians see collaboration with the West as a path to a more stable and prosperous Russia.
Dozens of interviews here reveal a striking sense of hope about Putin, particularly among young people.
''I know that I cannot make a difference for my country,'' says college student Natasha Umnova, 19. ''All I can do is to work as hard as I can to try to make a difference in my own life, to be a good person, to make something of my life. And I will do that as best I can.''
And Putin, Umnova says, is trying his best, too. ''He fills me with hope . . . it has only been two years. Perhaps he will do something great for this country.''
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