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Edited by David Johnson
| ISSUE #43 | April 9, 1999 |
The CDI Russia Weekly is an e-mail newsletter that carries news and
analysis on all aspects of today's Russia, including political, economic,
social, military, and foreign policy issues. With funding from the Carnegie
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Center for Defense Information (CDI), a nonprofit research and education
organization.
If NATO deploys ground troops in Yugoslavia
- an increasingly likely
possibility - President Boris Yeltsin
could have trouble holding back the
groundswell of calls for Russia to help
the Serbs.
Although Yeltsin on Thursday repeated his
firm assertion that Moscow has no
intention of getting militarily involved
in the conflict or arming the Serbs,
he is under pressure to do so from all
sides.
The State Duma, dominated by his Communist
and nationalist opponents, voted
279 to 34 on Wednesday to demand that
the government supply weapons and
military advisers to Yugoslavia.
The president also must contend with the
public's anti-American rage and
calls to restore Russia's pride, and he
faces military leaders whose
pronouncements have sounded increasingly
threatening and independent as NATO
has escalated its air raids.
The clashing views between the government
and the military burst into the
open Thursday with a Kremlin warning to
the top brass.
Alexander Voloshin, the Kremlin chief of
staff, said that top army officers
whose future "militant" remarks are inconsistent
with Yeltsin's position
"would be dismissed immediately."
Interfax cited an anonymous source saying
that General Anatoly Kvashnin,
chief of the general staff, was not likely
to keep his job. Kvashnin has
taken a hawkish line on Yugoslavia and
has not ruled out Russian military aid
to Yugoslavia.
Saturday, Colonel General Leonid Ivashov,
the head of the Defense Ministry
department for international military
cooperation, said that if NATO deployed
ground troops to Yugoslavia, Russia would
take steps "accordingly to the
situation."
He said the military leadership has held
meetings on possible additional
measures to counteract NATO's aggression
in Yugoslavia. The only step Ivashov
made public was the withdrawal of Russian
peacekeeping forces from Bosnia.
Krasnoyarsk region Governor Alexander Lebed,
a retired general who once
headed Yeltsin's Security Council, said
the Yugoslav conflict has allowed
Russians "to get up from our knees."
"Already, both those on the left and those
on the right agree that the
country is being degraded," Lebed said
in an interview published Tuesday in
Komsomolskaya Pravda. "Fifteen years ago,
what is happening right now would
not be possible. But today we are destitute
and weak."Immediately after the
Duma vote Wednesday to arm the Serbs,
Yeltsin's spokesman Dmitry Yakushkin
said such shipments would mean "a slow
drawing of Russia into war" and
"inevitable escalation of the conflict
with unpredictable consequences."
Yeltsin reiterated the position Thursday.
"Our fundamental position is not to get
sucked into a big war and not to
deliver arms," he said at the start of
a meeting with Defense Minister Igor
Sergeyev.
Russia has sent one warship to the Mediterranean
in solidarity with
Yugoslavia but has focused on diplomatic
efforts to end the NATO airstrikes
against Serb positions.
Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said diplomacy
was making some progress. "Such
active political dialogue is contributing
to finding a way out of this
situation," Ivanov told reporters after
talks with visiting Norwegian Foreign
Minister Knut Vollebaek, who heads the
Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe.
At the same time, Sergeyev said Russia
planned to beef up its combat troops
and improve their readiness in response
to NATO airstrikes. Russia won't
increase the size of its military but
boost the state of its combat
divisions, the minister said.
"The plans to strengthen the armed forces
are explained by the new strategic
concept of NATO, under which the alliance
intends to use force without the UN
Security Council's consent - in any part
of the world," Sergeyev said.
Most observers agree that Yeltsin and Prime
Minister Yevgeny Primakov are the
only political figures holding back the
forces pushing for military
involvement in Yugoslavia.
But Lebed said the ailing Yeltsin's position
was so weak that he may not be
able to stop the flow of Russian fighters
or arms to the Serbs.
"Who will ask him for permission?" Lebed
was quoted as saying in an interview
with Der Spiegel.
>From a rational perspective, defense experts
said, Russia's impoverished
military should not, and could not, help
arm Yugoslavia.
Finance Minister Mikhail Zadornov said
Thursday he didn't think "Russia has
the economic resources to participate
in some sort of large-scale military
operations."
But he added that the NATO bombing has
forced the government to drastically
change its views on funding for defense.
"The Finance MInistry has precise instructions
that all Defense Ministry
expenditures are of top priority," Zadornov
said. Both NATO and Russia have
already demonstrated that what they do
in the conflict is "highly
irrational," said Alexander Pikayev, defense
analyst with the Carnegie Moscow
Center.
Pikayev cited Washington's decision, at
a time of tense relations with Russia
over the NATO campaign, to slap sanctions
on three Russian institutions
accused of military cooperation with Syria.
"This is apparently not a very smart move,"
Pikayev said. "The risk of
uncontrolled escalation exists. The situation
is deteriorating."
So what could Russia do?
* Russia could deploy additional warships
to the Mediterranean. The step
could lead to an escalation if Russian
ships attempted to jam NATO
communication and intersect information
about NATO flights. This is
considered unlikely, though, because it
would mean direct confrontation with
NATO.
Nevertheless, the Russian navy reiterated
Thursday that its six additional
ships are ready to head out of their Black
Sea port. There is already a small
intelligence gathering ship, Liman, in
the Mediterranean.
* Russia could resort to covert supplies
of weapons, experts said. The
shipments could be technically difficult
because of NATO's air blockade in
Yugoslavia, and most countries surrounding
Yugoslavia are either NATO members
or hope to become ones.
But Pikayev said it might not be impossible.
"The Balkans are the Balkans, and for money
you could ship everything there,"
he said. "You cannot count Bulgaria, Romania
and Albania out."
The Kremlin has said that Russia will abide
by the international sanctions
against supplying weapons to Yugoslavia.
But if NATO ground operations were to aid
the Kosovo Liberation Army and
supply the separatists with weapons, the
alliance would be breaking the
international sanctions. This, the experts
said, would give Russia a free
hand to ship arms legally.
MOSCOW - Remember ''The Peacemaker''? The
1997 Hollywood flick in which a
maverick Russian general, disgruntled
over the sad state of his once proud
country, steals nuclear warheads for Bosnian
Serb terrorists?
That was the movie. Here is the reality.
Today's maverick is Viktor Chechevatov,
a three-star general and commander
of ground forces in Russia's Far East
region, who is convinced that NATO's
attacks on Yugoslavia are ''the beginning
of World War III.'' No matter how
often Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin
says Russia will stay away from
the fighting, Chechevatov keeps making
public calls for Moscow to send arms
and men, preferably with him in charge,
to fight the American-led alliance
alongside the Serbs.
At the very least, this is insubordination.
But do not look for Chechevatov
to be fired, or even reprimanded, anytime
soon. Much of the country agrees
with Chechevatov when he says NATO's campaign
against Yugoslavia poses ''a
direct threat to Russia.'' And the Kremlin,
which yesterday ordered several
more warships into the Mediterranean,
may be listening, too.
As Russians watch the US-led assault on
Yugoslavia, political and military
hawks are finding more support for their
confrontational policies toward
the West than at any time since the 1991
collapse of the Soviet Union. They
miss the way the West feared the former
USSR, and they want those days back.
That poses a number of dangers, analysts
say. In the short run, the Kremlin
may find itself forced to take an increasingly
militaristic line, even as
Yeltsin repeats his promise not to let
Russia get caught up in the conflict.
But there are other forces in the Russian
leadership who listen when
Chechevatov and other military leaders
say that World War III has begun,
and that Moscow's best move is to aid
the Serbs.
Yesterday, Russia's lower house of parliament,
the State Duma, voted
overwhelmingly for a resolution advising
Yeltsin and his government to send
weapons and an unspecified military mission
to Yugoslavia. Last week, the
upper house passed a similar resolution.
''There exists the risk of the military
pressuring the civilian leadership
for a military reaction,'' said Alexander
Pikayev, an analyst for the
Carnegie Center in Moscow. ''The political
leadership is under greater
pressure from the leftist and nationalist
opposition, which wants to use
the Balkan crisis to come to power.''
Publicly, the Kremlin has so far ignored
Chechevatov's call to arms.
Meanwhile, hundreds of volunteers have
offered to fight alonside the Serbs,
thought of by some here as Russia's traditional
allies because of the two
cultures' common Slav heritage and Orthodox
Christian religion. The
government has told them to stay home.
Yesterday, Yeltsin urged Western leaders
to accept a unilateral peace
proposal offered by Yugoslavia on Tuesday.
Underscoring Moscow's options if
diplomacy fails, a naval spokesman said
a squadron of warships had set out
from the Black Sea base of Sevastopol,
Ukraine. Moscow had previously
informed Turkey that as many as eight
ships, including the missile cruiser
Admiral Golovko and several destroyers
and frigates, could be passing
through the Bosphorus Strait in the next
few days.
Russia says the ships are heading for exercises
in the Mediterranean, but
it is clear they are intended to send
a message to NATO as well.
Already, Moscow has sent an unarmed electronic
reconnaissance ship to
monitor the conflict. The Liman entered
the Adriatic Sea yesterday, where
it will begin relaying information about
NATO air strikes back to Moscow -
and possibly to the Serbs, although Russia
denies that Belgrade will get
direct information from the spy ship.
The danger of all these vessels is not
that some Russian officer might go
freelancing, like that maverick general
in ''The Peacemaker,'' and act
unilaterally to escalate the conflict.
Military analysts say that even
given the deterioration of the Russian
armed forces over the past decade,
the command structure among field officers
is still too rigid to allow
that. But analysts say Russian ships pose
a threat just by being there.
''The presence of Russians in the area
of the conflict could lead to an
uncontrolled escalation of the situation,''
Pikayev said.
Since the bombing began, commentators have
underlined how weak Russia's
military has become, implying that the
Cold War-style rhetoric coming out
of Moscow, and such acts of suspending
ties with NATO, are no more than
symbols because Russia can go no further.
In a way this is true. Russia's military
owes $1.5 billion in back wages,
heating bills, and rent. According to
the the newspaper Segodnya, it fields
only 550 warplanes and 1,200 helicopters,
15 times less than 10 years ago
and about 14 percent of NATO's 12,500
jets and helicopters. Those Black Sea
fleet warships, like many vessels in Russia's
four fleets, have not had
exercises in years.
But Russia still has 6,660 nuclear
warheads. Senior generals have warned
that Moscow would use them if it felt
threatened, and the Northern Fleet
test-fired a ballistic missile in exercises
last week.
But what does ''threatened'' mean? Russia's
defense minister, Igor
Sergeyev, has said that the events in
Yugoslavia are worrisome because they
''could happen anywhere.'' Many
Russians worry NATO could use Kosovo as a
precedent to intervene in Russia's breakaway
province of Chechnya, or in
any of a number of hot spots along proposed
routes for oil pipelines out
from the Caspian Sea.
''The bombing of Yugoslavia could turn
out in the very near future to be
just a rehearsal for similar strikes on
Russia,'' Chechevatov wrote in a
recent letter to Yeltsin. Nearly two-thirds
of Russians agree with the
general, according to a poll by the Moscow-based
Public Opinion Foundation.
Meanwhile, the nuclear winter in Russia's
relations with the West means
that no significant arms-control initiatives
will be signed anytime soon.
More disturbing is the cancellation of
an exchange program that would have
had US and Russian nuclear weapons officers
in constant contact at year's
end to prevent any launches as a result
of Year 2000 computer troubles.
Someone is happy about what the Balkans
crisis may do for Russia's
military: defense factories and military
leaders for whom reduced spending
on the army has been a disaster; officers
who for the first time in years
are holding exercises; officers like Chechevatov,
who recently completed
exercises that ''had nothing to do with
the Balkans'' in which his troops
practiced shooting down Tomahawk cruise
missiles.
These people ''are partying 24 hours a
day,'' in the words of Russian
defense anlyst Pavel Felgenhauer. Parliament
has already called for
increases in defense funding, although
it is hard to say where the money
will come from. The Soviet military once
enjoyed the lion's share of
spending, but the rest of the country
lived in relative squalor as a result.
A long-term danger posed by the hawks'
increasing influence is that
political moderates, and those who favor
constructive relations with the
West, are finding their voices drowned
out by what one legislator, Alexi
Arbatov, called ''the feeling of helpless
rage'' experienced by many
Russians. This may be the lasting legacy
of the Balkan conflict for Russia.
The Kosovar Albanians will not be the only
casualties of the disastrous
U.S. policy in the Balkans. Bill
Clinton's successor as president will
have to deal with the impact of this war
on U.S.-European relations, NATO
and NATO Enlargement, and U.S. national
security policy. Other issues,
however, cannot wait.
Clinton himself must deal immediately with
the impact of this war on U.S.
relations with Russia, which have plummeted
to their lowest levels since
the Cold War. Russia-American cooperation
is not only important to key
strategic and nuclear issues, but bilateral
cooperation is essential to
finding an honorable diplomatic and political
exit from the Balkans quagmire.
Going backward
One of the more worrisome aspects of the
war in the Balkans is Russian
Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov's return
to Soviet-style diplomacy. There
were hints of such a direction from the
Kremlin in December, when Moscow
recalled its ambassador from Washington
to protest Operation Desert Fox
against Iraq. The Kremlin had not
resorted to such a step since the Cold
War. Since the bombing of Serbia
began, Primakov has shelved ratification
of START II, the Russian Duma has threatened
to endorse the return of
nuclear missiles to Ukraine and Belarus,
and anti-Americanism has reached
unprecedented levels in Moscow.
Primakov returns to old Soviet-style diplomacy
Fortunately, Russia's actions are mostly
style and not substance. Russia
simply is not the Soviet Union in the
things that it can do, and this has
severely limited Primakov's actions.
Still, the Russian Defense Ministry
overruled Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov
and sent an electronic
intelligence-gathering ship to the Mediterranean,
and it is considering the
deployment of combatants.
President Boris Yeltsin and Primakov have
resisted the general staff's
swaggering and have pledged to keep Russia
out of the conflict, so Moscow's
actions thus far have been political gestures
and not military ones. And
the day after cruise missiles began hitting
targets in Yugoslavia, Russia
and the United States quietly signed an
agreement to convert uranium from
Russian nuclear weapons into fuel for
American nuclear reactors. So
despite the cracks in the relationship,
all is not yet lost.
Can he help?
It is significant to note that the main
reason Russia has been supportive
of Yugoslavia is because of nationalist
feelings rather than because of any
support for Milosevic, an embarrassment
to the Kremlin for the past 10
years. This is analogous to Primakov's
careful support for Iraq, where he
has found the actions of Saddam Hussein
to be reprehensible. Both
Milosevic and Saddam have manipulated and
lied to the Kremlin over the past
10 years, and Moscow has consistently
condemned the actions of both tyrants
in international fora.
Primakov is obviously engaging in acts
of bluff, but his actions --
particularly his pathetic summit with
Milosevic early in the war -- have
touched a domestic nerve in the United
States and a diplomatic nerve in
Washington. Primakov is cordially
disliked in Washington for his embrace
of Saddam in the winter of 1990-1991.
According to former National
Security Council Deputy Director Robert
Gates, Primakov's meeting in the
Cabinet Room with Bush's staff was "as
sharp and unfriendly an exchange as
I could remember."
But the dislike of Primakov, and the current
problems in U.S.-Russian
relations, should not cause American leaders
to forget that Primakov enjoys
some influence with Milosevic. He
understands that the Serb leader, like
Saddam, must be allowed to save face,
and that Russia could prove to be an
intermediary at a delicate point in negotiations.
Primakov already has
played this role in Iraq, and there is
every possibility that he might be
able to do the same in Yugoslavia.
The Bush administration was too quick
to write off Primakov nearly 10 years
ago; the Clinton administration, at
least, has been careful not to burn its
bridges to the Kremlin.
Time to think again
Russia's stake in both crises has been
its goal to have a major role in the
security architecture in both the Persian
Gulf and the Balkans, which have
been central to Russia's interests for
200 years. Both Bush and Clinton
have erred in seeing Russia as a supplicant,
in trying to marginalize
Russia's international role, and in excluding
Russia from major diplomatic
negotiations, such as the agreed framework
for a nuclear freeze in North
Korea.
The expansion of NATO to Russia's borders
marks the worst aspect of U.S.
diplomacy toward Russia since the dissolution
of the Soviet Union as well
as the most backward step in U.S. strategic
thinking since the war in
Vietnam. NATO's actions against
Serbia have only confirmed Moscow's
worst-case views of NATO Enlargement.
If Clinton is genuinely concerned about
the state of international
diplomacy at the start of the 21st century,
then he needs to take immediate
steps to restore strategic balance to
U.S. relations with Russia. It is
time to anchor Russia to the Western security
architecture, to find a role
for Russia in international peacekeeping,
and to revamp the arms-control
process in order to deal with the surfeit
of strategic weaponry.
The future of arms control and disarmament,
nuclear security and safety,
and the geopolitical environment in Eurasia
depend on a stable
Russian-American relationship.
Prague, 8 April 1999 (RFE/RL) -- Russian
Prosecutor-General Yuri Skuratov
yesterday tried to rally support for his
cause in the lower house of
parliament, the State Duma, before the
upper house -- the Federation Council
-- considers his resignation later this
month. He submitted it yesterday, the
second time in the last two months.
Skuratov's statement that his suspension
by President Boris Yeltsin last week
was a "flagrant violation of the law"
and an illegal attempt to hide
corruption in the Kremlin generated applause
in the Duma yesterday. He
accused senior state officials of seeking
to put pressure on law-enforcement
bodies by opening criminal proceedings
against him and trying to remove him
from office. He said the measures against
him are aimed at hampering progress
on a number of high-profile corruption
cases.
Yeltsin last week suspended Skuratov from
his job on the basis of ongoing
judicial proceedings for alleged abuse
of power. In February, Skuratov handed
in his resignation but the upper house
reconfirmed him in office despite
Yeltsin's wish to have him removed.
Skuratov had been invited to speak before
the Duma yesterday by Communist
deputies, who hoped he would give them
fresh ammunition against Yeltsin ahead
of an impeachment debate set for April
15.
However, Skuratov refused to name any of
the allegedly corrupt officials whom
he has accused of plotting against him
because, in his words, "these are
things that may cause a public outburst
today."
While Communist deputies refrained from
criticizing Skuratov after his
speech, other deputies were less sympathetic.
The leader of the centrist "Our
Home Is Russia" faction, Vladimir Ryzhkov,
spoke with journalists:
"For the moment, I have the impression
that the prosecutor's office and
Skuratov himself are doing what an inexperienced
soldier would do sometimes
at night. He takes a gun and, afraid of
noises in the woods, starts shooting
at all sides simultaneously, in order
to overcome his fear. It's the same
here. First there are criminal charges
against [anti-semitic communist deputy
Albert] Makashev, then on [business tycoons
Boris] Berezovsky and [Aleksandr]
Smolensky. Everything that can surface
is brought up, to get the support of
the right and of the left. It is clear
that it is not a question of fighting
corruption here. It is just an attempt
to defend himself from dismissal using
political means."
Skuratov has been investigating alleged
wrongdoing -- including possible
bribe-taking -- by Kremlin officials who
allegedly may have given large
construction contracts to a Swiss company,
Mabetex.
Mabetex and Pavel Borodin, the powerful
official who oversees the management
of Kremlin properties -- an empire of
government buildings, houses, holiday
resorts and cars -- have denied any wrongdoing.
Prosecutors have also removed documents
from some Kremlin offices in a move
the Kremlin said was politically motivated.
No one has been charged.
Yeltsin cannot fire Skuratov because this
is the prerogative of the
Federation Council. However, after suspending
Skuratov last Friday, he asked
senators to make the decision permanent.
Regional bosses who form the chamber
have sided with Skuratov so far, but it
is unclear what they will do when
they consider the issue again later this
month. Federation Council speaker
Yegor Stroyev seemed to indicate at the
weekend that this time things might
not go so smoothly for Skuratov. But it
remains unclear how much influence he
may have on members of the upper house.
Last month's vote indicated that regional
bosses feel how rapidly power is
slipping away from the Kremlin. In this
respect, an important sign may come
from the impeachment debate and from the
future moves of the two men seen as
the most powerful potential presidential
candidates -- Prime Minister Yevgeny
Primakov and Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov,
himself a member of the Federation
Council, who last month openly supported
Skuratov.
Primakov said ahead of Skuratov's Duma
appearance that he thinks the
prosecutor-general should go. He was quoted
as saying that "naturally, he
must leave the post. All this fuss surrounding
him is destabilizing society."
Skuratov yesterday rebuffed accusations
that he had failed to fight
corruption since his appointment in 1995
by pointing out several high-profile
cases. And he hesitantly took indirect
credit for warrants issued yesterday
for the arrest of Berezovsky and Smolensky.
Skuratov did not say who had issued the
warrants and gave no details of the
charges. Russian media said the warrant
for Berezovsky's arrest followed an
investigation into alleged money laundering
and illegal business activities.
Berezovsky, currently in France, denies
the allegations, dismissing the
charges as a maneuver to prevent him from
returning home.
Berezovsky is the most outspoken of the
former oligarchs and, until recently,
the most influential because of his formerly
strong ties with Yeltsin's
closest circle. The increasingly powerful
Primakov, however, has expressed
annoyance at Berezovsky's criticism of
his government.
The warrant for Smolensky's arrest is allegedly
tied to an investigation into
a theft of state funds. He also denies
any wrongdoing. Smolensky is currently
in Austria.
Anatoly Kucherena, a lawyer close to Berezovsky,
said the fact that the
warrants were issued for both men at the
same time shows this was staged by
the prosecutor-general's office for political
effect.
MOSCOW, April 7 (Interfax)--Russian Defense
Minister Igor Sergeyev has announced his
ministry's intentions "to revise
plans for down-sizing the country's armed
forces." However, upon his
return from Tajikistan to Moscow on Wednesday
Sergeyev told the press
that the current number of army personnel,
1.2 million, would not be
lowered. He said regrouping will be achieved
by reinforcing combat units
with auxiliary formations.
Sergeyev ascribed the plans to strengthen
the Russian armed forces to meet
the new NATO strategic concept, under
which the alliance plans to use its
forces outside its area of responsibility
and without the mandate of the
U.N. Security Council, "for example, in
any spot in the world." "This
alarms not only me as the defense minister,
but also the president of
Russia. The steps which NATO has taken
against Yugoslavia increase our
anxiety," he said.
If NATO opts for a ground operation in
Kosovo, "the conflict will spill
outside the borders of Yugoslavia," Sergeyev
said. He regretted that
since the beginning of the NATO military
actions "Moscow's relations with
the North Atlantic alliance built up over
the past few years have been
destroyed." "Starting in 1990, we moved
toward one another, made
compromises," he said. Sergeyev made it
clear that ratification of the
START-2 treaty by the Russian State Duma
is out of the question under the
present circumstances.
Some may say that U.S.-Russian relations
are "estranged but leading toward
alienation," reported Glenn Schweitzer
at a Kennan Institute lecture on 22
February 1999. However, Schweitzer, Director
of the Office for Central
Europe and Eurasia, National Research
Council in Washington, D.C., argued
that the current situation is just another
"bump in the road that we'll
have to ride out."
Schweitzer conducted interviews and a structured
survey of thirty research
and development (R&D) institutes across
Russia with teams doing case
studies in three atomic cities--Obninsk,
Zarechny, and Snezhinsk. The
purpose of these studies was to assess
the process and future of technology
development in Russia.
Obninsk has managed to attain certain autonomy
from Moscow in decisions
concerning state-owned facilities in the
city. As a result, federal,
regional, and local governments work together
to develop the industrial
potential there.
Zarechny, Schweitzer argued, has a chance
for success. It only has a small
population to support. City managers also
know how to operate in the
international market system through their
rare gas market. Finally,
Zarechny has discovered a gold mine under
the city.
Snezhinsk, on the other hand, is not in
such a good position, remarked
Schweitzer. The city has a larger population
and is located several hours
from any airport. According to Schweitzer,
Russia will need to subsidize
Snezhinsk for the next several decades
because it is unlikely the city can
commercialize its technologies without
government money.
Building on these studies, Schweitzer developed
four hypotheses for
technology development. First, that in
the foreseeable future,
technological developments will have little
effect on what happens in
Russia. Second, the U.S. will need to
be engaged in the national security
area for a long time. Third, given that
the Russian government invests
roughly 4 percent of what the U.S. government
does in R&D, federal
investment will not make a difference.
Finally, a market economy may not be
the best avenue for technology development
in Russia.
With regard to the legal framework, in
most countries of the world,
including the U.S., R&D
receives certain tax breaks. In Russia,
there is discussion of no tax
breaks for anyone. However, a special
relationship between R&D and taxes
has been demonstrated for decades in countries
that have done well in
technology. In regard to intellectual
property rights (IPR), in Russia the
government retains rights to all technology
developed using government
funds. In the U.S. by law IPR rights automatically
pass to universities,
non-profits, and small businesses. The
lack of such a law in Russia does
not provide an incentive for R&D.
In addition, there is widespread feeling
in Russia that the West has stolen
their technology both physically and metaphorically
via the "brain drain."
Although there is a slow but steady exodus
of some bright researchers,
remarked Schweitzer, the brain drain--
going abroad--is not very great.
However, the internal brain drain--researchers
in Russia leaving the
sciences-- is massive. The number of active
researchers in Russia is a
fraction of the number reported to be
working in R&D.
Recently, schools have seen an increase
in applications for science and
engineering among Russia's youth. One
possible explanation for this
increase, Schweitzer explained, is that
students are dissatisfied with the
quality of instruction in the business
schools and choose instead to follow
the route of those bank presidents who
studied physics instead of economics
and business. This rationale explains
why there is such a disparity between
the number of graduates from science programs
and those who continue to
work in the field.
Schweitzer remarked that U.S. programs
in Russia in the non-proliferation
area are well-conceived but have had problems
with implementation and need
to be expanded. While many people involved
have little knowledge about
Russian culture or language, this is slowly
improving. U.S. technology
commercialization efforts, however, have
been insignificant. Schweitzer
argued that our role in that area may
be "to cheer on the Russians as they
look for their domestic customer base."
According to Schweitzer, giving
money to Russia should not be considered
"assistance" as it protects U.S.
interests.
There are a few things--none very popular
with U.S. policy makers--which
Russia should do to stimulate technological
development, Schweitzer
suggested. One is to develop a good regional
customer base. Another is to
adopt a "Buy Russian" law stating that
Russian firms should buy Russian
technology if government money is involved
and that technology is
reasonably competitive.
Schweitzer concluded with three hopeful
signs for Russia. First, due to the
economic crisis and scarcity of dollars,
Russian companies can penetrate
the domestic market because foreign imports
are too expensive. Second,
production sharing agreements which contain
some "Buy Russian" clauses are
moving through the parliament. According
to Schweitzer, these agreements
may resolve some concerns of Western companies
and may attract the West to
help Russian technologies move in a more
productive way. Finally,
Schweitzer argued, the First Deputy Minister
of Atomic Energy's recent
announcement of Russia's plans to downsize
their nuclear complex
demonstrates that Russia is headed in
the right direction.
Jodi Koehn is program specialist at the
Kennan Institute of Advanced
Russian Studies.
Komsomolskaya Pravda
6 April 1999
[translation for personal use only]
Interview with Aleksandr Lebed, governor
of Krasnoyarsk Kray,
conducted by Aleksey Makurin: "General
Aleksandr Lebed: Americans Are
Used To Fighting Television Wars: The
Albanians Are Happy, of Course,
That Their Homes Have Been Razed by
the NATO Liberators"
"Russia must not be allowed to be dragged
into the
armed conflict!" -- is the view of those
who favor ending the war in the
Balkans by purely diplomatic means. "We
must supply Yugoslavia with
weapons and send volunteers!" -- claim
opponents. But what does the
ex-secretary of the Security Council and
now governor of Krasnoyarsk Kray
think on this score?
[Makurin] Aleksandr Ivanovich, it
is said that Krasnoyarsk Kray has
virtually lost you of late. You are said
to have been offered your old post of
secretary of the Security Council. Is
that true?
[Lebed] These are stupid rumors.
No one has offered me anything.
Moreover, I would not return. I would
not return to a single appointed post under the
current system. In 1996 when I accepted
the offer to work in the Security
Council I had personal commitments. I
promised people that I would stop
the operation of the factory of death
in Chechnya, which was producing
300 corpses a day.
[Makurin] Some people are now urging
Russia to intervene in the new war
in the Balkans. Chechevatov, commander
in chief of the Far East Military
District, has even put himself forward
as commander of volunteer
detachments if they are sent to Yugoslavia.
Would you agree to take on
such a mission?
[Lebed] Why is this necessary? The
approach must be pragmatic. I am
absolutely convinced that quite simple
and effective measures must be
taken. First, the unilateral lifting of
the economic embargo on
Yugoslavia. That will enable us to remember
our own treaty obligations as
allies.
Second, aggression is being waged
not against an individual country but
against the whole of Europe.
Hence the third point: the declaration
of Europe, where we live, as a zone
of geopolitical interest of our own. And
the fourth point: Yugoslavia
must be supplied with Russian defensive
arms. I do, of course, feel sorry
for the American flyers, but if they stop
flying they will stop being
shot down.
[Makurin] Russia is also suffering
losses from the war: Economic agreements
are being wrecked. And yet for the first
time in many years there is
unity in society: Universal condemnation
of the bombing of Yugoslav
cities. Are you glad?
[Lebed] I have been talking about
this everywhere during these last three
days, including at the Federation Council.
Fate has offered us the
opportunity to get up off our knees: Both
the left and the right agree
that the country is being humiliated.
What is happening would have been
simply impossible 50 years ago. But today
we are destitute and weak. We
can influence nothing. While our relations
with the highly celebrated G-7
turn out to be the relations of a master
and his dog. First they feed the
dog, then it yelps and they give it a
kick.
[Makurin] Which way is military victory
in Yugoslavia heading? What do you
think about this as a fighting general?
[Lebed] The Americans cannot beat
the Yugoslavs in this war. Look at the
concerts being held on the squares of
Belgrade. Stealth bombers are flown
against them and they dance. They are
morally superior to the aggressor.
The Americans have been fighting Saddam
Husayn for almost 10 years now.
They have sent thousands of Iraqis to
their graves, but Saddam Husayn is
alive and well and will probably die a
natural death. But America has
this hobby of fighting Iraq. Now a second
hobby -- Milosevic -- has
appeared. But again Milosevic is in power
and millions of Serbs are
suffering.
When a people -- Serbian, Chechen,
Russian, or Vietnamese -- it is not
important which -- start to be killed,
the whole people, young and old,
start to fight 24 hours a day. All the
art of warfare simply comes to a
stop here. When children, grandmothers,
and grandfathers fight with
saucepans, choppers, and arsenic, no military
leader can win.
And the Americans are used to fighting
television wars. For them war is
like a Star Wars movie. It is nothing
of the kind. The Serbs have strong
morale and centuries-old traditions of
partisan warfare. Their country
will be demolished but not defeated by
bombing. And as soon as NATO tries
to put its splendid infantry into the
country, no matter what flak
jackets and helmets they are equipped
with, a shell will fall and dozens
will be dead. As soon as the first hundred
corpses, draped in the Stars
and Stripes, arrive in America public
opinion in the United States will
instantly sunder and change, and all these
potential victors will be
lambasted.
Moreover, there is another, almost
amusing situation: On 4 April it is
NATO's 50th anniversary. They wanted to
make a pledge (as happens here for 7
November) to give themselves a present.
One has been given. What decision
has Ukraine, down to become a NATO member,
made? Its Rada [Supreme
Council] has resolved to abandon the state's
nuclear-free status. And
this means that there can be no question
of Kiev's joining NATO in the
immediate future. This means a shift toward
Russia. They have started thinking clearly.
The conflict between two principles of
international law - the right of
self-determination and the principle of
territorial integrity - does not have
a universal solution. Each such conflict
is unfortunate in its own way. There
is only one tragic rule: If the conflict
spins out of control, it can create
such a wall of mutual hatred and such
a moat of blood between two peoples
that they will never be able to live together
peacefully in one state.
In this case, the stronger of the two has
only one way to maintain its
"territorial integrity" - to destroy or
drive out the "separatists." Russia
lost the war in Chechnya not because the
army "was not allowed to win," but
because after two years of senseless,
bloody warfare, Russia understood what
its "victory" would consist of and was
horrified by it.
The regime of Slobodan Milosevic is ready
to score that kind of victory. Its
troops are methodically burning Albanian
villages, "cleansing" them and
creating tens of thousands of refugees.
Russia, when it comes to the Balkan conflict,
is living in a virtual world,
in which the Albanians, with their burned
villages and murdered civilians,
simply do not exist. For millions of Russians,
who never watch CNN and who do
not listen to the BBC World Service, there
is only proud little Yugoslavia,
which is being attacked by the world's
only remaining superpower and its
allies.
The thousands in Russia's political class,
who are well-informed about what
is going on in Yugoslavia, prefer to fool
themselves in the name of their own
geopolitical conceptions, "Slavic brotherhood,"
Russia's strategic position
in the Balkans and so on.
Those who do not agree prefer to remain
silent or, as in Eugene Ionesco's
famous play, step by step turn into rhinoceroses.
The most the state
television channels allow themselves -
after 10 minutes on the suffering
wives of Russian diplomats who remain
in Belgrade, and five minutes on a rock
concert in the center of Belgrade - is
several shots devoted to the sea of
Albanian refugees who have been expelled
from their homes.
Meanwhile, the "negotiations" between Ibrahim
Rugova and Milosevic were
treated as sensational news, and reported
with footage showing the Kosovo
Albanian leader, whose legs can barely
support him, together with Milosevic,
smiling paternally. For those who remember
the "negotiations" in 1968 between
Alexander Dubcek, after he was beaten
and taken to Moscow in handcuffs, and
Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, there was
nothing sensational about these
Rugova-Milosevic "talks."
The same channel's "Hero of the Day" was
Alexander Lebed, who called for
"consolidating the nation." The conditions
necessary for consolidation, in
the general's view, include incarcerating
all those who do not agree in
Lefortovo.
In regard to the Kosovo crisis, the priorities
of powerful political forces,
who are very influential and becoming
even more so, appear to involve mainly
domestic political concerns. These forces
are mostly not interested in the
Albanians or the Serbs, or even in Milosevic,
who is of their type. Yes, they
are ready to send Russian soldiers to
die for Milosevic's divine right to
burn Albanian villages. But their main
goal is something different.
They would like to transform Yevgeny Primakov's
aerial turn into a turn by
Russia toward isolation, toward rogue
states, toward providing those regimes
with modern military technology, toward
the psychology and practice of a
besieged fortress.
Following are overviews of trends in media
coverage on Kosovo from Albania,
Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia,
Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia,
Slovenia, Russia, Georgia and Ukraine....
BULGARIA: Available comment from
Sofia complained of "Western," i.e., U.S.
"pressure" on Bulgaria to accept Kosovar
refugees. While a left-leaning
paper reasoned that "logic dictates that
countries near and far" help
relieve Macedonia of its refugee burden,
a number of others insisted that
Bulgaria should "adamantly defend" its
position on the number of people it
is willing to accept. Top-circulation
Trud blamed "democratic Europe and
the U.S." for having "caused the humanitarian
crisis in Kosovo," and for
wanting to the "isolate" the refugees
"in economically weak Macedonia and
Bulgaria, a.k.a., 'the backyard of Europe.'"
Dailies also expressed
resentment over the "war's" perceived
negative impact on the Bulgarian
economy--which they estimated to be in
the millions of dollars. In
addition, editorialists worried that,
should NATO deploy ground forces
against Yugoslavia, Bulgaria would become
"NATO's strategic rear."
ROMANIA: Commentary in Bucharest
offered sharply contrasting views. A
majority of opposition dailies was quite
critical of the NATO bombing
campaign, contending that it was an "illegal"
act taken against a sovereign
state. These critics argued that
"what Milosevic was unable to do, the
bombardment has accomplished....
Kosovo is depopulated." Some asserted
that America's "good Samaritan image
risks being turned into the image of
a ruthless policeman."
Pro-government Romania Libera, on the other hand,
in numerous articles proffered distinctly
different assessments of the NATO
mission, contending that the Alliance's
action is justified, and to support
it is squarely in the interests of Romania.
"Our national interest is
totally different from Moscow's
interests...and under whose influence we
would be condemned to return in
case we are crazy enough to move away from
NATO," one editorial stated. Other
commentaries dwelled on Yugoslav
President Milosevic and the major role
he plays in the crisis. "When you
kill thousands of your fellow citizens,
then sovereignty is nothing but a
clumsy screen to camouflage a torture
chamber. In this sense Milosevic is
no different from Ceausescu. If
Romanians have a debt toward the Serbs,
it should be to support the Serbian
people in their efforts to escape from
Milosevic's dictatorship," Romania Libera
concluded. Meanwhile, Deputy
Secretary of State Strobe Talbott's recent
one-day visit to Romania
received extensive and positive media
coverage. All April 7 major dailies
carried news reports of his meetings with
the foreign minister and the
president. The coverage
both in the print media and on television was,
for Romania, refreshingly straightforward
and covered most of the subjects
raised during the visit.
RUSSIA: From the outset, the vast
majority of Russian media has been
harshly critical of NATO's military intervention.
Papers of all
stripes--official, neo-communist, centrist
and reformist--excoriated NATO's
bombing campaign on the grounds that it
was it was "an aggression against a
sovereign state" without the blessing
of the UN, and hence a violation of
international law. A typical sentiment
held that the aim of the U.S.,
"with NATO as its instrument," was to
establish a "Pax Americana" in Europe
and beyond. Some agreed that "the
Balkan war has put an end to detente"
with the U.S., while others fretted that
it would encourage
"anti-Americanism" in their country.
Denunciations of NATO's action have
continued apace--with papers still maintaining
that "NATO is the chief
culprit," and that "the Americans are...responsible
for turning an internal
civil conflict into a major European war."
A very few voices, however,
have emerged over the last week that have
directed their criticism not at
NATO, but at Moscow's reaction to the
Kosovo crisis. Reformist Izvestiya
noted on April 8, for example, "As Russia
consistently connives with
Milosevic and ignores ethnic cleansing
in central Europe, it cannot claim
to be 'morally right.'" A couple
of dailies agreed with reformist weekly
Moskovskiye Novosti, which attributed
the "mass-scale hysteria in Russia
over NATO action" to "slanted" news reports:
"The Western media's focus
[on genocide and deportation] is completely
absent in Russian TV reports,
as if there is no such thing as a humanitarian
catastrophe in Kosovo. This
makes the NATO air raids look like a senseless
and absurd aggression."
GEORGIA: From the beginning of the
NATO operation, Georgian media have
stuck to strict reporting on the events
in Kosovo. Reporters mostly cite
international media stories and produce
very little original material.
Georgian print and electronic media have
left it to the public to make a
judgment by printing and broadcasting
news and analysis by both Western
sources, such as Reuters, and Russian
media.
UKRAINE: Ukrainian electronic and
print media offered contrasting views of
the Kosovo crisis. In their most
recent coverage, Ukrainian TV stations
have taken fairly balanced and moderate
positions on the situation,
focusing on the humanitarian plight of
the refugees and the Ukrainian
government's efforts to assist the refugees
in Macedonia. Print media
remained critical of the NATO operation
against Yugoslavia, but have
moderated their views somewhat in the
wake of increased reporting of
Serbian ethnic cleansing and the forced
expulsions of Kosovo Albanians.
Centrist Den held that NATO is incapable
of achieving its objectives by the
use of air strikes alone, and has inadvertently
"contributed" to the
Serbian campaign of ethnic cleansing of
Kosovo Albanians. Opposition
weekly Polityka, while not absolving Mr.
Milosevic of "Serbian crimes in
Kosovo," nonetheless deemed the NATO air
strikes "cruel and rash steps"
against Yugoslavia and the world community,
and a "violation of
international law."
For more information, please contact:
U.S. Information Agency
Office of Public Liaison
Telephone: (202) 619-4355
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