June 16, 2001 

This Date's Issues:   5304 • 5305

Johnson's Russia List
#5304
16 June 2001
davidjohnson@erols.com

[Note from David Johnson:
1. Reuters: Bush, Putin's first talks off to an upbeat start.
2. UPI: Martin Walker, Analysis: Will Russia play the China card?
3. strana.ru: David W. Moore (Gallup News Service), Americans view Russian President favorably.
4. RFE/RL: Sophie Lambroschini, Russia: Dim View Prevails Of United States Under Bush.
5. Washington Post: Masha Lipman, Russia's Tender Pride.
6. MSNBC: Judy Augsburger, Jury's Out on Russia's New TV Station. (NTV)
7. Luba Schwartzman: ORT Review.
8. Los Angeles Times: Robyn Dixon, Capitalist Heads Prevail in Russia. Legislation: Emotions boil over as the Duma passes a measure to allow the sale of land to citizens and foreigners.
9. MOSCOW TRIBUNE: Stanislav Menshikov, CLEAN UP HOUSE BEFORE PLANNING REFORMS. Stolen Bells Do Not Chime.
10. Andrei Liakhov: RE: 5303-Intelligentsia.
11. Jerry F. Hough: Russia Policy and The Logic of Economic Reform.
12. Wilson Center fellowships.
13. Gordon M. Hahn: Bush's Rebuff of Russian Membership in NATO.]

********

#1
Bush, Putin's first talks off to an upbeat start
By Arshad Mohammed

BRDO PRI KRANJU, Slovenia, June 16 (Reuters) - U.S. President George W.
Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin began their first face-to-face
meeting on Saturday saying they had formed a good impression of one another.

Standing side by side on a terrace of the Brdo Castle outside Ljubljana,
Putin said he had a "good first impression" of Bush, the former Texas
governor who took office five months ago. Bush chuckled and told reporters:
"I rest my case."

The former Texas oilman and the one-time KGB spy were expected to discuss a
series of thorny issues including U.S. missile defence plans, weapons
proliferation, NATO enlargement and hot spots like the Middle East and the
Balkans.

But both chose to accent the positive as they began two hours of talks with
handshake in front of the cameras before entering the 16th century castle.

"We're going to have a very good meeting," Bush said. "I have been looking
forward to this meeting a long time. I think we'll find we have a lot in
common."

He also said he knew the meeting had been "inconvenient" for Putin, a
possible reference to the Russian president's hectic travel schedule. Putin
returned to Moscow on Friday after a trip to China.

Putin, apparently alluding to Bush's comments in Poland on Friday that the
United States was not Russia's enemy, said: "I know about the president's
most recent statements in Warsaw and that's a very good foundation on which
to proceed."

"STOP STAR WARS"

Aides played down the chances of any formal agreements, saying the session
was more a chance for the two to size each other up than to spar over
detailed policies.

Bush and Putin were to meet for half an hour accompanied only by a national
security aide and an interpreter. U.S. officials said they would stroll in
the castle grounds before an expanded meeting with aides.

The talks will force the two leaders to confront their sharp differences on
Washington's desire to develop a limited defence against possible missile
attacks from what it calls "rogue" states.

The plan has met opposition in much of Europe as well as from the Chinese
and Russian governments.

Eighteen activists from the environmentalist group Greenpeace were arrested
outside the U.S. embassy in Ljubljana after two scaled a fence and tried to
replace the U.S. flag with a banner reading "Stop Star Wars," a reference
to U.S. missile defense plans.

"RELIC OF THE PAST"

Throughout his five-day European trip Bush has said he wanted to make the
case to Putin that a missile shield was not designed to give Washington
strategic superiority over Moscow but to guard against "blackmail" from
rogue states.

Moscow resists the idea because it would entail scrapping the 1972
Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM), which forbids such defensive systems
and which Russia considers a bedrock of strategic stability for the last
three decades.

"The ABM treaty is a relic of the past," Bush said as he began his first
official trip to Europe which has taken him to Spain, Belgium, Sweden and
Poland.

The ABM treaty rests on the Cold War principle of mutually assured
destruction -- the idea that neither Washington nor Moscow would launch a
nuclear attack on the other because of the certainty of massive retaliation.

The United States has argued that the new potential threat of a rogue
missile attack from states like Iran, Iraq, Libya or North Korea justifies
altering the treaty to allow Washington to develop a missile defense shield.

Putin struck a conciliatory note on Friday, saying he wanted to hear Bush's
strategic thinking straight from the source and hoped their debut summit
would help find a common approach to global security.

"I hope we can succeed in starting the process of working out common
approaches to determining the future architecture of international
security," he told reporters in Moscow. "I'll be flying there in good
spirits."

Earlier in the week, however, Kremlin aides laid out a much harder line,
with one repeating Moscow's view that undermining the ABM pact "can destroy
the system of disarmament agreements and deal an irreparable blow to
non-proliferation regimes."

Bush said on Friday he was concerned about possible weapons proliferation
along Russia's borders, a perennial irritant in U.S.-Russian relations. He
said he would raise the issue with Putin, and urge him to pursue economic
reforms, protect civil liberties and respect religious freedom.

Bush also said he would make the case that expanding the North Atlantic
Treaty Organisation (NATO) to include several former Soviet satellites --
bringing the Western security alliance to Russia's borders -- posed no
threat to Moscow.

********

#2
Analysis: Will Russia play the China card?
By MARTIN WALKER, UPI Chief International Correspondent

LUBLJANA, Slovenia, June 15 (UPI) -- Top Kremlin advisers are warning that
Russia may turn to a strategic alliance with China unless President George
Bush and Russia's President Vladimir Putin can reach an understanding at
their summit on Saturday.

They predict that a combination of a unilateral American deployment of an
anti-missile defense system and a new round of NATO enlargement to include
states that used to be part of the Soviet Union would so anger Russian
public opinion that the Kremlin would be under strong pressure to reach a
deal with Beijing.

"Then a Russian-Chinese strategic alliance, perhaps with Russia becoming
the junior brother to China, could become a reality," Sergei Rogov, a senior
Kremlin adviser and director of Moscow's prestigious U.S.-Canada Institute,
warned June 8 in Washington.

Russians are intent on making the prospect, or the threat, of an alliance
with China into a subplot of the Bush-Putin summit, brandishing it as a grim
alternative if Bush does not make some important concessions.

Russia and China are due to sign a Friendship Treaty in Moscow in July, in
what Kremlin officials say is an important effort by Putin to restore
Russo-Chinese relations to the closeness they enjoyed in the 1950s, before
the Sino-Soviet split.

"We have a window of 18 months to fix the Russian-American relationship
because by the year 2003 three negative trends could combine. The first
would a unilateral U.S. decision to deploy missile defenses. The second
would be NATO enlargement. The third would a decline of the oil price, and
Russia unable to service its foreign debt in 2003," Rogov explained.

Rogov's warning caused fireworks at the top-level conference June 8 of
Russia experts and policy-makers in Washington, organized by the Carnegie
Endowment, and including former White house national security adviser
Zbigniew Brzezinski and former Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott.

"It is a chimera to threaten the United States with the China card,"
responded Talbott, who was the Clinton administration's main architect of
strategy towards Russia until January this year.

"I am deeply skeptical whether Russia has an option of sustained strategic
posture against the U.S. And it is not helpful nor accurate to wave in our
faces that if we don't get this relationship right within the next year,
Russia and China will go off together for the rest of the century."

Russian and Chinese officials have both publicly fretted about living in a
"unipolar" world, by which they mean a global pecking order dominated by the
military, economic and political weight of the United States.

Moreover, China is already Russia's top customer for arms exports, buying
some $2 billion a year of new Russian submarines, destroyers and Su-27 and
Su-30 warplanes. China's military buildup, fueled by a 17.8 percent increase
in this year's defense budget, depends heavily on Russian arms and
technology. In particular, with the Russian-built submarines and destroyers
armed with Cruise missiles, China's ability to deter American support for
Taiwan hinges on Russia's willingness to provide the advanced weaponry.

But American policy-makers think the threat of a new Russo-Chinese
alliance is ultimately hollow. They cite Russia's folk memory of invasion
and occupation by the Mongol horde in the Middle Ages, a fear given modern
expression by China's huge and overcrowded population, eying Russia's vast
empty spaces of Siberia. They point to the border skirmishes along Siberia's
Assuri River in the 1960s, and the current Russian-Chinese rivalry for
influence in the formerly Soviet republics of central Asia.

"If I were in charge of Russia, I would not be worried about NATO
enlargement to include the three tiny Baltic states," Talbott noted. "I'd be
worried about the Russian Far East, and the demographic trends that show
Russia's population declining alongside increased Chinese immigration into
Siberia."

But China has been wooing Russia, seeing Moscow as an important partner in
its efforts to build a coalition large enough to balance American dominance.

"China and Russia have developed a strategic partnership for the 21st
century by eliminating the Cold War mentality that defines a country either
as an ally or an enemy. Rather, Russia and China agree that the two
countries are good neighbors, good friends and partners", said Li Fenglin,
former Chinese ambassador to Russia, speaking at the Washington conference.

"The Chinese see Russia positively, more positively than they see Japan,
and look at our relations with a focus on the future", the ambassador added.

Ironically, "playing the China card" is a gambit the Russians learned from
Washington, when the Nixon administration decided after secret talks with
Beijing to re-open diplomatic contacts with China in 1972, as a way of
putting more pressure on the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

*******

#3
strana.ru
June 15, 2001
Americans view Russian President favorably
by David W. Moore, Gallup News Service

PRINCETON, NJ - On Saturday, President George W. Bush will hold his first
meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the small country of
Slovenia, formerly part of Yugoslavia. The talks are expected to focus on
Bush's stated intentions of building a missile defense system in the United
States, in direct violation of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty between
the Soviet Union and the United States. Recent Gallup polls suggest that the
general public holds a more favorable view of Russia than it did two years
ago, during the fighting in Kosovo, when Russia's President Boris Yeltsin was
one of the United States' severest critics. Polls also show that while
Americans seem predisposed to support the concept of a missile defense
system, their support wanes considerably when they hear arguments suggesting
the system has not worked successfully.

According to a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll, conducted June 8-10, Americans are
more likely to consider Putin friendly than unfriendly to the United States,
by 43% to 14%, while another 43% have no opinion. The friendly group includes
7% who say Putin is an ally, and another 36% who say he is a friend, but not
an ally. The unfriendly group includes 5% who think Putin is an enemy, with
the other 9% saying just unfriendly.

In Gallup's annual Foreign Relations Poll conducted in February of this year,
just over half of Americans - 52% - said they had a favorable opinion of
Russia, with 42% saying an unfavorable opinion. This represented a
considerable improvement over the favorability ratings given Russia in 1999
and 2000, when Russia opposed U.S. and NATO troops fighting in Kosovo.

Since the end of the Cold War, ratings of Russia have been mostly a net
positive, with the only net negative ratings occurring during the period when
the United States led a NATO-backed force in Kosovo, in opposition to the
Belgrade government. At the time, Yeltsin argued forcefully against the use
of NATO forces in Kosovo and tended to support the Yugoslavian government
under Slobodan Milosevic. After Putin succeeded Yeltsin in March, 2000, the
Russian government was widely criticized for its continued fighting in
Chechnya - a Russian province that wants its independence. With both the war
in Chechnya and the fighting in Kosovo no longer prominent in the news,
Americans' favorability ratings of Russia have rebounded.

Americans Wary of Missile Defense System

While Bush is presenting his arguments for a missile defense system to Putin
and other European leaders, Americans appear uncertain about deploying such a
system. A Gallup poll in February found that the public strongly favors the
concept of a missile defense system, but when presented with information
about the workability of the system, support falls off dramatically.

A CBS News/New York Times poll conducted in mid-May, 2000, asked respondents
whether they would "favor or oppose the United States continuing to try to
build this missile defense system against nuclear attack." By a margin of 58%
to 28%, Americans supported the missile defense system. But then the CBS/NYT
poll presented some negative information about the missile defense system to
the supporters, and asked them if in light of these facts, they would still
support the shield. The poll also presented opponents with an argument in
favor of the missile shield to see if that would change their minds.

Once the supporters were told that the system had already cost $60 billion,
about one in nine no longer expressed support, mostly indicating opposition.
A recalculation of attitudes based on that one factor shows that after people
are told the system costs $60 billion, there is still net support - 47% to
35%.

After people are told, however, that many scientists say the system is
unlikely to work, Americans oppose the system by more than a two-to-one
margin - 56% to 25%. Similarly, when told that building the system means the
United States would have to break the arms control treaty it now has with
Russia, 52% oppose the system and only 28% support it. Finally, if
respondents believed the system had a good chance of working successfully,
they would support it by an overwhelming margin of 71% to 12%.

In general, the public has not been paying a great deal of attention to this
issue, and a CBS poll conducted this March showed that only about three in
ten Americans were even aware that the United States does not currently have
a defense against incoming ballistic missiles.

Survey Methods

The most recent results reported here are based on telephone interviews with
a randomly selected national sample of 1,011 adults, 18 years and older,
conducted June 8-10, 2001. For results based on this sample, one can say with
95 percent confidence that the maximum error attributable to sampling and
other random effects is plus or minus 3 percentage points. In addition to
sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting
surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.

Do you consider Russian president Vladimir Putin to be - an ally of the
United States, friendly, but not an ally, unfriendly, an enemy of the United
States, or don't you know enough to say?

2001, June 8-10: Ally (7), Friendly, not an ally (36), Unfriendly (9), Enemy
(5), Don't know enough (43), No opinion (*).

* Average rating for each year

********

#4
Russia: Dim View Prevails Of United States Under Bush
By Sophie Lambroschini

Russian politicians and media are almost uniformly negative in their views of
the United States under President George W. Bush. So it's not surprising that
many Muscovites take a similarly dim view of their former Cold War rivals. On
the eve of the Ljubljana summit, RFE/RL's Moscow correspondent Sophie
Lambroschini talks to people in Russia's capital city to find out what they
think about Bush and the prospects for his meeting tomorrow with Vladimir
Putin.

Moscow, 15 June 2001 (RFE/RL) -- Anti-Americanism hit a peak in Russia two
years ago, after NATO's bombing campaign in Serbia and Kosovo. At the time,
polls showed that over 50 percent of Russians did not think favorably of the
U.S.

Since then, however, Russians' resentment of their former Cold War rivals has
softened somewhat. But like critics of the United States in Western Europe,
many Russians today voice concerns over what they see as growing
unilateralism in U.S. foreign policy. A number of Muscovites enjoying sunny
spring weather in the city's Pushkin Square expressed doubts about the Bush
administration and U.S. feelings about Russia. A few said, however, that
there were still things they admired about the United States.

Alexei is an engineer from Saint Petersburg. He says Russia should be careful
to protect its interests in the face of what he called U.S. imperialism.

"The main characteristic of [U.S.] policy is to force its influence on the
world and its desire to control second-level countries. So I think there
should be an alliance between Russia and the United States -- there's no
doubt that a friendship should exist. But only to a certain extent, because
it seems to me that the United States would never want to see Russia as a
full-fledged partner. Their [own] state interests hold a higher place than
friendship."

Nina Kondakova, a mother of two, says she thinks the United States is taking
advantage of her country's economic troubles by using Russia as a dumping
ground for its own unwanted products:

"Bush really has us in his grip. He's proceeding according to his own
interests, and I think these are personal interests on his part. The United
States lives according to its own rules -- they're number one, number one
everywhere. [But that's because] they make sure things are good for them --
they don't give a damn about anyone else. They can't do anything good for us
-- and they don't want to, either. The products they [export to Russia] --
that's just a market [strategy], for them to fill the [Russian] market with
food and clothes that they don't want or that have gone out of fashion. They
send it to us and we grab it because our own production is at zero."

The Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion (VTsIOM) recently released
a report that assesses Russian opinion toward the United States over the past
decade. According to the study, U.S. popularity ratings dropped by 10 points
earlier this year (February), following Bush's inauguration.

Many Russians attribute the downturn to Bush's tough stance on missile
defense, NATO expansion, and pledges to slash financial aid to Russia. Sophia
Bylova, who studies English at the prestigious Moscow Institute for Foreign
Languages, says Bush's determination to push ahead with his missile defense
program -- and withdraw from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in the
process -- is what she considers "proof" of growing U.S. antagonism toward
Russia:

"I think that the fact that [Bush] wants to tear up the ABM Treaty is an
obvious expression of hostility. He just wants to get out of it as quickly
[as possible]."

Sophia's sister, Olga, agrees. She says former U.S. President Bill Clinton
had more respect for Russians:

"Russia is also a superpower. It's bigger in size than America. If two
superpowers like Russia and America start a nuclear war, then there will be
nothing left alive on earth. Bush has an especially hostile policy. He's of
the opinion that Russia isn't a country and Russians aren't people. I liked
the relations that Bill Clinton had with our president[s]. I just liked Bill
Clinton -- he was nice to look at, and I liked him as a politician."

But despite growing anti-Bush sentiment, many polls still indicate that a
majority of Russians like the United States. The VTsIOM poll showed that even
with February's 10-point drop, 59 percent of Russians surveyed said they
still had a "positive attitude" toward the U.S. The numbers have since
rebounded, with 70 percent saying their feelings toward the U.S. are good.

So what do Russians like about the United States? Some people say that while
they don't like the way the U.S. treats Russia, they do like the way it
treats its own citizens.

Kondakova, the mother of two, calls the United States "a healthier place for
people" and a place that respects "the rule of law."

"The attitude they have toward work, workers, and labor unions [is good].
Here in Russia, meanwhile, we aren't protected at all -- there's not an ounce
of protection. And then, to some extent, [I like] their culture. I mean the
fact that they've moved away from those violent action movies, from smoking,
from drugs -- they won't even show it on television. But we've taken up all
of those bad habits!"

Pyotr, a teenager who calls himself a "Russian nationalist," sits on a bench
with a friend, strumming a guitar and taking an occasional sip of Russian
beer. Pyotr says that only "old nations like Russia" with rich cultural
heritages will come to dominate the world. Still, he says, the United States
is more "democratic" in some regards:

"They don't have any art [in the United States]. There's not even any such
thing as an American nationality. Columbus, who was not an American,
discovered it. Europe is ahead of the U.S. -- in film, for example. But the
music there isn't bad, because they can breathe freely. We can't. In Russia,
an ordinary, alternative musician just can't get ahead if he doesn't have an
influential father. In that sense, it's more developed in the United States
-- and we've still got a long way to go."

Another opinion poll conducted last week asked which country was best in
terms of free speech, basic rights, and other opportunities. The results
showed that Russians continue to have a favorable impression of the United
States, which ranked higher than Germany and Britain. One analyst warned,
however, that this doesn't mean Russians think less of their Western European
neighbors. Russians, he said, are simply more used to comparing themselves
with the United States -- a psychological holdover from the Cold War era.

********

#5
Washington Post
June 16, 2001
Russia's Tender Pride
By Masha Lipman
Masha Lipman, a Russian journalist, writes a monthly column for The Post.

MOSCOW -- At his meeting today with Vladimir Putin, President Bush may try to
convince the Russian president that national missile defense is not aimed at
Russia and will not harm Russia's security. In his first interview with a
Russian newspaper (Izvestia), five days before the summit, the American
president also sent reassuring signals to the Russian people. "Russia is not
an enemy of the United States," he said, and he then proceeded to discuss
"the new threats" coming from rogue states that may use biological, chemical
and cyber-warfare weapons against the United States.

But in thus seeking to appease Russian opinion, President Bush seems to be
missing the point. Russia's concerns about national missile defense have very
little to do with Russia's security, or anybody else's, for that matter. Only
a small and fairly marginal group of raving hawks in Russia argues that
America's professed concern about a nuclear attack by some midget states is
in fact a ruse, meant to conceal plans for a nuclear war on Russia.

In the Soviet Union and in Russia, the implications of nuclear threat,
nuclear potential, guaranteed nuclear destruction and other Cold War jargon
have always concerned Russia's standing in the world and its status as a
superpower -- not individuals' fear of an atomic war. Americans may have once
dug bomb shelters in their backyards and feared a Soviet nuclear attack
followed by invasion. But to the Soviet people, nuclear war was totally
abstract -- just another propaganda cliche, like "imperialist expansionism"
or "rotting capitalism."

At the time of the Cuban missile crisis, while many terrified Americans
waited in lines outside churches, seeking spiritual refuge from a threatened
nuclear catastrophe, the Soviet people were largely unaware that the world
was on the brink of annihilation. (In the U.S.S.R. the Cuban missile crisis
was officially described as a provocation by the American military machine
staved off by the peace-loving forces.)

The Communist state took care of all aspects of people's existence, including
their joys and fears. It was up to the state to decide when it was time to be
afraid. The people were not supposed to take individual responsibility for
their lives. Or deaths for that matter: The Soviet people almost never wrote
wills in the brave Communist world, apparently believing that even to think
about death was inappropriate.

Lack of personal initiative and responsibility led to a fatalistic attitude,
which in turn made security appear to be a vain and stupid concept. Jokes
were commonly made about what one should do in the event of a nuclear attack.
One of the most popular answers was, "Wrap yourself in a sheet and crawl
slowly to the cemetery."

Nuclear weapons were the symbol of the strength of our country. Nobody could
ignore the Soviet Union, because it had the power to destroy the world.
Because of this power, the U.S.S.R. was the center of a universe that
included half the globe. It was surrounded by scores of clients ranging from
the Eastern European members of the Warsaw pact to the pro-Communist regimes
in Africa, Asia and Latin America. The Soviet Union had a say in every civil
war or regional conflict.

Today hardly anything is left of this international clout. Nuclear weapons
remain as perhaps the last reminder of Russia's former standing. This is why,
in Russia, the talk about unilateral termination of the 1972 ABM Treaty or
building a national missile defense is taken as an act of disrespect and an
encroachment on Russia's national status.

This is something to be taken into account while discussing these matters
with the Russian policymakers. But there is no point in trying to reassure
them that national missile defense is not intended to undermine Russia's
security. This isn't about security -- it's about wounded pride.

********

#6
MSNBC
Jury's Out on Russia's New TV Station
By Judy Augsburger
NBC NEWS

MOSCOW, June 16 — More than two months after Russia’s independent
television channel NTV was taken over by a state-controlled gas company,
the station — famous for its aggressively critical news coverage — hasn’t
become the Kremlin propaganda machine that some feared, journalists and
analysts say. The station has continued to cover controversial issues and
express opinions that are critical of Russian President Vladimir Putin. But
while viewers are hard pressed to name radical changes at NTV, they say
they worry about the subtle ones.

THE FIRST noticeable and natural change was the end of NTV’s lengthy
coverage of its own losing battle against Gazprom, the state-controlled gas
giant that now controls the television channel.

In the immediate aftermath of NTV’s takeover, when control of the
station was wrestled from media tycoon Vladimir Gusinsky in a pre-dawn
change of security guards, the new general director, Boris Jordan, gained
ample air time to make his case to the public that he was here to clean up
NTV’s finances, not suppress media freedom.

With the best and brightest of NTV’s journalists gone to start anew at
the tiny channel TV6, a reduced staff scrambled to put out the news with
second-string anchors stumbling over words, screens going to black, and
less experienced correspondents relying heavily on wire copy instead of
their own reporting.

It was that original reporting — most notably on the prolonged conflict
in Chechnya, where Kremlin troops are fighting a protracted battle with
Muslim separatists — that was NTV’s strength. Correspondents filed reports
that were often highly critical of the government’s two wars over the
southern Russia republic. Therefore, ever since NTV’s takeover, many have
watched its coverage of the war as a litmus test for editorial freedom
under the new management.

EASY ON CHECHNYA

Critics of the new NTV claim that its current coverage of Chechnya is
no different from the state-run channels, which are heavy on reports about
successful Russian troop maneuvers and softball interviews with top
commanders. Others say the difference is more in the tone of the reports,
suggesting they are less emotional, less aggressive.

Defenders of the new NTV, like Vladimir Kondratyev, a long-time NTV
correspondent who chose to stay at the station, claim there is no
difference under the new leadership. “The same correspondents continue to
work there in the same way,” Kondratyev said. “It’s just that Chechnya is
calmer now than it was earlier. If something happened now that demanded
emotion, I think our channel would also raise its voice.”

WATCHING FOR CHANGES

A review NTV’s Chechnya coverage in the last two months shows that of
the three national TV channels, only NTV covered the release of a searing
report by Human Rights Watch which accused the Russian government of
covering up evidence of mass executions of civilians in Chechnya. NTV —
unlike its state-run rivals ORT and RTR — continues to report on the
European Union’s concern with Russia’s military action in the republic.

However, these broadcasts may not be a sign that NTV enjoys complete
editorial freedom. Masha Lipman, former deputy editor of Gusinsky’s
magazine, Itogi — a political weekly published in conjunction with Newsweek
until it was purged of its staff in the Gazprom takeover — points to
another factor: the government’s information policy on Chechnya has also
changed.

The Federal Security Service, a successor to the Soviet-era KGB and
now in charge of operations in Chechnya, recently admitted publicly for the
first time that it does not expect the conflict to end anytime soon. During
the two wars the Kremlin has fought with Chechen separatists, a week rarely
has gone by without a government official or commander predicting the end
of the conflict.

Lipman suggests that “the government right now realizes the public is
indifferent to the war, not too supportive but not too opposed, and would
like to portray the situation in Chechnya as having really difficult
challenges.”

PORTRAYING THE PRESIDENT

A look at an even more sensitive issue for the Kremlin may be more
telling — TV coverage about President Putin himself. On the one-year
anniversary of Putin’s inauguration on May 7, news reports on all channels
featured a large, colorful pro-Putin rally held just off Red Square by a
previously unknown youth organization called ‘Idushiye Vmeste,’ or Walking
Together.

But Putin’s image in each report differed significantly. State TV
RTR’s report was a slick Putin PR clip, which showed 15,000 teenagers
wearing t-shirts emblazoned with Putin’s portrait, t-shirts in the colors
of the Russian flag, singing the national anthem and shouting “Together
with Putin!” The correspondent ended his report by adding that the students
didn’t smoke, drink, swear, or even litter.

Compared to RTR, NTV’s report took a much more critical look at what
was really going on that day. NTV drew parallels between the organized
youth and the old Soviet Komsomol, or Young Communist League, even warning
of a growing Putin personality cult and noting that the rally resembled
government organized events in communist countries such as North Korea and
Cuba.

PICKING FACTS CAREFULLY

But NTV’s report failed to provide critical information that the
ex-NTV journalists at TV6 and many newspapers reported — that the students
were paid to attend the rally and also received other perks such as free
movie tickets, free Internet access, and free pagers, and that the
organization’s leaders admitted to taking direct orders from the Kremlin on
when and where to hold rallies.

However, NTV was also the only channel of the big three to report on
Putin’s inclusion in the list of top 10 enemies of the press drawn up
annually by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, and even
stated that part of the reason was its own takeover.

Ex-NTV producers now at TV6, when asked what they have observed of
the new NTV’s approach, complained that NTV’s reports on the recent severe
flooding in Siberia downplayed the damage and loss of lives and painted a
much too rosy picture of the government’s handling of the emergency.

Boris Jordan, the new NTV director, recently went on a tour of major
U.S. media organizations, including NBC News, to counter reports that the
Kremlin was using Gazprom to control NTV.

Jordan, a U.S. citizen, said American-style press freedoms would form
the backbone of the new station. “There’s no way I’d permit ... censorship
while I’m head of this station,” he insisted. “All I ask is to watch what
we do and let our record speak for us.”

PRIVATE CENSORSHIP?

Analysts point to the degree of personal censorship Gusinsky, NTV’s
former owner now in exile in Spain, had over the station until it was
wrested from his control. Gusinsky, a former theater director who parlayed
an early grasp of Russia’s emerging market economy into a media and
financial empire, was renowned for turning on and off his station’s support
for the Kremlin and the Russian government.

“NTV has never been completely independent; it has always been a
political tool which was used by Gusinsky for his own purposes,” said
Moscow political analyst Andrei Kortunov. “I wouldn’t really say that NTV
and freedom of press in Russia are not the same thing.”

Clearly, the dust has not settled enough in Russia’s media war to
reveal how the Kremlin intends to use its new control over all three major
national channels.

This wait-and-see attitude is shared by many, including NTV
correspondent Kondratyev, who commented that “Some people say the new
management at NTV is being open now on purpose, laying out a kind of bait,
and then it will tighten the screws and start to set limits. All I can say
to that is, let’s wait and see. But right now there is no pressure put on
us.”

NBC’s Judy Augsburger is based in Moscow. MSNBC.com’s Ursula Owre
contributed to this report.

*******

#7
ORT Review
www.ortv.ru
Compiled by Luba Schwartzman (luba7@bu.edu)
Research intern at the Center for Defense Information
Research fellow at the Institute for the Study of Conflict, Ideology and
Policy at Boston University

Friday, June 15, 2001

HEADLINES:

- New complications in Russian-Georgian relations. Russia closed its
airspace to all Georgian airlines, which owe the former over $3.5 million.
Deputy Minister of Transport Pavel Rozhkov let it be understood that this
is a reaction to Georgia's reduction in flights between the two nations.

- Continued problems with the gubernatorial elections in Primoriye. This
could hamper the krai's preparations for the winter. State Duma deputy
Viktor Cherepkov - banned from running by a local court yesterday -- will
appeal to the Supreme Court today.

- Twelve bodies found in Chechnya: Seven in a mass grave near the
Pobedinsk village and five in two cars near the village of Elistanzhi.
All died of gunshot wounds. Russian soldiers could be responsible for at
least one of the mass murders.

- OSCE resumes work in Chechnya. Acting chairman of the OSCE, Romanian
Foreign Minister Mircea Geoana came to the North Caucasus today.

- One of the two Su-25 planes that crashed over a mountain pass in
Chechnya was found in the Itum-Kale area. Official sources assert that
there is no way that the planes could have been shot down by Chechen
fighters.

- The US will not press for the death penalty for former FBI agent Robert
Hansson.

- The third escapee from the Kemerovo prison, 44-year old Anatoly Petrov
was shot while resisting the security services.

- Good news from Chechnya - A community center [Dom Kul'tury] was opened
in Nozhai-Yurt. Akhmad Kadyrov and Stanislav Il'yasov attended the
opening ceremony.

- Actor Mikhail Gluzskii passed away today.

- The 9th International street theater festival began today in
Archangelsk.

STORY OF THE DAY

STATE DUMA ACCEPTS THE RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT'S LAND CODE DRAFTS DESPITE THE

ATTEMPTS OF THE COMMUNISTS AND AGRARIANS TO INTERFERE WITH DISCUSSIONS

The land code is a matter of principle, and discussions of the land code
have always been accompanied by tumultuous protests from the left
opposition. This happened today as well. The communists and their
supporters picketed the State Duma building and even stopped traffic on
Okhotnyi Ryad Street for half an hour.

A number of the communist leaders spoke at the improvised rally. They
managed to convince their followers to come back to the sidewalk. The
picketers accosted non-communist deputies with whistles and jeering.

[Camera shows crowd yelling at Zhirinovsky]: "Traitor! Traitor!"

Passions raged in the assembly as well. The leftists attempted to
continue the rally.

Vasilii Shandybin and others (chanting): "Shame! Shame!"

At first the opposition tried to exclude the government draft of the Land
Code from the day's agenda. Agrarian deputy Nikolai Kharitonov even
brought a loaf of bread with him as a symbolic argument. But most voted
in favor of discussing the code.

Then the communists tried to prevent the main speaker German Gref from
getting to the podium by crowding the space at and around it.

Gennady Seleznev: "By the power vested in me by the people, I announce a
recess."

During the recess, the communists met with Gref, and Gennady Seleznev
called Vladimir Putin. The president promised to discuss all of the
changes to the second draft with leaders of all factions. But even after
the speaker announced the communists continued to interrupt the
proceedings. Chairman of the property committee Viktor Pleskachevsky only
managed to say a few words.

[Camera shows:] Communists yelling and banging fists.

Then a physical fight broke out in the parliament. The main participants
were Georgii Tikhonov and Vladimir Bryntsalov.

German Gref did manage to speak after all - from the government balcony.
To prevent the communists from bothering him the balcony was surrounded by
Unity and Fatherland deputies.

Duma speaker Gennady Seleznev did not close the meeting - he was
hospitalized after a hypertensive crisis.

Finally Communist and Agrarian Deputies left the assembly - but this did
not compromise the results of the vote since all major factions and deputy
groups supported the government draft.

251 deputies voted in favor of the Land Code, 22 - against, and 3
abstained.

*******

#8
Los Angeles Times
June 16, 2001
Capitalist Heads Prevail in Russia
Legislation: Emotions boil over as the Duma passes a measure to allow the sale of land to citizens and foreigners.
By ROBYN DIXON, Times Staff Writer

MOSCOW--Amid head-butts, punches and chanting, the Russian parliament
Friday passed a measure that paves the way for citizens and foreigners to buy
commercial and private land.

But the more controversial matter of selling agricultural land will be
dealt with later in a separate law.

The sale of land is an intensely emotional issue in Russia, and debate
about a national code governing it has continued since the early 1990s.

Outside parliament, leftist protesters handed out small packets of soil,
symbolizing the sellout of Russian land.

In the chamber, they raised a banner reading, "To sell land is to sell
the Motherland," and chanted, "Shame, shame."

Nikolai Kharitonov of the Agrarian Party, an ally of the Communists,
produced a huge loaf of bread, saying it is still possible to get bread from
real Russian fields. The implication was that foreigners would soon be able
to buy up the country's farms.

The Communists and their allies dominated the Russian parliament until
late 1999, making passage of a law on land sales impossible.

But it was clear that the Communists faced defeat Friday in the State
Duma, or lower house, and their rowdy protests only underscored their
impotence to stop the sales, a practice banned in Soviet times.

Boris Y. Nemtsov, leader of the right-wing Union of Right Forces
faction, said the Communists' defeat is a telling sign of their waning power.

"I think they are bad losers. . . . To all appearances, it is their last
splash and a demonstration of their weakness," he said.

Among the forces brought together to pass the bill in its first reading
were the pro-Kremlin Unity faction, the Union of Right Forces and the liberal
Yabloko party.

Realizing they faced defeat, the Communists and their allies walked out
of the Duma before the vote.

"We declare our protest and believe that the government is pushing the
country toward mass disorders," said Communist Party leader Gennady A.
Zyuganov.

Yuri Chernichenko of the Peasants' Party of Russia, which has been
calling for land privatization since the early 1990s, said passage of the
bill finally brings Russian law into line with the constitution passed in
1993.

"The Communists were writhing frantically in the Duma today because they
realized full well they may be losing their last real battle in Russia," he
said. "Today they felt quite vividly for the first time that land is
literally slipping from under their feet."

Before it becomes law, the bill must pass two more readings in the Duma
and a review by the upper house before being sent to President Vladimir V.
Putin for his signature.

Several fistfights broke out as emotions boiled over in the Duma.
Millionaire pharmaceuticals manufacturer Vladimir Bryntsalov, a member of the
People's Deputy faction, savagely head-butted Georgy Tikhonov of the
pro-Communist Regions of Russia faction, who lashed back. The two later threw
more punches at each other.

The excitement sparked high blood pressure problems in Speaker Gennady
N. Seleznyov, who was taken to a hospital.

When the minister for economic development and trade, German O. Gref,
tried to approach the podium, the leftist forces surrounded the rostrum and
chanted loudly in a bid to prevent him from speaking.

Forced instead to speak from the government observation box, Gref said
the new land sales measure would encourage investment and enable Russians to
sell their property. He said 25% of city land is already privately owned.

Land is being sold according to local laws in some regions, but sales
have moved slowly because of the absence of a national code.

A deputy from the Union of Right Forces, Viktor Pokhmelkin, put forward
a more radical version of the bill, which would have allowed sales of
agricultural land, but it was voted down.

"We're staunch supporters of private ownership of land, whereas they
[the Communists] want to keep the villages marginal and permanently drunk and
maintain directors of state-owned farms who mismanage money," he said.

*******

#9
From: "Stanislav Menshikov" <smenshikov@mtu-net.ru>
Subject: CLEAN UP HOUSE BEFORE PLANNING REFORMS
Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2001

"MOSCOW TRIBUNE", 15 June 2001
CLEAN UP HOUSE BEFORE PLANNING REFORMS
Stolen Bells Do Not Chime
By Stanislav Menshikov

It is better to put one's house in order before even thinking about
restructuring. This was the principal message emerging from a recent
conference in Moscow co-organised by ECAAR-Russia (Russian chapter of
Economists Allied for Arms Reduction) and the Institute for International
Economic and Political Studies (IMEPI). For two days economists from Russia,

US, France and Germany discussed prospects for restructuring strategically
important sectors of the economy: natural gas, electric power,
transportation and telecommunications.
The Kremlin and the government have decided on a series of major reforms in
these sectors. The authorities argue that these reforms will succeed in
laying a solid foundation for sustained long-term economic growth. But most
conference participants felt otherwise. The prevailing mood was that the
reforms were ill prepared and that with major elementary management problems
unsettled in the sectors concerned, chances were great that plans for
restructuring would fail.

One reason for such pessimism is that so far no solid economic analysis has
been made as to the extent to which tariffs for gas, electricity and
transportation need to be raised in order to provide adequate investment
finance while not putting an excessive burden on the economy in general. In
theory, once tariffs are liberalised, the market will automatically take
care of finding the correct equilibrium. But in practice after the natural
monopolies are broken down, the number of independent companies would still
be too small to create genuine competition. Because these companies would be
guided by profit maximisation, chances are that tariffs would skyrocket well
beyond modest official projections. Once that happens, general inflation
would get out of hand and undermine prospects for fast economic growth.
The other reason for pessimism is that no favourable prospects are seen for
attracting capital investment into electricity, gas and transportation. As
one participant put it, openness was much more important than restructuring.

Until balance sheets in meaningful terms together with other crucial
business information were made readily available to stockholders, prospects
for attracting outside investment would be dim. Alexander Lebedev, president
of the National Reserve Bank, complained that his institution, which owns 4
percent of RAO UES shares, has so far sustained a loss of $100 million due
to falling market values. The underlying uncertainty was created by lack of
information forthcoming from the company.

Mikhail Delyagin, a leading economic analyst and director of the Institute
for Globalisation, quoted a recent report by the Arthur Anderson
international consulting firm, which insisted that RAO UES needed putting
its management in order first before even talking about higher tariffs and
new investment. Delyagin believed that in order to avoid errors already made
in the electric industry, the first step to make in the gas industry,
before a reform there was even considered, should be a thorough audit of
costs and assets, including that of Gazprom affiliated companies,
elimination of unnecessary intermediaries and cleaning up house in the four
company "profit centres". Only after that it was worth while discussing
plans for major restructuring.

Sergei Sylvestrov, economic adviser to the Speaker of the Federation
Council, disclosed that plans for increasing electricity and gas output were
largely paper projections, not supported by credible investment plans.
Therefore reforms could easily lead to more shortages rather than less
because newly created independent companies would be interested in closing
down their least profitable producing units in order to cut costs and
maximise profits. He recalled an old story about the Russian Emperor on a
tour of the provinces. Arriving in a fairly large city and not hearing the
traditional ringing of church bells in his honour he demanded an
explanation. There are a few reasons, was the answer. To start with, there
were no church bells left, all were stolen. No other reason was necessary,
that one was enough. Similarly, expected rise in asset stripping in the
natural monopolies would leave them without adequate capacity to serve the
needs of a growing economy.

Alexander Nekipelov, Director of the IMEPI think tank, recently served on
the Governor Kress committee to review the electric energy reform package
for President Putin. As he explained, the committee succeeded in mitigating
some of the glaring deficiencies in the initial restructuring plan. Dates
for tariff liberalisation were moved into 2004 instead of starting
immediately. Proportions of initial share ownership in the newly created
generating companies would be retained in order to prevent insider
manipulation. But many problems remained. Openness was something yet to be
achieved, and it was not certain when it would come about. Good management
in the industry was still more of a hope than reality. The role of the
government as a major stockholder was not defined. Unless these problems
were tackled, the reform would be less than effective.

These and other expressions of caution have been tabled continuously in the
last few months. Some of them were at least recognised by the government,
most others were ignored. But the Russian economy can ill afford a new
reform failure. So why not take a pause and think about the dangers ahead
before major harm is caused?

*******

#10
From: "Andrei Liakhov" <liakhova@nortonrose.com>
Subject: RE: 5303-Intelligentsia
Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2001

What happened to Intelligentsija?

The answer is very simple (at least from where I come from). In the last 15
years it became "unfashionable" to be an "inteligent". With the advent of
shaved head/kalashikov based society which sprang from the ruins of the
USSR, with the criminalisation and degradation of society which rewards
muscles and not brains and is ruled by a bunch of very loud, arrogant and
self centred thieves, life has become simply intolerable for anybody who
managed to retain at least some decency in the madhouse previously called
the USSR.

There is a strong argument in support of the view that the country does not
need decency, brains or "mysterious Russian soul" any more. What it is after
these days is the 3Ms; Money, Mansions and Mercedeses. Whoever has the most,
the biggest and the longest of the 3Ms is considered to be "inteligentsija".
The society is more and more starting to resemble one large cage full of
hungry wolves hunting each other and breeding their young as hunters, not
thinkers.

As to the "classic" Russian "inteligent": some left for pastures new for a
variety of reasons (and not necessarily for money); some managed to step on
their throats and went to serve the owners of 3Ms; some have isolated
themselves and live with a hope of Russian resurrection, but the absolute
majority is proudly and very quietly dying out.

I sometimes think that the modern fate of the Russian "inteligentsija" is
the last blow of the dying soviet regime which had this dream of creating a
totally controlled society incompatible with the spirit of freedom,
independence and decency so characteristic of Russian "inteligentcija".

******

#11
Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2001
From: "Jerry F. Hough" <jhough@duke.edu>
Subject: Russia Policy and The Logic of Economic Reform

It certainly is possible to disagree with the Bush Administration
on a number of aspects of its Russian policy, but it is distressing to
hear so much talk about the deterioration that allegedly has occurred.
Russia under Yeltsin did not have democracy, a free press, or economic
reform. Clinton did not have a special relationship. He bribed the
Yeltsin team in order to get Russian compliance on Kosovo, the Great
Game, and, most of all, the sale of Tyson chicken legs, etc. (I trust
people saw what happened to Tyson stock price after the end of IMF aid
in 1998.) He put conditions on aid that were crazy. I was just in
a non-Russian former union republic of importance to the US, talking with
a former pro-Western finance minister who was moaning about how it was
impossible to conduct an intelligent reform because some low IMF official
would make some impossible condition for ideological reasons and
because the new state had to go along to get money.

In short, Bush may have a bad policy, but it cannot be worse that what
the US has had if we want a stable Russia with control over its nuclear
weapons. If Putin fails, the next is likely to be worst. The current
policy at least has the advantage that the former Soviet Union may get the
idea that its top officials will not be bribed for behavior that is
disadvantageous to their country and that the only way to get rich is to
promote economic growth. With luck, oil prices really will fall quickly to
$18 as predicted to drive home the point. The Third World is very corrupt
and has rapid growth. That is not a coincidence, and perhaps Russians will
eventually look at the pattern of growth from European and American days
onward and will copy our real model.

My book, The Logic of Economic Reform in Russia, has been
published by Brookings. I think that it is quite fresh, arguing that
the results were precisely what should have been predicted from the
assumptions of the neoclassical model. I will sent you a short summary
next week.

The book, like all of my books, will be considered controversial,
but this one, like the Prefects, The Struggle for the Third World, and
Democratization and Revolution, I deliberately wrote with the hope that
it will have a long shelf life. That is, it is written with
perspective, I hope, and certainly with an effort to discuss the
theoretical problems of creating a state and a market.

In one respect, however, the book speaks the absolute truth. If I may
quote from the acknowledgements in the preface, officially written by
Mike Armacost, but, of course, really by the author. "David Johnson has
provided an enormous service to Russia and specialists on Russia with
the publication of his `David Johnson's List' two or three times a day
through the Internet. The list not only is full of information from
Russia, but has become a forum for discusssion that led Hough to
many participants who communicated with him privately." I would like to
take this opportunity to say that those words are heart-felt.

My next book will be on the American Domestic Politics of the
Origins of the Cold War, 1932-1952, written on the basis of an enormous
amount of work in American archives--and often those seldom used in
studies of the Cold War. It disagrees both with orthodox and
revisionists because both assume that the American policy toward the
Soviet Union focussed on the Soviet Union. I argue that it really was
usually derivative of policy toward Germany that was too explosive to be
discussed in public. That is, Russia was often a codeword. This is
certainly
true of Bullitt, but Davies never really was ambassador to the Soviet
Union and was controversial in the 1930s because he wanted to cooperate
with the Soviet Union against Hitler in a collective security policy.
Roosevelt really had no ambassador to Moscow from late 1935 to August
1939 because he did not want collective security until the fall of
France. It is within the realm of the possible, but not certain, that
Roosevelt favored a Hitler invasion of the Soviet Union in the late 1930s
and worked toward it.

The book argues that many inconsistences are not inconsistent because
of this factor. Acheson went from being so pro-Soviet in 1945 that I. F.
Stone loved him and J. Edgar Hoover thought him a Soviet agent with Alger
Hiss
and Henry Wallace to his familiar hard-line position; his great enemy,
George Kennan, took the reverse pattern. Both make sense--and were
consistent-- if one understands that Kennan was a Germanphile and Acheson a
Germanphobe. It was logical for the Republicans to be anti-Commuinist
but pro-detente, for the anti-Communism from the Un-American Activities
Committee to McCarthy was aimed at those who were considered anti-Germany,
while detente was necessary for the unification of Germany. One could go
on and on.

I mention my next book, because I would love invitations to
conferences and seminars on the origins of the Cold War--or Western
policy toward the Holocaust--to talk about these issues and get some rough
edges knocked off. I generally would be glad to pay for my own
ticket. I still am working in archives (today Herbert Feis' fascinating if
anguished autobiography written in the last year of his life), and I would
love to talk in places that have archives with obscure politicians
and diplomats of the period--or not so obscure. I will be on leave in the
spring so that I can finish the book.

*******

#12
Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2001 09:29:06 -0400
From: "JOSEPH DRESEN" <DRESENJO@WWIC.SI.EDU>
Subject: Wilson Center fellowships

WOODROW WILSON INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR SCHOLARS
FELLOWSHIPS IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES 2002-2003

The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars announces the opening
of its 2002-2003 Fellowship competition. The application deadline is
October 1, 2001.

The Center annually awards academic-year residential fellowships to
individuals in the social sciences and humanities with outstanding project
proposals on national and/or international issues--topics that intersect
with questions of public policy or provide the historical framework to
illumine policy issues of contemporary importance. Fellows are provided
with a stipend (includes a round-trip transportation allowance) and with
part-time research assistance. They work from private offices at the
Woodrow Wilson International Center in Washington, DC.

Eligiblity: For academic applicants, eligibility is limited to the
postdoctoral level and, normally, to applicants with publications beyond
the Ph.D. dissertation. For other applicants, an equivalent level of
professional achievement is expected. Applications from any country are
welcome. All applicants should have a very good command of spoken English.
The Center seeks a diverse group of Fellows and welcomes applications from
women and minorities.

For application materials, please visit our website at:
www.wilsoncenter.org, or write to:
Scholar Selection and Services Office
Woodrow Wilson Center
One Woodrow Wilson Plaza
1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20004-3027
e-mail: fellowships@wwic.si.edu
telephone: 202/691-4170
fax: 202/691-4001

*******

#13
Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2001
From: "Gordon M. Hahn" <hahn@hoover.stanford.edu>
Subject: Bush's Rebuff of Russian Membership in NATO

Over a year ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested that Russia
could in the long-term become a NATO member. Many of us have been arguing
here and elsewhere that this should have been a long-term strategic
objective after the fall of the disbanding of the Warsaw Pact. Only
Russia's full integration into Europe can guarantee European security from
the east. Unfortunately, this point of view appears not to be shared by
President Bush as evidenced by his presumably carefully chosen words
delivered in Warsaw: he called for opening NATO membership to all
democracy-seekong states "from the Baltic to the Black Sea." This seems to
be yet another signal from Washington that Russia is not welcome in NATO. I
have offered an alternative -- associate membership -- in an oped piece
which has not been published. If it is not, I will send to JRL in a week or
so.

Gordon M. Hahn
Hoover Institution
Stanford University

*******

Johnson's Russia List Archive (under construction):  http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson

CDI Russia Weekly:  http://www.cdi.org/russia

CDI Headlines:  http://www.cdi.org/

Defense Monitor:  http://www.cdi.org/dm/2001

Weekly Defense Monitor:  http://www.cdi.org/weekly/