#1
Russia: Clinton Says, Little That U.S. Can Do On Chechnya
By Lisa McAdams

U.S. President Bill Clinton held a wide-ranging news conference at the U.S. 
State Department yesterday, during which he announced agreement on the 
resumption of Israeli-Syrian peace talks next week in Washington. But on 
another contentious foreign policy matter -- Russia's ongoing military 
campaign in breakaway Chechnya, RFE/RL's Lisa McAdams reports the president 
said there was likely little left the U.S. could do to bring a halt to the 
conflict. 

Washington, 9 December 1999 (RFE/RL) -- It was a red-carpet roll-out for what 
was billed as U.S. President Bill Clinton's final open press conference of 
the year, which was held yesterday (Wednesday) at the State Department.

RFE/RL's correspondent reports it was perhaps fitting then that while the 
president took a great deal of domestic policy questions -- ranging from 
race, to gun control, to health care -- he was questioned most diligently 
about Russia's ongoing military campaign in Chechnya. 

Specifically, the president was asked if he was considering taking any action 
in advance of this Saturday's Russian deadline, which urged all civilians in 
the Chechen capital, Grozny, to leave, lest they be considered "terrorists." 

Up until 24 hours ago, Russian Generals had stated they planned to smash 
Grozny into submission. However, since the Russian ultimatum was delivered, 
there has been a chorus of negative criticism from the West, leading some 
officials in Russia to appear to back down from previous hard-line 
statements. 

Clinton yesterday reiterated his concern for the civilians of Chechnya, whom 
he said should not be punished for the actions of separatist Islamic rebels. 
At the same time, Clinton said he was not sure what else he could do.

The president was more assertive in his view that the imposition of 
international sanctions against Russia -- as some have suggested -- is not 
the right course: 

"A sanctions regime has to be imposed by the United Nations, and Russia has a 
veto there. But I am not sure that would be in our interests, or in the 
interests of the ultimate resolution of the crisis."

Clinton told reporters that two-thirds of U.S. aid to Russia went for 
programs to safeguard Russia's nuclear materials, while the remaining 
one-third was aimed at building democracy in Russia. As such, Clinton said 
U.S. interests would not be furthered in terminating that aid. 

But Clinton did leave open the possibility of withholding U.S. support for 
international Monetary Fund (IMF) loans to Russia to raise pressure for a 
political settlement over Chechnya. He also noted that as of now there is no 
pending IMF transfer because of the general opinion by the IMF that not all 
the economic conditions have been met. 

The president also reiterated his view that Russia was and would continue to 
pay a "heavy price" for its campaign in Chechnya: 

"I think Russia is already paying a heavy price. I think they'll pay a heavy 
price in two ways. First of all, I don't think the strategy will work. 
Secondly, the continuation of it and the amassing of hundreds of thousands of 
refugees which will have to be cared for by the international community -- 
we've already set aside, I think, at least $ 10 million to try to make our 
contributions for it -- will further alienate the global community from 
Russia. And that's a bad thing because they need support, not just from the 
IMF and the World Bank; they need investors, they need people to have 
confidence in what they're doing." 

Clinton, who appeared somber throughout much of the news conference, 
concluded his remarks on Chechnya by saying that most of life's greatest 
wounds for individuals or countries are "self-inflicted." And he said he 
believed that too would be the case for Russia, unless they take immediate 
steps to move away from forcing a military solution to the Chechen conflict.   

#4
RUSSIAN, U.S. PRESIDENTS' STATEMENTS DO NOT MEAN COLD SPELL IN RELATIONS
- PUTIN

     MOSCOW. Dec  9 (Interfax)  - Russia  maintains very  good relations
with the  United States  and with its leadership, Russian Prime Minister
Vladimir Putin told the press on Thursday.

     U.S. President  Bill Clinton's  criticism of  Russia's operation in
Chechnya "was motivated by the wish to save Russia additional problems,"
he said.

     "I think  it is absolutely incorrect to present information in such
a way as suggests a chill in Russian-American relations," Putin said.

     Regarding  Yeltsin's  statement  to  this  effect  in  Beijing,  he
expressed  his   confidence  that  "the  Russian  and  U.S.  presidents'
statements are not aimed at [cooling down relations]."

     "As far  as the  nuclear component  is concerned,  it is  and  will
always be there," Putin added.

     Commenting on  whether the  Russian government  fears international
isolation or  the termination of financial aid, Putin said, "Russia is a
great power. It does not and will not fear anything."
     He said  that "no ultimatum was given to the residents of Chechnya.
The civilian  population received  a warning  motivated by concern about
their security," he said.

     "Behind the  positions taken  by individual  foreign leaders  is an
insufficiency of  information about the situation in the North Caucasus.
Maybe through our own fault," he said.

     On the  subject of  the upcoming  EU summit in Helsinki, Putin said
once again  that "Russia  is ready  to elaborate  on its position at any
level." "Russia  desires to  be on friendly terms with all countries and
maintain good-neighbor  relations with  all. But  if the break-up of the
state is the sacrifice for such relations, we must think long and hard,"
Putin said.  

#5
RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol. 3, No. 238, Part I, 9 December 1999

DUMA TO DECIDE NEXT WEEK ON START-2 VOTE? The State Duma will
decide on 13 December whether to include the issue of
ratifying the START-2 treaty on its agenda, Russian Defense
Minister Igor Sergeev told reporters following a meeting of
the Duma's Council, AP and Russian agencies reported. While
the government is a strong advocate of ratifying the treaty,
which was signed by the U.S. and Russia in 1993, the
parliament remains divided over the issue. Vladimir Lukin
(Yabloko), head of the Duma Foreign Affairs Committee, said
his faction will vote in favor of ratification, while
Communist leader Zyuganov commented that his party still
opposes the treaty as being against national interests.
Reuters quoted Liberal Democratic Party of Russia leader
Vladimir Zhirinovskii as saying that estimates show 200
deputies in the 450-strong Duma are ready to vote for and 200
against ratifying START-2. JC

MOSCOW WAITING FOR U.S. RESPONSE TO JOINT ABM COMMISSION.
Commander of Russia's Strategic Rocket Forces Vladimir
Yakovlev told journalists in Moscow on 8 December that Russia
has not yet received a response to its proposal to set up a
joint commission with the U.S. to examine the threat posed by
so-called rogue states such as Iran and North Korea. Yakovlev
first made that proposal on Russian Public Television last
month (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 22 November 1999). He indicated
on 8 December that there have been no official talks on the
issue but that a Russian delegation visiting the U.S. in
November suggested such an option. Also on 8 December,
Yakovlev announced that a second batch of Topol-M missiles
will go into service at the end of this week. Those missiles
will be stationed alongside the first batch of 10 Topol-Ms,
which went into service last December at Tatishchevo in
Saratov Oblast, according to ITAR-TASS on 8 December (see
"RFE/RL Newsline," 11 October 1999). JC

#6
Moscow Times
December 10, 1999 
NOTES OF AN IDLER: Chechens Are Political Tools For Everyone 
By Fyodor Gavrilov 

So, it's happened. The last bulwark of Russian national solidarity - unity in 
the decision to conquer the Chechen commanders - is collapsing under the 
weight of election confrontations. 

It's symbolic that this collapse coincides with the five year anniversary of 
the beginning of the first Chechen war. It's also symbolic that Gennady 
Zyuganov's Communist Party and its "great national politics of Lenin and 
Stalin" remains above the conflict. 

Kremlin parties like Sergei Shoigu's Unity, Our Home Is Russia, and the Union 
of Right Forces are still playing the patriotic card. 

I can't help but note how quickly Russian liberals have found themselves in 
the position of their Serbian equivalent, Vuk Drashkovich, whose ideological 
development during the Kosovo crisis seemed to many illogical and unexpected. 
Thank God that Russia has no Milosevic! 

At the same time, parties which decided a few weeks ago that it was more 
profitable to play the opposition role (Grigory Yavlinsky's Yabloko party and 
particularly Yury Luzhkov's Fatherland-All Russia) were the first to use the 
double-edged weapons of anti-war propaganda. This can be seen on NTV, which 
sympathizes with Luzhkov, and Petersburg TV, which is reportedly under the 
control of St. Petersburg Governor Vladimir Yakovlev. 

The pacifists from Petersburg TV have re-broadcast images of corpses of 
soldiers from 1995. The intellectual channel NTV showed one crying mother and 
suggested that viewers multiply her sorrow by thousands more mothers. It's a 
powerful technique, but it neither changes nor solves the Chechen problem. 

On Tuesday U.S. President Bill Clinton called Moscow's policy in Chechnya 
"counterproductive." This criticism was answered by Yeltsin from Beijing. 
However, it's not worth exaggerating Yeltsin's statements: He probably wanted 
to please the East rather than spook the West. 

But either way, it's impossible not to agree with Clinton. The Russian army 
is not fighting Chechen forces efficiently. The Chechen forces aren't scared 
and hope that public opinion in Russia and in the West will stop the army. 
One group of politicians want to fight the war to victory - with an eye on 
winning the elections. The other, while undecided, seems ready to take an 
opposing position, with the same goal. The actual women and old people being 
fired upon and bombed don't get anyone's pity. 

All sides of this political triangle use these people as a living shield for 
their political ambitions. 

All the players are counterproductive. The temporary division of the Moscow 
political elite into "militarists" and "pacifists" might lead to a political 
compromise, but this is difficult to believe. Maybe the moderate Aslan 
Maskhadov could sacrifice his former political enemies Shamil Basayev and 
Salman Raduyev, to ease the suffering of his people. But this is also 
unlikely. 

In the post-Soviet environment there is no room for compromises, and 
politicians and generals feel no need for them. The public also votes for 
revenge. 

Compromises will only begin here when the energy to resist runs out. Alas, 
this means that for the moment war is the most productive way to solve the 
problems of a counterproductive country. 

Fyodor Gavrilov is the editor of Kariera-Kapital, a business weekly published 
in St. Petersburg.

#7
BBC
8 December, 1999
Analysis: Besieged in a doomed city 
By regional analyst Tom de Waal 

Russia's representative to Chechnya, Nikolai Koshman, estimates that there 
are around 40,000 people left inside Grozny. 
  
Other estimates are somewhat lower, but it is clear that there are many 
people still there, mostly living in cellars and basements. 

Leaflets dropped by the Russian army on the city warn them that they must 
leave by Saturday - the fifth anniversary of Russia's first land invasion of 
Chechnya - or face destruction. 

It says there will be a safe corridor for them to pass through to the village 
of Pervomaiskaya in the north-west. 

 The Russian leaflets told people to leave or face destruction
 
After furious Western criticism of these warnings, Russian officials have 
softened their tone. 

They now say that the corridor will remain open after Saturday, and that the 
message is directed against fighters, not civilians. 

Nonetheless, the threat of a new and massive air bombardment still hangs over 
the remaining residents there. 

But it will be very hard to ensure that those remaining in Grozny do all 
manage to leave. 

The practical problems are enormous. 

By their very nature, the people who have stayed behind are also the weakest 
- the old, the sick and the wounded. 

There are reported to be many Russian pensioners still in Grozny. 

The Russians used to be the majority community in a city of 400,000 people. 

An Austrian journalist recently in the city estimated that about half of 
those still there are Russians. 

By contrast, many Chechen residents came to live in Grozny only in the last 
20 or 30 years, and still have family in the villages with whom they have 
taken refuge. 

Even the commander of Russian forces in Chechnya, General Viktor Kazantsev, 
acknowledged that there was a problem. 
 
"I don't want to launch any strikes at the moment, since I'm well aware that 
mainly old people and children have stayed on there." 

The Russians' task is to persuade these vulnerable and sick people to leave 
the city and walk the 15km to Pervomaiskaya. 

Many of them cannot walk at all, there is very little transport for those who 
cannot walk, and the roads have been heavily bombed. 

But perhaps the biggest problem is fear. 

Reporters who have been in the city recently talk of frightened and 
irrational people enduring their second war in five years, reluctant to go 
out on to the streets. 

Many people simply do not want to leave their houses and brave another 
bombardment - whatever the price to be paid. 

During the last war Grozny suffered the heaviest bombardment of any city in 
Europe since World War Two. 

It seems that it is about to endure something even worse. 

#8
Moscow Times
December 9, 1999 
Eager Candidates Already Dividing Up Duma 
By Oksana Yablokova
Staff Writer

Without waiting for the outcome of the Dec. 19 elections, leaders of the 
leading political blocs running for the next State Duma have already started 
dividing up the seats in it. 

Yevgeny Primakov, leader of the Fatherland-All Russia bloc, said his movement 
may form a working coalition with the Communists - a combination that could 
spell trouble for Kremlin-backed Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. 

A combination of Fatherland-All Russia and the Communists, expected to be two 
of the biggest blocs, might give the Kremlin's opponents enough votes to 
bring down Putin's government, if they so choose. 

The Kremlin's allies, however, were also busy spelling out their vision of 
the next Duma. In a newspaper interview published Wednesday, Sergei Shoigu, 
leader of the pro-Kremlin Unity bloc, suggested "the constructive forces" of 
the newly elected Duma would unite around his group. 

"We think Unity should become the center of consolidation of all constructive 
forces of the parliament," he said in an interview with Nezavisimaya Gazeta. 

Shoigu's prediction got a boost when Viktor Chernomyrdin, leader of the Our 
Home Is Russia party, said Our Home would back Putin. 

In addition to the expression of support from Our Home Is Russia, seven 
provincial governors announced their support for Putin, bringing the total to 
27. Presumably that would translate into more support for Unity in Duma races 
and in the Duma, where the governors have considerable clout. 

The Communists and Fatherland-All Russia have tried to forge an alliance 
before but failed. If they can find a common language, however, they could 
vote no-confidence in Putin in an attempt to get rid of the favorite 
candidate of Yeltsin's entourage for the presidential election in 2000, or 
amend the Constitution to limit presidential power. 

If presidential elections were held now, every poll shows that Putin would be 
the winner. Moreover, 60 percent to 75 percent of Russia's population 
approves of the job Putin is doing as prime minister. 

Analysts say that even though there are no plausible grounds for the 
no-confidence vote now, Putin's opponents in the next Duma might still 
consider using their right to a no-confidence vote against him if the 
circumstances are right. 

Under the Constitution, the State Duma may vote no-confidence in the 
government by a simple majority. After a second such vote, which must take 
place within the next three months after the first vote, the president must 
either fire the Cabinet or dissolve the Duma. 

But since the Constitution also bars dissolving the Duma in the first year 
after the election, the president would have his hands tied and would 
presumably have to dump his government. 

Primakov said Tuesday that lot of people in the Communist Party think the way 
"we do" and they might become "partners of Fatherland-All Russia in passing 
certain decisions and laws in the State Duma," Interfax reported. 

"We were negotiating with Fatherland-All Russia, and are doing it now," 
Zyuganov said Wednesday on Ekho Moskvy radio. He criticized every major party 
running for the Duma except for Fatherland-All Russia. 

Vladimir Rimsky, political analyst of the INDEM research center, said a 
coalition between Fatherland-All Russia and the Communists was possible, but 
added that the new Duma is unlikely to get to "the Putin issue" before 
mid-February as at first it will have to elect a speaker and form committees. 

Vladimir Pribylovsky of the Panorama research center said even when all these 
other issues are settled, the Duma will have to think of a good reason to 
vote no-confidence in Putin's government. 

"A major economic failure or defeat in the Chechen operation could become a 
good reason for a no-confidence vote," Pribylovsky said. 

#9
Russian Official Comments on Outflow of Capital.

GENEVA, December 9 (Itar-Tass) - About 25 billion dollars have been moved 
from Russia, but not all the money is of a criminal character, Major General 
Alexander Mikhailenko, head of the Russian interdepartmental centre for the 
struggle against legalization of money, obtained by illegal means, said in an 
interview with Tass. He came to Geneva for attending a two-day international 
conference on the problem of the laundering of "dirty" money. 

According to Mikhailenko, money cold be moved from Russia for various 
reasons, and there is no generally accepted way to establish the amount of 
the illegal money, hidden abroad. "Perhaps, some contracts were not 
fulfilled, and this could be done deliberately or just happen because of 
force majeure circumstances. Besides, money could be moved out of Russia by 
people, who want to preserve their savings. We shall analyse each case 
separately," Mikhalchenko said. 

Reports appearing from time to time in the Western press about the "dirty " 
money amounting to billions of dollars, which was allegedlty moved out of 
Russia, are groundless and erroneous, Mikhailenko believes. He said with 
reference to the information of the Central Bank, that the amount of money 
brought to Russia over the past few years exceeds by far the amount of money, 
which was moved out of the country. 

Mikhailenko said that one of the objectives of his participation in the 
Geneva conference, held by the Cran Montana Forum under the patronage of the 
Council of Europe and the U.N. European Economic Commission, is to show that 
"Russia is not a 'crime empire', as the Western mass media portray us." He is 
going to speak about it at a plenary session, which will be devoted to the 
situation in Russia. "Crime is a problem common to all countries," 
Mikhailenko said.  

#10
The Russia Journal
Decmeber 6-12, 1999
Apocalyptic scenarios - those real and invented
Alexander Golts is a columnist for the weekly magazine Itogi.

When the Soviet Union first heard of AIDS, people liked to say that the 
disease posed no threat to Soviet citizens because it was a disease of the 
20th century, while they were living in the 19th century. 

I was reminded of that joke when trying to ascertain from Russian 
rocket-force officers whether or not the Y2K computer bug is a danger for our 
nuclear forces. They take an ironic view regarding the apocalyptic 
predictions of all the terrible things that could happen when the two nines 
in computer dates switch to two zeroes. 

For a start, they say that Russia began introducing computer technology to 
its armed forces much later than in the West. Anyone who has the opportunity 
to visit the main space testing and operations center will see an unfinished 
multistory building that was to have housed cooling equipment for immense 
computers. By the time the move was made to more compact technology, the 
armed forces were able to purchase personal computers programmed to deal 
better with potential Y2K glitches.

The strategic rocket forces are not worried about Y2K because, as Defense 
Ministry Research Institute Director Vladimir Dvorkin explained, the 
missiles' launch and control systems are not date-based. 

The system that warns of impending missile attacks is a more complicated case 
as it does use time-linked programs. If something were to go wrong, 
reconnaissance satellites and monitoring stations could mistake flashes of 
light from the sun or moon for traces from a missile launch. 

Of course, both the Pentagon and the Russian Defense Ministry are aware of 
the limits of rocket attack warning systems, as there have already been cases 
when the systems sent false information - and that was without any Y2K bug.

Russian and U.S. nuclear-risk reduction centers have been working on this 
issue for more than 10 years now. They have set up satellite communication 
channels to find out as quickly as possible whether a missile launch has 
taken place or not. Moscow and Washington have also agreed on setting up a 
joint early warning and missile launch information exchange center.

But this center will not be ready by the critical Y2K date change. U.S. 
officials, worried that Russian warning systems will misinterpret computer 
glitches as missile launches, have invited a group of specialists from Moscow 
to Colorado-Springs, home to the NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense 
Command) command center. The Russians will be stationed there alongside their 
U.S. counterparts for a month, to avoid any misunderstandings arising.

So, it seems unlikely that Jan. 1, 2000, will be the end of the world. In 
fact, it is the beginning of June 2000 that is potentially more dangerous for 
world security. It is then, just before Russia's presidential elections, that 
the U.S. Congress must decide the issue of developing a national 
anti-ballistic missile defense system. 

Opinion in Moscow (and not without reason) is that the United States wants 
more than just to be able to protect itself from an attack by some pariah 
state of the likes of North Korea. Russian military officials think that the 
Americans want to set up an ABM defense system to break for once and for all 
the strategic parity between the two countries so as to have the ultimate 
bargaining chip in its relations with Russia.

The Russian view is that, in violating the 1972 ABM treaty, the United States 
would undermine the foundations of all the security treaties. Russia would 
probably then declare itself free of its commitments to the treaties. 

No one seriously imagines that in a time of economic crisis, Russia would be 
able to start churning out increased numbers of warheads and missiles. But 
the problem lies elsewhere. Today, Russia and the United States have the 
possibility of carrying out mutual inspections and working together, but that 
is the result of fulfilling their commitments to the security treaties. 
Withdrawing from the treaties will make each side more unpredictable for the 
other. 

It is precisely in that kind of atmosphere of confrontation and mutual 
distrust that a fatal mistake could take place, and here, Y2K would not have 
the slightest responsibility for anything.

#11
US says Russian intelligence efforts here "aggressive"

WASHINGTON, Dec 9 (AFP) - 
Highlighting growing tensions between Moscow and Washington, US officials 
Thursday accused Moscow of an "aggressive" intelligence operation in the 
United States following the arrest of a Russian diplomat on spy charges.

Russia vowed to protest Washington's plans to expel Stanislav Borisev Gusev, 
who worked at the Russian embassy here. Gusev is accused of using 
sophisticated listening devices to hear conversations in the US State 
Department building.

Gusev was arrested Wednesday at the request of the State Department, said 
Neil Gallagher, assistant director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, at 
a news conference here.

Gallagher said his arrest was evidence of an "aggressive Russian intelligence 
presence" in the United States.

"I think this incident, by itself, sends a strong message that there is a 
very aggressive Russian intelligence presence -- operation -- inside the 
United States," Gallagher said.

The expulsion was the third such spying incident in the past few weeks 
involving the two countries. A US Navy petty officer was charged in November 
with giving secret US defense information to Russia and in December, a US 
diplomat in Russia was expelled on spying charges.

Shortly after his arrest, Gusev's diplomatic immunity was confirmed and he 
was turned over to Russian embassy officials, according to State Department 
spokesman James Foley.

Foley added that the man was an embassy attache, not a second secretary as 
previously thought.

Gusev, who had been under surveillance for several months, is now required to 
leave the United States within 10 days.

The Russian diplomat, who made frequent trips to the State Department 
building, was arrested when he was seen connecting to "an extremely 
sophisticated device" that had been "professionally introduced" into the US 
State Department building, Gallagher said.

The exact location of the device in the State Department building was not 
clear. Gallagher would not disclose the location, calling the case 
confidential, but denied it was placed in Secretary of State Madeleine 
Albright's office on the seventh floor of the building.

The Washington Post reported the device was found in a "high-level conference 
room on the seventh floor," adding that area is the most secure part of the 
building.

The FBI continued to investigate the device, how it works, when it was 
possibly introduced to the building, and any possible intelligence breeches 
from confidential information it obtained.

Undersecretary of State Thomas Pickering called the Russian ambassador here 
Wednesday to protest the spying and inform him that Gusev was a "persona non 
grata," who must leave the country in 10 days.

Gallagher denied that the affair was connected to last week's expulsion of an 
American diplomat, Cheri Leberknight, from Moscow for alleged spying.

Asked about any possible link to this incident, he said: "Absolutely not. 
This was a long-term FBI investigation. What drove the decision to bring this 
investigation to closure was the need to ensure that there would be no 
continued loss of any information from Department of State."

Russia, however, dismissed there was no link to the recent US diplomat 
accused of spying.

"It's clear that this is a response," Russian diplomats told the Interfax 
news agency in Moscow, adding that charges against Gusev were "very shaky."

The Russian foreign ministry plans to summon an official from the US embassy 
in Moscow to lodge a protest against the US move, the sources added.

Relations between the two countries have heat up in the past few months, due 
mostly to Russia's offensive in Chechnya, which the Clinton administration 
has denounced repeatedly.

#13
Segodnya
December 8, 1999
[translation for personal use only from RIA Novosti]
YELTSIN VERSUS YELTSIN
The Successor's Rating Is Worth International Isolation
By Natalia KALASHNIKOVA

    A tranche or rating? This is in fact the naked truth about
the international financial scandal over Chechnya, which
threatens to develop into an economic and political isolation of
Russia. 

    The tranche concerns the IMF, whose board decided to
postpone the provision of the money. Europe is even more
resolute: This coming Friday the EU leaders will meet in Helsinki
to discuss the possibility of blocking Russian loans from all
international fiscal organisations. 

    As for rating, it concerns successors: Vladimir Putin in
Russia and Albert Gore in the USA. It is for their sake that the
two sides readily agreed to sever relations -- with different
consequences for Russia and the USA. And the logic of this
scandal is simple.

    In terms of leaks, sleaze and black PR materials, the
election campaign in the USA is as bad as it is in Russia. The
Republicans' main weapon is criticism of Clinton for assisting
"the corrupt Yeltsin regime," including in the IMF, where the USA
is the largest shareholder. The situation in the US Congress came
to a head in the past few days, with the Republicans calling for
terminating US payments to the IMF. 

    Clinton made a concession: the administration decided to ask
the IMF to overhaul its loan policy and grant loans only for
emergency needs, stop granting long-term loans, and strengthen
control over the use of loans. But this is clearly not enough to
save the rating of his successor, Albert Gore. And so Clinton
decided to play up to the Republicans by showing "great concern"
over the fate of civilians in Chechnya. The IMF immediately acted
on his words to the effect that Russia will pay dearly for its
ultimatum to Grozny. And Europe accepted them as the green light
for the isolation of Russia from the civilised world.

    The election campaign in Russia is based, in addition to
leaks, sleaze and black PR materials, on the Chechen war, where
the rating of Yeltsin's successor, Putin, is being buttressed.
How much money will disappear down this black hole? The answer is
not known to the IMF (which is not duty bound to support the
budgets of countries which squander money on wars), or to the
Russian Finance Ministry. 

    In other words, Chechnya is not just the rating of Putin the
liberator, but also the money for this rating (oil prices are
still high, thank God). Neither the IMF, nor the EU or Clinton
can rob the Kremlin of Chechnya. For if the war ends, there will
be nothing else to keep the people's attention focused on the
successor.

    A dead-end? Not at all. The West actually "betrayed" the
Yeltsin regime long ago, and this is old news for the Kremlin
(although possibly not for Yeltsin). And the possibility of
international isolation is old news, too. But then, election
campaigns are easier waged behind the curtain. In the autumn of
1993, the Kremlin had to inform its Western partners of the
forthcoming "armed parliamentary crisis." But they did not
forgive Yeltsin for shooting at the parliament and paid him back
during the subsequent Chechen war. 

    The beginning of the first Chechen war in December 1994
caused an outrage in the West, which promised to freeze economic
cooperation and actually to introduce EU sanctions. Clinton acted
more tolerantly, but this is logical: he was not burdened with
the scandal over allocations to his election campaign or the
Monicgate yet. 

    Can Russia expect Western understanding in case of, say, an
appeal against the election results? Should it seek Western
approval for the open "neutralisation" of political rivals? Or
for postponing the elections (the idea was voiced by the
Kremlin's mouthpiece, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, on December 7 -- see
DR of Dec. 8, entry 6 in part 1)? 

    It would be easier to substantiate, behind the curtain, the
new policy line of closing down rebellious newspapers and TV
channels, or replacing their chiefs, and engaging in unashamed
propaganda, saying that the Chechens are being defeated (or have
been defeated, but where are the coffins?), the tractors are
ploughing land, and the factories are quickly recovering. 

    By giving the green light to the isolation of Russia, Bill
Clinton has closed an unpleasant and disadvantageous page in his
political biography. By accepting (although unwillingly) the game
of isolation, Boris Yeltsin, who has actually long since been in
isolation himself, will cross out his era. Yeltsin is playing
versus Yeltsin.  

#14
Itogi
No. 49
[translation for personal use only from RIA Novosti]
VOTERS IN UNIFORM
The Kremlin still unwisely regards the army as 
a safe hunting area for voters
By Alexander GOLTS

    The politicians are attracted to the military electorate
above all because it is very big. It was stated at the recent
collegium of the defence ministry on elections in the army that
servicemen and their families constitute 5.5 million voters.
Colonel-General Vasily Volkov, a member of the Central Election
Commission, says the figure is 10 million. He most probably
counted conscripted servicemen in, too. 

    Another feature of this group of voters is discipline. In
the past, political officers held an unofficial competition,
trying to be the first to report the end of elections in their
respective units. Today they want to round up this business as
soon as possible because they want to have a quiet day off. So,
we can rest assured that the servicemen will do their civil duty,
in whole companies, as soon as the polling stations open.

    And lastly, the legislators have turned the barracks into a
place where the voters can be easily manipulated. On the one
hand, servicemen, including conscripts and students of the
defence ministry's schools, have the right to elect and be
elected. On the other hand, the law prohibits any form of
election propaganda in military units. Their commanders are duty
bound to provide their troops with objective information about
candidates running in the given district and political parties.

    In practice, this means that everything depends on the
officers. They alone decide which information (and now openly
propagandist) TV programmes their troops will watch. In
conditions of this information vacuum, the officer has only to
speak well about a candidate, and his subordinates will surely
tick the box with his name. 

    Although still ready to unquestionably fulfil the order of
the Supreme Commander, both officers and many generals do not
want to listen to the political recommendations of the
presidential staff. "You see," said a member of the leading staff
conference, "ordering an army, fleet or district commander to
ensure a requisite number of votes is like giving such order to a
governor." Indeed, our military commanders have long become a
part of the regional elite, and if they decide to influence the
elections, they would do this only in accordance with their
personal interests and political affiliations, which do not
necessarily coincide with the Kremlin view. 

    And junior and other officers will not necessarily listen to
their superiors' instructions in political questions, which have
no direct bearing on their service.

    The only thing that can force servicemen to vote for the
party of power is the prestige which Vladimir Putin has won in
the armed forces. The army at long last sees a tough politician,
who allowed it to fight as it deems necessary. But this is not so
simple. The military and their families do not judge the Chechen
operation by victorious reports. They have inside information
about the federal losses and allocations to the army. Contrary to
the assurances about the provision of additional allocations for
the hostilities, the government still owes about 3 billion
roubles to the defence department. And the current more or less
regular payment of wages began not under Putin, but under
Primakov, which the military remember very well. And lastly, for
the Putin factor to work at the parliamentary elections, the
authorities should link the premier's name with the Unity bloc in
the servicemen's minds. But they have not succeeded in doing this
so far.

    Not just the Kremlin hopes to reap a rich harvest in the
army. The parties, which cannot wage their promotion campaign in
military units, decided to have servicemen on their lists. The
Spiritual Heritage recruited ten members of law-enforcement
structures, while the Movement in Support of the Army, the bloc
"Communists and Working People of Russia for the Soviet Union"
and the Party of Peace and Unity have six such candidates each.
There are five candidates in uniform in the OVR, the Conservative
Party and other election blocs and parties. On the whole, 80
servicemen are taking part in the current elections, and nearly
all of them are generals. This means that they cannot influence
the moods of privates and officers.

    Election lists offer a rare opportunity to determine what
political views some military leaders, who hold key posts in the
national security system, profess. Take General Alexander
Kravchuk, who is running in the Preobrazhensky district of
Moscow. He was nominated by a certain Russian Patriotic Public
Movement, one of whose leaders is the notorious Aleksei Vedenkin,
who stated on TV several years ago that he would personally kill
all non-patriots and non-Christians. According to our
information, Kravchuk heads the defence ministry directorate
responsible for security and supplies of control centres and
command stations.

    It appears that even the military leaders were shocked when
they learned which parties and blocs servicemen represent. First
Deputy Defence Ministry Nikolai Mikhailov said at the
aforementioned ministry collegium on elections that some
servicemen registered as candidates concealed their membership of
socio-political organisations and that these facts should be
brought to the attention of law-enforcement agencies. But
generals-candidates retorted: "When we are nominated from a
certain bloc, it does not mean that we are members thereof.
Stepashin was nominated by Yabloko, but he is not a member of
that organisation."

    As you see, while legally keeping the army away from
political fighting, the legislators left quite a few loopholes in
the law. This imperfect law offers many possibilities for
manipulation. But, since there is no unity in the army, different
parties and movements are trying to move it their way, and hence
military votes will not seriously influence the outcome of the
forthcoming elections.