Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin who had been registered as a candidate for the office of Russian President scored 39,740,434 votes, or 52.94 percent of the total, i.e. he was elected by more than one half of the voters who took part in the polls.

On the basis of the above and in accordance with Articles 17, 72 and 75 of the Federal law "Concerning the elections of the president of the Russian Federation", the Central Electoral Commission decreed that the elections of the president of the Russian Federation be recognised as good and valid; Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin be proclaimed elected to the office of the president of the Russian Federation.

The document of the Central Electoral Commission recorded the data about the number of votes scored by each of the registered candidates for the presidency and the number of votes "against all candidates".

Vladimir Putin - 39,740,434, or 52.94 percent

Gennady Zyuganov - 21,928, 471, or 29.21 percent

Grigory Yavlinsky - 4,351,452, or 5.80 percent

Aman Tuleyev - 2,217,361, or 2,95 percent

Vladimir Zhirinovsky - 2,026,513, or 2.70 percent

Konstantin Titov - 1, 107,269, or 1.47 percent

Ella Pamfilova - 758,966, or 1.01 percent

Stanislav Govorukhin - 328,723, or 0.44 percent

Yuri Skuratov - 319,263, or 0.43 percent

Alexei Podberezkin - 98,175, or 0.13 percent

Umar Djabrailov - 78,498, or 0.10 percent

Against All Candidates - 1,414,648, or 1.88 percent.

"The responsibility is yours," Russian group leader Dmitri Rogozin angrily told parliamentarians.

It was the first time in the half-century of its existence that the Council had voted suspension of a member.

The vote by the Council's parliament, a Europe-wide assembly made up of representatives from 41 countries concerned with human rights and democracy issues, followed a tense day in which two visiting Russian deputies specially invited from Chechnya and Dagestan came to blows before 291 shocked European legislators.

The parliament initially voted 78 votes in favour, 69 against with eight abstentions "to deprive the members of the (Russian) delegation of their right to vote in the Assembly and its organs."

A subsequent amendment passed which suspended Russia's voting rights and rights of representation with immediate effect provoked the furious Russian reaction, with most of the 18 members immediately leaving the chamber in protest.

"We are not able to work together," Rogozin told the assembly. "The responsibility is yours. Goodbye."

An earlier motion had called on the ministerial council, the Council's executive organ, to invoke the procedure to suspend the Russian delegation because of what it called a lack of substantial and demonstrable progress in rights issues.

The Assembly also appealed to members to invoke the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg over Russia's alleged failure to comply with the Human Rights Convention.

The Council of Europe has been increasingly critical of the behaviour in Chechnya of Russia, which has been a Council member since 1996. A fact-finding mission last month alleged war crimes had been committed by both sides.

Earlier, the Council had put 10 conditions on the Russian delegation's continuing participation in Strasbourg, including an immediate ceasefire in Chechnya and the establishment of an unconditional political dialogue with elected Chechen leaders.

In Moscow's first reaction to Thursday's vote, official sources told the Interfax news agency that Russia "will evidently take measures in response," but did not elaborate.

Thursday's debate produced a clash of opinions in the chamber. British Conservative Member David Atkinson said: "The assembly is left with no choice but to vote for suspension of the Russian Federation.

"If the Council of Europe does not act today, it would no longer be taken seriously by the international community," he urged.

But British Liberal Michael Hancock challenged the motion, warning: "Suspension is a form of gesture politics in that it would change nothing." Thursday also produced a clash of another kind as two deputies from the neighbouring Russian republics of Dagestan and Chechnya brawled before the assembly which had invited them.

Russian deputy Gadzhy Makhashev had finished slamming "Chechen bandits" in a speech when he exchanged blows with Vagap Tutakov, a special envoy of Chechen leader Aslan Maskhadov.

A similar motion to suspend Russia over its campaign in Chechnya was quashed when it was put to a vote at the council's January session, and the Russian delegation has remained in place.

Other Council members have had run-ins with the assembly, but no suspension had been imposed before.

Both Greece and Turkey have been forced to withdraw temporarily from the Council. But Greece withdrew before the assembly could vote to suspend it over its military dictatorship.

"Wesley Clarke seems to have read that document inattentively, or else he had an incorrect translation," the first deputy head of the Russian armed forces general staff, Valery Manilov, told Interfax on Thursday.

"Partnership occupies a pivotal place in the new doctrine. Maybe Mr. Clarke understands this term in his own way," Manilov said. The doctrine calls for partnership and for efforts to be made to forestall war and settle conflicts "without using force or resorting to military means", he said.

Commenting on NATO's strategic conception, he said the alliance divides its partners into two types: "first class" and "second class." "This is unacceptable to Russia, which calls for an equal and comprehensive security system to be created," he said.

During his recent visit to Lithuania, Clarke expressed his concern about the fact that, in his opinion, Russia's new military doctrine focuses on the protection of its own interests to the detriment of partnership.

If the new Russian Cabinet succeeds in improving the country's legislation, resolving the problem of barter settlement, restructuring the banking system, in particular the Central Bank of Russia, reforming the taxation system, consolidating the social welfare system and introducing the private ownership of land, steady economic growth will be assured, he said.

Macroeconomic stabilization in Russia cannot be successful without structural reforms and greater investment in the economy, Fischer went on. To make this possible, the Cabinet will have to change policy in every economic sector, he said.

Boston, 6 April 2000 (RFE/RL) -- On Monday, First Deputy Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov said that Russia has spent 6 billion rubles, or about $210 million, on the war in the first three months of this year. But the accounting appears to exclude several costs that would push the real figure considerably higher.

Aside from the human costs, which are incalculable, the Russian estimate appears to ignore even some military spending by the government itself. This week, Russian military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer wrote in the U.S.-based journal Perspective that Russian troops in Chechnya numbered 93,000 at the end of January, according to a Kremlin spokesman.

In the publication by Boston University's Institute for the Study of Conflict, Ideology and Policy, Felgenhauer said that the troops in Chechnya "are paid well according to Russian standards (800 rubles per day, or approximately $28)." Based on the pay alone, Russia's cost would have reached 6.7 billion rubles in the first quarter, or more than the 6 billion for the war that the government claimed.

Although Russia may have reduced its troop levels in Chechnya since the end of January, the pay figure cited by Felgenhauer is for contract soldiers and conscripts, not officers, who are likely to be higher paid. At the least, the calculation suggests that the government may be minimizing its estimates. One possible explanation is that the Kremlin has deducted the costs of maintaining an equivalent force in the absence of war. As a result, it appears to be focusing only on the extra spending that can be directly laid to the war. The pay may also be in arrears.

In January, Kasyanov said that the war during last year cost the government 5 billion rubles, bringing the reported expense so far to about $384 million. Other analysts have argued that the costs are low because many supplies and munitions are surplus or stockpiled items, which may not be replaced. But the government also has a clear reason to report seemingly low figures. At the current level for the first quarter, the war estimate equals only 2.8 percent of federal spending and about one-half of one percent of Russia's gross domestic product so far this year. Citizens may find this share an acceptable price for subduing the Chechens.

Officials may well see the value of establishing the lowest possible basis for estimates in the public's consciousness now. Last month, the State Duma's parliamentary speaker, Gennady Seleznev, warned that "The presence of Russian troops will last for decades."

But the current figures appear to exclude items that the government may regard as only incidental to the war. The cost of building a bypass oil pipeline around Chechnya, for example, has been estimated at $160 million, a figure that by itself would increase the war's cost since its start by over 40 percent.

The government tally is also unlikely to include the expense of caring for the 214,000 refugees that were counted in Ingushetia last month by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. For the damages suffered by civilians, the government appears to be relying on a distinction between cost and loss.

Many other items related to Chechnya may go uncounted, such as the 342 million rubles for spring planting which then-Acting President Vladimir Putin complained last month had been allocated but not delivered.

This is likely to be only a token of the lost agricultural and oil production of Chechnya. That in turn may be only a fraction of its destroyed housing and infrastructure that may never be replaced.

This month, a series of environmental officials in the Russian military have taken pains to blame Chechnya's ecological damage on the territory's illegal refineries, while saying nothing about the effects of the Russian bombing campaign. This may also be a prelude to minimizing the war's longer-term costs.

The low estimates may be a sign that Russia can fight a conventional war more cheaply than the high-tech operation that NATO conducted over Kosovo last year. But it also seems to be a parallel to the underreporting of casualties that Felgenhauer and groups such as the Association of Soldiers' Mothers have charged.

It should be noted that the ABM Treaty problem is heating up at a moment when the entire structure of arms control is being challenged. Last fall, the U.S. Senate voted down the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, drawing widespread censure around the world. Meanwhile, the Russian Parliament has failed to ratify the START II Treaty, blocking the process of further strategic arms reductions. In addition, because of the conflict in Chechnya, Moscow has admitted it exceeded limits on conventional arms set by the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty, another bedrock arms control agreement.

Why does the ABM Treaty need to be amended? The 1972 treaty is one of the main Russian-American pacts and was designed to prevent the United States and the Soviet Union from developing strategic missile defenses that could encourage nuclear first strikes. Its logic is as follows: if a country has an effective missile defense, it might be tempted to launch a large-scale, offensive first strike because it feels secure against possible retaliation. Thus, rather than being seen as protective, national missile defense systems were seen as destabilizing and were strictly limited by the ABM Treaty.

However, the end of the Cold War and the emergence of so-called "rogue" states that possess improved missile capabilities (e.g., Iran, Iraq, North Korea) posed new threats. Advocates of NMD, whose origin may be traced to Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative (known as "Star Wars"), say the United States — as well as Russia and other countries — could be vulnerable to attacks from rogue states or to accidental missile launches. The initial phase of NMD, to be completed by 2005, involves building a new powerful radar in Alaska and deploying up to 100 interceptor missiles there. In negotiations with Russia, the United States argues that such a level of defense enables it to protect itself against a limited missile attack by several dozen missiles, but is insufficient to resist Russia's vast nuclear arsenal, thus preserving strategic balance and mutual nuclear deterrence between the U.S. and Russia.

But Russia's main concern is the possibility that the system might be further expanded, eventually nullifying the deterrent value of Russia's strategic forces, so Russia is strongly opposed to any modification of the ABM Treaty. From the U.S. side, Russia's agreement on modification of ABM Treaty is sometimes seen as the price Russia pays for the continuation of the START process, as Russia is interested in reduction of its strategic nuclear forces for economic reasons. The United States has also offered other trade-offs to Russia, such as sharing American radar data pertaining to missile defense and assistance in completing Russia's key radar site. If no agreement is reached with Russia, one of the probable countermeasures would be deployment of land-based missiles with multiple warheads. This would not only invalidate decades of arms control efforts, but would also have a negative effect on Russia's tight budget and internal situation. It is widely presumed that the Clinton administration will go ahead, with or without Russia's consent. One of the possible political driving forces behind putting the NMD project on the fast track is to ensure Al Gore cannot be accused of being "softer on defense" than George W. Bush, whose position is to proceed with two missile defense systems "at the earliest possible date," and with even less concern for Russia's position. Apart from Russia's objections, the implementation of NMD might elicit undesirable international reactions elsewhere. The U.S. and its European allies would have different levels of vulnerability, increasing Europeans' worries. On the other hand, the military effectiveness of NMD is far from proven. Tests so far have revealed so many uncertainties that key U.S. military experts now urge a slowdown on the project. NMD is often criticized for being irrelevant to major threats: Terrorists have plenty of other delivery systems, and can also use chemical and biological weapons rather than nuclear missiles.

But the scholars have to do a lot of guessing because Mr. Putin has kept his cards so close to his chest. Indeed, some think he has no grand design beyond establishing order. With so little hard information, anybody can play pundit. And on the strength of having been a Moscow correspondent once, let me get into the game.

We Moscow correspondents used to ask first what the regime was trying to signal by its actions. For example, how many tanks and missiles Nikita Khrushchev paraded through Red Square on May Day as an indicator of whether he wanted to look peaceable or bellicose. So I found the most significant event of the immediate post-election period the announcement, within hours after the polls closed, that the Russian navy had launched a ballistic missile from a nuclear-powered submarine, which hit its target 4,000 miles away, and a second one which was successfully detected by Russia's antimissile early-warning system.

The announcement said the navy crew dedicated the launch to President-elect Putin, "who has called for restoring the military's dignity and strengthening its capabilities." Next came the announcement that Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev, although approaching retirement age, had been asked to stay on. That makes him the first member of Putin's new Cabinet to be selected.

What does all this military emphasis mean? The military, whose war in Chechnya helped Putin get elected, appears to be flexing its muscle. Putin, a KGB alumnus, has said he wants to bring more KGB people into government. Back in Stalin days, the military establishment traditionally competed for power with the KGB. And the military is making itself felt now. The military seems also to be signaling that it will have to be consulted on any change in the Antiballistic Missile Treaty (ABM) that would permit the US to develop a national antimissile system. It will want assurances of no larger ABM system.

The Defense Ministry has already written a new military doctrine that would permit the use of nuclear weapons in case of a conventional attack. Foreign minister Igor Ivanov seized his first opportunity to announce that changes will be made in Russian foreign policy in accordance with the "new concept" discussed in the Russian Security Council. That "new concept" presumably includes the general-staff decision that Russia, too poor to match America in conventional forces, will have to use at least tactical nuclear weapons to fend off an attack.

Even when appealing to Russians to go and cast their vote on Election Day, he couldn’t help reminding them that they were choosing not just a president, but a commander-in-chief as well. And the first official event he attended as president-elect was a ceremony to mark Interior Ministry Troops’ Day. In return for this attention, the army has given Putin its love. Chief Airforce Cmdr. Gen. Prudnikov announced that 90 percent of airforce personnel voted for Putin. His score among military personnel in Chechnya was just as high. The generals are so keen to please that they didn’t hesitate to add that they counted not just votes cast by soldiers in "closed" military polling stations, but also those cast by soldiers at ordinary polling stations.

Even a test launch of two ballistic missiles fired by a submarine in the Northern fleet was declared by Navy Headquarters to be "in honor of the newly-elected president."

This is not just bootlicking; it seems to be quite sincere. The army has appreciated Putin’s decisiveness during the "anti-terrorist" operations in Chechnya and his willingness to take full responsibility for the army’s actions in the rebellious region ­ including its clearly excessive use of force. The military also hopes that Putin will fulfill his promises to improve their financial situation.

But despite the mutual affection that has developed, relations between President Putin and the army are inevitably going to face testing times. It looks as though Putin intends to extend Defense Minister Marshal Igor Sergeyev's term of service by another year. A number of my colleagues have hastened to conclude that Sergeyev, a reformer, will come in handy to Putin when the time comes to find a scapegoat for the Chechen War dragging on. But I think the reason lies elsewhere. Despite his interest in all things military, Putin is yet to find "his own" general ­ a man he can trust the way he does his former KGB colleagues, now predicted to take over the running of most of the security ministries. For the time being then, Putin prefers to leave the Armed Forces as they are. But this doesn’t mean an end to the now completely unseemly conflict between Sergeyev and the Head of General Headquarters, Anatoly Kvashnin. This is more than just a squabble between different branches of the Armed Forces: as represented by Sergeyev, the strategic rocket forces man, and Kvashnin, from the ground troops. It is a conflict about the future shape of the Russian Army.

If the emphasis is placed on nuclear deterrent, then this supposes that Russia does not face any serious large-scale military threat. Following this logic, conventional forces are only needed for limited operations. The approach taken by General Headquarters, by contrast, would mean recreating a smaller version of the Soviet army, one able to fight half the world if need be.

Putin will soon have to decide on which of these two options he will expend the limited resources available to him. Will Russia opt to produce 30 to 40 new Topol-M missiles a year to replace its aging nuclear arsenal? Putin knows full well that it is precisely the nuclear arsenal that gives Moscow leverage on the international stage and places Putin on equal footing with the leaders of developed countries.

Or will the money go on conventional military technology?

Moreover, Putin will also have to explain to the country why Yeltsin’s 1996 decree on moving over to a professional army by the year 2000 remains unfulfilled. If Putin decides to stick with a conscript army, then Sergeyev’s military reforms will be left devoid of any substance.

In Moscow alone, the number of births in 1999 shrank 1.7 times compared to 1998.

The participants of a Wednesday press conference on perinatology associated this threatening situation mainly with shortcomings in the field of medicine in Russia. Perinatology is a medical field studying prenatal problems and problems in the first days of postnatal development.

The press conference was attended by members of the Russian association of perinatal medical specialists. According to the specialists, the infant death rate in Russia is 1.5-2 times higher than that of economically developed countries. The death rate of prematurely born babies is even higher. Out of the 68,000 babies born on average in Moscow every year, 5,000 are born prematurely. Over 200 of these are born weighing from 500 grams (the weight a fetus normally reaches at the 22nd week) to 1,000 grams. Over 70% of such infants die during their first week of life and about 50% during their first year. Treatment and care of premature babies is now among the most serious problems facing world medicine, and especially Russian medicine, for it is connected with very expensive imported diagnostic and therapeutic equipment, the participants of the press conference said.

Therefore, the association called for a number of the country's major financial organizations to assist in the purchase of medical equipment for Russian hospitals specializing in this sphere. To save Russian newborns, it is extremely urgent to obtain the latest U.S. artificial pulmonary respiration apparatus "Millenium" and reviviscence monitors, the specialists said.

Russia's war in Chechnya, however, is apparently complicating efforts by the armed forces to maintain force levels at close to 100 percent. According to Colonel General Vladislav Putilin, the Russian General Staff's military mobilization chief, some 215,000 conscript soldiers will be discharged this spring. That number is larger than would have been expected because thousands of Russian conscripts are eligible for early demobilization as a result of their service in the North Caucasus. For this reason, Putin said, the armed forces will suffer shortfalls of personnel this year even if all of the intended 192,000 young men are successfully inducted this spring.

But several other problems might be related to the Caucasus war. According to another General Staff officer, Lieutenant General Vasily Smirnov, the number of draft evaders in Russia has crept up in recent months, presumably because of fears among potential draftees of being compelled to serve in the North Caucasus. Smirnov claimed that the number of draft evaders in Russia had dropped over the past few years from some 30,000 to 19,000. Since last fall, however, the number has increased once again, this time to a level of 38,000, he said. Should that pattern continue, or worsen, during the spring induction period, then the Russian armed forces--and some of Russia's other "power structures"--could be facing significant personnel shortfalls. The military draft, it should be noted, provides conscripts not only for the regular army, but also for the forces of the Interior Ministry, the border troops, the Federal Security Service and various other security organs.

Indeed, there have been accusations leveled in Russia since the start of the latest Caucasus war that the Defense Ministry has at times been guilty of ignoring regulations by sending untrained conscripts to the Caucasus. Smirnov attempted to allay such concerns, insisting that conscripts can be sent to so-called "hot spots" only after six months of training and after the successful completion of exams. But he also intimated that the army was narrowly defining the notion of service in a hot spot, using it to designate only those involved in active combat operations. That suggests that untrained soldiers may indeed still be sent to the North Caucasus, but in support rather than combat roles (Kommersant daily, April 1; Itar-Tass, April 3; Russian agencies, April 4).

Meanwhile, the Russian Defense and Interior Ministries, whose lack of effective cooperation in Chechnya has been blamed for many of the large losses suffered recently by Russian troops in the field, will apparently strive to work together more closely in at least one area: the apprehension of draft evaders. A Russian news agency reported on March 28 that Defense Minister Igor Sergeev and Interior Minister Vladimir Rushailo had approved measures under which local police organizations will cooperate with military draft offices in the effort to locate, apprehend and induct draft evaders. The new measures reportedly also envision making directors of enterprises and educational organizations legally responsible for employing or admitting for study persons evading registration with the draft offices (Agentsvo Voyennykh Novosti, March 28).

Russian military authorities have long complained about a lack of cooperation from civilian officials in their effort to track down draft evaders. Improved and intensified civil-military cooperation in this area, if does indeed come to pass, would seem to fit in neatly with President-elect Vladimir Putin's push for a partial remilitarization of Russian society. Putin has already backed measures that would both reinstitute military training courses in Russian schools and reactivate compulsory training programs for military reservists. The latter announcement--in which it was suggested that 15,000-20,000 reservists could be recalled to service--generated concerns that the reservists would in fact be sent to Chechnya to make up for personnel shortages there. The Kremlin denied that there was any intention to send reservists to the Caucasus (Segodnya, Itar-Tass, February 2).

The opening of the $18.5 million facility, funded and built by Americans in a compound where 10 years ago no Westerner could get past the heavily armed guards, provided a rare upbeat moment for what has become a shaky Russian-American relationship. The moment was very short-lived. Minutes after the US ambassador, James Collins, hailed the center as a sign of post-Cold War cooperation, Russia's domestic security service announced that it had detained a US citizen and a Russian on suspicion of spying. Collins refused to comment, but the Russian security service, known as the FSB, alleged that the American had tried to purchase Russian defense industry secrets. Without revealing the suspects' identities, the FSB said the American was a manager of a private company in Moscow and a former career intelligence officer. The Russian was described as ''an expert in defense technologies employed by a Moscow organization.''

The arrests, part of an escalating espionage conflict between Russia and the West in which dozens of foreigners and Russians have been detained here, dampened the spirit of partnership at yesterday's arms-control ceremonies. The new arrests also reflected how tensions between Russia and the US keep getting in the way of one of the few joint projects both sides qualify as a success: the US-funded disarmament projects known as Cooperative Threat Reduction, commonly referred to as the ''Nunn-Lugar'' program, after its sponsors, former senator Sam Nunn of Georgia and Senator Richard G. Lugar of Indiana.

Since 1991 Nunn-Lugar money has helped Russia destroy thousands of nuclear weapons, and eliminate potentially hazardous fuel and missile components. The idea behind the program is simple: By helping Russia comply with disarmament treaties, the United States helps itself by keeping weapons from falling into the hands of rogue states. But the dismantling of Russia's chemical arsenal, sometimes referred to as ''poor man's nuclear weapons'' for their relative technological simplicity, has only just begun.

When Moscow ratified an international ban on chemical weapons in 1997, officials estimated that destroying its stockpiles, which dwarf even the US arsenal of 32,000 tons, would cost $5 billion over 10 years, a price Russia says it cannot afford.

The facility that opened yesterday, located at Moscow's State Scientific Research Institute of Organic Chemistry and Technology, is part of an $888 million Nunn-Lugar project that includes the construction of a site to destroy more than 6,000 tons of chemical weapons stockpiled in Schuchye, 960 miles east of Moscow. US officials say the Schuchye site, when completed, would provide a model for similar facilities at Russia's six other major stockpiles of nerve, blister and choking agents.

The development of these plants will start in the new center, a spotless facility that looked out of place among the decrepit buildings, leaky pipes and barbed wire of the rest of the institute. Scientists at the center will help evaluate technologies for destroying chemical weapons, assess their impact on the environment and train personnel.

''Nerve agents are very lethal - one drop can kill,'' said Miguel Morales, a spokesman for the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program. ''When you're destroying chemical weapons, you want to make sure they're completely destroyed.''

Zinovy Pak, the head of Russia's Munition Agency, which is in charge of dismantling chemical weapons, voiced hope that the US assistance would help Russia catch up to its timetable for fulfilling its international obligations. Under the terms of the global ban, Russia was to destroy 440 tons of chemical weapons by April 29, but had to request an extention because of budget woes. Pak promised to ''do all we can'' to meet the April 2002 deadline of the second stage, which calls for the destruction of 8,800 tons of chemical weapons.

''But we must say,'' Pak added, ''that this task is incredibly hard to accomplish.''

Adding to the difficulty was a decision by the US Congress to halt funding for the Schuchye complex for 2000. General Thomas E. Kuenning, director of the Cooperative Threat Reduction program, said Congress had been discouraged by the slow progress of the site, as well as Russian requests that part of the US funding go to social programs and local infrastructure.

Kuenning said President Clinton had decided to press ahead with the project in the hope that Congress changes its mind by next year.

The worsening climate of US-Russia relations might affect this choice. The West's relations with Russia have been strained by Moscow's protest of NATO's air-assault last year on Yugoslavia and Western criticism of Moscow's military offensive in Chechnya. Disagreements over nuclear arms treaties and the increase in espionage cases have not helped the atmosphere, either. But the US officials in Moscow voiced hope that they could finish their project no matter what the climate.

Apart from that, most, if not all, regional countries, e.g. Arab states and Israel (whose Russian-speaking population had topped the 20-percent mark as a result of immigration trends over the 1980s and the 1990s), are very much interested in reinstating Russia's political positions and influence. Russia also views economic cooperation with regional countries as something rather promising.

Doubtless, all these considerations deserve every attention. However, how feasible are they?

It's crystal clear that the emergent post-Soviet Trans-Caucasian and Central Asian states are more open for interaction with the outside world, Arab-Moslem regions included. It's an open secret that they still don't display any crucial initiative in the course of such interaction. However, they are not subject to large-scale passive interaction, as some people may think. Their protracted existence within the framework of tsarist Russia and the USSR has left a deep mark upon them. As far as historic, economic, social and numerous other aspects are concerned, these newly-emergent states attach priority to contacts with the present-day world, Russia, in the first place. Naturally enough, their location along the external Russian perimeter turns such countries into an area of our most important priorities and interests. Russia is directly interested in retaining them within the framework of its foreign policy. Besides, it would like to turn them into some kind of a controllable buffer zone to offset any possible anti-Russian actions.

One gets the impression that the Middle East doesn't merit Russia's closest attention, all the more so as the Cold War has apparently ended, with the United States ceasing to be our theoretical enemy. Moreover, US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has negotiated with Russia's acting President Vladimir Putin in Moscow not so long ago, what with the Russian side noting that it perceives the United States as its strategic partner. Quite possibly, it would be expedient to entrust the solution of regional Mideastern problems, the Mideastern peace settlement included, to the United States and Western Europe. They say that the global-confrontation era is now history, with Russia viewing the United States as its strategic partner. Therefore one apparently has every reason to say that Russia should not fear any US threats emanating from the Middle East. Surely enough, the world is indivisible; therefore Russia can't but feel concerned over the danger of regional conflicts escalating into an NBC (Nuclear, Bacteriological, Chemical) war. Technically speaking, the United States and Western Europe are also interested in preventing such developments. Consequently, they will also strive to attain their own goals, as they ensure regional security in Russia's interests. At the same time, Russia won't have to spend any resources of its own, all the more so as the United States and Western Europe are doing everything possible in order to minimize Russia's role during the solution of such problems.

A similar situation arises in the context of Russia's status as a co-sponsor of the Mideastern peace process. As of today, Russia virtually lacks any leverage for influencing Israel and the United States. Apart from that, it boasts a rather unimpressive potential for influencing the Arab world, i.e. Egypt, Palestine, Syria, etc. This is proved by the fact that Syrian and Lebanese delegates didn't take part in the work of the plenary session of a group for facilitating Mideastern peace talks in Moscow. As a matter of fact, Russia's co-sponsor role virtually boils down to approving specific US actions. It goes without saying that our hard-up Russia is, unfortunately, unable to act otherwise at this stage. On the other hand, though, by unwittingly okaying US mediatory efforts, Russia thus assumes responsibility for all possible consequences of the essentially US-Israeli scenario for deblocking the Mideastern conflict. In the obtaining situation, Russia should better wash its hands of the entire affair, also stating its inability to fulfil all co-sponsor functions at this stage and voicing a principled assessment of real-life peace-process trends. So, what does Russia stand to lose in this particular case? Will it lose its Mideastern influence and presence? But the thing is that such influence and presence are virtually non-existent even today.

Are we going to lose that huge Arab market, after that? This is also highly unlikely. Russia now maintains minimal economic ties with Arab countries, whose markets have been divided rather painstakingly a long time ago and without our involvement. Besides, it would be really hard to invade such markets. The same is true of regional arms markets. Russia should not hope to carve out its own niche inside the Arab oil industry either. This is proved rather vividly by Libya's example. Russia had fought rather actively for abolishing those anti-Libyan economic sanctions, which have already been lifted. But the thing is that Libya now prefers to expand its economic cooperation with Western Europe, rather than Russia. One can also suppose that Russia will experience a similar setback in Iraq. Should Iraq fulfil its promise to Russia's LUKoil company and permit it to take part in developing local oil-fields, even then the Russians will be allotted less attractive areas (where European oil companies refuse to work) in line with less favorable terms. Russia should not expect any substantial investment from the Persian Gulf's countries either. Therefore one is prompted to ask the following question: Does Russia need the Middle East, after all?