October 4, 2001

This Date's Issues:   5475 • 5476

Johnson's Russia List
#5476
4 October 2001
davidjohnson@erols.com

[Note from David Johnson:
1. Washington Post editorial: Why Chechnya Is Different.
2. Luba Schwartzman: ORT Review.
3. Financial Times (UK): Anatol Lieven, Russia and realpolitik: Western Europe must forge a pragmatic relationship with Russia rather than treat it as an errant child.
4. Peter Lavelle: Untimely Thoughts - Before it starts, what is the intended ending? (re the new post-postwar world)
5. Nezavisimaya Gazeta: Igor Korotchenko, LEND-LEASE FROM SERGEI IVANOV.
Moscow to supply $30-45 million worth of arms to the Northern Alliance Details of the weapons Russia will supply to anti-Taliban forces.
6. The Electronic Telegraph: Ben Aris, Soviet anthrax lying unguarded on test island.
7. THE JAMESTOWN FOUNDATION PRISM: Aleksandr Tsipko, THE FAMILY TAKES
CONTROL OF DOMESTIC POLITICS IN RUSSIA.
8. Washington Post: Alan Sipress, U.S., Russia Recast Their Relationship. Anti-Terror Agenda Appears To Be Framework for Future.
9. Moscow Times: Robert Coalson, Good News Hobbles As Bad News Hurries.
10. AP: U.S. Invited to Use Soviet-Era Base.
11. AP: Russian Plane Explodes and Crashes.]

*******

#1
Washington Post
October 4, 2001
Editorial
Why Chechnya Is Different

RUSSIAN PRESIDENT Vladimir Putin has made remarkable progress in his
campaign to conflate his brutal military campaign in Chechnya with the new
U.S.-led war against terrorism. Last week President Bush publicly agreed
with Mr. Putin that terrorists with ties to Osama bin Laden are fighting
Russian forces in the predominantly Muslim republic, and said they should
be "brought to justice." Since then the Bush administration quietly has
begun taking concrete action in support of Moscow. Last weekend, it
delivered a tough message to the exiled Chechen foreign minister demanding
that the rebel leadership break off relations with two Chechen commanders
who represent the movement's radical Islamic faction. And this week it is
telling the visiting president of Georgia, Eduard Shevardnadze -- who looks
to the United States for help in resisting threats to his country's
sovereignty from Russia -- that he must serve Moscow's cause by taking
action against Chechen militants in Georgia.

Mr. Putin would like the world to believe that the U.S. steps are
equivalent to his own support for a U.S. offensive against Osama bin Laden
and the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. But they are not; and before the
Bush administration goes further in backing Mr. Putin's policies in
Chechnya, it is worth reviewing why that conflict, and the terrorism
associated with it, are different. Chechnya is not a terrorist syndicate or
an Islamic movement but a nation that was conquered by Russia in the 19th
century and that for more than a decade has been seeking to regain
self-rule. Its leader, Aslan Maskhadov, is not an Islamic extremist or even
a man of arms but a pro-Western politician who was democratically elected
in 1997, two years before Mr. Putin chose to reverse a peace accord by
sending 80,000 Russian troops to invade the republic.

Most important, the most brutal atrocities of the Chechen conflict -- a
fight that could have been avoided had Russia been willing to grant
self-rule to this subject nation -- have been perpetrated not by
international terrorists or the Chechen rebels but by Mr. Putin's own
Russian forces. Russian and Western human rights groups have extensively
and meticulously documented hundreds of war crimes by Russian troops,
including extrajudicial executions, torture, extortion and the reduction to
rubble of Chechen towns with indiscriminate bombing and shelling. A typical
Russian "military operation" in Chechnya consists of invading a village or
town, rounding up all of its inhabitants and separating out men and older
boys for detention in open pits. Most are released to their families in
exchange for bribes, but many are tortured and some summarily executed,
their bodies left at dumps or sold back to relatives.

It is thanks to such tactics and the chaos they have produced inside
Chechnya that a handful of rebel formations have appeared in the past
several years that include Arab fighters or commanders and that are
supported by funding from Islamic militants, allegedly including Osama bin
Laden. These groups have long been at odds with Mr. Maskhadov and the
mainstream Chechen commanders, who seek a secular state with close ties to
Russia and the West. For that reason the demand that the Chechen leadership
dissociate itself from the Islamic militants is largely superfluous -- they
are already enemies and rivals for power. The real problem in Chechnya has
been that Russia's rejection of Chechen political rights and refusal to
negotiate with Mr. Maskhadov, combined with its massive and systematic
human rights violations, has led to endless war and anarchy that has
provided an opening for the foreign terrorists.

In the past week, as part of what he describes as an initiative to build a
new alliance with the West, Mr. Putin and his spokesmen have outlined what
could be a major change in this barbarous policy. Just a month ago Mr.
Putin angrily rejected the idea of negotiations with Mr. Maskhadov; now his
spokesman says he is actively seeking talks with the Chechen president as
"a representative of moderate forces." Some contacts by telephone between
the two sides already have taken place. In its own way this turnabout by
Mr. Putin is as dramatic as the Bush administration's shift on Chechnya,
and it offers some justification for recent U.S. actions beyond a simple
quid pro quo for Russian support in Central Asia.

But it's not yet clear if Mr. Putin is serious about seeking a political
settlement -- and that is the crucial factor. Clearly, the United States
must support the destruction of Osama bin Laden's network in Chechnya and
everywhere else it exists. But the Bush administration must also remember
-- and make clear to Moscow -- that until the Russian government settles
with the Maskhadov government, and ends its military campaign against
Chechnya's civilian population, there will, in fact, be no possibility of
achieving that aim.

******

#2
ORT Review
www.ortv.ru
Compiled by Luba Schwartzman (luba7@bu.edu)
Research fellow at the Institute for the Study of Conflict, Ideology and
Policy at Boston University

HEADLINES,
Wednesday, October 03, 2001
- Deputy Prime Minister Aleksei Kudrin updated journalists on the progress
of the special meeting at the Ministry of Finance. Representatives from
the security services and the Central Bank were present to discuss whether
any of the 27 terrorist organization named in an American investigation
have accounts in Russian banks. Measures that will be taken to reopen
past criminal cases (in order to lawfully investigate the situation) were
decided upon at the meeting.
- The forest fires in the Khabarovsk and Maritime regions have engulfed
50,000 hectares. Experts fear that only the rain -- not expected for at
least five days -- can put up the fires, which have raged for over a week.
- Four people died and one received a severe concussion when an explosion
shook a textile factory in Kalachinsk. An investigation has been initiated
to determine why cold water was poured into a heated cauldron. Rescuers
continue searching for people under the rubble.
- The trial of the four terrorists responsible for the 1995 attack on
Budennovsk continues. Journalists were allowed at the trial today, but
their work was limited to three minutes. [NB: The following may or may
not be relevant: In today's report, "the four accused" were said to be
sitting in the metal cage in the courtroom: Raisa Dudaeva, Aslan Yakubov,
Wahit Aidamirov and Salanbek Daudov. Yesterday's ORT report listed the
above plus Salanbek Aidomirov as "the five accused." -- LS]
- Russian citizen Natalya Zakharova was arrested in Paris. She is
suspected of setting fire to the apartment of her ex-husband. The two
have been involved in a complicated and drawn-out custody battle.
- American Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has set off on a whirlwind
tour through the Middle East and Central Asia, including Uzbekistan.
- U.S. Ambassador to Russia Alexander Vershbow has declared that documents
which have been transferred by the American government to the Russian
Foreign Ministry prove Osama Bin Laden's involvement in the recent
terrorist acts.
- In Brussels, a joint declaration against international terrorism was
signed by Russia and the European Union.
- The events of October 3, 1993 were commemorated in Moscow today.
Members of the left opposition gathered in front of the Ostankino
television tower. They carried red flags, signs, and photographs of the
victims. The communist symbols were mixed with Orthodox Christian
symbols, and Orthodox hymns alternated with speeches by leftist leaders.
- Representatives of the Unity party and the Fatherland - All Russia
movement spoke with journalists about the upcoming merger. It turns out
that three, rather than just two, parties may join the union, although the
name of the third party has not been announced.
- Russia and the United States have increased the number of reconnaissance
satellites to follow the situation in Afghanistan.
- An unusual museum has opened in Vladivostok -- tourists will now be able
to visit the remains of an ancient fortress -- the largest in the world at
400 square kilometers.
- The Moscow court has sentenced former Russian Justice Minister Valentin
Kovalev to nine and a half years in prison with confiscation of property
for bribery and embezzlement.
- Today was the last day of President Putin's visit to Brussels.
- The schedule of the operation to lift the Kursk nuclear submarine has
been changed. Representatives of the Norwegian Mammut firm have announced
that the lifting of the submarine will not begin before October 7th or
8th.
- The number of automobile accidents in Ukraine has risen sharply after
the curtailment of the powers of the traffic police.
- Russian and Armenian soldiers will begin joint service at the Giumri
base. Anatoly Kvashnin, the head of the Russian Armed Forces will arrive
in Armenia today for the ceremonial opening of the S-300 anti-aircraft
missile complex.
- Russia has sent two more planes filled with humanitarian supplies
(including canned goods, rice, buckwheat, baby food, tea and tents) to the
Northern regions of Afghanistan.

******

#3
Financial Times (UK)
4 October 2001
Russia and realpolitik: Western Europe must forge a pragmatic relationship
with Russia rather than treat it as an errant child
By ANATOL LIEVEN
The writer is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace

Western Europe badly needs a new relationship with Russia - and not simply
because of a shared interest in the fight against terrorism. Equally
important is the fact that new US priorities may lead to a significant
diminution of American interest in the Balkans and parts of the former
Soviet Union.

In this event, the European Union will at last be compelled to take real
and not just rhetorical responsibility for coping with dangerous
developments on the European continent. Given Russia's great residual
strength in some areas, and the EU's chronic weakness when it comes to
security issues, it is extremely desirable for Russia to act in any crisis
as a partner and not a rival of western Europe. For such a partnership to
develop, the EU and its chief member states need to take the lead in
developing new regional security structures that include the Russians.

An obvious area where the chances of crisis have increased is the Balkans.
Even before September 11, the US refused to participate directly in Nato
operations in Macedonia; and despite Nato's grandiose rhetoric at the time
of the Kosovo war, the western European states decided on only a limited
commitment, after shameful hesitation.

If the US becomes involved in long-running security commitments in the
Muslim world in which most EU states refuse to participate, it seems
possible that sooner or later US troops will be withdrawn from Kosovo and
Bosnia. If so, the radicals on all sides will be emboldened to return to
war. In these circumstances, Russian co-operation will be as essential as
it was during the Kosovo war of 1999.

To avoid future Russian support for a Serbian campaign of revanche and to
guarantee joint crisis management, western Europe should recognise that in
the west's dispute with Russia over Kosovo policy, neither side was wholly
right. Russia was wrong on several points but was right in its warnings
about the nature of the Albanian militants.

Co-operation is also essential in the western parts of the former Soviet
Union and perhaps the Caucasus. Across this region, post- Communist
economic, social and political development has so far failed. Moreover,
several ageing former Communist leaderships are heading for what could be
bloody succession crises. The west cannot possibly control the resulting
risks without Russian co-operation.

Unfortunately, in recent years much of US policy has been devoted to
"rolling back" Russian influence on the territory of the former Soviet
Union. This has naturally encouraged harsh Russian responses. Anyone who
asks why should pause to consider likely US responses to such an
expansionist strategy by a rival great power in Central America, or real
French responses over several decades to outside "meddling" in France's
sphere of influence in Africa.

European policy by contrast should recognise the inevitability of important
- though not exclusive - Russian influence in several countries and seek to
shape this influence rather than eliminate it. The goal should be crisis
avoidance and economic development, not western geopolitical expansionism;
and the policy should be to encourage Russia to minuet, not tango, with her
neighbours - encouraging Moscow to exert "soft power" rather than try to
lock other states into a rigid security alliance a`la Belarus.

The exceptions are the Baltic states, which should be brought fully into
the west. An offer of Nato membership to the Baltic states at the Prague
summit in November 2002 is now obviously undesirable. Few US senators are
likely to want to hold a debate very soon on the need for America to defend
these states against the alleged possibility of a Russian invasion. This
means that the EU must take the lead in guaranteeing Baltic security and
must make sure that all three Baltic states join the EU in 2004.

This approach means, among other things, shelving the false promise of
Russia's ultimate integration into western Europe, which has too often been
used as an excuse for avoiding real thought about a new relationship today.
It would take a miracle to get western Europeans to accept Chechens and
Daghestanis into the EU, or a European border with central Asia and China.
But that does not mean the EU and Russia cannot co-operate successfully on
many issues. Above all, the EU must learn to treat Russia not as an errant
child to be lectured but rather as the US treats Turkey: as an important
country, albeit with some unwelcome traits, whose friend-ship is essential
to US interests.

Does this involve moral compromises? Perhaps. But as Max Weber pointed out,
taking responsibility for actions and consequences in the real world is
also an ethical position. And too much past European posturing has been
conducted in the happy conviction that thanks to the US military presence,
Europeans would never have to take such responsibility. Those happy days
are now passing away.

******

#4
From: "Peter Lavelle" <plavelle@metropol.ru>
Subject: Untimely Thoughts
Date: Thu, 4 Oct 2001

Peter Lavelle: Untimely Thoughts - Before it starts, what is the intended
ending? (re the new post-postwar world)

The impending attack on bin Laden, his fellow travelers, and the Taliban
most certainly is the most comprehensive and wide ranging military plan
since D-day and/or Soviet campaigns of the Second World War. But the cast
of characters in the US-led coalition is unprecedented in modern history.
Russia has thrown its support to the US, providing logical support from its
own backyard. China cheers from the sidelines. Saudi Arabia is probably
embarrassed so many of the troublemakers come from their kingdom. Colin
Powell is even talking to the Syrians and Iranians. And then there are the
Indians, Pakistanis, Turkmeni, Uzbeks, Tajiki, and the Northern Alliance -
primarily made up of Pashtuns. And of course there is the 87-year-old King
Mohammad Zair Shah. This list goes on and on. Clearly all these groups
have their gripes with bin Laden and the Taliban. Once they are gone, how
are all these folks to get along? Competing regional interests most likely
will not abate - maybe just get worse. Each major Muslim state in the
region supports their favored ethnic group in and around Afghanistan. The
Pasthuns have, you guessed it, long supported a new state called
Pashtunistan - much to the chagrin of Pakistan and just about everybody in
the area. Where are refugees supposed to flee once the precision missile
attacks begin? To the "-stans", to the 'very reliable and stable' Pakistan?
It would appear Russia's primary goal in all this - besides gardening its
longed craved desire of respectably from the west - is to finally rid the
regions of its southern flank of "Islamic fundamentalism". Stated in a
different way, to push its "Chechen syndrome" as far away as possible.
Uzbekistan and Tajikistan are already suffering from symptoms all too
familiar to the Russian eye. As a result of the attacks, will this almost
psychopathic fear just get closer to Russia? The politics of oil are also
never far from the Russian foreign policy agenda. The US appears to have
already made promises in that area. Beware of capitalists bearing gifts?
Satisfying the other - almost incalculable number - of interests will
quickly turn into one of the greatest and most difficult combination of
international diplomacy ever known. I suppose it is possible. But, then
again, not all interested parties want to become a friend of the west or
desires its money. Allied forces successfully invaded Nazi-held France and
the Soviet Union irresistibly crushed the Third Reich from the east.
However, neither side had, even with the best of intentions, a comprehensive
and mutually agreed upon end game. Victory ushered in a new and very
dangerous world. How well does bin Laden know history? How well does
everybody else who has a stake in this stratagem know history?

******

#5
Nezavisimaya Gazeta
October 4, 2001
LEND-LEASE FROM SERGEI IVANOV
Moscow to supply $30-45 million worth of arms to the Northern Alliance
Details of the weapons Russia will supply to anti-Taliban forces
Author: Igor Korotchenko
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]

RUSSIA IS PREPARED TO DELIVER MILITARY HARDWARE TO THE NORTHERN
ALLIANCE IN AFGHANISTAN, BUT WHO IS GOING TO PAY FOR THEM? WELL, THERE IS THE UNITED STATES WHICH PROMISES FINANCIAL AID TO THE FORCES FIGHTING THE TALIBAN.

The Northern Alliance is receiving new consignments from Russia
and Iran, says Foreign Minister of Rabbani's government Abdulla
Abdullo. It means that President Vladimir Putin has authorized
official military-technical cooperation with the Northern Alliance,
because all such operations were strictly clandestine until now,
arranged and carried out by secret services.

The anti-Taliban coalition needs armored vehicles to increase the
firepower of its detachments. The matter concerns T-55 and T-62 tanks,
BMP-1 and BMP-2 battle infantry vehicles, and BTR-60 armored personnel
carriers. Although outdated, all these armored vehicles are ideal for
the Afghanistan theater of operations. It will not take the Northern
Alliance long to master the military hardware, because it already has
similar systems. Sources say that Rabbani's government may expect 40-
50 tanks, 60-80 battle infantry vehicles, and munitions in October-
November 2001.

Spokesmen for the Defense Ministry emphasize that the fighting in
Afghanistan is done by independent detachments of 50 to 150 men. There
is fighting in the highlands and on the plains. Hence the importance
of firepower (air defense weapons, artillery, mortars, and antitank
weapons) the detachment can bring into play.

Aware of the necessity to get the Northern Alliance moving and
advancing on the Taliban, Russia will send to Afghanistan up to forty
ZSU-4-23 mobile air defense systems (23 mm caliber), two batteries of
MK-12 antitank guns (100 mm caliber), six batteries of D-30 howitzers
(122 mm caliber), four batteries of 2B11 mortars (120 mm caliber), and
two-three batteries of 2B9 automatic mortars (82 mm caliber). The
Northern Alliance will also receive up to ten 9K51 Grad volley fire
systems (122 mm caliber), some Grad-P portable launchers, and up to
one hundred Malyutka and Fagot antitank missile systems.

The Northern Alliance also needs grenade launchers and light
weapons. It can rely on two hundred RPG-7V handheld grenade launchers
firing PG-7VL shells, 5,000 to 7,000 automatic rifles, sniper rifles,
SKS carbines, optic sights, and so on.

Russia will also deliver to the Northern Alliance R-140 and R-
145BM radios, scramblers, spare parts, expendables, and portable power
generators. Moreover, the Northern Alliance will receive four to six
MI-24 helicopters and as many MI-8 transports.

All this will be taken from army storage depots, because the
Russian military-industrial complex has stopped producing many of the
systems mentioned.

By the end of the year Moscow will deliver $30-45 million worth
of military hardware to Afghanistan. The question is who is going to
pay for all this?

Needless to say, free deliveries no longer possible. If the
government of Rabbani and groups comprising the Northern Alliance are
broke, someone has to pay for them. Who? Well, there is the United
States which promises financial aid to the forces fighting the
Taliban. Negotiations with Washington may be conducted by Defense
Minister Sergei Ivanov appointed by President Vladimir Putin to head
the group for practical cooperation with participants of the counter-
terrorism operation in Afghanistan.

******

#6
The Electronic Telegraph
4 October 2001
Soviet anthrax lying unguarded on test island
By Ben Aris in Moscow

ONE of the world's largest dumps of the biological weapon agent anthrax has
been left unguarded.

The dump is on Vozrozhdeniye (Renaissance) Island in the middle of the Aral
Sea, on what was once a Soviet open-air biological weapons test site. It is
about 600 miles from Afghanistan.

Now divided between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, the island was abandoned
nearly 10 years ago, but enough anthrax spores remain to kill the world's
population several times. It is buried in metal drums a few feet below the
surface.

Following the terrorist attacks on America, there has been speculation
about the possible use of biological weapons by terrorists.

But Sonya Ben Ouagrham, a non-proliferation expert at the Monterrey
Institute in Washington, said using the anthrax would not be easy: "If you
were a terrorist it would be possible to simply go there and dig up the
spores, but the problem is to know if they are still virulent. You need to
test them, which requires specialists, time and money."

Even so, Vozrozhdeniye Island is now totally unprotected. Russian guards
were withdrawn in 1992 and Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan have shied away from
responsibility. A terrorist in search of biological weapons would only need
a spade.

As part of the US Nunn-Lugar defence conversion programme, the Department
of Defence has a plan to decontaminate the island and destroy the remaining
facilities, but it is not due to start work until later this year.

The island was one of two main testing sites for "Bioprepara", the USSR's
secret biological weapons programme operating in the 1970s and 1980s in
defiance of the 1972 Biological Weapons Treaty.

After the defection of several microbiologists in 1979, President Bush
senior and Margaret Thatcher confronted Mikhail Gorbachev, who denied the
existence of a biological weapons programme and invited Western experts to
tour facilities as proof.

In total secrecy and great haste teams of scientists moved hundreds of tons
of anthrax spores to Vozrozhdeniye Island and buried it. The drums have
remained there since, in what experts have called a slowly rusting
"biological time bomb".

******

#7
THE JAMESTOWN FOUNDATION
PRISM
A monthly on the post-Soviet states
September 2001 Volume VII, Issue 9 Part 1

THE FAMILY TAKES CONTROL OF DOMESTIC POLITICS IN RUSSIA
By Aleksandr Tsipko
Aleksandr Tsipko is a senior associate at the Russian Academy
of Sciences' Institute for International Economic and
Political Research and a columnist for Literaturnaya Gazeta.

One has to hand it to President Vladimir Putin that he is
determined to show Russia and the world that he is a unique
political figure, that there is something special about him.
Putin's pilgrimage in August to the holy places of Russian
Orthodoxy was a notable political event in Russia: In Valdai,
Solovki and Novgorod the Great Putin appeared before us as an
Orthodox patriot who reveres the Russian Church and its
shrines, one who is disposed to serious discussions about the
role of religion in the life of our multiethnic state. The
personal union between the president and the Patriarch of All
Russia, Aleksy II, has been evident everywhere recently.

Further demonstration that Putin is an independent politician
came when he bowed his head before the grave of Carl
Mannerheim, an enemy of the Soviet Union and Stalin, during
his recent visit to Finland. True, Putin was not taking too
much of a risk: Carl Mannerheim was a major general in the
tzarist army, and was always loyal to his military oath and
to Russian Emperor Nicholas II. But I think this
transcendentalism of Putin's--his detachment from worldly
things and his desire to do significant deeds--attests to his
insufficient immanence, to the fact that his influence on
day-to-day Russian politics is actually minimal. Putin is
failing to change the economic situation in Russia, to create
a new history or to change Yeltsin's regime in any radical
way.

Putin has thus far failed to solve his main problem: How to
break away from the "Family" that brought him to power in
1999. Just as under Yeltsin, Russia is still ruled by a group
of oligarchs via their proteges in the president's
administration, the government and the security services. Of
the many oligarchs only one--Vladimir Gusinsky--has been
effectively ousted from the Kremlin. Boris Berezovsky himself
does not figure personally on Russia's political scene, but
his people--the oligarch Roman Abramovich and the president's
chief of staff Aleksandr Voloshin--are key political figures
in Russia. Berezovsky's people control a significant portion
of the Russian economy and a major section of the media.
Since Siberian Aluminum boss Oleg Deripaska married the
daughter of the Family's ideologue and kingmaker, Valentin
Yumashev, the aluminum king has become one of the Family's
three key economic heavyweights, alongside Abramovich and
Mamut. Over the past month analysts have been unanimous in
their assessment that the Family has not only consolidated
its position, but has also had sole influence on Putin's
recent decisions. There is much evidence to support this.

The newly created single tariff body, which controls prices
in the natural monopolies, is run by a member of the Family,
the head of the federal energy company Grigory Kutovoi.
Independent experts estimate that 65 percent of the Russian
economy is indirectly regulated by this new body. It is said
that the Family achieved this by means of a series of
compromises with a group of managers close to Putin. For
example, Kutovoi and his commission were tolerant of
Gazprom's recent tariff increases, but at the same time
deemed as unacceptable the demands of UES boss Anatoly
Chubais to raise electricity tariffs again.

Gazprom's interests were being looked after in a clear effort
to please Putin, which explains the meteoric rise of Kutovoi,
Chubais' sworn enemy. In fact, this in itself confirms
Putin's determination to distance himself from Anatoly
Chubais and Union of Right Forces (SPS).

It is noticeable that the siloviki--even those from St.
Petersburg--are not playing much of a role in this struggle
between the Family and the liberals in Putin's entourage.
This once again confirms the theory that the press both in
Russia and the West overestimated the political clout of the
siloviki, particularly former KGB officers. As it turned out,
they were ill-prepared for a serious struggle for power in
Russia. All efforts by the siloviki to remove chief of staff
Aleksandr Voloshin were futile. The attempt to replace the
Family's placeman Kasyanov with a prime minister from the
military also ended in failure. Notably, the influence of the
generals who act as the president's envoys in the federal
districts has sharply declined in recent months. The siloviki
only have themselves to blame for the fact that they have
been left by the wayside of political life. Their battle with
the oligarchs was very half-hearted; they did not want to
take any risks, and indeed it wasn't power they wanted so
much as money--a share in the new division of property. They
were constantly looking over their shoulder, worrying about
their ability to retreat, and it was this that let them down.
The siloviki did not have their own team of experts, and had
no experience of public life or serious financial support. As
it turns out, neither are they able to agree amongst
themselves. A coalition has emerged recently between Interior
Minister Gryzlov and FSB chief Patrushev, rumored to be
targeted against the No. 2 in the country, defense minister
Sergei Ivanov. In my opinion, Ivanov was greatly damaged by
Left opposition's "appeal of the 43," which clumsily
contrasted the "patriotic" defense minister with a president
who was supposedly surrounded by "enemies of Russia."

Under these circumstances, when the political influence of
Petersburg siloviki is on the wane, the Kremlin old
guard--that is, the Family--can easily outplay the wing of
Putin's team represented by Chubais, German Gref and Aleksei
Kudrin.

There are many domestic and foreign policy implications in
this struggle between the Family and the Petersburg liberals.
It is a question of alternative paths of development for the
market economy in Russia. As we know, the Family and
Berezovsky advocate a form of closed, national capitalism,
envisaging a division of ownership between national oligarch
clans. Meanwhile, the Petersburg team, particularly Chubais,
support the idea of open, competitive capitalism, envisaging
an influx of foreign capital into the country. The St.
Petersburgers are more interested in integrating Russia into
the western economy than the Kremlin old guard. But today it
would seem that the old guard and its related financial
structures, which are trying to keep the entire Russian
economy in their hands, are winning the race.

The financial stronghold of Russia's liberals, Alfa-Bank, has
been subjected to a powerful attack by the Kremlin old guard.
The Alfa group is losing out to Family oligarchs both in
participation in the privatization of UES, and in the battle
for control of the oil company Onakop and of aluminum
production. The obvious management crisis in Alfa-Bank is a
consequence of this. More of its senior employees recently
joined the Mamut's Family banks, following in the footsteps
of the former deputy chairman of Alfa-Bank A. Sokolov, who
moved from Alfa to Konversbank in December 2000. According to
media reports, the turncoats were attracted mainly by the
huge salaries on offer at MDM, which Alfa, weighed down by
debt, can ill afford to match. Analysts believe that MDM is
trying to expose Alfa's precarious position by enticing staff
away from Alfa.

The other main prong of the Family's economic attack was the
broadside against UES and Anatoly Chubais, which was
supported by Yury Luzhkov's group. According to the media,
the Family in turn took Luzhkov's side in the Mosenergo
furor. To all appearances, Putin thought it sensible to
support the stronger players, which explains why he not only
appeared at the Moscow day celebrations, but even publicly
praised Yury Luzhkov both as a man and as an economic
manager, even comparing him to Moscow's founder Yury
Dolgoruky. At the same time it emerged that the president's
chief of staff Aleksandr Voloshin had called upon Chubais to
compromise in his conflict with Luzhkov and Mosenergo bosses.

Chubais' career as the leader of the group of energy bosses
is on the brink of collapse. The family is rumored to have
warned him that if he continues to resist their plans,
including those to take control of Moscow, to involve "Family
capital" in the privatization of the energy system and so on,
he will be jeopardizing not only his own position but also
that of his people in the government.

In connection with this, last week the press once again began
discussing possible changes in the government in respect of
the so-called latent conflict in the cabinet between the
prime minister--a Family man, as Kasyanov is usually thought
to be--and his deputies, Kudrin and Gref, who are close to
Chubais. Further fuel was added to this conflict by
discussions of the project to reform the banking system,
supported by Kasyanov but vehemently opposed by the ministry
of finance (Kudrin) and the ministry of economic development
(Gref), which support the head of the Central Bank,
Gerashchenko, and entered into a tactical alliance with him
at the end of August. A particular feature of last week was
the clear change of tune in the press regarding the outcome
of this conflict. Whereas previously discussion mainly
centered around the dismissal of Kasyanov and who would
secure the prime minister's job, last week the press turned
their attention to the question of who would succeed Kudrin,
whom Kasyanov supposedly planned to keep on as vice premier,
but without his ministerial portfolio.

But the central question in all this is: What view does
Vladimir Putin take of these victories by the Family over
Chubais and the financial structures behind him? The
impression is that at least for the time being Putin is
deliberately distancing himself from Chubais and from all the
political and financial structures connected to him, and so
the growing influence of the Family now suits the president.

Russia's liberals have been damaged by their declared
intention to put up a candidate against Putin at the next
presidential elections. Meanwhile, it emerges that the Family
has backed down from its earlier plans to put up a general of
some description (Lebed or Shamanov) against Putin.
Khodorkovsky, an oligarch close to the Family, said recently
that he and the structures connected to him would support the
incumbent president at the forthcoming elections. Under these
circumstances, there is nothing Putin can do but maintain his
old alliance with the Family and rely on these experienced
hands, including Voloshin.

Analysts believe that the imminent government reshuffle will
reveal Putin's plans once and for all. If, as many predict,
the members of the Family manage to squeeze the Petersburg
liberal Kudrin out of the financial block, it may be said
that victory is finally theirs.

********

#8
Washington Post
October 4, 2001
U.S., Russia Recast Their Relationship
Anti-Terror Agenda Appears To Be Framework for Future
By Alan Sipress
Washington Post Staff Writer

Richard L. Armitage flew through the night from Washington, landing in
Moscow just after sunrise. The barrel-chested weightlifter, who is
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell's deputy and dearest friend, headed for
a government mansion, where he was closeted with his Russian counterpart,
Vyacheslav Trubnikov, a senior deputy foreign minister and former head of
the Kremlin's Foreign Intelligence Service.

Just a week after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Armitage had been
dispatched on a hastily arranged mission to ask for Russia's help in
tracking down Saudi exile Osama bin Laden and his militant cadres and in
mounting a military reprisal against them.

But beyond the specific requests made during a full day of discussions that
included midday talks over a buffet of traditional Russian meats and potato
dishes, Armitage was posing a far more fundamental question: Were the two
former Cold War adversaries prepared -- 12 years after the fall of the
Berlin Wall -- to transform their still antagonistic relations?

What the two men discussed that day, according to accounts by U.S. and
Russian officials, led to one of the most intensive series of meetings,
telephone conversations and back-channel communications between the two
governments in many years. Emboldened by their united front against
terrorism, the Bush and Putin administrations embarked on a course that
could fundamentally recast U.S.-Russia relations.

Though it remains early, officials in both governments say that by putting
the battle against terrorism at the top of their agendas, they are creating
an entirely new framework for bilateral relations. It has opened the
possibility of collaboration in other areas that would have seemed
impossible only a month ago.

In the most visible embodiment of that change yet, President Vladimir Putin
paid the first visit by a Russian leader to NATO headquarters in Brussels
yesterday and announced that Moscow could accept the further enlargement of
the Western alliance, created and long maintained solely to confront the
Red Army. But the announcement could also reshape the discussion of other
divisive issues as well, including Russia's war against separatists in
Chechnya, Russia's debt to the West, regional security in Asia and the
Middle East, and the Bush administration's plans to proceed with a missile
defense system by withdrawing from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

"This is a second chance of the same value as 1991 to change our relations
and the way we see each other," said Mikhail Margelov, a member of the
Federation Council, the upper house of the Russian parliament, who is close
to Putin.

"Twelve years after the wall came down, it's a reminder that we face common
challenges and a potential for cooperation," said a senior U.S. official.

As he walked into the ornate, 200-year-old mansion in downtown Moscow on
Sept. 19, Armitage was accompanied by a small team of U.S. diplomats and
military and intelligence officials. According to U.S. officials, he made
clear what the Bush administration was seeking as it readied its response
to the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.

He asked the Russians to share their intelligence about bin Laden's al
Qaeda network and their experiences in conducting military operations in
Afghanistan, so painfully earned in the 1980s while battling U.S.-funded
mujaheddin fighters. He asked about Russian support for the opposition
Northern Alliance, which is battling the ruling Taliban movement in
Afghanistan that protects bin Laden.

Most sensitively, he said the United States intended to dispatch its forces
to the former Soviet republics of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, which are
strategically perched on Afghanistan's northern border. Many of Russia's
top generals and security chiefs were loath to allow American troops in
their traditional sphere of influence, but Armitage did not want the
Kremlin to stand in the way.

"If you can find a way to be helpful, we'd appreciate it," he told them,
according to a Bush administration official.

'We're Inclined to Be Helpful'

In the initial chaotic hours after the Sept. 11 attacks, Putin was the
first foreign leader to speak with Bush, reaching him on Air Force One.
Bush had placed U.S. forces on high alert, a move that previously would
have prompted the Russians to respond in kind. But Putin wanted to tell the
president directly that Russian troops had instead been ordered to stand
down, avoiding an escalation in tension on an already traumatic day.

"It was a moment where it clearly said to me that he understands the Cold
War is over," Bush recalled later.

The two presidents spoke again the following day after Bush returned to the
White House. In a pair of brief telephone conversations, Putin said he had
decreed a moment of silence across Russia and the lowering of flags to
half-staff. The two men agreed to cooperate in pursuing those behind the
terrorist attacks but set few details.

Over the following days, it became clear that attacks had upended the
agenda for U.S.-Russian relations.

Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton had been forced by the attacks to
delay a meeting with Russian officials scheduled in London on Sept. 13 at
which he was to discuss the administration's plans for developing a new
anti-missile shield. By the time Bolton caught up with his Russian
counterparts a day later in Moscow, counterterrorism had become the top
priority.

Indeed, while the administration says it still intends to withdraw from the
1972 ABM Treaty despite Russian resistance, U.S. officials have been
largely silent on the matter since Sept. 11. Some Russian officials,
meantime, have softened their criticism of the U.S. plan.

But ranking Russian security officials were not ready to sign on to the
U.S. vision of the new campaign on terrorism. At a summit in Armenia four
days after the attacks, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov aired the old-line
Russian animosity to any U.S. military action, rebuffing suggestions that
the United States and its allies could stage reprisals from former Soviet
bases in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. "I see absolutely no basis for even
hypothetical suppositions about the possibility of NATO military operations
on the territory of Central Asian nations," he told reporters.

Similar sentiments from other Russian generals and nationalist politicians
were clouding the air when Armitage arrived in Moscow, fresh from winning
Pakistan's help in hunting down bin Laden at a meeting in Washington with
Pakistan's intelligence chief, Lt. Gen. Mahmoud Ahmed.

Armitage knew Trubnikov, his Russian counterpart. They had met in May in
the context of a U.S.-Russian working group on Afghanistan established
during the final year of the Clinton administration. Now, Russian Foreign
Minister Igor Ivanov instructed that the working group take up specific
operational issues related to the U.S. response to the terrorist attacks.

Meeting a Russian delegation composed mainly of military and intelligence
officials, Armitage and his team laid out some initial findings of the
investigation into the terrorist attacks and some of the early U.S.
planning for a response. The Americans then detailed the "specific sorts of
things that could be useful," including intelligence-sharing and Russia's
public acquiescence to U.S. use of the bases in Central Asia, said a senior
administration official. The session was businesslike, said another U.S.
official. "They talked turkey."

The Russians had arrived wanting to demonstrate that tension between the
countries' security services -- aggravated by the February arrest in
Northern Virginia of Robert P. Hanssen, an FBI agent turned Russian spy --
was in the past.

"The level of cooperation during the meeting was incredible," Margelov said.

Armitage and Trubnikov wrapped up the talks early enough in the evening to
check in with their bosses. Armitage called Powell. Trubnikov called
Foreign Minister Ivanov, who as it happened was in Washington for scheduled
talks with officials in preparation for a pair of meetings later this year
between Bush and Putin. The word came back from Ivanov: "We're inclined to
be helpful," recalled a U.S. official.

That spirit was immediately evident in the meetings that the Russian
foreign minister held that day at the State Department with Powell and at
the White House with Bush. This was the eighth meeting between Powell and
his counterpart. They had started building a rapport in their first
get-together in Cairo in February, agreeing to use first names.

But by this meeting, there was both a congeniality in atmosphere and
seriousness of substance, said a senior administration official. Gone was
the kind of sparring that characterized high-level, U.S.-Russian talks in
the past. "We'd moved a long way with the Russians," said another senior
U.S. official.

Standing outside the State Department along C Street moments later, Ivanov
signaled publicly that Russia would accept a U.S. military response,
telling reporters, "I have said that in combating international terrorism,
no means can be excluded, including the use of force." Moments earlier, he
had privately said something even more momentous to Powell: Moscow would
not counsel Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and its other former Central Asian
republics against allowing the presence of U.S. troops.

Putin Decided to 'Go With His Gut'

That Saturday, Sept. 22, found the two presidents at their respective
retreats -- Bush at Camp David, Putin at Bocharov Ruchey on the Black Sea
-- convening their most influential national security officials. Putin
called 12 of his top military, security and intelligence chiefs, including
the defense and interior ministers and national security adviser, to his
sumptuous summer residence in the resort of Sochi. According to Russian
press accounts, Putin had never assembled so many of these senior officials.

Putin needed to "meet and look in their eyes," Margelov said. He wanted "to
see everybody is ready to agree and see that everybody is ready to be
creative."

Bush, meantime, had settled into Camp David for a morning of war planning
with CIA Director George J. Tenet, national security adviser Condoleezza
Rice and Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. Powell, Defense Secretary Donald
H. Rumsfeld and other members of the National Security Council joined them
on secure video lines.

When the NSC discussion was finished, Bush called the Black Sea, pulling
Putin out of his six-hour conclave with his security chiefs. The two
leaders spoke, through translators, for 40 minutes.

"The phone call made a big impression on [Putin]. He decided to go with his
gut. He decided to go with the West," said Russia expert Michael A. McFaul
of the Carnegie Endowment, who heard Russian accounts of the discussion.

During what may be the most fateful conversation of Bush's short tenure in
office, Putin informed him of his decision about the Central Asian
republics. He also assured Bush that Russia would share its intelligence
and provide an air corridor for humanitarian missions to Afghanistan in
connection with the U.S. campaign.

The Russians told the administration that Putin would be making a major
policy statement on Chechnya. They made clear that they expected a
positive, public response from the White House. Bush administration
officials said they would listen closely to Putin's remarks and, if they
were indeed forthcoming, the United States would respond favorably.

A Positive Statement

Putin took to the airwaves on Monday, Sept. 24. In a brief speech, he told
his countrymen that Russia would support the U.S.-led campaign against bin
Laden's al Qaeda network by sharing intelligence, providing airspace for
humanitarian flights and participating in search-and-rescue missions. He
said Russia would supply arms to the Northern Alliance fighting the Taliban
movement. And he said Russia had "coordinated this position with our allies
among the Central Asian states. They share this position and do not rule
out providing use of their airfields."

Putin then raised the Chechnya conflict. Moscow's brutal crackdown on
separatists in the southern Russian republic has long been a sore point in
U.S.-Russian relations, with the United States regularly condemning Russia
for human rights abuses there.

Putin repeated the long-standing Russian line that international terrorism
played a role in the Chechen uprising. But he added this time that it also
had its "own history," recognizing that local factors contributed to
Chechen grievances. And he reversed his earlier resistance to a political
settlement, giving Chechen leaders 72 hours to start negotiations with Moscow.

By framing the Chechen issue this way and linking it explicitly to Russian
help for Bush's anti-terrorism campaign, Putin maximized the chance of
winning praise from Washington. This would help bolster his standing with
his domestic opponents.

But that praise was slow. Bush officials scrutinized Putin's words, trying
to decipher how serious he was about resolving the conflict peacefully.
National Security Council officials, in particular Rice, pressed for a
clear, positive response. State Department officials were skeptical, more
wary of giving Putin a green light to pursue his crackdown on Chechnya if
the political talks failed.

A day later, Sept. 25, State Department spokesman Richard A. Boucher
welcomed Putin's offer of help in Central Asia but gave at best a lukewarm
response to Putin's comments about political talks with the Chechens. "I
don't think we ourselves have been able to clarify them," he told reporters
cryptically.

Putin's allies in Moscow, such as top liberal politician Boris Nemtsov,
were becoming frantic. Putin had gone out on a limb on Monday. They felt he
was exposed to his domestic critics, particularly military hawks objecting
to his comments on Central Asia and political talks on Chechnya. They
fretted that the Bush administration was offering little cover. Telephones
began ringing around the United States as these liberal allies began
calling their American friends, begging them to intervene with the
administration on Putin's behalf.

"We looked hard at what Putin said. It contained elements that were
self-serving and elements that were potentially real," said a senior
administration official. "We decided to act as if there might be something
positive in the statement."

The next day, Sept. 26, the break came. The NSC's viewpoint prevailed.
White House press secretary Ari Fleischer, who had never mentioned Chechnya
in his daily briefings, made a statement to reporters. Senior officials had
labored over the wording. Much of it was identical to what Boucher said a
day earlier.

But Fleischer added a few crucial lines. He recognized Putin's televised
address as "a very important speech," saying that Bush appreciated the
Russian offer of cooperation in fighting terrorism. And Fleischer added,
"The president also wants to note particularly President Putin's remarks
about the situation in Chechnya."

For the first time, the Bush White House said it shared Putin's concerns
about the role of "international terrorists" in Chechnya and called on the
Chechen leadership unconditionally to dissociate itself from groups like al
Qaeda. While urging both Russians and Chechens to refrain from human rights
violations, Fleischer said Bush welcomed the "sincere steps" Putin took to
open a political dialogue with the rebels.

U.S. administrations had previously noted the role of outside agitators in
the Chechen war but had never endorsed a Russian call on the Chechens to
expel the militants, according to Stephen R. Sestanovich, President Bill
Clinton's special envoy to Russia and the former Soviet republics. "The
tone was definitely more supportive," he said.

The Bush administration had noticed what Sestanovich called an un-Russian
enthusiasm by Putin in supporting the U.S.-coalition against bin Laden
without churlishness or haggling over the price. "Putin has been very open
and unguarded enough to make people wonder whether he's trying to seize the
moment for a basic reorientation," he said.

McFaul of the Carnegie Endowment said Putin has made clear he believes
Moscow must throw in its lot with the West even if the bulk of the Russian
elite is not behind him.

"Potentially," McFaul said, "this could be the real end of the Cold War."

*******

#9
Moscow Times
October 4, 2001
Good News Hobbles As Bad News Hurries
By Robert Coalson
Robert Coalson is the editor of The St. Petersburg Times.

ST. PETERSBURG -- Sometimes random juxtapositions tell us a lot about the
real state of affairs around us. Last week, for instance, President
Vladimir Putin was in Germany, telling all who would listen in his fluent
German that Russia is a great place to invest, that the future here is
bright, that his slate of reforms has created a good business climate in
Russia.

Traveling with the president, Economic Development and Trade Minister
German Gref heavily underscored the theme. "I do not want investors to feel
disadvantaged in our country. We will leave no stone unturned to achieve
this goal," he said.

Ah, if only a shortage of unturned stones were the problem! But it is not.

The wires last Thursday were humming with the news that the head of
security for Promstroi Bank, Nikolai Shatilo, was shot to death by unknown
gunmen near the entrance to his downtown home. When word came through, many
on The St Petersburg Times staff began spontaneously listing other recent
hits, murders that are -- to be frank -- too commonplace even to be
considered news.

Less gruesomely, some may have noticed the Disegni store on Nevsky
Prospekt, just across the way from Gostiny Dvor. A sign in the darkened
store window tells customers where they can pick up items that they left to
be altered, while the main entrance bears a forbidding, ominous official seal.

The chain of stores is at the center of a nasty legal squabble between a
foreign businessman and his former Russian partner, a squabble that bears
all the hallmarks of a "drive-out-the-foreigner" type situation. Just like
the one memorialized by the Minutka cafe down the road that still looks
oddly like a branch of the U.S. Subway chain. How ever the Disegni case
turns out -- and these processes are usually virtually unending -- the safe
bet is that a once-thriving business will be killed off.

Of course, it would be unfair to place too much emphasis on such cases,
although it is no less unfair to pretend that they do not exist. There are
many examples of thriving foreign-owned and joint-venture businesses, and
it is certainly possible to argue that these examples are more indicative
of future trends.

But anyone in the news business knows the saying that bad news races around
the world while good news is still putting on its shoes.

The Dutch consulate had a trade mission in town last week. The British
consulate is bringing one next week. Can we really tell these guests that
Russia is "leaving no stone unturned" in order to make their potential
investments here secure?

******

#10
U.S. Invited to Use Soviet-Era Base
October 4, 2001
By ALEXANDER MERKUSHEV

BAGHRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan (AP) - The brick-and-concrete buildings on this
Soviet-built air base have been perforated by shell fire and blackened with
smoke. Most of the roofs were blown off long ago. The opposition army's
control of the territory falls off abruptly at the end of the runway.

Destruction aside, Gen. Baba Jan, the commander of 2,000 northern alliance
fighters holding Baghram, said the base would make a fine forward position
for U.S. forces.

The runways 24 miles north of Kabul, the Afghan capital, are in good shape
and ready for heavy military aircraft, he said Wednesday.

``It is a strategic place for American forces, conveniently located inside
Afghanistan,'' said Baba Jan.

The United States has been building up its forces around Afghanistan, where
the ruling Taliban are sheltering Osama bin Laden, the prime suspect in the
Sept. 11 terror attacks on New York and the Pentagon. Washington has warned
the Taliban to hand over bin Laden or face the consequences.

The northern alliance, as the patchwork anti-Taliban opposition is known, is
counting on U.S. strikes to tip the balance in its favor after years of
desultory fighting that has left the opposition cornered in the northwest of
the country.

The sprawling Baghram air base was built during the 10-year Soviet occupation
of Afghanistan that ended with a humiliating withdrawal in 1989.

From the base the former Soviet Union kept control of the Afghan capital
under siege by U.S.-backed Islamic guerrillas.

Practically nothing is left of the control tower, officers' club and barracks
after years of fighting since the Soviets pulled out.

Today, an army of bearded men in baggy trousers, long robes and turbans
controls the forward base. Most fighters carry AK-47 automatic rifles - the
weapon of choice in this war. Others haul grenade launchers or machine guns.

Baba Jan said his forces were preparing to launch an attack on Taliban
positions less than a mile distant. Until recently, his men were facing down
about 3,000 Taliban fighters, but that number has swelled to about 5,000,
comprised largely of Arab and Pakistani mercenaries, he said.

The opposition fighters admit their foes are good fighters, but say their own
motivation, protecting their homes, makes them a stronger combat force than
the outsiders fighting on the Taliban side.

``After all, I have my native village to defend,'' said 18-year-old Mangal, a
skin-and-bones northern alliance fighter with just the downy suggestion of a
beard.

He spoke lovingly of his parents and 10-year-old brother living in the nearby
village of Jankadam, just beyond the air base. His lips smacking chewing gum,
Mangal cradled his AK, his ``good friend'' in the coming fight.

As they await the assault, Baba Jan's men hunker down in a maze of trenches
dug throughout the base, listening to Farsi-language shortwave broadcasts
from the Voice of America, British Broadcasting Corp. and Iranian radio. Most
get home to visit families in nearby villages at least once a week.

*******

#11
Russian Plane Explodes and Crashes
October 4, 2001

MOSCOW (AP) - A Russian airliner flying from Tel Aviv to Siberia exploded
in flight Thursday and crashed off the Black Sea coast with at least 77
people on board, Russian officials said.

Deputy Transport Minister Karl Ruppel, confirming media reports, told The
Associated Press that a crew of an Armenian airliner in the area informed
Russian air traffic controllers in Rostov-on-Don in southern Russia they
saw an explosion aboard a plane flying in the Black Sea area. Ruppel said
he didn't know what caused the explosion.

Ivan Teterian, chief of the local Ministry of Emergency Situations branch
in southern Russia, said ``we cannot exclude a terrorist attack.'' Speaking
live on Russia's NTV television, he added that only a further investigation
would determine the cause.

The plane had made a stopover in Burgas in Bulgaria, where it apparently
took on more passengers, Vladimir Kofman, an official with the Interstate
Aviation Committee, which is in charge of investigating crashes in the
former Soviet republics.

The Tupolev 154 went down 114 miles off the Russian coastal city of Adler
on the border with Georgia, said Vasily Yurchuk, a spokesman for the
Ministry of Emergency Situations. The aircraft

The plane, which plummeted from an altitude of more than six miles, had
been on its way from Tel Aviv to the Siberian city of Novosibirsk, Yurchuk
said. It belonged to Sibir Airlines, which is based in Novosibirsk.

The Emergency Situations Ministry said there were at least 66 passengers
and 11 crew members aboard.

Russian President Vladimir Putin was immediately informed of the crash, the
chief presidential press spokesman said. Putin called the head of the
Federal Security Service and the Defense Minister to the Kremlin. He named
Vladimir Rushailo, head of the Security Council, to head the investigation.

*******

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