August 3, 2001

This Date's Issues:   5379 • 5380

Johnson's Russia List
#5379
3 August 2001
davidjohnson@erols.com

[Note from David Johnson:
1. AP: Rice Aims for New Russia Framework.
2. BBC Monitoring: Russian newspaper doubts choice of envoy for ABM talks.
3. Luba Schwartzman: ORT Review.
4. Moscow Times: Boris Kagarlitsky, Politically Correct Traveler's Guide.
5. Moscow Times: Pavel Felgenhauer, Defending the Kursk.
6. Interfax: GOVT PLANS TO PRIVATIZE 450 COMPANIES IN 2002.
7. Interfax: ZYUGANOV THINKS AUTHORITARIAN TENDENCIES ARE INTENSIFYING IN RUSSIA.
8. Reuters: Election threat to Russia's defence sector reform.
9. New book: RUSSIAN POLITICS: CHALLENGES OF DEMOCRATIZATION.
10. New NCEEER publication.
11. Reuters: Putin says concerned by use of force in Caspian.
12. Reuters: Gephardt blasts Bush "go-it-alone" policies.
13. The Globe and Mail (Canada): Geoffrey York, In rubble of Grozny, many sell scraps just to scrape by.
14. Interfax: IF WORLD LEADERS MET IN RUSSIA, THERE COULD BE ANTI-CAPITALIST ACTIONS AS IN GENOA - TRADE UNIONISTS.
15. BBC Monitoring: Expert dubs RTV's Moscow city news best new programme on Russian TV.
16. RFE/RL: Kathleen Knox, Ukraine: Kyiv Gains From Playing East Against West.]

********

#1
Rice Aims for New Russia Framework
August 2, 2001
By BARRY SCHWEID

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration will try to work out a new
strategic framework with Russia that could include joint military exercises
and sharing of missile technology - provided Russia stops assisting Iran and
North Korea, White House National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said
Thursday.

With Russian military experts due in Washington for talks next Tuesday and
Wednesday, Rice said Moscow has not yet accepted the concept. But she said in
an interview with The Associated Press: ``I am hopeful there can be a new day
with Russia.''

The talks - Rice prefers to call them consultations rather than traditional
negotiations - are the first in a series of three rounds designed to
implement the agreement President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin
reached July 22 in Genoa, Italy, to link U.S. planning for a missile defense
with the large cuts the Kremlin wants to make in nuclear weapons arsenals.

The Russian delegation will be headed by Col. Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky, first
deputy chief of the general staff, and the U.S. delegation by Douglas Feith,
undersecretary of defense for policy.

Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and Assistant Secretary of State John
Bolton then would go to Moscow for a second round, and Secretary of State
Colin Powell would meet in New York in mid-September with Russian Foreign
Minister Igor Ivanov.

``We've set up intensive consultations,'' said Rice, who held her own talks
in Moscow after the Bush-Putin meeting. ``We believe there is a new strategic
framework out there that permits missile defenses and involves offensive
reductions.''

The administration's view is that the United States and Russia both have
security reasons to begin a new relationship, she said. ``It is not built on
implacable hostility as it was with the Soviet Union,'' Rice said.

Putin has resisted U.S. overtures to accept a U.S. missile defense system
that bumps up against the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, but his
willingness in Genoa to have talks simultaneously on defense systems and
missile cuts was welcomed by Bush.

Still, Rice said ``the Russians have not accepted the concept'' of a new
framework. ``But we have made a lot of progress in the last six or seven
months.''

A new relationship, she said, could include the United States and Russia
sharing defense plans ``so they see what the other side is doing,'' joint
warning exercises and sharing missile data, including permission for Russia
to purchase American equipment.

But, she said, Russia would have to do more to control the sale of technology
to Iran and North Korea.

``We still have a proliferation problem of serious proportions,'' Rice said.

Formal, protracted negotiations that marked the Cold War, producing a slew of
arms control treaties, some of which have not been implemented, are not part
of the administration's plan, according to Rice and another senior U.S.
official.

``What we don't want to have is a 12-year negotiation,'' Rice said.

********

#2
BBC Monitoring
Russian newspaper doubts choice of envoy for ABM talks
Source: Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Moscow, in Russian 31 Jul 01

Appointing Yuriy Baluyevskiy Russian negotiator at ABM talks on 7-8 August
has been a wrong decision because he does not have sufficient experience
and is not well-known in the West. The following is the text of an article
by the Russian newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta on 31 July:

Russian Defence Minister Sergey Ivanov has announced that a military
delegation headed by Col-Gen Yuriy Baluyevskiy, chief of the General Staff
Main Operations Directorate, will visit Washington on 7-8 August. The
experts will have to decide whether or not slight amendments to the 1972
ABM Treaty will damage Russia's national security. Sergey Ivanov indicated
that they may influence conceptual decisions in the sphere of the
organizational development of the Russian Federation armed forces and will
determine the nature of the further development not only of nuclear
deterrent forces but also of the Ground Forces, frontline and naval
aviation, and the navy.

Thus Baluyevskiy's mission is strategic. A very great deal will depend on
the conclusions that he and his immediate boss Anatoliy Kvashnin [chief of
the General Staff of the Russian armed forces] report to Sergey Ivanov and
Vladimir Putin. In this connection it is appropriate to recall the Soviet
experience of consultations with the Americans on the issues in question.

From the time of Leonid Brezhnev [former Soviet leader] the Kremlin
invariably linked the process of the reduction of strategic offensive arms
with the need for strict compliance with the 1972 ABM Treaty. It was on
this basis that the Soviet-American SALT-1 and SALT-2 agreements, which
made it possible to set in motion the machinery of real nuclear disarmament
and to reduce the risk of global conflict between the two superpowers, were
signed. Although further progress in this sphere slowed somewhat - Ronald
Reagan, who declared the Soviet Union an "empire of evil" and launched the
SDI programme, became president - Moscow was able to reach a sensible
compromise with the father of Star Wars. The Treaty on the Elimination of
Intermediate and Shorter-Range Missiles was concluded in 1987. And in 1991
Mikhail Gorbachev and George Bush Sr signed the START-1 Treaty.

In order to practically resolve issues as they arose, coordinate the
positions of the departments concerned, and conduct the negotiating process
with the United States, the General Staff set up the Legal Treaty
Directorate, which from 1979 was headed by Col-Gen Nikolay Chervov, a
highly experienced negotiator. The work of the Legal Treaty Directorate was
directly overseen by the chief of the General Staff.

After the disintegration of the Soviet Union the Russian Federation Armed
Forces General Staff took over the resolution of the tasks in question.
However, it made serious mistakes during the talks with the United States
on the START-2 Treaty. The main result was Russia's consent to the
destruction of the historical structure of its strategic nuclear forces and
their foundation - the Strategic Missile Troops. Moreover, Moscow pledged
to totally eliminate the grouping of heavy ground-based MIRVed ICBMs
[ballistic missiles with multiple warheads], which had the guaranteed
ability to overcome both the existing US ABM system and any future system.
Serious miscalculations were also made with regard to the "upload
potential" problem, which makes it possible for the United States, if it
abandons START-2, to sharply increase the number of nuclear warheads on
existing delivery vehicles within a short time and without particular
material outlay.

To be fair, let us emphasize that since 1992 the leadership of the General
Staff has changed several times. However, throughout this time the quality
of decisions and the competence of command and control have left something
to be desired.

Against this backdrop the dispatch of Yuriy Baluyevskiy to Washington on a
special mission looks strange. Unlike Col-Gen Nikolay Chervov, Baluyevskiy
lacks the necessary knowledge of problems of strategic stability and
negotiating experience. Although he has taken part in negotiations before,
it was only under the patronage of Marshal Igor Sergeyev, as a delegation
member and by no means in a leading role. Furthermore, Baluyevskiy, whose
profile is low, is very little known in the West and in all probability
will be viewed very condescendingly. Needless to say, he will be treated
appropriately by the Americans.

*******

#3
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

HEADLINES,
Thursday, August 02, 2001

- Officers of the Central RUBOP (regional administration for combating
organized crime) detained a Kurdish criminal group that kidnapped people
in Moscow and the surrounding area for the purpose of collecting funds for
the creation of an "Independent Republic of Kurdistan." Hostages were
kept at the "Solnechny" summer camp in the Yaroslavskaya oblast'.

- In the U.S., protests against the detention of Russian programmer
Dmitrii Sklyarov continue.

- Another Russian mercenary fighting on the side the Chechen fighters has
been detained in the Alkhan-Kala settlement. Two Russian fighters
detained earlier have begun giving testimonies.

- The Russian government met today to discuss a number of socio-economic
questions. According to the ministers, the Russian economy is improving,
although the growth factors are not necessarily stable and sustainable.
The government also approved a privatization program for next year.

- Today was the main day of the informal summit of CIS leaders in Sochi.
The presidents discussed a number of important questions, including the
anti-terrorism and anti-drug campaigns, collective security, integration,
and resource development. After the general meeting and a "working
dinner," discussions continued on a bi- and tri-lateral basis.

- A complex for processing nuclear waste (from written-off nuclear
submarines), sponsored by the U.S., has been opened on the territory of
the former secret "Zvezda" factory.

- Russian paratroopers celebrated their 71st anniversary today. President
Putin sent them his greetings.

- An exhibition dedicated to the history of the Kursk nuclear submarine
has opened in Murmansk.

- In the Barents Sea, divers work on drilling through the hull of the
sunken nuclear submarine despite the bad weather.

- American Fulbright student John Tobin, detained in Voronezh half a year
ago and convicted on drug-dealing charges, is preparing for an early
release. Russian security services have made it understood that Tobin
will not be persona non grata in Russia.

- In Lensk, the first 56-apartment building has been finished and opened
for families flooded out in Yakutia. 124 more will be built before the
winter season sets in.

- High temperatures in the Samara oblast' are jeopardizing harvest
collection.

- FSB director Nikolai Patrushev will conduct a closed meeting of the
headquarters of the North Caucasus anti-terrorist campaign today. Among
other issues, heightened security measures connected with the recent bus
hijacking will be discussed.

- Andrei Konovalov, the director of the Institute of Strategic Evaluation,
noted that Russia's increased interest in the CIS nations is driven by two
factors: Russia's concern for the 20 million ethnic Russians living in
the former republics and common economic and political interests. He
added that, currently, "CIS is a symbolic, rather than a practicable
organization."

*******

#4
Moscow Times
August 3, 2001
Politically Correct Traveler's Guide
By Boris Kagarlitsky

Last fall at my friend's apartment in London I saw a poster urging
democratically minded people not to spend their vacations in Turkey. The
Turkish government violates human rights, persecutes the Kurds and we help it
by spending our money in the country.

Such thoughts had never occurred to me before. But in planning this vacation,
I could no longer justify myself by ignorance.

I'd love to go to Egypt. Alas, I open a newspaper and see an article about
the persecution of Copts. And Egypt is hardly an example of democracy. The
same story with Tunisia. Altogether in the Arab world, the situation with
liberty and human rights is not great. Only in Morocco it gets better:
Dissidents were released from prisons, censorship was lifted. What a pity it
is too far away!

In Mexico they finally held free presidential elections. But who can
guarantee that the recent clampdown on Chapas Indians will not be repeated?

Cuba is calling on Russian brothers to visit the Island of Liberty. The
beaches are great. Fidel still rules. Dissidents are still in prisons.
Citizens still get rationed food and the best education in Latin America.

Some young people obsessed with the East have traveled to Nepal. The flight
is expensive, but all the rest is dirt cheap. Only the smell of the tear gas
in the streets and murder of the royal family spoil the paradise.

In China neither democracy nor tourism are particularly developed.

Maybe Thailand? But what do you do about child exploitation in sweatshops and
peasant girls being sold to the sex industry?

Overall, cheap tourism is in poor countries. And poverty doesn't fit well
with human rights.

Croatia is very popular this season. There seems to be democratization there.
But for some reason it is hard to forget that these charming people just
recently expelled their Serbian neighbors from their houses, although the
Serbs did the same. Israel fights against Palestinians who, in turn, are
trying to blow up Jews. Clearly, not the most pleasant place for a vacation.

The Baltic republics were once very attractive to Soviet tourists. I used to
go to Estonia. Alas, from a democracy viewpoint, it has its own problems.
Talk about it with the Russian-speaking population. Well, we are told the
situation is getting better. All right, when it really improves I'll go there.

It seems like I'd have to stay at home. Indeed, why not spend a vacation at
the dacha? To tell you the truth, our Motherland is also not an example of
respect for human rights. In addition, flies and mosquitoes bother you more
than the secret police. The number of mosquitoes drops immediately when you
cross the Finnish border. Maybe farsighted Europeans just deny them Schengen
visas.

The human rights record also improves immediately, but the prices skyrocket:
You are paying not half-hungry people from the slums for your services but
full-fledged citizens organized in trade unions.

The longer I sit over a map, the more questions arise. And an old Soviet joke
comes to mind about a Jew who decided to emigrate. He couldn't stand the
Soviet Union any more, did not want to go to Israel because of war, to
America because of the crime, to Italy because of corruption or to Australia
because it was too far from Europe. The annoyed bureaucrat put a globe in
front of the Jew and told him finally to chose a country. The old man spent
about an hour thinking and then asked: "Don't you have another globe?"

Boris Kagarlitsky is a Moscow-based sociologist.

*******

#5
Moscow Times
August 2, 2001
Defending the Kursk
By Pavel Felgenhauer

The operation to salvage the nuclear submarine Kursk, which sunk a year
ago, is rapidly proceeding in the Barents Sea with most of the work being
done by Dutch and other foreign contractors.

At the same time, the Russian navy says Western intelligence has been
activity trying to get to the sub.

The commander of Russia's naval aviation, Ivan Fedin, recently told
reporters that "foreign submarines have been sighted trying to enter the
area" but the Russian navy managed to fend off these "unwanted guests."
Russian warships are constantly on patrol, and last fall the navy
officially admitted it had used more than 50 live underwater bombs to
attack presumed Western intruders near the sunken Kursk.

No explanation has been provided by the Russian authorities for this
anti-spy frenzy. There has also been no sensible explanation for why the
attempt to salvage the Kursk has been speeded up so dramatically.

The explosion that sunk the Kursk happened in the torpedo compartment in
the bow, but this part of the ship will not be salvaged this year. Russian
naval experts have already concluded that without the bow it will virtually
be impossible to reckon the cause of the disaster. Even if the rest of the
sub is salvaged successfully, but the cause of the disaster is not known,
other Oscar II subs of the same class will not be considered fully safe.

The two nuclear reactors on the Kursk have been shut down, and the longer
they lie on the sea bed, the less the environmental danger during salvage
as the radioactivity levels of the reactor fuel and coolant decrease. It is
obvious that nether technical safety nor environmental reasons are pushing
forward the risky salvage of the bulk of the Kursk.

The Kursk has on board 22 Granit anti-ship long-range cruise missiles — the
most modern and most powerful in the Russian inventory, missiles that were
specifically designed to kill U.S. aircraft carriers. The Granits are
deployed on Oscar II nuclear subs and are the prime weapons of Russia's
biggest warships — the Kirov and Peter the Great-class nuclear cruisers.

All details of the design and capabilities of the Granit missiles are still
top secret 10 years after the demise of the Soviet Union. Russian naval
officials only say in ambiguous terms that the Granit "has an intelligent
multiprogram guidance system that operates autonomously after launch; the
Granit flies low over the water and the missiles when flying in a pack can
share information before going in for the kill." It is also reported that
the Granit can receive information from Russian satellites during flight
while seeking out carrier battle groups.

The 22 Granits on the Kursk are in separate silos outside the pressure hull
of the sub and were not damaged by the explosion inside. The Granits can be
reached without going into the damaged sub and their relative openness to
possible hostile inspection has been considered by the Russian navy a
terrifying security risk ever since the Kursk sinking.

If Western experts have a chance to inspect the design of the Granit
self-guidance system and to know the frequencies of its on-board radar,
effective counter measures can be deployed that would render the most
potent Russian naval weapon virtually useless.

For a year already the Russian navy has postponed all major exercises and
plans to send a task force to show the flag in the Mediterranean, because
all resources and seaworthy ships have been spending time guarding the
Kursk and its secrets.

The Granit missiles were designed to carry nuclear warheads. Russian
officials emphatically deny there are any nukes on the Kursk, but a
Norwegian naval official told me in April that one of their divers that
went down to the Kursk recorded emissions that indicate there are nukes on
board.

The Kursk was a first-line ship, ready to go to the Atlantic to seek out
carriers hours after orders from Moscow. Loading nuclear-tipped Granits
would have delayed sail for days. The Kursk was scheduled to go on patrol
into NATO-controlled waters at the time it sunk. But going without nukes is
militarily senseless — a conventional Granit cannot possibly kill a carrier.

The Kursk is lying in international waters. Guarding the secret Granits and
also, possibly, modern nuclear warheads from hostile inspection using live
munitions, as the Russian navy has been doing, is costly and illegal. If
the Russians hit anyone, it would be an act of war. Moscow wants its boat
out of harm's way at all costs and now, regardless of risk. Let's all hope
that the salvage goes according to plan.

Pavel Felgenhauer is an independent defense analyst based in Moscow.

*******

#6
GOVT PLANS TO PRIVATIZE 450 COMPANIES IN 2002

MOSCOW. Aug 1 (Interfax) - The Russian government pans to privatize
around 150 state unitary companies and sell state shares in around 300
joint stock companies in 2002.

These plans are contained in a draft privatization program that
will be discussed at a Cabinet session on August 2, sources in the
government told Interfax.

The state privatization program is presented for reference to the
State Duma with the draft federal budget for the following year,
according to the law on the budget.

Share packages of no more than 25% of charter capital account for
two thirds of the planned sales, the source told Interfax. Among the
state unitary companies due for privatization in 2002, companies in the
agriculture and transport industries predominate and among the joint-
stock companies, the fuel and energy and agriculture industries
predominate.

The government is not yet disclosing the names of the companies due
for privatization, but oil company Slavneft is expected to be among
them.

The government currently owns 9,700 state unitary companies and
share packages in almost 4,000 joint-stock companies.

*******

#7
ZYUGANOV THINKS AUTHORITARIAN TENDENCIES
ARE INTENSIFYING IN RUSSIA

MOSCOW. Aug 2 (Interfax) - Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov said
that authoritarian tendencies are becoming increasingly strong in
Russia.

"I don't like the fact that instead of strengthening the chain of
command, power is being concentrated in one set of hands, in one group,
and I consider this very dangerous," Zyuganov said in an interview with
Interfax on Thursday.

Symptoms of this danger can be clearly seen, for example, in the
work of the State Duma, which "is becoming more and more like a stamp,
stamping all the inventions of Gref [German Gref, Russia's Minister for
Economic Development and Trade], without observing either logic or law,"
he said.

The Federation Council, too, is becoming less and less important,
the Communist leader said. "Not long ago, it played a very stabilizing
role in emergencies and under difficult circumstances. There were
influential people there, capable of making important decisions that the
entire country heeded," Zyuganov said. The Federation Council no longer
plays this role, he said.

As for the executive power, and first of all the government headed
by Mikhail Kasyanov, the Communist leader believes that "it is helpless"
and "trades in national interests" in order to stay afloat. Soon "both
electric power plants, land, and railways" will be sold, Zyuganov said.

The concentration of power in the hands of one person "does not
strengthen, but shakes this power, as it cannot be possessed by one
person," the Communist leader said. Unfortunately, those public
institutions "that are expected to ensure stability and balance of power
have recently been falling apart," and are therefore incapable of
preventing this tendency from growing, Zyuganov said.

"The simultaneous concentration of all information resources" is
also "a very bad symptom," which fits into this tendency, Zyuganov said.
This is especially clearly seen in the work of electronic mass media, he
said. "All the news stories resemble each other, irrespective of the TV
channel presenting them. You see one and you don't want to see anything
else," he said.

Zyuganov placed special emphasis on the fact that previously, he
did not sharply criticize the administration's actions aimed at creating
a chain of command, but the situation is so alarming that he cannot help
drawing the public's attention to it.

*******

#8
Election threat to Russia's defence sector reform
By Jon Boyle

MOSCOW, Aug 2 (Reuters) - Russia wants to slim down its sprawling Soviet-era
military-industrial complex into compact commercially-orientated holdings,
but experts who welcomed the plan say electoral considerations could yet sink
it.

The government has approved proposals from Deputy Prime Minister Ilya
Klebanov to pare defence sector enterprises back from 1,700 to less than half
that number by 2006, through a brutal process of mergers and closures.

What should emerge, in theory, is a compact group of holdings focused on
tank-building, aerospace and electronics for example, whose activities bear a
closer relation to an economy which has shrunk drastically since the end of
Communism.

The plan aims to replicate integrated Western firms like the European
Aeronautic Defence and Space Co (EADS) and the Seattle-based Boeing Co.

"We must, above all, think about how to create a defence sector which in the
medium- and long-term suits our armed forces, in terms of technological
quality, price level etc," Klebanov told the Vedomosti business daily on
Thursday.

"But if you want to do something, you have to pay for it," he said, adding
that the radical overhaul aimed to free up the scarce resources needed for
research and development into new-generation fighter aircraft, tanks and
other weaponry.

The most modern equipment currently in service in the Russian army was
designed in the early 1980s. While its service life can be extended, fresh
designs are urgently needed.

LOOKING FOR CASH COWS

Klebanov said developing a fifth-generation warplane would cost $1.5 billion,
a heavy burden on an already modest 2000 defence budget of $29 billion, below
Britain's $34.5 billion.

Sweeping military reforms, including deep manpower cuts, and the continuing
conflict in rebel Chechnya are a further strain on resources.

Klebanov hopes to shift some of the costs of developing a new generation of
military hardware onto defence firms, using greater rights over their
discoveries as a carrot. Currently, such intellectual property belongs to the
state, Klebanov said.

He also wants the sector to operate more like Western firms by producing for
both defence and civilian clients.

Increased arms exports, unofficially $4-5 billion in 2000, can also provide
more research cash, but producers and regional chiefs are hostile to losing
funds they would otherwise get.

Another goal is to boost Russia's share of the global arms market, which was
around 12 percent in 2000, according to the International Institute for
Strategic Studies in London. This compares with 50 percent for the United
States and 17.4 percent for Britain.

The idea of using arms sales as an engine for modernisation has prompted
Russia to resume selling to Iran, to Washington's dismay.

ELECTION TIMETABLE

The Moscow-based military analyst Vadim Solovyov said the reforms led in the
right direction but would need time.

"It won't be possible to do this in one go. It will take years, roughly about
eight years, and then only if the necessary economic conditions are there,"
he said.

But Alexander Pikayev, a defence specialist at Moscow's Carnegie Centre, said
Russia's electoral timetable and track record on implementing military reform
did not augur well.

And the closure of defence factories in towns with few or no other employers
could give President Vladimir Putin, who has yet to sign the Klebanov
blueprint, pause for thought.

"Downsizing the military-industrial complex is such a painful problem it
should be done very quickly," he said, adding that Putin would need time to
alleviate the shock of large scale job losses and the other attendant social
and political challenges before the 2004 presidential election.

"The question is whether the authorities possess the political will. I think
next year is the latest time when serious decisions can be implemented."

*******

#9
Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2001
From: "Z. Barany" <barany@mail.utexas.edu>
Subject: new book RUSSIAN POLITICS: CHALLENGES OF DEMOCRATIZATION

Dear David,

It might interest your readers that RUSSIAN POLITICS: CHALLENGES OF
DEMOCRATIZATION, edited by Zoltan Barany and Robert G. Moser has
been recently published by Cambridge University Press (260pp, $17.99 pbk.,
ISBN 0-521-80512-0).

Table of Contents:
Introduction: Challenges of Russian Democratization
Robert G. Moser

1. Russian Electoral Trends    
Michael McFaul

2. Executive-Legislative Relations in Russia, 1991-1999  
Robert G. Moser

3. The Russian Central State in Crisis: Center and Periphery in the Post-Soviet Era
Kathryn Stoner-Weiss

4. Russian Economic Reform, 1991-1999
Yoshiko M. Herrera

5. Politics and the Russian Armed Forces
Zoltan Barany

Conclusion: Democracy and Russian Politics
M. Steven Fish

Sincerely,
Zoltan Barany and Robert G. Moser

*******

#10
From: NCEEERDC@aol.com
Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2001
Subject: new NCEEER publication

The National Council for Eurasian and East European Research (NCEEER) is
pleased to announce the publication of this new study on social science and
humanities topics concerning the former Soviet Union and Central and East
Europe. NCEEER is the largest national research organization supporting such
research:

"The Historical Parameters of Russian Religious Toleration" by Nicholas B.
Breyfogle of Ohio State University

NCEEER publications are usually 15-30 pp. (double spaced) in length, and can
be purchased for $3.00 by calling us at (202) 822-6950, or contacting us at
nceeerdc@aol.com. NCEEER publications from 1978 to the present can be
reviews in the Toumanoff Library at our headquarters at 910 17th St., NW,
Suite 300, Washington, DC 20006. The library is open from 9-5 Monday through
Friday and a full listing can be found at our website at www.nceeer.org.

*******

#11
Putin says concerned by use of force in Caspian
By Tara FitzGerald

MOSCOW, Aug 2 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin condemned on
Thursday the use of force in the disputed Caspian Sea, after Azerbaijan
complained of gunboat diplomacy by Iran.

Interfax news agency quoted Putin as saying Russia was concerned by rising
tensions in the Caspian and urging a final agreement on who controls which
sectors of the sea.

Last month Azerbaijan protested to Tehran after an Iranian gunship and a
military aircraft threatened two oil exploration ships in what it claims as
the Azeri sector of the Caspian Sea.

British oil giant BP, which was operating the survey vessels, said it had
suspended exploration work in that area of the sea around its Araz-Alov-Sharg
oil concession. Iran calls the same block Alborz.

The division of the Caspian between the five littoral states -- Iran, Russia,
Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan -- remains unresolved despite
protracted talks.

Putin said everything should be done to ensure that "the Caspian Sea is a sea
of peace and calm and that all questions arising are resolved by exclusively
peaceful means through direct dialogue."

The principles of international law should also be taken into account, the
Russian leader said at the Black Sea resort of Sochi following an informal
summit of leaders of around a dozen former Soviet republics.

Russia, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan have already found some common ground, but
analysts say the positions of Iran and Turkmenistan make any agreement
unlikely.

Itar-Tass news agency quoted Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev as saying
in Sochi that there was no disagreement between Russia, Kazakhstan and
Azerbaijan on the question of dividing up the Caspian Sea along median lines.

These are hypothetical lines drawn up for areas where specific maritime
boundaries between countries have not been declared.

"The CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) countries are the successors of
the Soviet Union and recognise the existing borders, including external
political ones. In as far as the border with Iran has been determined any
reconsideration could lead to grievous consequences," he said.

Before the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Caspian's status was
governed by agreements between the Soviet Union and Iran. Tehran has said the
littoral states should decide jointly on the Caspian's energy riches or grant
Iran a 20 percent share of its resources.

Nazarbayev said Russian and Kazakh experts had been given the task of
preparing a report on dividing the landlocked sea by median lines by the end
of the year.

A new round of talks between the leaders of the five littoral states is due
to take place in Turkmenistan in October.

*******

#12
Gephardt blasts Bush "go-it-alone" policies
By Carol Giacomo, Diplomatic Correspondent

WASHINGTON, Aug 2 (Reuters) - House Democratic leader Richard Gephardt
accused President George W. Bush on Thursday of a "go-it-alone" approach to
world affairs that has worried allies, presented Russia with unwise
"ultimatums" and ultimately may imperil U.S. security.

Speaking to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Gephardt outlined
a strategic framework for dealing with Russia and emphasized the need for an
engaged and collaborative approach to international problems with allies and
other countries.

Gephardt, who recently returned from a trip to Europe and Russia, said he
would work to build a bipartisan majority in the U.S. Congress that would
block deployment of a missile defense system that might violate the 1972
Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, and would look favorably on Russia's eventual
membership in NATO.

The Missouri Democrat's comments echoed similar criticism by Senate Majority
Leader Tom Daschle last month. On the eve of Bush's trip to the G8 summit of
world leaders in Europe, Daschle, a South Dakota Democrat, told USA Today the
administration was "isolating ourselves, and in so isolating ourselves, I
think we are minimizing ourselves."

The White House called Daschle's statement "unseemly, unwise and inaccurate."
There was no immediate response from the White House on Gephardt's speech.

Gephardt, from Missouri, is considered a potential Democratic presidential
candidate in the 2004 election.

He said that on his recent European trip he found "a pressing desire for
American engagement in the world and for collaboration and dialogue with our
European partners."

"Europeans are worried that America is on the sidelines," Gephardt said.

'GO-IT-ALONE POLICIES'

"They think the Bush administration has embraced go-it-alone policies that
undermine international security, hurt our economic and environmental
interests and prevent us from seizing a historic opportunity for engagement
with Russia," he said.

As evidence, Gephardt referred to a number of international agreements and
treaties that Bush has rejected, including the Kyoto protocol on global
warming, an accord designed to enforce the Biological Weapons Convention, the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and an accord creating an International
Criminal Court.

Bush recently held two meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin and
sent top aides to Moscow in an effort to work out a new strategic framework
between the two major nuclear weapons powers on missile defenses and
reductions in their arsenals.

The president has said the ABM Treaty is antiquated and does not allow the
United States to pursue defenses against missiles from "rogue states" like
North Korea.

Gephardt complained Bush has issued "ultimatums" to the Russians, telling
them if they do not agree on the U.S. position to jettison the ABM Treaty,
the United States will go forward anyway.

"I don't think these ultimatums are wise. And they are likely to have
negative consequences for U.S. security and our position in the world,"
Gephardt said.

In particular, he defended the network of arms control treaties that had
"preserved stability in the last 30 years because the two superpowers agreed
to the rules of the road and wrote them together with other nations."

"We negotiated. We collaborated. And we signed the ABM, the INF
(Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces), the CFE (Conventional Forces in Europe)
and the START (Strategic Arms Reduction Talks) treaties," he said.

'YOU'VE GOT TO COLLABORATE'

"That's a successful track record. And we face peril today if we abandon it
along with our friends and allies and potential partners around the globe."

Gephardt insisted that "you've got to collaborate in today's world."

"That doesn't mean it's easy. It doesn't mean you give up what you believe in
and what you're trying to do. It doesn't mean you sacrifice any of America's
interests. ... I think our long-term security interests depend on a
successful collaboration with NATO, with Europe, with Russia and ultimately
also with China and others nations," he said.

He endorsed continued research and testing on missile defense technologies,
but said he hoped there would be a bipartisan majority in Congress to stop
deployment of a missile defense system or certain tests that might violate
the ABM Treaty.

The administration has signaled its intention to pursue space-based missile
defense weapons as well as ground-, sea- and airplane-based weapons. Gephardt
said that despite his misgivings about missile defense, he was "leery" of
trying to stop research on the space-based weapon technologies.

*******

#13
The Globe and Mail (Canada)
August 2, 2001
In rubble of Grozny, many sell scraps just to scrape by
Water bills, GEOFFREY YORK finds, eat up half the monthly income of indigent
Chechen families
By GEOFFREY YORK

The old man scavenges hungrily through the wrecked and gutted apartments of
Grozny, searching for scraps of anything he can resell or reuse.

He gathers plastic bottles and sells them for 25 kopeks (about half a penny)
each. He hoards plywood sheets, wooden doors and balcony rails from destroyed
buildings. He collects old books -- normally used as fire fuel or toilet
paper these days -- and carefully dusts them and stacks them on the floor of
his tiny apartment with its leaking roof.

"People laugh at me," says 73-year-old Allamohad Naserdinov, a retired bus
driver, still dapper in a grey fedora. "But if I can sell a book for one or
two rubles [five or 10 cents], it could help me to eat. Maybe someday I will
be able to sell some of them."

He proudly displays a chipped china bowl. "People didn't pick it up because
it is dirty. But if you clean it with sand, it will be fine."

Mr. Naserdinov is one of thousands of Chechens scrounging through junk for a
meagre living in Grozny, reduced to rubble by years of brutal warfare.

The Chechen capital was a city of a half-million people before the wars of
the 1990s. Today, after the return of thousands of refugees, as many as
200,000 people are estimated to be living here. But that official figure
seems exaggerated in a city where almost every apartment block is a
bombed-out shell.

Mr. Naserdinov, who worked 40 years driving buses in Grozny, returned to the
city last year after months as a refugee in a Chechen village. His relatives
owned four apartments, but almost all were destroyed in the Russian
bombardment. He has found only a single habitable room, now heaped with his
scavenged possessions.

Next door is his former apartment, reduced to rubble by bombs and missiles.
The broken door of the building is propped up with a pile of bricks and
twisted metal, which he carefully removes to show a visitor the ruined
interior.

Some aspects of life have improved since the Russian military seized control
of Grozny last year after a savage assault that drove out the Chechen
separatist rebels. Monthly pensions of up to 1,000 rubles (about $50) were
restored last year. Gas was recently restored, allowing people to cook at
home.

But most people have no electricity or running water. Some have illegally run
wires to hospitals to tap into emergency electricity supplies. Flames lick
from broken gas pipes on street corners.

The only signs of life are small street markets, selling beer and cigarettes.
"There's no light at the end of the tunnel," said 70-year-old Emil
Janaraliyev, who returned to Grozny last year.

Some residents get water from backyard wells, but many are forced to buy it
at a price of one ruble per litre. One family, living on a monthly pension of
700 rubles (about $35), says water alone costs 400 rubles a month.

More than 40,000 people are now dependent on humanitarian aid. Still,
pro-Moscow officials in Grozny have been travelling to refugee camps in
neighbouring Ingushetia, trying to persuade refugees to return home.

Most are refusing.

"If the refugees start returning from Ingushetia, it would be a disaster,"
said Daud Akhmatkhanov, a relief worker for a Czech agency that distributes
food in Grozny. "People don't have jobs or money."

At Grozny University, students are taking entrance exams for classes that
will resume next month. But most are pessimistic. "For the next 10 years, at
least, there won't be anything good here," Razita Abayeva, 20, said. "I want
to leave Russia and go abroad, if it is possible."

Although the Kremlin has repeatedly announced plans to rebuild the city,
there is no sign of any large-scale reconstruction. Most buildings are nearly
empty, with a few people living in ground-floor apartments among the ruins.
"Unhappy people live here," read a sign at the entrance of one building.

"People keep coming to look at their old apartments, but they see they are
destroyed and they go away," said Shamsutdin Ibragimov, a city engineer who
tries to allocate habitable apartments to returning refugees.

One of the biggest struggles for Grozny residents is the battle for
documents. Often, elderly people cannot qualify for pensions because bombs
have destroyed the papers they need to prove the length of their working
life. Invalids have to prove they are disabled, which can require many trips
to government offices.

Zoya Vizigina, a 66-year-old Russian, has spent the past 20 months living in
a Stalin-era bomb shelter in the centre of Grozny. At the peak of the
bombardment, she shared it with dozens of Chechen rebel fighters, until they
retreated from the city. Her apartment was destroyed.

"We've lived for two years in inhuman conditions, but we haven't received a
kopek in compensation."

Many elderly survivors of the Russian bombardment are visibly shell-shocked
or suffering psychiatric problems. "All of us who stayed in the basements are
sick in our heads now," said Valentina, a Russian pensioner who survived two
bombing campaigns in Grozny. Even her constant companion, a loudly wailing
ginger cat named Basil, has gone crazy, she says. She prays almost every day
at the city's only Orthodox church. "Maybe it all happened because of our
sins."

*******

#14
IF WORLD LEADERS MET IN RUSSIA, THERE COULD BE ANTI-CAPITALIST ACTIONS AS IN GENOA - TRADE UNIONISTS

MOSCOW. Aug 2 (Interfax) - If a meeting or conference of world
leaders were held in Russia, there could be an anti-capitalist action
like that at the G-8 summit in Genoa.

This view was voiced at a press conference in Moscow on Thursday by
activists of an inter-regional association of workers of the Zashchita
Truda or Protection of Labor trade unions, which were involved in
protests in Italy.

Protection of Labor activist Sergei Sychev, who is chairman of the
trade union committee at a Moscow ball-bearing plant, has said that in
Russia, "holding similar actions would be no harder than in Genoa." He
is sure that "at least 150,000 of an estimated 300,000 anti-capitalists
who took part in the Genoa action would be able to cross the Russian
border."

"If they are not let in, a huge international scandal" will break
out, he added.

If the same thousands-strong demonstration were held in Russia as
in Genoa, "Russian law enforcement agencies would surely act tougher
than their Italian counterparts, but would get a tougher rebuff, too."

At the same time, the organization's coordinator of trade union
programs Yuri Vinkop believes that "such an action would be beyond
Russian anti-capitalists" without support from Western associates.

He reported that during the G-8 summit in Genoa on July 19, a
delegation drawn from workers' associations in Russia and the CIS
countries, totaling 39 people, arrived for an alternative summit.

According to a representative of the Russian Communist and Workers
Party Alexander Nikolayev, rather than taking part in "battles" in
Genoa, the Russian delegates "were simply learning how such actions
could be organized."

"I am not for rampaging and breaking shop windows, but there is no
other way to attract attention," he said.

********

#15
BBC Monitoring
Expert dubs RTV's Moscow city news best new programme on Russian TV
Source: Centre TV, Moscow, in Russian 2020 gmt 1 Aug 01

A Russian media expert has told a late-night interview show that Russian TV
programmes have come down to earth since the Media-Most crisis started. The
expert, Aleksandr Arkhangelskiy of the Izvestiya newspaper, said that tycoon
Boris Berezovskiy had made capital as a businessman out of the crisis, and
NTV was the better for losing the arrogance it possessed previously
.Arkhangelskiy praised state Russia TV's new local programming for the
capital Moscow. The following is an excerpt from the interview, broadcast on
Russian Centre TV on 1 August:

[Correspondent, ironically] At the end of the television season [new season
starts 1 September] we present our awards to the best television projects in
2000 and 2001. Boris Berezovskiy receives the best producer award, because he
offered stars who had quit NTV key positions on his TV6-Moskva channel, thus
increasing the value of the channel without any investment.

Sergey Dorenko receives the best reporter award. Throughout the season he has
not said a word live on air, thus reaching maximum heights of objectivity and
independence.

The Anshlag [comedy show] gets the best series award because it has become
daily without increasing the number of regular guests and without using the
same 20-year-old footage more than twice.

The Ostankino television tower gets a prize for its contribution to the
development of television. The fire at the tower revealed the hidden and
unexpected technical opportunities provided by television, which allowed
major television channels to live through the last television season without
a tower [Russ: bez bashni, slang expression meaning "in devil-may-care
style"]. The best educational programme award goes to the author of this
report, Dmitriy Yushkov.

[Presenter Andrey Maksimov] It was an ironic view, which is, by the way, very
typical nowadays. People are being pretty ironic about television. I think we
will start with the event mentioned by Dima [the correspondent]. I mean
Berezovskiy.

Apparently, the main event last year was everything which happened to NTV and
TV6. So how did the outlook of the Russian television change after that, if
it has changed at all?

[Izvestiya daily television observer Aleksandr Arkhangelskiy] It has
definitely changed. We woke up one morning to find a different television,
because television used to be an expensive commodity gliding above the
reality of the country we live in.

This bubble was doomed to burst at some point. It was very beautiful -
iridescent and sparkling. But it has burst. The television became more
down-to-earth, cheaper, less so bright, but maybe closer to our country's
general level. Together with this country it will mature in future.

[Presenter] Mature or something else?

[Arkhangelskiy] It will mature, but very slowly. The country - you can see it
if you are travelling all the time - is maturing and changing for the better.
[omitted: more on the same.]

[Presenter] Do you think television is helping the country to mature or it is
preventing it from doing that?

[Arkhangelskiy] Television is a mirror. It's no use being insulted by your
own image in a mirror. Television does help, but it often disturbs. It has
been preventing development for quite a long time, because it created an
illusion of a sensible discussion on important matters. Just an illusion. It
did not offer issues that are really linked to the lives of people. Now it is
not disturbing, but I don't know whether it is helping anybody.

[Presenter] And here is a question for a fortune-teller. Will they allow TV6
to survive or will they do the same to it as they have done to NTV?

[Arkhangelskiy] Do you watch TV6?

[Presenter] Yes.

[Arkhangelskiy] Is it an opposition channel?

[Presenter] Well, not so far, but there haven't been any major changes there,
except that news bulletins have certainly become so much better.

[Arkhangelskiy] News bulletins have become much better. There is Yevgeniy
Kiselev's analytical programme. There are very strong, but balanced news
bulletins. If you watch reports from Chechnya on the current NTV and TV6,
then perhaps NTV appears tougher. Boris Abramovich Berezovskiy is a very
clever, tough and composed man. If he decides to fight the authorities, than
he will find other means than television to do it. I think he is just
building his business. It will be a good entertainment television, which will
have high-quality political broadcast as a beautiful handle on a
walking-stick. In case of a crisis the handle can be removed, but the
walking-stick will remain.

[Presenter] So what is the role of Kiselev and his team in this whole story?

[Arkhangelskiy] The role of Kiselev and the role of his team are two
different roles. Kiselev is a skilful manager, who, if you allow me to say
this, is selling his team. The team is a commodity indeed. The team can
sincerely believe that it is fighting for the freedom of speech, or that it
is building professional television, but the producer - who Kiselev
essentially is - understands perfectly well that the team is producing a
certain product which either sells or not.

Politics is an important matter, but let me assure you that, if Kiselev was
in [Gazprom-Media chief Alfred] Kokh's place and Kokh was in Kiselev's, then
Kokh would be shouting about freedom of speech, because it was the only form
of defence. It was a good strategy, nothing else.

[Presenter] Interesting. I am just trying to visualize this sort of swap.

[omitted: on questions from viewers to follow]

[Irina, viewer from Moscow] Which side do you take in the conflict between
NTV and Gazprom?

[Presenter] I was on the side of television. As far as property is concerned,
I am certainly on the side of Gazprom - not Gazprom proper, but Alfred Kokh
who came to Gazprom after all the loans had been given and time had come to
get them back perhaps using force.

As far as creativity is concerned, I am on the side of television, that is
NTV and those who have become pawns in this game, the journalists.

[Presenter] Are there programmes that irritate you as a professional viewer?

[Arkhangelskiy] Yes, they include [Valeriy] Kommisarov's programmes on RTV.
They also include RTV's evening broadcast produced by OSP-Studio people who
have transferred from TV6. It is a parody programme featuring well-known
people. I think this is an example of how one should not produce comedy
shows. And the Anshlag programme which we have mentioned.

[Presenter] I am not in position to discuss other television people, but I
want to know your opinion. Why do you think all these three programmes are
broadcast by RTV? Is there any reason for that or it happened by chance?

[Arkhangelskiy] I think it happened by chance. I can give examples from other
channels - for instance [comedian] Mikhail Yevdokimov's programme on ORT.
Well, everything related to humour is quite poor.

[Presenter] Why?

[Arkhangelskiy] Because you can't make humour a serial production, while
television is serial art. [omitted: more on the same; on sport programmes]

[Presenter] I have asked you about programmes that irritate you, so I would
certainly like to ask you about the programmes you like best.

[Arkhangelskiy] I have said unpleasant things about RTV. Now it is RTV which
I will praise. I think that the best information project last year is the
Vesti-Moskva programme [Moscow regional news on RTV]. This project is being
fulfilled by Vladimir Luskanov, whom I have criticized a lot in Izvestiya. It
has turned out that he is a great manager. He is not just a commentator - I
don't like his comments much - but he is a great manager. He created a young
team. They enjoy making news. They love Moscow. They understand what news
means for a Muscovite. So now I am trying not to miss their bulletins.
[omitted: more on the same.] And I would also like to mention the large
reports on RTV produced by [Arkadiy] Mamontov and [Yelena] Masyuk. Let me say
that Masyuk is not my favourite character, at least she was not in the past,
but now she is making very interesting programmes.

[omitted: on other programmes]

[Presenter] Is there a news bulletin you view as most objective - one that I
will watch and realize that this is exactly what life is really like?

[Arkhangelskiy] I don't quite understand what you mean by objective. I use
the word adequate. Everything human beings do is subjective. I get a
three-dimensional picture of news by switching from one channel to another. I
watch the 2100 [1700 gmt] news on ORT, 2200 [1800 gmt] news on NTV, TV6 news
when I can, and RTV news.

[Presenter] To finish off the NTV and TV6 story, could you tell us how has
NTV changed?

[Arkhangelskiy] It has become poorer and just as much worse. But I think that
there is something noble in this. It is a noble kind of poverty. They have
become less arrogant, but there will be new projects, I am sure. [omitted:
more on the same; programmes on art and soap operas]

*******

#16
Ukraine: Kyiv Gains From Playing East Against West
By Kathleen Knox

The European Union's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, is in Ukraine this
week, the third visit by a top Western official in a month for Ukraine. It
follows recent high-level visits from Russian and Chinese leaders and is the
latest sign Ukraine is zigzagging in its foreign policy between East and West.

Prague, 1 August 2001 (RFE/RL) -- European Union foreign policy chief Javier
Solana today begins the private portion of his visit to Ukraine, where he
spent the last two days meeting with top officials including Prime Minister
Anatoliy Kinakh and President Leonid Kuchma.

Solana, who concluded the official part of his visit last night, praised the
country's reform process, and received promises that Ukraine will hold fair
and free elections next year and will halt arms sales to Macedonia.

Solana is the third top Western official to visit in less than a month,
coming three weeks after NATO Secretary-General Lord George Robertson's trip
in early July, and a week after a visit by U.S. National Security Adviser
Condoleezza Rice.

But Western officials are not the only ones to pay recent visits to Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin traveled there on 29 July for a joint fleet
review with Kuchma. Before that, Chinese President Jiang Zemin was in town,
and before him, Pope John Paul II.

Taras Kuzio is a research associate at the Center for International and
Security Studies in Toronto. He says this zig-zag approach to foreign policy
used to be interpreted in the West as reflecting the split between East
Ukraine, bordering Russia, and the West of the country, which has close ties
to Poland and Eastern Europe.

But Kuzio says the real reason for the East-West approach is that it suits
those with vested political and commercial interests -- whom he calls
Ukraine's "elites" -- just fine.

"From the elite point of view -- particularly the business and oligarch and
ideological elites surrounding President Kuchma -- it makes a lot of sense,
[in terms of] personal profit [and] power purposes, to be able to play off
East and West and reap the benefits of having and maintaining ties to both
East and West."

He says many of these influential people naturally lean eastward for reasons
of language and culture. They also prefer to have a "semi-reformed" economy
similar to Russia's, and are not keen on increasing transparency, as would be
demanded if Ukraine was to adopt a pro-Western foreign policy:

"At the same time, these elites, who may have a cultural and economic
orientation eastwards, also desire to maintain themselves in power. They
don't want to be transformed into some kind of [province] of Russia or some
kind of Russian protectorate, because they like the trappings of power. They
therefore see President Alyaksandr Lukashenka's [pro-Russia] antics in
Belarus as being rather peculiar, because they see that as a kind of
submission to Russia and a losing of sovereignty. And the one thing the
Ukrainian elites have always been interested in during the 1990s is
maintaining a sovereign state. To do that they therefore need contacts in the
West."

Many of those Western contacts were strongly supportive of the popular and
reformist Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko, who was ousted earlier this year
after an alliance of communists and business elites -- the so-called
"oligarchs" -- pushed a no-confidence vote against him through parliament.

But Solana still had words of praise for Yushchenko's successor -- Kinakh, a
close associate of Kuchma's -- at the start of his visit this week:

"We are very pleased to see how the reform process is moving. The prime
minister has discussed in detail the economic situation and the process of
reforms and we have encouraged the prime minister to continue along that
line."

Christopher Langton is an analyst at the London-based International Institute
for Strategic Studies. He says that given Ukraine's geographical position and
its historical ties with Russia, it's normal that it should feel torn between
Europe and Russia.

He says even the increasingly warm relations with Russia have had their
chillier moments -- such as Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov's remark earlier this
week, made in front of officials from both countries, that the Crimea
rightfully belongs to Russia and not Ukraine.

It was this issue that dampened relations last year and resulted in Ukraine
closing air space to Russian military aircraft flying to the Crimean base of
Sevastopol, home port for Russia's Black Sea fleet.

Langton says another sore spot is Ukraine's membership in GUUAM, a regional
grouping bringing together Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, and
Moldova:

"Some of these countries, if one were to put it bluntly, are not the best of
friends with Russia. So, indeed [Ukraine] is carrying out a very delicate but
very obvious and natural balancing act in that region."

Solana's scheduled five-day trip marks a longer foreign visit than is usual
for the EU foreign policy chief. But neither Langton nor Kuzio place much
importance on the length of his stay, saying at most, it reflects the
importance that Solana -- as a former NATO chief -- gives to Ukraine's
geopolitical position.

Kuzio says what is probably not on Solana's agenda is discussion of any real
possibility of Ukraine joining the EU down the road. He says if the West were
serious about Ukraine's reform process, it would offer real incentives --
such as EU membership in 10-15 years' time -- and not empty diplomatic words:

"But as the West isn't offering any real membership of its Western structures
-- either NATO or the EU -- Ukraine's elites therefore continue to espouse,
in a declaratory manner, that they want to rejoin Europe. But in reality they
are comfortable where they are, in between Europe and Eurasia as a kind of
buffer zone. So there's actually rhetoric on both sides, most of it pretty
empty."

Kuzio says Ukraine's direction could change over time, with the rise of a
new, more westward-looking generation.

******

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