Johnson's Russia List
#6245
16 May 2002
davidjohnson@erols.com
A CDI Project
www.cdi.org
[Contents:
1. Moskovsky Komsomolets: THE FSB IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR HEART ATTACKS.
(re 1999 bombings)
2. AP: Russian Accuses Government of Attacks.
3. Izvestia: NEITHER A FRIEND NOR A FIEND. (poll re NATO)
4. Dow Jones: Most Russians See NATO As Hostile Despite New Affiliation.
5. AP: George Gedda, Russian, U.S. Relations on a Roll.
6. Luba Schwartzman: ORT Review.
7. pravda.ru: RUSSIANS DRANK 45 LITRES OF BEER ON AVERAGE LAST YEAR.
8. Izvestia: Goergy Bovt, BUSH HEEDS PUTIN'S PLEAS - ON JUST ONE POINT.
President Putin may earn himself some opposition for his foreign policy.
9. Dow Jones: Russian Defense Min Defends Arms Cut Amid Doubts At Home.
10. Kommersant: Leonid Gankin, THE VALUE OF THE QUESTION. Washington
decided that Russia's presence in NATO would do no harm.
11. Moscow Times: Yulia Latynina, Oligarchic System Rules.
12. The Guardian (UK): Ian Traynor, Future looks grim for Kaliningrad
enclave.
13. Robert Orttung: GOVERNORS AND BUSINESS IN PUTIN'S RUSSIA.
14. AP: NATO Begins Talks on Expansion.
15. Financial Times (UK): Judy Dempsey and Richard Wolffe, In from the
cold. This week' US-Russia arms reduction deal and the new Nato-Russia
Council mark a new relationship. Neither side can afford to let it fail.
16. UPI: Martin Walker, Cold war ending -- again.
17. Dow Jones: US To Urge Better Investment Climate At Russian Summit.
18. Reuters: Debt relief may wean Russia from Iran, US official.(Perle)]
*******
#1
Moskovsky Komsomolets
May 15, 2002
THE FSB IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR HEART ATTACKS
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]
The Prosecutor General's Office has fully acquitted the actions
of the FSB agents who allegedly arranged exercises in Ryazan in 1999,
placing sacks full of a white, powdery substance in the basements of
apartment buildings.
No criminal charges have been issued against their FSB superiors.
As it turned out, the case of the exercises in Ryazan, where residents
of an apartment building found sacks full of a white substance and a
home-made explosive device, was closed as far back as 2000. The reply
of the Prosecutor General's Office to Duma Deputy Anatoly Kulikov
reads: "No evidence of wrongdoing was found in the actions of FSB
agents who were carrying out counter-terrorist exercises." Supposedly,
the substance in the sacks was sugar rather than an explosive called
hexogen; and the home-made explosive device was not functional. Thus,
all complaints from the Ryazan residents, who are demanding
compensation for sleepless nights and heart attacks, are completely
futile.
"The decision was made to refrain from issuing criminal charges
against the FSB officials involved in carrying out the exercises in
Ryazan. All the prosecution procedures planned were carried out; and
by April 6, 2000 the preliminary inquiry was closed," a document from
the Prosecutor General's Office says.
In the response to Kulikov, Deputy Prosecutor General Vasily
Kolmogorov also accounted for the results of investigations into the
explosions of apartment buildings in Moscow and Volgodonsk in
September 1999. Kolmogorov said that all the terrorists had been
identified long ago, but it is impossible to catch them, since at the
moment they are "in another CIS country." Those who were behind the
explosions have also been identified. They were mercenaries of Arab
origin, Khattab and Abu al-Walid al-Gamidi. Both of them have already
been killed.
*******
#2
Russian Accuses Government of Attacks
May 15, 2002
By SARAH KARUSH
MOSCOW (AP) - When Alexander Litvinenko worked for Russia's main security
agency, his job was to try to infiltrate and topple terrorist networks.
Today he is fighting what he claims is the country's biggest terrorist
group: his former employer.
From London, where he fled in November 2000, Litvinenko, 39, talks to
anyone who will listen about the Federal Security Service's alleged role in
apartment-house bombings that killed more than 300 people in Russia in
1999. He claims to have vital evidence stashed in a suitcase waiting for
independent investigators.
Many Russians have questioned the official version of the 1999 events,
which blames the bombings in Moscow and the southern city of Volgodonsk on
Chechen rebels. But prosecutors have shown little interest in the contents
of Litvinenko's suitcase.
On Tuesday, the Prosecutor General's Office issued a final dismissal of the
claims, saying it had thoroughly investigated the security service's
actions and had found no evidence of wrongdoing.
The announcement followed parliament's recent refusal to set up its own
commission to investigate the bombings.
Nevertheless, Litvinenko's case against the Federal Security Service, or
FSB, could soon see daylight. Skeptics of the government version, including
five lawmakers, have formed their own commission, and Litvinenko says he
will give them important documents, as well as audio and video recordings
of witness testimony.
Ultimately, these allegations could damage the image of President Vladimir
Putin, who is holding a summit with President Bush in Russia next week.
Putin, who headed the FSB until a month before the bombings, was not
president when they happened, but they helped to re-ignite the war in
Chechnya, which spurred his rise to power.
Putin has dismissed as ``delirious nonsense'' the idea that the FSB
organized the bombings as a pretext for launching a new Chechnya offensive.
``The very allegation is immoral,'' he said to the Kommersant newspaper
shortly before his election in March 2000.
Speaking to The Associated Press by telephone recently, Litvinenko said his
evidence would implicate the top leadership of the security service in
Russia's deadliest terrorist attacks.
``The FSB is a terrorist organization,'' Litvinenko said. ``I am first and
foremost an anti-terrorism officer.''
Litvinenko acknowledges a personal vendetta against the FSB. In 1998, he
publicly accused his superiors of ordering him to kill tycoon Boris
Berezovsky, at the time a powerful Kremlin insider and now a prime exponent
of the theory that the FSB was behind the bombings.
Since then, four criminal cases have been opened against Litvinenko - all
fabricated, he maintains.
In 1999-2000, Litvinenko spent nine months in jail on charges of abuse of
office, for which he was ultimately acquitted. He then fled to Britain,
where he was granted asylum.
In the latest case, he stands accused of beating a suspect during an
interrogation. Russian officials say he will be tried in absentia.
Litvinenko, who joined the FSB's predecessor, the KGB, in 1988, says he
witnessed a slew of illegal plots hatched within the security service -
most notably to kill Berezovsky.
By the time of the apartment-house bombings, Litvinenko was long out of the
agency. He acknowledges he has no proof Putin was involved but believes he
must have known the truth.
Litvinenko and other government critics base their allegations on an
incident in the city of Ryazan in September 1999, shortly after the
bombings. Police there discovered what they took to be explosives in an
apartment building basement and ordered an evacuation. Afterward, security
service chief Nikolai Patrushev said the alleged explosives were only sacks
of sugar planted as an anti-terrorism drill.
``I have direct proof that in Ryazan there was not sugar in the building,
but hexogen; that the explosive device was not a dummy, but real; and that
the explosive device was put there by FSB officers on instructions from
their superiors,'' Litvinenko said. Hexogen was the explosive used in the
Moscow and Volgodonsk bombings.
The Prosecutor General's Office said Tuesday that it completed its own
probe of the Ryazan affair without looking at Litvinenko's evidence, and it
confirmed Patrushev's version.
As for the Chechen rebels, Litvinenko said the FSB missed its chance to
uncover their activities. He said that in 1995 he recruited a Chechen agent
to infiltrate a group allegedly connected to rebel warlord Shamil Basayev,
but his superiors abruptly canceled the operation.
``If in 1996 they had let this Chechen infiltrate that ring, we would have
known for sure if it was the Chechens who blew up the houses,'' he said.
*******
#3
Izvestia
May 15, 2002
NEITHER A FRIEND NOR A FIEND
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]
In the lead-up to the Reykjavik summit, the Public Opinion
Foundation has questioned 1,500 respondents from 100 locations across
Russia about their attitude toward NATO.
As it turned out, over 50% of respondents still consider NATO an
aggressive military bloc, as in Soviet times. Even among supporters of
Vladimir Putin, who has declared a policy of alliance with the Western
powers in the battle against international terrorism, 49% of
respondents assume that defense is a secondary priority for NATO
members, while the real aim of NATO is to finally achieve global
supremacy (67% of Communist supporters share this point of view).
Residents of the Far East federal district proved to be the most
intolerant of NATO (82%), whereas residents of the southern regions of
Russia proved to be the most supportive of NATO.
Over half of respondents (52%) are convinced that NATO is a
security threat to Russia. At the same time, 44% of respondents aged
18 to 35 and 48% of respondents with a higher education disagree with
this point of view: in their opinion, no trouble should be expected
from NATO.
Asked whether the interests of Russia and NATO differ, the number
of respondents who think that Russia's interests are opposed to those
of NATO was almost double the number of optimists who think the
alliance and Russia have common goals (48% versus 25%).
*******
#4
Most Russians See NATO As Hostile Despite New Affiliation
May 15, 2002
DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
MOSCOW (AP)--Despite a historic new agreement bonding Russia and NATO
closer together, most Russians still see the alliance as a threat and an
aggressive organization, according to a poll released Wednesday.
NATO foreign ministers and Russia's Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov signed an
agreement Tuesday in Reykjavik, Iceland, establishing a council including
Russia and the 19-member alliance to combat terrorism and other common
security threats.
Yet back in Russia , 52% of respondents in a poll earlier this month by the
Public Opinion Foundation said they see NATO as a threat. Thirty-one
percent said it wasn't threatening.
Fifty-four percent described NATO as an aggressive, offensive organization
- up from 38% in 1997. In this month's poll, just 24% said they see it as a
defensive alliance.
"A large number of respondents view NATO as a legacy of the Cold War, as an
effective instrument remaining in U.S. hands and used by (the U.S.) in its
striving for world hegemony," the pollsters said in a commentary.
Still, 62% of respondents said Russia should increase ties with NATO, in an
apparent bid to ward off the threat from the alliance by working more
closely with it, the commentary said.
Fifty-six percent said Russia and NATO have no common interests, while 27%
said they have common interests in fighting terrorism. No margin of error
was given for the nationwide telephone poll.
The poll also reflected continued Russian opposition to NATO's expansion
toward Russia's borders. NATO foreign ministers planned talks Wednesday
with the 10 East European candidates hoping to join the alliance, including
the ex-Soviet republics in the Baltics.
Some Russian media criticized Tuesday's agreement as a defeat for Russia .
"Russia Stood Up in NATO - But With Just One Leg and Almost Without Any
Rights," read the headline in Russia's Kommersant newspaper Wednesday.
Political analyst Vyacheslav Nikonov, head of the Politika think tank, said
the agreement came about because "Brussels decided to sweeten the bitter
pill that we will have to swallow this year" when the Baltics are admitted,
according to the Interfax news agency.
*******
#5
Russian, U.S. Relations on a Roll
May 15, 2002
By GEORGE GEDDA
REYKJAVIK, Iceland (AP) - A year ago, U.S.-Russian relations were in the
doldrums. To the extent that there were contacts, they were dominated by
Russian opposition to American missile defense plans.
Now Russia's relations with the United States and the West in general are
on a roll, with an agreement on a new NATO-Russian partnership Tuesday
coming in the aftermath of a Moscow-Washington agreement Monday to cut
strategic nuclear arsenals sharply over the next decade.
To top it off, Russia joined a U.N. Security Council consensus Tuesday to
support a U.S.-proposed plan to tighten up on military-related exports to
Iraq and ease civilian exports. Initially, Moscow was in strong opposition.
``A strong basis for a new partnership is being forged,'' Secretary of
State Colin Powell said Tuesday night, with Russian Foreign Minister Igor
Ivanov at his side.
Powell and Ivanov have no trouble getting along these days. Powell greeted
Ivanov with a hug as the Russian envoy showed up for NATO's spring meeting
Tuesday in chilly, windblown Reykjavik.
State Department officials said they caught Powell and Ivanov winking at
one another at a recent meeting.
``The Cold War is finished. Done. Kaput,'' British Foreign Secretary Jack
Straw said, reflecting the exuberance of many NATO colleagues as Russia was
granted what amounts to partial membership in the 19-member alliance.
``The world has changed out of all recognition,'' NATO Secretary General
Lord Robertson said.
Over the past year Russia has moved in a number of ways closer not only to
the United States but to Western security institutions as well.
It has:
Softened its once-unyielding opposition to the unilateral U.S. decision to
withdraw from the U.S.-Soviet Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty. Last July,
Russia threatened to retaliate by installing multiple warheads on new
intercontinental ballistic missiles. It didn't.
Agreed to shut down an intelligence-gathering complex in Cuba that had been
a mainstay of Soviet and later Russian spy activity for more than 35 years.
Helped protect Western economies by resisting demands of the Organization
of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to significantly cut oil exports. It
did agree to first-quarter cuts that essentially paralleled a normal
seasonal reduction, but how long it will keep those cuts in place is open
to question. Russia is not an OPEC member.
Became a partner of the United States in the war on terrorism.
Acquiesced in NATO's proposed new eastward expansion and in growing U.S.
military ties with former Soviet republics in Central Asia and the
Caucasus. These countries were once considered to be in Moscow's sphere of
influence.
Just why President Vladimir Putin decided to turn the relationship around
has not been explained fully. ``It is hard to imagine a leader less
impulsive and prone to epiphanies than Vladimir Putin,'' wrote Leon Aron,
of the American Enterprise Institute. He said Putin is a man averse to
``abrupt twists and turns.''
The most troublesome remaining issue for Washington and Moscow is the
legacy of nuclear and other militarily useful materials amassed mostly by
Soviet leaders during the post-World War II era.
The Bush administration says some of this material has filtered to Iran.
According to Powell, the Russians have been asking the United States for
more facts about such transfers.
``We think we've given them the facts,'' Powell said. ``We'll do as much as
we can to make the case that anything which supports Iran's efforts to
develop weapons of mass destruction is troublesome for us, and it is
something we'll have to continue to discuss with the Russians at every
level.''
It will be on the agenda next week when Presidents Bush and Putin meet in
Moscow. But that disagreement won't stop them from signing a slew of
agreements, perhaps including one on the establishment of a new strategic
relationship.
On the Net: Founding document from 1997 on NATO-Russian relations:
http://www.nato.int/docu/basictxt/fndact-a.htm State Department's Russia
page: http://www.state.gov/p/eur/ci/rs/
******
#6
ORT Review
www.ortv.ru
Compiled by Luba Schwartzman (luba7@bu.edu)
Research fellow at the Institute for the Study of Conflict, Ideology and
Policy at Boston University
HEADLINES,
Tuesday, May 14, 2002
- The Tenth Annual All-Russian Film Festival "Viva, Russian Cinema!"
opened in St. Petersburg.
- The Russian BE-200 amphibian airplane was tested and exhibited in France
today.
- Russian Emergency Ministry specialists finished search-and-rescue
operations at the Baikonur Cosmodrome. A seventh body was found.
According to preliminary information, the roof of the assembly-and-testing
complex collapsed because of the recent heavy and prolonged rains.
- Russian President Vladimir Putin conducted a working meeting with
Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov. According to Kremlin Press
Secretary Aleksei Gromov, the Prime Minister informed the President on the
progress of tax laws necessary for the formulation of the 2003 draft
budget in the State Duma.
- Russian special services will investigate reports that the Daghestani
man responsible for the death of field commander Khattab was executed in
Chechnya.
- A new acting prosecutor has been appointed in Chechnya. Nikolai
Kostiuchenko was previously the Deputy Prosecutor of the Rostov Oblast.
He replaced Vsevolod Chernov, who has finished the rotation term and is
returning to his position as deputy prosecutor of Stavropol Krai.
- Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov attended the meeting of the Joint
Permanent Russia-NATO Council in Reykjavik. Russia and NATO have agreed
on the formation of a new organ for cooperation in the format of "twenty
states."
- The TU-154 airplane that was hijacked to Saudi Arabia on 15 March 2001
will be named after Yulia Fomina, the stewardess who was killed in the
incident.
- A landmine was discovered near one of the turbines of the Krasnoyarsk
Hydroelectric Station. An employee of the station who was carrying the
detonator to the mine and several rounds for a Kalashnikov rifle has been
detained.
- The first joint exercises of the Armed Forces of the participant states
of the Agreement on Collective Security were conducted in the Moscow
military district. Divisions of 100-200 men each from Russia, Armenia,
Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan took part in the training exercises.
- At the Kremlin, President Putin chaired a meeting of the heads of state
of the participant nations of the Agreement on Collective Security. The
Agreement was upgraded to an International Regional Organization.
President Putin declared that the Agreement should create a favorable
climate for cooperation, stabilize the situation in the region, and
provide conditions allowing for cooperation with other states. He noted
that the philosophy of the organization should be the prevention of common
threats, rather than friendship against certain countries.
- President Putin met with Armenian President Robert Kocharian to discuss
bilateral relations, including political, economic, and military
cooperation.
- The trial of Colonel General Yuri Budanov has been resumed in
Rostov-on-the-Don. Experts concluded that he was insane at the time of
the murder of Elza Kungaeva. If the court accepts this, the murder charge
will be dismissed. The court has agreed to continue the process without
the representatives of the injured party, who have not appeared at court
for the third time.
- Russian General Prosecutor Vladimir Ustinov and Italian National
Anti-Mafia Prosecutor Piero Luigi Vigna signed a memorandum on cooperation
in the fight against organized and transnational crime.
- The operation to lift the fragments of the first section of the Kursk
nuclear submarine will begin on May 20th.
- The new Ukrainian parliament has held its first session.
- The number of Russian peacekeepers in Kosovo will be cut by 1300 troops,
or two thirds, by July 1st.
*******
#7
pravda.ru
May 14, 2002
RUSSIANS DRANK 45 LITRES OF BEER ON AVERAGE LAST YEAR
Journalists learnt at a Moscow press-conference today that Russians on
average consumed 45 litres of beer in 2001.
The press-conference organisers, who were presenting the statistical
results of their research into the state of the Russian beer sector, said
that in spite of the growth in beer consumption, indices showed that the
country was still one of the least beer-loving nations in the world. For
the sake of comparison: in the Czech Republic, which by rights can be
called the "beer country", the average citizen drank 161.8 litres of the
amber nectar.
Experts present at the press-conference pointed out that beer drinking had
cut the fatality rates among Russians consuming poor quality alcoholic
drinks. According to the specialists, Russia, which has one of the highest
rates of hard liquor consumption per person, also has the highest death
rate from alcohol abuse in Europe.
*******
#8
Izvestia
May 15, 2002
BUSH HEEDS PUTIN'S PLEAS - ON JUST ONE POINT
President Putin may earn himself some opposition for his foreign policy
Author: Georgy Bovt
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]
THE NEW STRATEGIC TREATY BETWEEN MOSCOW AND WASHINGTON IS
DEPRESSINGLY SKEWED IN FAVOR OF THE US. RUSSIA EVENTUALLY BACKED DOWN
ON MOST OF ITS OBJECTIONS; IT MAY NOW PRIDE ITSELF SOLELY ON MAKING
THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION TAKE THE DOCUMENT SERIOUSLY.
Until now, President Putin has faced no open opposition to his
foreign policy. However, some opposition may follow the signing of a
new US-Russian Strategic Offensive Arms Limitation Treaty scheduled on
May 24. The parties, especially the US, stress that the document will
reflect the new spirit of mutual relations. The question is whether
the Russian political elite is ready to take this new spirit and cares
to catch up with the president, who is now rushing headlong towards
friendship with the West. Russia's only small victory was to make the
US consider the treaty legally binding. National Security Adviser
Condoleezza Rice says: "We still consider the treaty redundant, but
President Bush has heeded his Russian counterpart's proposal." As to
other matters, Bush merely listened to Putin, but did not concede
anything that had not been declared before as the steps Washington
would take regardless of Russia's position.
The resulting treaty runs to three pages, although a senior
Russian Foreign Ministry source only recently spoke about a six-page
document. The text was most likely cut short at the expense of the
initially planned description of procedures for handling warheads to
be dismantled. Our sources claim Moscow was to the last minute
cherishing hope of Washington agreeing to destroy a certain portion of
such warheads. The Russian delegation was set the task to insist that
the parties also take into account submarines, strategic bombers,
missiles, and missile silos to be destroyed. This hope vanished during
the late April visit to Moscow by Assistant Secretary of State John
Bolton. The US refused to compromise, which resulted in the treaty
bearing no hints as to what should be done with warheads to be
dismantled.
The treaty consists of a preamble and five chapters and
containsthe two countries' mutual vow to reduce their nuclear
potential from the current 5,000-6,000 warheads (the START I Treaty
mandates that either country have not more than 6,000 warheads by
2006) to 1,700-2,200 warheads by the end of 2012 (the amount similar
to that agreed upon by Presidents Yeltsin and Clinton in Helsinki back
in 1997). The reduction ratio, the exact proportions of each country's
nuclear triad (strategic bombers, missiles, and submarines), and the
final total amount of nuclear warheads are left optional. Moscow has
given up the idea of conditioning nuclear limitation by Washington's
agreement to abstain from deploying a nationwide missile defense
system.
After the treaty expires in ten years from now, the sides are
free to return to any quantitative level of nuclear arms. Either party
may withdraw from the treaty at an earlier date by giving the other
party a 90-day advance notice. The treaty will legalize Washington's
de-facto intentions and simultaneously help Russia save face by
dismantling warheads it cannot afford to maintain (experts claim 1,500
warheads is the optimal level of nuclear arms for Russia).
According to Russian military sources, the US will destroy 1,600
of the total number of warheads to be dismantled and will store
another 2,400. Washington does not need any more nuclear arms: the US
stopped producing nuclear warheads in 1992, and those currently in
inventory are periodically tested and appropriately maintained. As for
Russia, it keeps replacing ageing warheads with new ones. The Bush
administration plans to resume the manufacture of warheads on a
qualitatively new level; the new nuclear devices are expected to be
capable of destroying deeply installed underground targets. Once
Washington has developed a new generation of nuclear weapons, it might
agree to further reduce its overall nuclear potential; Ms. Rice has
already hinted at a possibility of a new round of talks on this topic.
For the time being, the sides have agreed to stick to the mutual
control procedures stipulated by the START I Treaty enacted in 1994.
After the signing of the new treaty, a bilateral commission will start
developing new controlling measures.
Says Stephen Setanovich, a former official in the Clinton
administration, "By signing the treaty President Bush will prove to
President Putin that the relationships between the two countries are
in no way one-sided, that Washington is far from dictating unilateral
terms for Moscow to comply with." President Bush himself sounds yet
more excited, "The new treaty will put an end to the Cold War heritage
and open a new era."
The Kremlin does not hurry to speak of a "new era". President
Putin expressed his "satisfaction" with the talks; Foreign Minister
Igor Ivanov referred to the document as "realistic" but not devoid of
certain flaws; Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov once again spoke of
Russia's objections to Washington's idea of storing dismantled
warheads. Dmitry Rogozin, the chair of the Duma committee for
international affairs, says the Duma will decide whether or not to
ratify the treaty only after it has established "the extent to which
the document corresponds to Russia's national interests." Rogozin is
slightly overreacting: nobody will beg Duma to ratify the treaty. Our
Kremlin sources do not rule out the possibility of President Putin
trying to convince the deputies of the document's importance to
Russia, but in reality, given the pro-Kremlin majority in the lower
house, opposition to the treaty (if any) will hardly be significant.
There may be some social dissatisfaction with the document, but
nothing more than that.
A much more serious problem might be dissatisfaction on the part
of the military, whose mentality may well fail to catch up with the
president's sudden pro-Western course towards integration with the EU
and NATO, and his "altruistic" (warheads notwithstanding) friendship
with the US. Military sources assert the top brass is currently up to
pinning the blame for the "ruined" treaty on Deputy Chief of the
General Staff Yury Baluevsky, who supervised the talks on behalf of
the Russian military. Still, the new spirit of bilateral relations
will hardly be marred by discontent of top generals and politicians,
provided that that discontent is restrained at this relatively low
decision-making level and does not spread to the top of power.
(Translated by Andrei Bystrov)
*******
#9
Russian Defense Min Defends Arms Cut Amid Doubts At Home
May 15, 2002
DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
MOSCOW (AP)--Russia's Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov Wednesday dismissed
accusations that Russia had compromised its national interests in agreeing
to an arms control pact with the U.S. that slashes arsenals by two-thirds.
The agreement, announced Monday after months of negotiations, is to be
signed next week by U.S. President George W. bush and Russian President
Vladimir Putin during a summit in Russia .
"Moscow has not surrendered any major national interests while drafting"
the document, Ivanov was quoted by the Interfax and ITAR-Tass news agencies
as saying. "This legally binding agreement is...the result of a compromise,
like any other international agreement."
The document is "pragmatic and fully reflects the present-day situation,"
he said.
Russian lawmakers Tuesday criticized the agreement, which foresees cuts in
each country's arsenals to 1,700 to 2,200 warheads from the approximately
6,000 that each is now allowed. Nationalists angered by U.S. plans for a
national missile defense said Russia should expand its arsenal in response,
instead of shrinking it.
Some Russian media dubbed the accord a failure for Russia because the
document doesn't resolve the contentious issue of what will be done with
the warheads after they're taken out of service. Washington wants to store
some of the decommissioned weapons, while Russia wants all of them destroyed.
*******
#10
Kommersant
May 15, 2002
THE VALUE OF THE QUESTION
Washington decided that Russia's presence in NATO would do no harm
Author: Leonid Gankin
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]
THE REYKJAVIK SUMMIT WAS DEVOTED TO ESTABLISHING A NEW MECHANISM OF
COOPERATION BETWEEN RUSSIA AND NATO. RUSSIA - WHICH HAD GREAT HOPES
FOR THIS SUMMIT - WAS SOMEWHAT DISAPPOINTED WITH THE OUTCOME. THE
PROPOSAL TO IMPROVE COOPERATION BETWEEN RUSSIA AND NATO DID NOT
ORIGINATE IN MOSCOW.
"The start of a new era."
"A historic turning point for the West."
Russia has "practically become a NATO member."
That is how Western leaders have described the decisions made in
Reykjavik on establishing a new mechanism of cooperation between
Moscow and Brussels. In reality, Russia - which had great hopes for
this summit - was somewhat disappointed with the outcome.
Moscow had every reason to hope for deeper integration into the
structure of the alliance. Since September 11, Russia has proved that
it can be a reliable and effective partner for the West. The
significance of NATO, on the contrary, has been devalued by the
inability of the European allies of the United States to join the
anti-terrorism campaign. And the Americans have realized that they can
get by without NATO at crucial moments, without its political or
military support. So Washington decided that Russia's presence in NATO
would do no harm.
Moreover, the proposal to improve cooperation between Russia and
NATO did not originate in Moscow. The idea was first expressed by
British Prime Minister Tony Blair. This was supposed to serve as a
painkiller for Russia, relieving the pain of the forthcoming NATO
expansion, including admission of the Baltic states, which Russia
opposes. After this summit, it is possible to say that Russia is sort
of a NATO member... in a way.
Exactly what "full-scale cooperation" will imply is quite another
matter. A matter of which issues will be considered within the
framework of the Twenty, and which will remain under the jurisdiction
of the NATO member states. At the start of the year the list of issues
to be discussed with Russia's participation was longer than the final
list approved at the summit. Then NATO somehow took a harder line.
Brussels, in particular, did not agree that Russia should participate
in the decision-making process for NATO policy on post-Soviet
territory. But as recently as March, NATO Secretary General George
Robertson promised to give Moscow this right. Perhaps NATO realized
that Russia had no choice - and decided to turn the screws. As a
result, only terrorism and regulation of local conflicts will be
discussed by the Twenty.
Now the alliance likes to say that there has been a breakthrough
in its relations with Russia. And it is not in Moscow's interests to
deny that. Some would say that Russia has sold its agreement to NATO
expansion for too low a price. But were there any alternatives?
(Translated by Daria Brunova)
********
#11
Moscow Times
May 15, 2002
Oligarchic System Rules
By Yulia Latynina
If you watch state-owned RTR television and read state-owned Rossiiskaya
Gazeta newspaper, you know that Russia's new leaders have booted impudent
insiders like Boris Berezovsky out of the Kremlin and rounded the rest of the
oligarchs up into a harem, where they quietly try to outdo one another in the
service of the sovereign.
Foreign journalists watch RTR and ask me: "Is it true that the era of the
oligarchs in Russia has come to an end?"
A year and a half ago oligarch Oleg Deripaska bought the Gorky Auto Works, or
GAZ.
A month later, two trucks loaded with stolen spare parts were caught at the
factory gate. The son of the head of GAZ security was riding in one of the
trucks. Some 80 percent of spare parts produced at the plant were carted off
in exactly this way.
Then a car dealer showed up at the GAZ plant. The dealer had done time in the
early 1990s and become a well-known criminal figure. He produced a document
showing that GAZ owed him 140 million rubles ($4.5 million) for prep work
contracted out to his dealership's service department.
GAZ didn't pay the 140 million rubles because it figured that the dealer had
stolen much more than that from the plant over the years. And because the
plant was already carrying 15 billion rubles in similarly questionable debt.
The dealer sued and won, but GAZ still refused to pay.
Then the dealer went to the office of the presidential plenipotentiary
representative, and said: "Help me out, guys! You were the ones who wanted to
put pressure on this oligarch to bring him around to your way of thinking."
The bureaucrats put the squeeze on GAZ. And GAZ again refused to pay.
The dealer then went to Moscow and approached federal agencies known to be
unhappy with the oligarch. He said: "Come on, guys. You were looking for a
way to lean on the oligarchs. Here you've got one who's totally out of line.
He's openly breaking the law and not paying his debts to the little guy with
prison tattoos on his fingers."
Honest bureaucrats from Moscow working hard to restore the executive chain of
command ordered GAZ to pay the debt. And GAZ again refused.
Instead, the GAZ security department sat down and crunched the numbers. They
calculated that with the number of mechanics employed at the dealership in
question, it would have taken 389 years to perform 140 million rubles worth
of prep work. They explained to the dealer that if he persisted, they would
have him arrested for fraud. And no one in Moscow trying to restore the
"executive vertical" would be able to save him.
To repeat: Dealers like this hold 15 billion rubles in GAZ debt. So what's
the conclusion?
That whether Putin likes it or not, only the oligarchs can manage the economy
because they're the only ones capable of restoring something resembling a
legal infrastructure on the territory of their factories -- an infrastructure
that has disappeared everywhere else in Russia.
It's true that the federal government is trying to build a strong, even
authoritarian state. But along side this authoritarian state, another feudal
structure is developing based on one simple principle: It doesn't matter
who's right or wrong, it matters who you know. The law is reserved for your
enemies.
The result resembles Persia under the Achaemenian Dynasty (559-330 B.C.),
when the Persian state was mighty and fearsome and the Persian rulers bore
the title King of Kings.
This title testified not to the rulers' might, however, but to their
weakness. The rulers of the Achaemenian Dynasty were Kings of Kings because
their kingdom contained independent kings whom they could not destroy. The
best they could do was to set them at each other's throats.
The Kremlin is now doing essentially the same thing. The authorities are
capable of destroying individual oligarchs. But the authorities themselves
are merely a part of the oligarchic system.
Yulia Latynina is a journalist with ORT.
********
#12
The Guardian (UK)
15 May 2002
Future looks grim for Kaliningrad enclave
Ian Traynor in Moscow
Senior Russian and EU officials gather in the Russian town of Svetlogorsk
today to try to solve one of the big riddles thrown up by the EU's
expansion to the east and Nato's expected incorporation of countries of the
former Soviet Union.
The Russian pocket of Kaliningrad, once German East Prussia, will be more
isolated than ever when Poland and Lithuania join the EU in the next three
years.
Poland is already the key eastern member of Nato and Lithuania hopes to be
invited to join at the Nato summit in Prague in November.
These events will leave the Kaliningrad Russians, fewer than a million of
them, stranded in a poor, semi-forgotten corner of Russia where crime,
corruption, and Aids are rife.
It will also leave a Russian island inside Nato, and it remains to be seen
whether it becomes a Trojan Horse inside the western political and security
bodies or a hostage that ultimately seeks to secede from Russia.
Either would involve a crisis, and intense talks are under way between
Moscow and Brussels. The new Nato-Russia council, which was finalised
yesterday, will also have to grapple with the Kaliningrad con undrum, not
least because under Soviet communism it was turned into a militarised
bulwark, the Soviet army's western outpost.
The Russian media report that Moscow and Berlin began talks on
Kaliningrad's future in March.
The enclave was German and its capital was called Königsberg until 1945,
when Stalin kept it as spoils of war. Already Russian newspapers are
luridly warning of a German reconquest, economically not militarily, of
former East Prussia.
As everywhere in Russia, the armed forces are in disarray, and there is
little sign that Vladimir Putin will revive the garrison.
Lithuania recently announced that Russians passing between the pocket and
the rest of Russia could not cross its territory without a visa. This week
Poland followed its example. Both were following instructions from Brussels.
********
#13
From: Ben Aris
Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 15:34:33 +0500
Subject: [RusBizList] RBL318 -- May 11 - 13
Russia Business List
#318
Saturday, May 11, 2002
1. GOVERNORS AND BUSINESS IN PUTIN'S RUSSIA
Robert Orttung
East West
Saturday, May 11, 2002
Tsentr politicheskikh tekhnologii, Politics in the regions: Governors and
influence groups, [Politika v regionakh: gubernatory i gruppy vliyaniya],
Moscow, 2002.
After gaining enormous power and privilege during the Yeltsin era, Russia's
governors have suffered a considerable loss of prestige and influence under
Putin. They no longer enjoy the same important positions on the national
level that they once held, but they remain extremely important players at
the regional level. As the insightful and extraordinarily useful essays
gathered in Politics in the regions: Governors and influence groups make
clear, the governors retain extensive powers in their home territories and
gubernatorial elections are increasingly competitive and costly. The key to
the governors' power is their ability to draw up regional budgets, set
prices for key commodities such as electricity, raise regional taxes, and
issue licenses. In many regions, the governors maintain considerable
influence over federal law enforcement agencies, procurators, and tax
collectors. Many of Russia's largest businessmen are interested in affecting
how the governors set policies in these areas because such policies have a
direct impact on company profits. Thus, this book addresses one of the
central issues in Russian politics today: how big business is setting up
relationships with the regional elite as it extends its reach throughout
Russia's regions.
It is still too soon to speak of a Putin generation within the regional
elite as only 21 percent of today's governors were elected for the first
time since Putin came to power. In the recent round of gubernatorial
elections, incumbents won in 65 percent of the cases, demonstrating that
most of the governors who originally came to power in the 1990s were able to
hold on to their positions. Most of these governors, of course, formed their
worldview during the Soviet era. Through out the country there is no
organized opposition to gubernatorial power. Business is too atomized to
play this role and the security services have only been able to run
competitively in a few regions. While Putin was able to strengthen federal
authority, the governors were simultaneously able to beef up their own power
bases in the regions, Rostislav Turovskii argues in an analysis of the
October 2000 - January 2002 gubernatorial elections. Rather than replace the
Yeltsin-era regional elite, Putin and his team often supported the incumbent
in exchange for an agreeable senatorial appointment to the reformed
Federation Council, where regionally-appointed delegates have replaced the
governors and legislative speakers who once sat there.
The main common trend that Turovskii noted in the recent gubernatorial
elections was the increased role of federal and regional businesses.
Moscow-based big businesses, including those associated with Yeltsin's
Family, which tried to enter regions and defeat a sitting governor generally
failed. Such firms were much more effective, however, when they formed an
alliance with the incumbent. Thus, in almost every case, regional resources
were able to trump federal money and power when the two came into conflict.
Regional business groups also took a large interest in the elections, with
local businessmen becoming governors in such regions as Primorskii Krai,
Adygeya, and the Koryak Autonomous Okrug. Regional businessmen came close to
winning in many other elections.
Just as this second round of gubernatorial elections was taking place,
Russia's big businesses began to go through an evolution. Large Moscow-based
companies began to focus more on the regions, looking for new markets for
their activities and products. Thus, the process of establishing ties
between the governors and oligarchs is just beginning.
In most cases, the governors view the arrival of Moscow's big business
extremely warily and are proceeding only with great caution. While the
Moscow magnates can deliver much needed investment capital, this money comes
with considerable risks for the governors. The governors have long-standing
ties with local business and are very careful about giving up these
connections in favor of ties to the Moscow-based companies. In many areas,
regional voters view the oligarchs with distrust, or even hatred, and the
governor has to avoid being labeled as a puppet of the outsiders. For their
part, the companies do not want to be too closely identified with an
individual governor because they want to be sure that their business will
thrive no matter who is in power. Nevertheless, Putin's policies aimed at
strengthening the federal government have effectively pushed the oligarchs
to work in the regions and inclined the governors to embrace them.
The main business groups active in the regions are: the Family (Sibneft,
Russian Aluminum, the Ural Mining and Metal Company, Evrazkholding, and the
MDM group), Alfa, Sergei Potanin's Norilsk Nikel and Interros, Unified
Energy System, Gazprom, LUKoil, YUKOS, and Severstal. These companies work
with the governors in a variety of ways. In the political sphere, oligarchs
contribute significantly to gubernatorial campaigns. Once the elections are
over, governors often include representatives of various friendly companies
on their staff. Samara Governor Konstantin Titov, for example, made a YUKOS
first vice president his deputy governor, while Irkutsk Governor Boris
Govorin included representatives from both Russian Aluminum and Alfa on his
staff. The governors' relatives often take important positions in various
powerful companies, cementing personnel links in another way. Governors and
big business have also worked together, usually coordinating with the
Kremlin, in appointing representatives to the Federation Council. Aleksei
Makarikin's chapter provides an impressive list of Federation
Council-business ties.
In the economic sphere, there are several methods of cooperation. Companies
and regions have signed numerous bilateral cooperation agreements. They also
develop joint projects such as the deal between Sverdlovsk Oblast Governor
Eduard Rossel and the Tyumen Oil Company to set up the Urals Oil Company. In
some cases, the governors sit on the board of directors of important
companies. The governors can also serve as arbiters in disputes between big
companies working in their regions.
In a small number of cases, magnates have themselves become governors
(Chukotka, Taimir, and Evenkia). However, these cases are more likely to be
the exception rather than the rule. Chukotka Governor Roman Abramovich has
already announced that he will not seek a second term.
Despite the expansion of the oligarchs into several regions, most governors
and particularly the republican presidents, work to maintain the dominance
of the local business elite. This situation holds in particular in Tatarstan
and Bashkortostan, where the republican presidents have extensive control
over local business. In some cases, governors have tried to keep the
oligarchs out but failed. Komi leader Yurii Spiridonov worked to block the
entry of LUKoil into his republic, but subsequently lost his reelection bid
as LUKoil became increasingly powerful. In Rostov Oblast the local company
Doninvest owned most of the major companies in the region with the support
of Governor Vladimir Chub. However, the firm made a number of poor
investments and had to sell off some of its major assets to Moscow-based
firms.
In his comprehensive essay on the relations between governors and oligarchs,
Turovskii concludes that the ties between the oligarchs and governors have
strengthened the position of the governors. The result is that Putin's
federal reforms have managed to "'put the regions in their place' but did
not change the development of internal political processes" at the regional
level. However, Turovskii warns that the conflict of economic interests is
starting to have an increasingly large impact on political developments in
the regions. If the federal government does not learn to regulate the
situation in key regions, Turovskii fears that the country could turn into a
"field for 'oligarchic wars.'" The upcoming gubernatorial election in
Krasnoyarsk, where many of Russia's key big businesses are represented, will
test this thesis.
The Center for Political Technologies maintains a web site at
www.politcom.ru that has numerous interesting analyses of current events.
The Center has been around for ten years and provides political consulting
services to a wide range of Russian and Western corporations and financial
institutions.
********
#14
NATO Begins Talks on Expansion
May 15, 2002
By RAF CASERT
REYKJAVIK, Iceland (AP) - A day after NATO and Russia officially relegated
the Cold War to history by agreeing to combat terrorism together, the
alliance stepped up preparations to move its border closer to Moscow's
doorstep.
NATO foreign ministers met Wednesday with 10 eastern European candidates
who are seeking an invitation to join the alliance during a special summit
in Prague in November. At the same time, they also were seeking to improve
relations with nations in the Caucasus and central Asia on Russia's
southern borders.
The moves follow another milestone in efforts to erase the old Cold War
divisions: an agreement between Moscow and Washington on Monday to reduce
their nuclear arsenals by two-thirds.
The pact comes despite the U.S. intention to withdraw from the 1972
Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in order to be free to develop a missile
shield. That plan had been one of the most contentious issues in the
U.S.-Russian relationship, but Russian President Vladimir Putin eventually
accepted Washington's decision as a fait accompli.
Prime candidates to join NATO despite Moscow's objections include the
Baltic nations of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, which all have borders
with Russia. Slovakia, Slovenia, Romania and Bulgaria also are expected to
get the go-ahead in Prague.
``North America, Europe and countries of Central Asia are now part of a
political community that is unprecedented in its breadth, in its
inclusiveness, and in its capacity to work together,'' NATO
Secretary-General George Robertson told a meeting joining the 19 alliance
members, 10 candidate nations and 17 other countries ranging from Albania
to Ireland and Uzbekistan.
Secretary of State Colin Powell had a separate meeting with the 10
candidate nations early Wednesday.
Despite Russia's historic agreement to establish a council with the
19-nation alliance to combat common security threats in the post-Sept. 11
era, Moscow continues to have reservations about expansion.
``We continue to think that a mechanical enlargement is no more than a
hangover from the past. It won't increase security either for those
countries or for NATO,'' said Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov.
NATO, however, remains undeterred, contending that expansion will improve
regional security and encourage fledgling democracies.
The final day of the ministerial meeting in Iceland brought together 46
nations, many from the old Soviet sphere of influence, to assess closer
cooperation in the face of common challenges, such as international
terrorism. The list includes nations from Ireland to Uzbekistan and Albania.
The current members of NATO are Belgium, Britain, Canada, the Czech
Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy,
Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Turkey and
United States.
Longer-term NATO candidates include Croatia, Albania and Macedonia.
Croatia's application came too late to be considered at the fall summit.
Albania's history of instability makes it unlikely to be accepted anytime
soon. Macedonia is also a long shot: it has been plagued by ethnic
violence, and NATO peacekeepers are deployed there.
The foreign ministers acknowledged that new threats mean NATO missions
could be executed outside alliance territory, making good relations with
such nations all the more important.
``NATO must be able to field forces that can move quickly to wherever they
are needed, sustain operations over distance and time, and achieve their
objectives,'' the ministers said in a statement.
The fallout of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks drove home the need for broad
international cooperation, which now extends to Russia, Robertson said.
``It is impossible to overstate the importance of this recognition that we
must stand together in defending our common values and interests in the
face of the challenges of a new century,'' Robertson said.
The new NATO-Russia Council will set joint policy on a fixed range of
issues including counterterrorism, controlling the spread of nuclear,
chemical and biological weapons, missile defense, peacekeeping and
management of regional crises, civil defense, search and rescue at sea,
promoting military cooperation and arms control.
The deal will be officially signed when President Bush, his Russian
counterpart Vladimir Putin and other NATO leaders meet outside Rome on May 28.
********
#15
Financial Times (UK)
May 15, 2002
In from the cold
This week' US-Russia arms reduction deal and the new Nato-Russia Council
mark a new relationship. Neither side can afford to let it fail
By Judy Dempsey and Richard Wolffe
Almost two years ago to the day, in the midst of his presidential campaign,
then Governor George W. Bush attempted to shore up his limited foreign policy
credentials by proposing sweeping, unilateral cuts to the US nuclear arsenal.
Flanked by two former secretaries of state - Henry Kissinger and George
Shultz - and one future secretary of state - Colin Powell - Mr Bush set an
unerringly accurate course for relations between the US and Russia.
"The emerging security threats to the United States, its friends and allies,
and even to Russia, now come from rogue states, terrorist groups and other
adversaries seeking weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver
them," he told reporters at a rare campaign stop in Washington. "Russia
itself is no longer our enemy."
This week's agreement to cut deployed nuclear warheads is one of the most
tangible pieces of evidence of the new relationship emerging between the
former cold war enemies. Another is the meeting of Nato foreign ministers in
Reykjavik, which began yesterday. It was 16 years ago in the Icelandic
capital that President Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, his Russian
counterpart, met to discuss disarmament in what is now seen in Washington as
the beginning of the end of the cold war. Yesterday's meeting establishes a
Nato-Russia Council, which diplomats say marks the true end of the cold war.
Both the new treaty and the Nato council may have limited practical effect.
While the headline numbers of the arms agreement appear dramatic, with each
side cutting about 4,000 deployed warheads, both will be free to store,
develop and even manufacture nuclear weapons. The details of how existing
stockpiles will be disposed of remain unclear, prompting fears that warheads
could fall into the hands of rogue states and terrorists.
But the treaty, like the Nato meeting, highlights a far broader political
trend between the former adversaries. As Mr Bush and Vladimir Putin, Russian
president, prepare to sign their arms control treaty in Moscow this month,
the outlines of a new relationship appear clear.
Even before the terrorist attacks of September 11, Mr Bush and Mr Putin were
forging close personal ties. "I looked the man in the eye," Mr Bush told
reporters in Ljubljana, Slovenia, almost a year ago. "I was able to get a
sense of his soul."
After September 11, Mr Bush moved swiftly to establish a substantial US
military presence in the former Soviet states of central Asia without
significant Russian opposition. At Mr Bush's Texas ranch in November, the two
presidents agreed the outline of the arms control treaty. By the end of last
year, the US had announced its intention to withdraw from the 1972
anti-ballistic-missile treaty with only muted criticism from Russia.
Reykjavik underscores how the new US-Russian relationship has given Mr Putin
the chance to shift his foreign policy westwards.
"Reykjavik is about Putin wanting a seat at the table," says Janus
Onyszkiewicz, security expert at the Warsaw-based Centre for International
Relations and a former defence minister who negotiated Poland's entry into
Nato in 1999. "But, to be honest, this new Nato-Russia Council will go only
so far as mutual confidence will allow."
That view is echoed in Washington. "The NRC is all about trust and
confidence," says a US official. "If it works, it could genuinely transform
transatlantic relations, ending decades of antagonism. Both sides would win.
If it fails, it could end efforts by Mr Putin to integrate his country into
the west."
In many ways, the NRC resembles the body it replaces, the Nato-Russia
Permanent Joint Council, set up in 1997 by Javier Solana, then Nato
secretary-general. The issues on its agenda, from peacekeeping and monitoring
weapons of mass destruction to combating international terrorism, are much
the same.
That does not bode well, since the PJC has had a troubled life. It was
created before the Kosovo crisis and before Poland, the Czech Republic and
Hungary joined Nato, an enlargement Moscow resented. Russia also suspended
contacts with the PJC for most of 1999 in protest at Nato's bombing of
Kosovo.
While Russia will have equal rights with the 19 Nato ambassadors in the new
council, Nato will still be able to forge a common position before meetings
"at 20", where, for the first time, the alliance's ambassadors and Russia's
representative will sit in alphabetical order. "There will be a way for the
alliance, by consensus, to send issues to this Nato-Russia Council," says
Marc Grossman, US undersecretary of state for political affairs.
In Washington, analysts believe the true tests of the new US-Russian
relationship when the two presidents meet in Moscow will be over
counter-terrorism, central Asia and trade ties, including oil. Celeste
Wallander, of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, says: "The
real success on the strategic level for the summit would be if it advanced
the US-Russia relationship on Eurasian security and stability and on the
economic front as well."
The NRC has not had an easy birth. The Pentagon was less than enthusiastic
when Tony Blair, Britain's prime minister, broached the idea of a new
relationship with Russia last November. In spite of Mr Bush's close ties with
Mr Putin, US diplomats say Donald Rumsfeld, US defence secretary, and
Condoleezza Rice, Mr Bush's national security adviser, temporarily quashed
the idea. Their main concern, shared by Nato's central European members, was
that the new council would allow Russia to sneak in by Nato's back door,
split the allies and veto military decisions.
"The issue was about trust and how two former cold war enemies saw each
other," says a Nato official. "Washington suddenly got cold feet about us
dealing with Russia. Yet there was Putin bending over backwards to support
the US after September 11. And there were those cold war people in the Bush
administration who could not see why . . . Nato needed a new relationship
with Russia and vice versa."
Mr Putin did not have an easy time selling the NRC either, particularly to
his defence ministry. Many of the general staff and middle-ranking officers
view Nato as a cold war relic and a security threat. They are critical of the
alliance's planned enlargement - expected to include the three Baltic states
- and deeply resent the US military presence in central Asia.
So far, however, Mr Putin has bypassed the defence ministry's reluctance by
maintaining a firm grip over the negotiations. If the NRC works, Nato
diplomats say, Mr Putin may even use Nato's military planners to restructure
Russia's defence ministry.
Dmitry Trenin, security expert at the Carnegie Institute in Moscow, says the
relationship needs "an action plan to give it momentum. A special part of it
should address the exigencies of Russia's military transformation." Nato
officials agree - but say it is too early for Mr Putin to go down that road
or for Nato to make such suggestions. "We are still at the stage of
restructuring our own defence ministries," says George Robertson, Nato's
secretary-general. "So it is not as though we are the Great West telling the
Russians 'you have got it wrong'."
Nato and Russia have started to co-operate. "We have just opened the
retraining centre for [retired] Russian army officers in Moscow," says Lord
Robertson. "And we will soon open the military liaison office."
But by pushing for this improved co-operation and the creation of the council
in the face of domestic resistance, the Russian president has raised
expectations. Mr Putin has put his "personal authority" behind the talks,
says a Nato ambassador. "With the defence ministry breathing down his back,
he cannot afford failure. Neither can Nato."
*******
#16
Walker's World: Cold war ending -- again
By Martin Walker
UPI Chief International Correspondent
WASHINGTON, May 15 (UPI) -- So far, the world has heard three American
presidents (Bush, Clinton and Bush) one Soviet general-secretary
(Gorbachev) and two Russian presidents (Yeltsin and Putin) proclaim the end
of the Cold War. Maybe this time they mean it, but don't hold your breath.
After all, this week's latest strategic arms agreement between Washington
and Moscow is the fourth time that Russian and American leaders have
solemnly declared their joint commitment to slash nuclear arsenals down to
some 2,000 warheads each. This is good, because it means that we dangerous
humans only have enough nukes to blow up the planet four or five times over
rather than the truly gargantuan overkill capabilities of the past.
This is progress, just as it was when Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin and
George H.W. Bush and Yeltsin and Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev each made the
same warhead-slashing agreements.
(There are so many texts now in agreement on this theme that one wonders
why the diplomats cannot just take out the old texts, dust them off, and
recycle them. Indeed, on the verification part of this week's deal, that is
precisely what they did -- which is why this latest agreement is down to
just three pages and may, therefore, be the first to be worth the paper it
is written on.)
And now those of us who have previously witnessed these epochal events of
the long-running Cold War ending roadshow are starting to get déjà vu all
over again, because they are starting to do just the same thing with NATO.
Clinton and Yeltsin reached a deal in 1998, ahead of the 1999 NATO summit
in Washington, that would give Russia "a voice but not a veto" in NATO
councils. This was not just the end of the Cold War, but the beginning of
"a new strategic partnership" in which Russia and its former NATO
adversaries would sit and reason together and the world would be a nobler
and finer place.
Here we go again. On Tuesday in Reykjavik, Iceland, the city with the most
beautiful girls and the worst smell of fish on the planet (as those of who
were there for the 1986 Reagan-Gorbachev summit can recall), NATO and the
Russians did it all over again. Three years ago it was the Joint
Partnership Council. Now it's the Joint Partnership Agreement. Only the
names have been changed to protect the innocent who actually believe all
this guff.
The fact is that the last attempt to give Russia a kind of country
membership in NATO -- enough to say we wanted to trust them but not enough
to say we actually did -- the deal broke down over the Balkan wars. The
Russians sent old-style generals and colonels and spies to Brussels, who
said "Nyet" a lot and carried themselves as if they still had tank armies
that could reach the Rhine in three days.
In fact, all they had was a parachute battalion that could reach Pristina
airport in 24 hours -- enough to give NATO's triumphal advance into Kosovo
a nasty interruption.
NATO and Russia had very different strategic goals in the Balkans. They
still do. It is Russia's back yard, with lots of fellow-Slavs who are
co-religionists and the Balkans guard the way to the Mediterranean and the
open sea. Russian generals, diplomats and leaders are paid to care about
these matters, just as our own are paid to ensure that Russia (given its
track record) only gets to the open sea on our terms.
And there are lot of places where we still have very different strategic
goals. Witness Iran, where Russia is still intent on building the
ayatollahs a nuclear power station -- and is even now negotiating the sale
of another. To the West, this is unfriendly.
The Russians seem to see it as business, just as they shrug and take the
money from the Chinese for their most advanced warplanes and warships. They
do so even though those weapons may be used against them -- if and when the
Chinese start taking back those chunks of Siberia that Russians grabbed
under the czars.
Maybe we could have some strategic interests in common. Some of Russian
President Vladimir Putin's advisers are getting quite interested in the
idea of joining NATO because they see it giving an Article V security
guarantee -- in which NATO members must come to another member's aid if
attack -- to Russia's 10,000 miles of highly vulnerable Siberian frontiers.
Half of that frontier is with the Chinese and the other half with the
Islamic states of Central Asia, and it's a toss-up which worries Moscow
more. But NATO will think long and hard before taking that deeply serious
task on board.
In the meantime, if Russian cooperation can be purchased with a few cheap
words about partnership and a few convivial meetings at NATO, fine. But
spare us the exhausted rhetoric about ending the Cold War all over again.
"We don't yet quite have a cliché to capture this all," gushed Secretary of
State Colin Powell in Reykjavik as the heady fumes of Cold War endings and
partnership overcame.
Just as well, Mr. Powell. We don't need one. We still have lots left over
from last time.
*******
#17
US To Urge Better Investment Climate At Russian Summit
May 15, 2002
DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
MOSCOW -- The U.S. will urge Russia at next week's presidential summit to
improve investment conditions, but the meeting is unlikely to provide
anything more substantial than declarations of goodwill and optimism, a
senior State Department official said Wednesday.
Alan Larson, undersecretary of state for economic, business and
agricultural affairs, told journalists that the U.S. sees particular
opportunities to strengthen ties in energy, agriculture and biotechnology.
He said, however, that Russia has to do more to attract foreign investment,
stressing that it can't count on government goodwill to translate into
investment flows.
"A country with Russia's economic potential has the capacity to attract two
or three times more investment from abroad than Russia is attracting now,"
he said.
In that respect, he said, the U.S. welcomed the fact that the Duma is
considering a bill that may improve the legal status of production sharing
agreements in Russian energy projects.
Separately, Larson declined to say whether the U.S. would acknowledge
"market economy" status for Russia by the time of the summit. Such
recognition is a necessary step in the process of joining the World Trade
Organization, of which Russia isn't yet a member.
Despite this week's breakthrough agreement to reduce strategic nuclear
weapons, economic relations between the two countries are currently
afflicted by U.S. anti-dumping duties on Russian steel, and Russia's
thinly-veiled retaliation against imports of U.S. poultry. Although Russia
has formally lifted its ban, shipments haven't resumed yet owing to
numerous bureaucratic obstacles.
Larson said it was important to make some immediate progress on getting the
trade in poultry moving again before the summit.
Larson met earlier Wednesday with Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, Deputy
Prime Minister Sergei Gordeyev and residential economic adviser Andrei
Illarionov.
-By Geoffrey T. Smith, Dow Jones Newswires; +7 095 974 8055;
geoffrey.smith@dowjones.com
*******
#18
Debt relief may wean Russia from Iran, US official
WASHINGTON, May 14 (Reuters) - An influential Bush administration adviser
said on Tuesday Russia should be forgiven its Soviet-era debt as a way of
persuading Moscow to end troubling nuclear cooperation with Iran.
With an agreement on slashing strategic nuclear weapons now secured, Iran
looms as a key remaining irritant ahead of a summit in Moscow on May 23
between President George W. Bush and President Vladimir Putin that will
underscore a new era in U.S.-Russian relations.
Richard Perle, chairman of the Defense Policy Board that advises the
Pentagon's civilian leadership, said Washington should find a way to "share
the burden" if Moscow restrains trade with Tehran, with a serious impact on
the Russian economy.
"Our problems with Russia now have to do largely with Russian relations to
third countries, and they are rather heavily focused on the confluence of
business and commercial interests and security concerns that flow from
that," he said.
"Those issues can and should be ironed out, and in doing so I think we need
to pay attention to Russia's economic situation," Perle said.
"We should cancel the Soviet-era debt (because) there is no reason why
people struggling to create a free society should be burdened by the debts
of a totalitarian society," he added.
Perle spoke at a Council on Foreign Relations program that looked at
prospects for the Moscow summit.
Bush has branded Iran part of the "axis of evil" with North Korea and Iraq
because of its weapons of mass destruction programs. One of the last
unsettled financial questions of the Cold War is Russia's $42 billion
Soviet-era debt to private Western lenders.
The United States repeatedly has urged Russia to end what Washington says
is cooperation with Iran's nuclear, ballistic missile, biological and
chemical weapons programs.
But the pressure has had little effect. Despite improvements in Russia's
economy, U.S. intelligence says the troubling ties with Iran have continued
because Russia's state-run defense, biotechnology and nuclear industries
remain strapped for funds.
Russian officials, while acknowledging a role in developing a civilian
nuclear reactor for Iran at Bushehr, have denied they are aiding Tehran's
nuclear weapons program.
In an effort to persuade Moscow otherwise, the United States provided
Russia with evidence of its allegations. After that, Perle said, the
sources providing Washington with intelligence on Russia stopped doing so.
The Iran issue is expected to be raised at the Moscow summit, but U.S.
officials have said they do not expect an immediate resolution.
Bush and Putin will sign, however, a treaty slashing U.S. and Russian
nuclear arsenals from 3,000-3,500 warheads to 1,700-2,200 warheads each by
the end of 2012.
******
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