November 20, 1999    
This Date's Issues: 3634 •3635  •

Johnson's Russia List
#3635
20 November 1999
davidjohnson@erols.com


[Note from David Johnson:
1. New York Times: Zbigniew Brzezinski, Russia Would Gain by Losing 
Chechnya.
2. St. Petersburg Times: Anna Badkhen, 1 Year On, Starovoitova Murder 
Unsolved.
3. The Guardian (UK): Amelia Gentleman, St Petersburg in grip of 
assassins' terror.
4. AP: Quotes From Declassified CIA Files.
5. Dan Cisek: A brief response to Gordon Hahn JRL 3634.
6. Boston Globe: David Filipov and Brian Whitmore, Russia pays heavy price 
for 'success' in Chechnya.
7. The Times (UK): Simon Sebag Montefiore, The more chaotic the Caucasus, 
the happier are Russia's new imperialists'
8. Financial Times (UK): RUSSIA: Approach with caution. Moscow's military 
attacks on Chechnya have brought relations with the west to a post-cold war 
low. But domestic politics are partly to blame, say Stephen Fidler and John 
Thornhill.
9. THE JAMESTOWN FOUNDATION PRISM: Vladimir Mironov, ON THE POLITICAL 
FUTURE OF ALEXANDER LEBED.]


*******


#1
New York Times
November 19, 1999
[for personal use only]
Russia Would Gain by Losing Chechnya
By ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI
Zbigniew Brzezinski was national security adviser in the Carter 
administration. 


Russian President Boris Yeltsin may have had a tempestuous debate over 
Chechnya with President Clinton and other Western leaders yesterday, but no 
one should be fooled by his show of pique. He has little reason to be upset 
with the compromise reached by Western and Russian negotiators at a summit 
meeting in Istanbul on European security. 


It all sounds good on paper. The new charter of the Organization of Security 
and Cooperation in Europe reportedly stipulates that Russia will allow the 
group to provide humanitarian aid to Chechnya and an outside observer to tour 
the war zone, steps that Secretary of State Madeleine Albright called a "good 
foot in the door" to broader Western involvement. 


But for now this amounts to little more than a slap on the wrist. President 
Clinton was tough in his criticism of Russian actions yesterday, but his 
speech reaffirmed that the West still believes that Moscow has "the 
obligation to defend its territorial integrity." 


The West's idea of a desirable outcome in Chechnya -- that the breakaway 
province continues to be part of Russia but is treated decently -- is an 
oxymoron. Let's state the obvious: The only fair and workable solution, good 
both for the Chechens and for the Russians, is self-determination for 
Chechnya. 


Getting rid of an empire is never easy. The French learned that painfully 
during the Algerian war 40 years ago. 


But eventually the imperial homeland itself benefits from the dissolution, 
something Charles de Gaulle had the courage to tell the skeptical French 
people at the time. 


Perhaps some Russian leader will soon muster the needed courage to counter 
popular opinion in his country and say publicly, "Let the Chechens go." 
Unfortunately, the Russian ruling elite is still driven by imperial 
nostalgia. The generals thirst for revenge for the defeat they suffered in 
the Caucasus four years ago. And many Russians, inflamed by official 
propaganda, view all Chechens as terrorists and Islamic fanatics. 


That is why, sadly, the suppression, even the elimination, of the Chechens 
sounds reasonable to many Russians. For their part, the Chechens do not wish 
to be part of Russia, and they have been resisting subjugation for more than 
a century. That is also why the West's diplomatically worded appeals for 
"negotiations" or "a political solution" or "a cease-fire" are pipe dreams. 


This week, the West has once again failed to put down a marker, to remind Mr. 
Yeltsin of a statement he made in 1990, in the context of the dissolution of 
the Soviet Union: "History has taught us that a people that rules over others 
cannot be fortunate." 


Continuing a brutal war, which has created more than 200,000 refugees, will 
not only do enormous damage to Russia's global image and push Russian 
politics toward a chauvinistic extreme, but will also probably create an 
enduring and militant hostility among the 200 million Muslims to Russia's 
immediate south (not to mention some 20 million Muslims within Russia 
itself). 


The only way the world can make Russians understand this is to take the same 
stand that it took, for example, on East Timor. 


No one urged a NATO-type military operation against Indonesia to end the 
repression of the East Timorese. But the international community, through 
patient pressure but also with prudent clarity, made it plain to Indonesia's 
rulers that their country would suffer high financial and political costs if 
they persisted. That paved the way for a referendum on East Timor's 
independence and for an international peacekeeping force to intervene when 
violence followed the vote. 


Now East Timor is in the process of becoming an independent state. 


An independent Chechnya would not be an anomaly. It has a population of about 
one million people, about the same as East Timor's. The United Nations 
currently has 39 member-countries with populations of one million or less. 


Of course, Russia is not Indonesia -- it is a former superpower and longtime 
empire, and it would not so easily part with a territory in which it has 
invested so much honor and blood. But the East Timor example is apt because 
it shows what consistent rhetoric, diplomatic pressure and economic leverage 
on the part of the West can achieve in terms of ending brutal subjugation. 


Certainly, the United States can exert other pressure to protest the 
atrocities, like cutting off loans to Russia. 


Still, for the democratic nations to take a clear stand that the Chechens are 
entitled to self-determination is the most important step toward a decent and 
civilized solution to the war in the Caucasus. Even if the Russian 
politicians and generals respond with instinctive anger, they will eventually 
realize that the true beneficiaries of letting Chechnya go will be the 
Russian people themselves.


*******


#2
St. Petersburg Times
November 19, 1999
1 Year On, Starovoitova Murder Unsolved
By Anna Badkhen
STAFF WRITER


A year ago this Saturday, St. Petersburg became the site of a murder that 
shook Russia.


At around 11 p.m. Nov. 20, 1998, State Duma deputy Galina Sta ro voi to va 
was shot three times in the head as she ascended the dark stairs in her 
downtown St. Petersburg apartment building at 91 Kanal Griboyedova. The 
lawmaker died immediately; her legislative aide, Ruslan Linkov, was shot in 
his head and neck and spent a month recovering in the hospital.


Starovoitova was known as Russia's first-wave democrat; she was one of Boris 
Yeltsin's main allies in the Soviet-era fight for democratic freedoms. 
Starovoitova's murder - which is widely believed to have been politically 
motivated - attracted international concern and messages of condolences from 
world leaders.


Immediately after her death, a special investigative team was formed by the 
Federal Security Service, or the FSB, police, and prosecutors. According to 
the press release distributed by the FSB on Thursday, in the past year the 
investigators have interrogated roughly 700 people and conducted over 90 
expert commissions.


But so far, these investigative activities have produced no apparent success.


In the press release, the FSB blamed those who were close to Starovoitova for 
being "reluctant to trust" law enforcement bodies, thus slowing down the 
speed of the investigation. Witnesses, on other hand, report that 
investigators asked irrelevant and offensive questions.


One St. Petersburg journalists interrogated in the Starovoitova murder case, 
Daniel Kotsubinsky of the weekly newspaper Chas Pik, said his interrogator 
told him that Starovoitova's political party held orgies with animals. 
Another journalist, Tatyana Likhanova, said her interrogator told her that 
"we are going to solve this case in such a way that it buries your democratic 
movement."


"Sooner or later this killing will be solved," said Linkov, who now heads the 
St. Petersburg branch of Sta ro voi to va's Democratic Russia political 
party, in an interview Thursday. "It only depends on the professionalism of 
the investigative team."


"In 1997, [St. Petersburg Vice Gov. Mikhail] Manevich was killed. Two years 
later, his murder is still not solved, but the investigators announced that 
... a complete picture of his murder has been established by the 
investigation. Galina Starovoitova was killed in 1998 - but, apparently, one 
year is not enough for the investigators to complete a picture of this 
murder," Linkov said.


*******


#3
The Guardian (UK)
20 November 1999
[for personal use only]
St Petersburg in grip of assassins' terror 
Amelia Gentleman in St Petersburg


As Russia marks the anniversary of the assassination of the democratic icon 
Galina Starovoitova with a day of tributes, news that no progress has been 
made in the hunt for her killers has been met with a sense of profound 
weariness. 


Most residents of St Petersburg, Russia's most criminalised city, no longer 
have the energy to be surprised by its climate of violent lawlessness. 


When Starovoitova was shot down on the stairwell of her St Petersburg flat 
last year, the silencing of the outspoken liberal leader prompted fears for 
the country's fragile democratic movement. 


The public response to her killing was compared to the British reaction to 
the death of Diana, princess of Wales. Thousands queued to pay their respects 
and flowers piled up beside her grave. Officials declared that solving the 
case would be a matter of national honour. 


But the federal security service, the successor to the KGB, admitted 
yesterday that despite the "unprecedented scale" of the investigation it 
still did not know who was responsible. 


One man who has a strong interest in seeing the assassins caught is Ruslan 
Linkov, Starovoitova's former aide, who was with her when she died. He was 
also shot - once in the head and once in the neck - and almost died from his 
wounds. He remembers seeing two people: a man and a woman. 


"To begin with I hoped they would be caught. Now I don't think they ever 
will. I believe the people who ordered the killing were extremely powerful, 
well-connected among the police and the FSB - they know how to put pressure 
on people to ensure the case is not resolved," he said. 


No one doubts that the assassination was carried out by professionals: the 
two guns used were abandoned at the scene, nothing was stolen and 
Starovoitova received an extra bullet to her head to make sure that she was 
dead. 


Some claim that she was targeted by corrupt business interests annoyed by her 
anti-corruption campaigning. Her supporters are adamant that her death came 
as retribution for her political activities. 


"A lot of people hated her. It's hard to say which of her enemies actually 
wanted to see her dead," said Lyudmila Yodkovskaya, a former colleague. 


The security service and St Petersburg police have interviewed 700 people and 
made more than 18 arrests, none of which has led to charges. 


Contract killings in Russia doubled in the first half of this year, according 
to police, with 567 people murdered. Most of the deaths were 
business-related, but politicians are also targeted. Few cases are solved. 


*******


#4
Quotes From Declassified CIA Files
November 18, 1999
The Associated Press

``We believe that Gorbachev's efforts at reviving the Soviet economy will 
produce no substantial improvement over the next five years, although his 
efforts to raise consumer welfare could achieve some modest results. Soviet 
attempts to raise technology levels will not narrow the gap with the West in 
most sectors during the remainder of this century.'' - From a Nov. 23, 1988, 
report on Gorbachev's economic programs. 


``Our evidence points to continuing Soviet programs to develop and refine 
options for both conventional and nuclear war, and the Soviets are preparing 
their forces for the possibility that both conventional and nuclear war could 
be longer and more complex than previously assumed.'' - December 1988 review 
of strategic nuclear weapons. 


``The chances that Gorbachev will successfully overcome the dilemmas (many of 
his own making) that confront him are - over the long term - doubtful at 
best.'' - September 1989 national intelligence estimate. 


``No end to the Soviet domestic crisis is in sight and there is a strong 
probability the situation will get worse - perhaps much worse - during the 
next year.'' - November 1990 national intelligence estimate. 


``As a result of his political meandering and policy failures, Gorbachev's 
credibility has sunk to near zero.'' - April 25, 1991, document entitled 
``The Soviet Cauldron,'' prepared for the White House National Security 
Council. 


``The decline of the Soviet Union has caused its leaders to view their 
national security and superpower status as hinging more than ever on 
strategic nuclear power.'' - August 1991 report on Soviet nuclear 
capabilities through 2000. 


``Ethnic turmoil will increase as nationalism grows and ethnic minorities 
resist the authority of newly dominant ethnic majorities.'' - September 1991 
national intelligence estimate. 


``Severe economic conditions, the fragmentation of the armed forces and 
ongoing inter-ethnic conflict will combine to produce the most significant 
civil disorder in the former USSR since the Bolsheviks consolidated power.'' 
- November 1991 analysis. 


``Forces unleashed by the collapse of the Soviet system are breaking up its 
premier artifact - the Soviet military; the high command cannot stop this 
process.'' December 1991 national intelligence estimate. 


******


#5
From: Dan Cisek <dancisek@yahoo.com>
Subject: A brief response to Gordon Hahn JRL 3634
Date: Sat, 20 Nov 1999 


In response to Gordon Hahn's commentary in JRL 3634, a brief corrective is 
required. His piece makes the easy but historically dishonest claim that 
the West is responsible for alienating Russia by not fully embracing it in 
the immediate post-Soviet period. Hahn asserts that not bringing Russian 
into NATO was one of these errors. Having done substantial research on NATO 
expansion policy from 1991 to 1995, I find this interpretation wanting. In 
fact, at no time was it the West's choice to bring Russian into NATO or 
leave it out.


U.S. policy makers had rejected the idea of any NATO expansion through 
October 1993. Strobe Talbott convinced the administration to avoid full 
expansion and instead opt for the Partnernship For Peace (PFP) in late 
1993. The PFP proposal was first made public in January 1994, clearly in 
response to the disturbing nationalist victory of Zhirinovsky in the 
December 1993 Duma elections. Russia was invited to join the PFP in the 
same way as every other country in the region, and no country was singled 
out as on the fast track to NATO at that time. But by the time the U.S. and 
other Western powers began to seriously consider NATO expansion with the 
watered down PFP program, Russian domestic politics had already turned in 
such a way that Russia had no interest in joining NATO, if it ever 
seriously had. It is clear that one price Yeltsin paid to the armed forces 
for their assistance in defeating the Parliament in October 1993 was 
vigorous opposition to the idea of NATO expansion in any form. This despite 
the fact that in August 1993 Yeltsin stated publicly in Warsaw that he saw 
no reason why Poland should not eventually be part of NATO.


Prior to late 1993, there were few if any voices raised in Russia calling 
for membership in NATO (whereas the clamor in Central Europe for NATO 
membership was deafening, if unheeded, at that time). And the Russian 
political scene was too sharply divided by a battle to the death between 
Yeltsin and the Parliament between 1992 and late 1993 for anyone to have 
taken Russia seriously as a NATO candidate, even if such a desire had been 
expressed, which it was not, except by fringe parties and marginal figures. 
The idea that the West "should have simply brought Russia in" shows a lack 
of familiarity with the basic historical events and context surrounding the 
early moves towards NATO expansion.


This is not to say that NATO expansion is the best way to bolster European 
security. It may turn out to be a terrible mistake. But let us not 
interpret the past and criticize the West in such a way that clearly 
contradicts historical evidence that is available for all to see.


*******


#6
Boston Globe
20 November 1999
[for personal use only]
Russia pays heavy price for 'success' in Chechnya 
By David Filipov, Globe Staff and Brian Whitmore Globe Correspondent, 


MOSCOW - With their relentless air and artillery assault on Chechnya, Russian 
commanders have convinced their countrymen that they are winning the war 
against separatist Islamic militants, but a look at the numbers shows a 
costly conflict that rivals the long, unsuccessful Soviet campaign in 
Afghanistan.


To portray Russia's three-month campaign in the Caucasus as a success, 
military officials have consistently described their losses as minimal - by 
their count, 462 dead and 1,485 wounded since Chechen rebels invaded the 
neighboring Russian region of Dagestan in August.


Independent analysts and some soldiers say the deaths of hundreds more 
soldiers have been hidden by Moscow to keep support high. They describe a 
hit-and-run war that has exacted heavy losses on advancing troops, but which 
has gone largely unreported by the Russian press.


Even according to official figures, the Russian military is losing about 130 
men a month in the Caucasus, a rate comparable to the monthly death toll of 
Soviet troops who fought in Afghanistan during the disastrous 1979-89 
intervention that helped discredit the Soviet Union's Communist regime.


About 15,000 Soviet troops were killed in that conflict.


This time, while the Russians have taken large swaths of Chechen territory 
and several major towns, their ground forces have yet to engage the rebels in 
a major battle or attempt to take the capital, Grozny, where thousands of 
Russian troops were killed or wounded in street fighting during Moscow's 
1994-96 campaign in Chechnya.


That war ended in a humiliating withdrawal by battered Russian forces, after 
the Russian public tired of losing its men in a conflict it could not win. 
Saying they have learned their lesson, federal commanders are touting tactics 
that they say have allowed the army to avoid casualties inherent in 
ill-prepared assaults on heavily guarded cities.


This time, Russian leaders refrain from calling the conflict a war, billing 
it as a low-intensity ''antiterrorist operation.''


Meanwhile, the Russians have been using their huge advantage in weaponry to 
mercilessly pound the positions of Chechen rebel fighters from a distance 
before sending in the infantry to mop up, an advance Moscow-based defense 
analyst Pavel Felgenhauer recently described as ''more reminiscent of World 
War I than modern warfare.''


This approach has earned criticism from Western leaders, who blame heavy 
civilian casualties and the flight of more than 200,000 refugees on 
indiscriminate Russian bombardment. But in Russia, where polls show 
overwhelming support for the war, the military has portrayed the offensive as 
a big success. Brushing off criticism from the West, Russia has kept up its 
military operation in Chechnya. The military carried out 60 air raids 
yesterday.


''It is simple and allows avoiding losses among the troops,'' said Russian 
Major General Vladimir Shamanov, commander of federal troops in western 
Chechnya, explaining the Russian strategy earlier this month.


There is also evidence that it is not working. The rebels, lightly armed and 
heavily outnumbered, have been unable to respond to the Russian bombardment, 
and have steadily retreated before the Russian advance across the northern 
Chechen plains. This means that the stated goal of the operation as outlined 
by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin - to eliminate all the rebel fighters - is 
not being accomplished.


''The main rebel force has not been defeated or even seriously encountered by 
the army,'' Felgenhauer said. Like most independent analysts, he predicts a 
difficult and bloody campaign as winter approaches and fighting shifts to the 
mountains in the south. And there is still the problem of Grozny, where the 
rebels are dug in, waiting for the Russians to come.


The numbers show that the Russian advance has hardly been a bloodless affair 
thus far. Alexander Zhilin, a retired Army colonel and military analyst for 
the newspaper Moskovskiye Novosti, said Russian troops are being killed in 
ambushes by Chechen rebels during mop-up operations.


He added that Russia's official casualty figures, which place Russian losses 
in the hundreds and losses among the Chechen fighters in the thousands, 
appear skewed.


''As a rule, the attacking side always loses at least three times as many men 
as the defending side,'' Zhilin said. ''Here it is the other way around.''


Valetina Melnikova of the Soldiers' Mothers Committee, a Russian 
nongovernmental organization that monitors military issues, also doubts the 
military's casualty figures. During a recent visit to Mozdok, the main 
Russian military base in the Caucasus, Melnikova found hospitals filled with 
wounded and dead on days when military spokesman said there were no 
casualties.


She said that military commanders deliberately delay the announcement of 
fatalities, hoping to stave off the negative public reaction. 


''The military count only those who die on the field of battle as killed,'' 
Melnikova said. ''If a soldier dies in the hospital, that is not reported.


''If the official death toll is 462, you can easily double that,'' she said.


Even with high casualty counts, about 60 percent of the Russian public 
supports the campaign, according to polls.


After an invasion of Dagestan by Chechen-led rebels in August, and a series 
of deadly apartment blasts in September that the Kremlin has repeatedly 
blamed on those rebels, society's willingness to accept battle casualties has 
changed dramatically.


''Right now, every Russian feels themselves threatened by Chechnya and 
therefore they are prepared to accept these losses,'' Zhilin said. ''In 
Afghanistan, or in the first Chechen war, ordinary people didn't feel 
threatened.''


Nor are they properly informed. Russian forces have prevented international 
aid agencies and foreign news media from freely traveling to areas close to 
the fighting in Chechnya. The military allows some Russian media to accompany 
troops in Chechnya. But their reports, often bright portrayals of military 
successes, are subject to censorship.


Already that is changing. On Nov. 10, the newspaper Kommersant suggested that 
Russian soldiers were dying in much greater numbers than officials are 
admitting.


The story was based on interviews with 18 Russia soldiers and officers 
wounded in Chechnya and recovering in a Samara hospital. One Interior 
Ministry special forces serviceman said that about 70 percent of his 
1,200-man brigade had been killed or wounded.


''The big question is how many more have to die before people start raising 
the question of whether this war is worth it,'' said Alan Rousso, director of 
the Carnegie Center in Moscow.


Russia may claim a victory when its forces occupy all of Chechnya's major 
towns, but that will not necessarily mean that the rebels are defeated.


''In the end, the Chechens will stage their own military comeback, whether 
it's sneak attacks from the hills or something more pronounced,'' Rousso 
said, recalling the Chechens' surprise invasion of Grozny in August 1996 that 
forced the Russians to accept a ceasefire. ''The Russian people will then ask 
whether they really won.''


*******


#7
The Times (UK)
19 November 1999
[for personal use only]
OPINION 
'The more chaotic the Caucasus, the happier are Russia's new imperialists'
By Simon Sebag Montefiore 
The author's biography of Prince Potemkin will be published in September 2000 
by Weidenfeld & Nicolson. 
Boris Yeltsin may no longer enjoy many moments of lucidity. But he couldn't 
have been clearer this week. Addressing the OSCE summit in Istanbul he told 
the West that his war in Chechnya was none of its business. Would that it 
were so simple. 


The Chechen war is much more than a humanitarian affront. It is a calculated 
step in a wider Russian determination to regain control of the Caucasus. A 
restored Russian hegemony there would dramatically affect vital British 
interests. We cannot afford to let killing bears lie. 


There is no balance of power anywhere on the Eurasian land mass as delicately 
poised as the Caucasus. The mountain range was the Russian Empire's natural 
frontier and the site of the huge Azeri oilfields on the Caspian Sea. 
Strategically, the Battle of Stalingrad was Stalin's stand against Hitler's 
drive for these oilfields. Now the West, particularly Britain, in a huge 
consortium led by BP, has invested heavily in the Azeri oilfields as an 
alternative to the volatile sheikhdoms of the Middle East. The West is 
routeing the pipeline bearing this oil from Baku, through Georgia, to Supsa 
on the Black Sea specifically because we cannot afford to have Russia 
controlling this vital supply line. 


During the 1990s, Russia undermined the newly independent states of the 
region - Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia - by encouraging brutal wars, in 
Ossetia, Nagorno Karabakh and Abkhazia, that made the West hesitate before 
investing there. Even today Russia refuses to use its power to achieve 
settlements in these wars. Western pressure is required to bring peace. 


Elements in the Russian security establishment have also tried to eliminate 
the few men who are capable of building stability in these small countries. 
In 1995 a bomb almost killedEduard Shevardnadze, the Georgian President. When 
his pro-Russian Security Minister was implicated, he fled to Moscow. 


It was simply one of many attempted hits aimed at those who resist Russian 
encroachment. The recent assassination in Armenia of the Prime Minister, 
Vazgen Sarkisyan, who was about to negotiate a peace with Azerbaijan over 
Nagorno Karabakh, was possibly inspired by Russia, and was definitely to 
Moscow's advantage. The more chaotic the Caucasus, the less secure is the 
West's potential oil supply and the happier are Russia's new imperialists. 


Russian defeat in Chechnya in 1996 temporarily inhibited Moscow's 
mischief-making. Georgia and Azerbaijan have taken advantage of this respite 
to rebuild. Russia cannot afford to have its neighbours stable. So today's 
battle of Grozny is the high-explosive overture to tomorrow's fight for 
Caucasian hegemony. There are already alarming signs that Russia is again 
keen to push its success in Chechnya southwards. Russian bombs were 
"mistakenly" dropped on Georgia yesterday. 


If the West allows Russia to subdue Chechnya by slaughter, it confirms that 
the West has not the will, after Kosovo, to face down Russia. Inaction will 
encourage Moscow to return to its policy of eliminating Eduard Shevardnadze 
and other regional leaders. A chaotic Georgia and a collapsing Armenia would 
cut off Azerbaijan and its British oil from the West, thereby restoring 
Russian control of the Caucasus. 


Why wasn't Tony Blair in Istanbul this week? Is fixing the London mayoral 
race really more important than securing our interests abroad? British 
pusillanimity and disinterest are all the more ironic given that we actually 
have much more at stake in the Caucasus than we ever did in Kosovo. But 
that's the point: the "ethical" Blairite paladins of Downing Street are 
keener on posturing from the air than defending our interests on the ground


*******


#8
Financial Times (UK)
20 November 1999
[for personal use only]
RUSSIA: Approach with caution 
Moscow's military attacks on Chechnya have brought relations with the west to 
a post-cold war low. But domestic politics are partly to blame, say Stephen 
Fidler and John Thornhill


It was almost like the bad old days: a Russian leader at a big international 
summit unyielding in defence of his government's actions while berating 
western "aggression". All that was missing from Boris Yeltsin's performance 
in Istanbul on Thursday was the shoe Nikita Khrushchev famously used to bang 
on the table at the United Nations.


Russia would brook no foreign interference in its own affairs and would 
continue its bloody fight against terrorists in the northern Caucasus, Mr 
Yeltsin told western leaders across the summit table. Nato's air campaign 
against Serbia this year had constituted aggression justified on a pretext of 
concern about human rights.


Western governments in turn condemned Russia's military offensive in 
Chechnya, which they said was causing indiscriminate casualties and driving 
hundreds of thousands of people from their homes.


The exchanges seemed to exemplify a relationship between Moscow and the west 
that both Russian and US officials privately concede has deteriorated to its 
most ill-tempered since the end of the cold war. So when Mr Yeltsin walked 
out of the summit a day early, he left behind many questions not just about 
his motives but more fundamentally on the future of east-west relations.


Why, for example, did the Russian president talk so tough, when a few hours 
later his negotiators made potentially significant concessions on the 
international agreements under discussion at the summit? And why did Bill 
Clinton, the US president, sound so much more conciliatory than his European 
counterparts?


Some western officials interpreted Mr Yeltsin's performance as theatrics 
aimed at his domestic audience. But while playing to the gallery at home, he 
also likes to maintain some support in the west. Hence the concessions made 
by the Russian negotiators. These allow for a mission to travel to Chechnya 
from the 54-nation Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, 
raising the possibility (but only that) of a role for the body in an eventual 
solution to the conflict. The Russians also conceded a legitimate role for 
other OSCE governments, under certain circumstances, in the internal affairs 
of a country.


Mr Clinton refrained from joining the condemnation heaped on Russia by 
European leaders. He tried a personal appeal to Mr Yeltsin to make the point 
that foreign countries had a legitimate interest in Russia's affairs. If, 
instead of becoming president, Mr Yeltsin had been arrested after standing on 
a tank to defy the attempted coup in Moscow 1991 Mr Clinton said he hoped all 
the leaders present would have protested.


Sandy Berger, Mr Clinton's national security adviser, denied the president 
was giving his Russian counterpart an easier time than the Europeans and 
insisted he had made a forceful intervention, particularly in defence of 
Nato's action over Kosovo. But he implied there was a limit to what words 
alone could achieve: "We can stack up adjectives, I suppose, and see who has 
the bigger pile."


But some analysts believe there is a deeper motive behind Mr Clinton's tone. 
There is not much the US can do about Chechnya except to deplore it: cutting 
off International Monetary Fund loans and other aid would simply hurt US 
interests. But the Clinton administration does need something from Moscow 
that Europe does not want: adjustments to the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile 
(ABM) treaty.


Moscow is sensitive to the prospect that the US might develop a national 
missile shield against ballistic missiles. But the US cannot do this without 
amending or abrogating the ABM treaty.


It is also important to recognise that modern Russia is a very different 
country from the Soviet Union. First, Russia is evolving as a rudimentary 
democracy and has its own four-year electoral cycle, which encourages more 
self-interested policies and inflamed rhetoric.


Vladimir Putin, the former KGB spy turned prime minister who is Mr Yeltsin's 
preferred heir, has pinned his entire political future - and Mr Yeltsin's 
hopes of a peaceful retirement - on the success of the Chechen campaign.


Second, modern Russia is not a monolithic political entity like the Soviet 
Union but contains many rival centres of influence, which are all fighting to 
determine the course of domestic and external policy. While some of these 
forces favour isolation from the west, others are still pressing for closer 
integration.


Maria Volkenstein, president of Validata, a research institute that monitors 
public opinion, says the Chechen conflict has transformed politics in Moscow. 
Before Chechnya, many voters believed Yevgeny Primakov, the popular, 
anti-Kremlin, former prime minister, was the best presidential candidate 
because he embodied the greatest hope for stability. But since the assault on 
Chechen "terrorists" allegiance has switched to Mr Putin as an effective 
agent of change.


"If the elections were held next Sunday there is no doubt what would happen," 
says Ms Volkenstein. "Putin would win. But Putin is only popular because of 
Chechnya and that makes his position very dangerous. He has only one rope 
supporting him and nothing else."


It is not only the Kremlin and Mr Putin that are deciding Russian policy 
towards Chechnya and the outside world. The once-proud army, which has been 
starved of funds for most of the decade and humiliated in the first Chechen 
war of 1994-96, has re-emerged as a powerful force in domestic politics. Many 
army officers remain antagonistic to the west and still believe wars lead to 
bigger budgets and greater prestige. Some of Russia's powerful oligarchs may 
also see advantage in fanning these nationalistic flames.


Igor Malashenko, first deputy chairman of Media-Most, Russia's largest 
commercial media group, observed this week that there was growing support for 
isolationism within Russia from a broad coalition of interests, ranging from 
nationalistic generals to powerful tycoons implicated in recent corruption 
scandals that have spread abroad.


"For them, the west is a thorn in the flesh," he said in a radio interview. 
"They want to create a regime in Russia that would act without looking back 
at the west over its shoulder and then their interests will be assured. I 
regard this as something extremely dangerous and harmful for the absolute 
majority of our fellow citizens."


However, even with such pressures, few observers foresee a complete rupture 
in relations between Russia and the west. "Of course Chechnya complicates 
relations and is a terrible blow to Russia's image in the West," says Eugene 
Rumer, a former US state department official. "But that does not 
automatically have to lead to a breakdown in relations.


"For the Russians, there is no longer any grand idea for which to fight and 
there are no means of fighting a new cold war. Besides, there are still a lot 
of people who recognise that it is in Russia's interests to have 
fundamentally good relations with Europe and the west."


Paradoxical as it sounds, some politicians in Moscow argue that Mr Putin 
could even serve as a "Trojan horse" for more internationalist-minded 
liberals in Russia. They believe he is committed to completing Mr Yeltsin's 
haphazard economic reforms and Russia's reintegration in the world. One 
Kremlin representative recently turned up in London touting the line that the 
former KGB officer was a civilised man of democratic principles and western 
values who was the best hope for further reform.


Such thinking remains hypothetical while there are so many obstacles in the 
way of improved relations between Russia and the west. Calmer heads are 
likely to prevail only once the Chechen conflict has been resolved, the US 
national missile debate has been played out, and presidential elections have 
been held in both Russia and the US.


*******


#9
THE JAMESTOWN FOUNDATION PRISM
A MONTHLY ON THE POST-SOVIET STATES
November 1999 No.19 Part 3


ON THE POLITICAL FUTURE OF ALEXANDER LEBED
By Vladimir Mironov
Vladimir Alekseevich Mironov is a senior fellow of the Institute of
International Economic and Political Studies of the Russian Academy of
Sciences in Moscow.


As the summer 2000 election approaches, some nervousness is evident among
the Russian political elite, because the prize is the highest public
position in Russia. It is unlikely that the powers the head of state now
enjoys will undergo any change before then. The next president of the
Russian Federation will thus have at his disposal the widest possible range
of powers to formulate and implement both domestic and foreign policy. The
potential candidates are preparing for the election campaign, seeking to
take control of as many informational, financial, economic and political
resources as possible, and to expand their social base. The names of most of
the genuine candidates are already well known. Almost all of them are
concentrated in Moscow, and either lead nationwide parliamentary parties
(Gennady Zyuganov, Grigory Yavlinsky, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, Viktor
Chernomyrdin), or hold the high rank of prime minister in the federal
government (Vladimir Putin being the man of the moment).


Only one politician based outside the capital still has the Kremlin in his
sights: Krasnoyarsk Governor Lieutenant-General Aleksandr Lebed. As the
leader of a region which is the second largest (after Yakutia-Sakha) and
perhaps the richest in terms of natural resources, he is trying hard to
maintain his status as a nationwide political figure, attracting the
attention of the federal media by spreading innuendo and rumors about the
great prospects for his future career development. But does Lebed have a
realistic chance of "riding into the Kremlin on a white horse" or is this
just another example of unfounded political boastfulness?


PER ASPERA AD ASTRA (THROUGH DIFFICULTIES TO THE STARS)


Lebed's political career is very closely linked to the history of
post-Soviet Russia. He became a household name during the events of August
1991, when the tank battalion commanded by the colonel of the paratroops
turned up outside the Supreme Soviet. Despite his muddled and unintelligible
explanation of his motives for appearing at the White House (either he had
joined forces with the Russian authorities or he was preparing to carry out
the orders of the putsch leaders), the media created the first myth about
him: This unknown officer had become a defender of democratic Russia. Then
came his posting to the Dnestr region and the making of his image as the
general who forcibly put down the bloody conflict between Kishinev and
Tiraspol. As commander of the 14th Russian Army, deployed in the Dnestr
Moldavian Republic, Alexander Lebed never tired of emphasizing his tireless
fight against corruption and crime inside the military and government
structures in Tiraspol. For several years he expressed his discontent,
pushing the limits of the permissible, and simultaneously collected medals
and titles from the Russian president. He won his laurels as a peacemaker in
1996 when, as secretary of the Security Council, he signed the Khasaviurt
treaty with Aslan Maskhadov.


A few months later Boris Yeltsin fired Lebed, but the former army commander
and former Security Council secretary did not give up his political
activities, maintaining his presidential ambitions and waiting "for his
country to call him." In May 1998, relying on a section of the local
business elite and on powerful support from the media controlled by Boris
Berezovsky and the regional barons, Lebed was elected governor of
Krasnoyarsk krai.


GOING UP THE DOWN ESCALATOR


Lebed sees his governorship in Krasnoyarsk as the springboard for his
campaign to be elected as the next president of Russia. He has not led the
krai for long--he came to power in spring of last year in a region which was
totally unfamiliar to him and which had a whole array of complex social,
economic and political problems. He has no experience in economic management
or in running civil power structures, and by summer 2000 the presidential
election campaign will be over. This, coupled with the scale of his
political ambitions, limits his opportunities and creates great problems in
drawing up and implementing a social and economic policy good enough to
provide the people of Krasnoyarsk krai with some economic prosperity. All
this forces Lebed to concentrate on "virtual victories," provocative
statements and scandals. He rejects stabilizing management techniques,
preferring to be a destabilizing factor in the political life of the krai.


As a result he has managed to turn against himself, first, most of the
deputies in the legislative assembly (including the leader Aleksandr Uss),
who block his legislative initiatives, the leaders of the northern
autonomous okrugs which form part of the krai, and most local government
leaders. The current term of the one-chamber legislative assembly does not
expire until the end of 2001, so politically the regional parliamentarians
are fairly secure and have plenty of scope for maneuvering. It is no
coincidence that they are seeking to venture beyond purely legislative
activities. The parliamentarians want to play an instrumental role in
forming social and economic policy in the krai. The deputies also aspire to
participation in appointment policy in the krai. Following the almost
unanimous passage of a law on the krai government which significantly
curtails the governor's powers, the parliamentarians intend to have a say in
its formation. It should also be noted that the structure of the organs of
state power in this "Russian-doll" type subject of the federation (the krai
also incorporates the Dolgano-Nenetsky (Taimirsky) and Evenkiisky autonomous
okrugs) is more complex than in normal Russian republics and regions. The
leaders of these two sparsely populated northern okrugs (which have a
population of just over 100,000, while the population of the krai as a whole
is over 3 million) do not represent a real challenge to the Krasnoyarsk
governor or legislative assembly, as the leaders of Yamalo-Nenetsky and
Khanti-Mansysk okrugs do in Tyumen Oblast. But Krasnoyarsk cannot dismiss
the attempts by the authorities in Dudinka and Tura, which have their own
budgets, to claim sole control over the minerals and natural resources of
their territories, nor can it ignore the fact this is the location of one of
the largest industrial enterprises, Norilsk Nickel, which is the biggest
contributor of taxes and "ready money" to the krai budget (if there is open
confrontation with Krasnoyarsk, the owners and managers of this enterprise
may win the support of the authorities of a subject of the federation which
has equal rights).


Second, the main business and finance structures in the krai have entered
into confrontation with Lebed. They have concentrated the financial
resources in one place, by merging the two main regional banks Metaleks and
Enisei into one single credit structure that has the potential to figure
among the top thirty or fifty banks in the country. Third, the most powerful
party structure in the krai--the Communist Party of the Russian Federation
and its krai committee--have begun to voice their discontent with Lebed's
activities. Moreover, fourth, he has not been able to maintain unity within
the movement he founded himself--Honor and Motherland--which split in early
1999 into political organizations loyal to him and opposed to him. Fifth, he
has failed to establish good relations with the main media in the krai, both
electronic and print media, which constantly criticize his policies.


The upshot is that Lebed has not been able to cultivate the economic,
political and informational resources of Krasnoyarsk krai as back-up for his
future presidential election campaign. 


HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL


Nevertheless, the governor continues to battle for control of the region's
resources, mainly by administrative and political methods. Lebed is
reorganizing the system of government in the krai. He intends to retain a
small apparatus, directly subordinate to himself, whose tasks will include
providing the governor with everything he needs to perform his
representative functions, to run the internal and external policy of the
krai and also to coordinate the activities of all the organs of power in the
region. The economic and social spheres will be managed by the first deputy
head of the krai administration, who will have jurisdiction over the
committees and departments that handle finance, investment, agriculture and
industry, natural resources and the environment. The governor himself
directs the work of the newly formed krai security council, which is made up
of the heads of all the law enforcement bodies in Krasnoyarsk krai and was
set up to keep a closer check on the "power ministers." It is worth noting
here that the krai has witnessed a split between the heads of separate law
enforcement divisions, resulting in new appointments Lebed has made to
replace disloyal police chiefs.


Lebed is also taking steps to recall the heads of district and small town
administrations in order to ensure that the executive power hierarchy
functions properly. This procedure has been initiated by activists from the
Honor and Motherland movement: Most of the leaders of its local branches
have been granted the status of the governor's representative on human
rights, and have been given sweeping powers. They report directly to the
head of the krai administration, and have the right to request any
information from the town or district authorities and pass it directly to
Lebed with their own clarifications. In addition to this, he is trying to
split the opposition--in April he appointed the former first secretary of
the CPSU krai committee, Pavel Fedirko, as deputy governor and the krai
administration's permanent representative to the government of the Russian
Federation. Fedirko had been seen by many of the governor's opponents as a
potential candidate to head the krai government.


In his confrontation with the Krasnoyarsk Aluminum Factory (KrAZ) and the
Transnational Aluminum Company (Tanako), who previously funded his election
campaign, Lebed is relying on Alfa-Bank, Krasnoyarsk-Energo and Oneximbank,
who supported his opponent--the incumbent governor Valery Zubov--during the
election campaign. He is also seeking the support of the association for
small and medium-sized business, whose chairman, Andrei Pervukhin, has
become his official advisor on small and medium-sized business.


However, it would seem that Lebed's main political and financial reserves
are concentrated not only outside Krasnoyarsk krai, but outside Siberia.
Despite the fact that Krasnoyarsk krai is a member of the interregional
association "Siberian Agreement," which incorporates nineteen federation
subjects, Lebed is making no attempt to lead it, or to form any blocs or
unions within it. In his own words: "I don't need blocs, I am
self-sufficient." Meanwhile, representatives of local officialdom and
regional elites as a whole are rather wary of Lebed's leadership style and
performance, both in his former role as Security Council secretary, and in
his current position as krai governor. His controversial nature and
propensity for major scandals, his willingness to interpret the existing
"rules of the game" rather freely, and his flouting of many of the
principles of the bureaucracy and the elites--particularly those related to
their hierarchical nature--all make it very difficult for him to form
coalitions.


Nevertheless, in April 1999, when Lebed was embroiled in conflicts with most
of the krai's political, financial and business elite, it was the federal
authorities who signed an agreement between the Russian government and the
krai administration on measures to stabilize the social and economic
situation in the Krasnoyarsk coal industry. This agreement envisaged that
the federal authorities would, first, appoint by agreement with the krai
administration no fewer than half of the state's representatives to the
management bodies of federally owned coal companies in the krai, and,
second, would agree with the krai administration the conditions of sale of
federally owned shares in coal companies and would include in the terms for
the competitive sale of shares, where possible, payment by the purchaser of
the debt owed to the budget by the coal companies. In addition, in March of
this year Moscow and the Kremlin sent to Krasnoyarsk an investigative team
from the Interior Ministry and the FSB, headed by General Vladimir
Kolesnikov, which began a detailed investigation into corruption and
economic crime, and brought charges against Lebed's main opponents from KrAZ
and Tanako. In April Boris Yeltsin instructed the country's top officials to
"undertake urgent measures to strengthen the leadership of the local
Prosecutor's Office, Department of Internal Affairs, FSB and Tax
Inspectorate in Krasnoyarsk Krai." And at the end of October 1999, at the
request of the federal law enforcement bodies, Krasnoyarsk's top businessman
and the governor's main political rival Aleksandr Bykov was arrested on the
Hungarian border. For the moment Moscow is pursuing a policy of friendly
neutrality in its reaction to Lebed's tough decision to sever the agreement
regulating relations between Krasnoyarsk krai and Taimirsky
(Dolgano-Nenetsky) autonomous okrug. The governor deems it necessary to take
control of all the financial flows: They should be concentrated in
Krasnoyarsk, and should only "return" to the regions at the discretion of
the krai authorities.


In other words, Lebed's economic, financial and political resources are for
the time being on a regional scale, which does not give him confidence for a
serious fight on the federal political stage. All his actions at a federal
level require the support either of circles close to the Kremlin, or of the
Berezovsky-controlled media. In other words, at the moment his position may
be described as one of dependency and being under the control of others. But
a feature of Lebed's political career has always been his disloyalty to
those patrons who have either lost power or who have been significantly
weakened and are unable to further his career, or who have got in his way.
He has always been ready to change sides, to join the winning side at the
expense of his allies and patrons. The Kremlin cannot be unaware of this
aspect of Lebed's political style. But the intricate game being played by
the central figure on Russia's political scene allows him, on the one hand,
to tempt Lebed with the trappings of future power, and on the other hand to
limit the freedom of movement of Primakov and Putin, who must always be
aware of the Kremlin's potential new favorite lurking behind them. The most
fascinating and significant moves in this game are probably still to come.


******