Johnson's Russia List
#6141
18 March 2002
davidjohnson@erols.com
A CDI Project
www.cdi.org

[Note from David Johnson:
1. Moscow Times: Ivan Safranchuk, Clinging to Outdated Dogmas.
2. Moscow Times: Matt Bivens, The Pravda About the Fate of Kamkin Books.
3. Discover magazine: Discover Dialogue: Jeffrey Sachs.
4. Reuters: Rebel Abkhazia fearful about US military in Georgia.
5. Moscow News: Alexander Yanov, A United States of Europe?
6. Lois DuPey and Robert Jaeger: Aleksandr Nikitin on Environmental Activism and Human Rights.
7. Financial Times (UK): Quentin Peel, Putin plays a weak hand well.
The Russian president's skilful diplomacy succeeds because he can play the
US and Europe off against each other.
8. Washington Post: Jackson Diehl, Our Cold War Hangover. (re Karimov)
9. Interfax: Russia's gas behemoth smells a rat over tax-evasion story.
10. BBC Monitoring: Top manager praises new NTV.
11. BBC Monitoring: NTV will not show Berezovskiy's film about explosions -
manager.
12. Reuters: New Russian c.bank chief seen as welcome reformer.
13. Reuters: Russia, Ukraine vow to build economic powerhouse.
14. Washington Post: Joby Warrick, Makings of a 'Dirty Bomb.' Radioactive
Devices Left by Soviets Could Attract Terrorists.
15. UPI: Voronin: Talks with separatists to resume.]

*******

#1
Moscow Times
March 18, 2002
Clinging to Outdated Dogmas
By Ivan Safranchuk
Ivan Safranchuk, director of the Center for Defense Information's Moscow
office, contributed this comment to The Moscow Times.

The results of Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov's trip last week to the
United States represent significant progress when compared to his public
pronouncements prior to departure for Washington. On the eve of his visit,
Ivanov expressed doubts about the prospects of a new nuclear arms reduction
treaty being worked out in time for the May summit meeting between
Presidents George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin. However, just a few days
later at a joint press conference with U.S. Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld, he was already expressing confidence that a treaty would be
signed by the two presidents.

The positive tone of the visit and the arms control talks was not affected
by leaks in the past two weeks of U.S. contingency plans to use nuclear
weapons against a number of countries -- including Russia -- contained in
the Pentagon's still-classified Nuclear Posture Review.

Ivanov, in contrast to many other Russian officials and politicians, did
not seem particularly surprised by the leaked documents, and this is
entirely understandable as it is pretty clear that the Defense Ministry has
similar plans. Indeed the Cold War operational and contingency plans of
Russia, the United States and NATO have only undergone minor revisions in
the past decade.

For the respective governments, the most pressing task is to keep these
plans out of the public domain rather than to revise them significantly.
This might explain why Rumsfeld and Ivanov seemed so united on the issue of
leaks.

Mutual understanding prevailed over any discontent that may have been
caused by the substance of the leaked documents. In any case, Russia should
have been pleased to learn that the number of U.S. nuclear weapons targets
on its territory is set to decline drastically over the next decade -- in
line with the Nuclear Posture Review's downgrading of Russia as a threat.

Ivanov and Rumsfeld stressed at their joint press conference that Bush and
Putin want to sign a new nuclear arms reduction treaty and that they will
do so. However, for many arms control experts the rationale and logic
behind a new treaty are far from clear.

The three main issues between Russia and the United States in the field of
nuclear arms reduction are: the status of any treaty document, the rules
for counting (including the so-called shelving of nuclear warheads) and
issues of verification and transparency.

So far, the two sides have only reached understanding on the first issue;
it seems to have been agreed that the presidents will sign a "legally
binding document." This sounds good until you get into the details of what
constitutes a legally binding document. The Putin administration would like
it to be a full treaty subject to ratification by the Senate on the U.S.
side, and the State Duma and Federation Council on the Russian side.

The U.S. administration would prefer an executive agreement that would not
be subject to ratification by the Senate. Russia's problem in this regard
is that according to the 1994 Law on Ratification of International
Treaties, any document dealing with national security and arms reductions
must be ratified by the Duma.

The Russian side is hardly likely to agree to a treaty that it must ratify
fully, while the United States is under no such obligation.

However, the indications are that a compromise has already been reached on
this particular issue: The United States will agree to the Russian
interpretation of what is "legally binding" (in any case the Bush
administration should not have too much trouble in getting such a document
ratified) and in exchange Russia will accept U.S. counting rules, based on
the Pentagon Nuclear Posture Review's definition of what constitutes an
operationally deployed nuclear warhead. This would mean that Russia will
also put in storage rather than dismantle some of its missiles and
warheads. Under such a compromise, verification measures would presumably
be in line with START I and II procedures, with some omissions in
recognition of the fact that many of the measures are either ineffective or
excessive.

A number of comments made during Ivanov's trip strongly suggest that this
is to be the basic framework for compromise.

However, putting the formalities aside, the question that needs to be asked
is: What exactly is the purpose of Russia and the United States signing
such a treaty? The United States seems simply to be acquiescing in Russia's
and domestic arms control advocates' demands for a legally binding treaty.
Russia, the driving force behind the new treaty, is having difficulty
explaining the rationale behind it, except for to trot out the old line
about arms control being the cornerstone of international stability. This
traditional arms control mantra has already been thoroughly undermined by
Russia's muted response to the United States giving notice of its
withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

Treaty negotiators are trying to develop a long-term document without
having a clear-cut rationale. As Rumsfeld put it, "The two presidents have
agreed that they would like to have something that would go beyond their
two presidencies. ... So some sort of a document of that type is certainly
a likelihood." However given the new political realities, traditional arms
control talks -- particularly bilateral ones -- seem to be largely abstract
exercises that bring to mind Hermann Hesse's "Glass Bead Game."

Russia's tactics in these talks prove that it still adheres to a
traditional arms control approach, based heavily on parity (or nuclear
balance) thinking. Due to the huge imbalance in capabilities -- including
nuclear arsenals -- between the United States and Russia, this approach can
only result in further unilateral concessions by Russia, which were
initiated in the 1990s by the signing of the two START treaties.

Putin's team cannot fail to understand this. Clinging to this approach,
therefore, can only be interpreted as the failure of Cold War veterans on
both sides to go beyond the legacy of the Cold War -- in spite of the
promising statements coming out of Moscow and Washington.

Following on from downgrading each other as threats in internal documents,
Russia and the United States should have abandoned traditional arms control
talks in favor of developing new bilateral accords, based primarily on
building mutual confidence that their still huge nuclear arsenals are not
intended for use against each other.

However, with the deadline set for May and with overwhelming expectations
that a new arms reduction treaty will be signed, U.S. and Russian
negotiators are under a great deal of pressure to produce something.

Given the underlying rationale, the treaty they produce is unlikely to be
the first treaty marking a new era in U.S.-Russian relations and much more
likely to be the last treaty of the Cold War era.

*******

#2
Moscow Times
March 18, 2002
The Pravda About the Fate of Kamkin Books
By Matt Bivens
Matt Bivens, a former editor of The Moscow Times, is a Washington-based
fellow of The Nation Institute [www.thenation.com].

"The country that is so proud of its democracy [has] decided to use the
methods of Nazi Germany. On March 11, in Washington, it was decided to burn
over 2 million books, Russian classics such as Pushkin and Dostoevsky. Yes,
to burn [them]. The books belonged to Viktor Kamkin's shop, which was the
largest store selling Russian literature for the last 50 years in
Washington. However, because of the drop in demand, the company was
declared bankrupt. ... In the 1930s, Hitler's thugs organized book burnings
... [and] who can guarantee to Americans that while annihilating today the
bankrupt shop's books, one will not annihilate the works of writers and
philosophers criticizing the social, political, or economic life of the
U.S.? ... Americans do not read much, so their treatment of books is
different from what Russians are accustomed to. Well, Lev Tolstoy is not
Steven King [sic]; however, is it possible that in such a rich country
there is no money to buy these books for libraries?"
-- Pravda.ru, March 11. [full text]

WASHINGTON -- Well, John Steinbeck is not Alexandra Marinina. So what?

And anyway, why are Americans being berated because fewer Russian emigres
are patronizing my hometown's Victor Kamkin Books -- where the service was
awful and the price mark-up outrageous? Russophiles can now order cheap
books via the Internet or load up on them during trips to Moscow, so fewer
and fewer can be bothered to pay a premium to interact with sullen Victor
Kamkin staff -- no great surprise, then, that the bookstore had some
business problems.

Here is the real story of fascist America and the burning of Pushkin and
Dostoevsky: A Russian book store with an enormous warehouse hit the skids;
the owner was facing eviction and the prospect of his stock being put out
on the street. Local authorities pointed out that putting 2 million books
into the street would not work and warned the books would instead be
incinerated. Journalists wrote up the story, and it made its way to the
front page of The Washington Post.

Thousands of Russian emigre and/or Russophile customers swamped the store
on its final weekend -- hoping to buy a few very pricey books by way of
expressing their support, or maybe hoping to get a better deal than the
usual gouging. Connie Morella, the congresswoman from our district, took an
interest, and so did the head of the Library of Congress. And a deal was
brokered to send the books to libraries and Slavic collections across the
United States at the expense of the taxpayer -- a deal that even freed
Victor Kamkin Inc. from enough debt to allow it to open a new and smaller
store. From Moscow came only dark suggestions that this deal would not hold
and the classics would be burned in the end -- even as there were no
constructive offers or interventions from Russian institutions.

Sure, there was luck involved here. If the books had been slated for
recycling instead of burning, say, that less juicy story might have not
made the Post; if the head of the Library of Congress was not James
Billington, a leading Russia scholar, perhaps a happy ending would have
been more elusive.

Nevertheless, many Russians I know have heard the story of how "in
Washington it was decided to burn 2 million Russian classics." How many
have heard that the real story is actually far more uplifting?

******

#3
Excerpt
Discover magazine
April 2002
Discover Dialogue: Jeffrey Sachs
Good Health, Good Wealth

Jeffrey Sachs spent the last decade of the 20th century zipping around the
world, advising countries from Bolivia to Mongolia on how to overhaul their
economies. Now the renowned Harvard economist has a new global mission: to
overhaul the world's health. As chairman of the World Health Organization's
Commission on Macroeconomics and Health, he recently oversaw a report
showing that a small investment in health care in poor countries—about $34
per person per year—would not only reduce disease but would be a boon for
the global economy. He discussed this linkage with associate editor Josie
Glausiusz....

You helped devise economic transitions in Eastern Europe. How have those
changes affected health and environment?

There is a very sharp divide of what happened between Eastern Europe and
the former Soviet Union. Half of Poland's debts were cancelled, and Poland
actually had a significant improvement of health, higher life expectancy,
and a much improved diet: much more fruit and vegetables, much less lard
and cholesterol. But the West did not want to help Russia. It was too close
to the Cold War. So in Russia and the former Soviet Union there was a
terrible health decline.

******

#4
ANALYSIS-Rebel Abkhazia fearful about US military in Georgia
By Richard Balmforth

SUKHUMI, Georgia, March 18 (Reuters) - Plans by the United States to take
its anti-terrorism drive to Georgia is bad news for a tiny breakaway
territory on the Black Sea called Abkhazia.

Washington says it is sending military instructors to Georgia to train
local armed forces to flush out guerrillas with suspected links to the al
Qaeda network who could be hiding in the lawless Pankisi Gorge.

But for Abkhazia, a citrus-growing region that seceded from Georgia after a
bloody conflict in 1993, the move could spell trouble for its drive to
independence.

Many in Abkhazia fear Georgia will inevitably one day use U.S.-trained
special forces to try to retake it.

"That Georgia brings in military units from one or another country -- that
is its own business. But when this is done to solve our dispute, then we
see this very negatively," said Anri Dzhergenia, Abkhazia's "prime
minister," in an interview.

And disturbingly for the small territory with a population estimated
between 150,000 and 300,000, the U.S. move comes amid ambiguous signals
from big neighbour Russia -- Abkhazia's only potential ally in a lonely
world.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has avoided involvement in the Abkhaz
problem, knowing he could be walking into a political minefield in the
Caucasus where he faces a major separatist problem in Chechnya.

TRAINERS EXPECTED SOON

The U.S. military instructors are expected any day now in Georgia to begin
training forces for counter-insurgency work in the Pankisi Gorge.

Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze has avoided making any link with
Abkhazia, which inflicted a humiliating defeat on Georgian forces in 1993.
He says the Abkhaz problem can be solved only by diplomatic means with the
use of force only a last resort.

But Abkhaz officials in the beach-front capital Sukhumi, whose ravaged
buildings testify to the ferocity of the war nine years ago, showed only
disdain for Shevardnadze's policy.

They refer to what they say are regular attempts by Georgian units to
penetrate into Abkhaz territory. They are sure that U.S.-trained forces
will ultimately be used against them to try to seize back Abkhaz territory.

"Those particular units (to be trained by the United States) are powerful
and they will operate here in various ways. We have reliable information
about this," said Astamur Tarba, Abkhazia's chief of security.

LOOKING TO RUSSIA

Abkhazia pushed out Georgian forces in 1993 with arms from Russia and
reinforced by units of Chechen fighters. But its independence claim has
failed to win recognition by any state.

A United Nations peace process, based on the premise that Abkhazia is part
of Georgia, holds little attraction for Abkhaz authorities.

So Abkhazia has looked increasingly to Russia, which has a military base in
the territory and maintains 1,500 peacekeepers there, as relations with
Georgia have worsened. It has proposed association status while retaining
sovereignty.

"The vector of our interests is directed towards the Russian Federation and
not towards Georgia," said Astamur Taniya, an aide to Abkhaz leader
Vladislav Ardzinba.

Russia turns a blind eye to sanctions agreed by the Russian-led
Commonwealth of Independent States. Abkhazia uses the rouble as currency
and thousands of Russian tourists flock to the sub-tropical territory in
summer across the border to the north.

Russia's parliament is sympathetic to Abkhazia's overtures for association
status.

But Putin has avoided involvement, knowing any false move could spark a
chain reaction in the tinderbox region. He has shrugged off the U.S.
military training plan in Georgia as "no tragedy" for Russian interests.

Officials in Sukhumi acknowledged that developments have not gone in their
favour but they were adamant there would be no move back towards Georgia.

They remained firmly committed to independence and pointed to improvements
in their threadbare economy. Officials drew comfort from a U.N. Security
Council resolution referring to the right of Palestinians to have a state.

"This is an age when new states are being recognised," one official said.

******

#5
Moscow News
No. 10
2002
A United States of Europe?
Comment by Alexander Yanov

While Russia and the United States of America have been squabbling with
each other, Europe has been poised to take the next major step toward
reshaping its future. The European Union's Constitutional Convention under
way in Brussels intends to turn the EU, a mere economic community, into a
political union or federation, and eventually, into a United States of Europe

Those are of course the intentions of just the federalist majority at the
Convention, attended by 105 delegates from European governments,
parliaments, and scholarly institutions. However, the majority is an
overwhelming one. The Convention's chairman, Valery Giscard d'Estaing,
ex-president of France, is a staunch federalist. And so are his deputies,
former Prime Ministers Jean-Luc Dehaene of Belgium and Giuliano Amato of
Italy. All the 12 members of the Convention's presidium are equally
federalist, two of them of the more radical variety. They are the same 12
men who signed the Socialist Manifesto, which requires Europe to have a
"European government capable of adopting a European social model," and of
counterbalancing America, "intoxicated by its military might."
To be sure, the liberal majority of the federalists wouldn't go quite so
far. Or so it appears. Besides, the Constitution they have drafted will not
really come into effect. In 2003 (the Convention will sit for a whole
year!), the draft will come before national governments, where the
anti-federalists, who advocate firm nation-state authority, hope to come
into their own.

At any rate, Britain, Denmark and Sweden are expected to fight tooth and
nail against what they call "further infringement on their national
interests." Their efforts may be backed by Italy and the Republic of
Ireland. Such is the alignment of forces at the Convention at the moment.

What are the federalists after? Instituting the post of President of
Europe; common tax and legislation systems; a European defense identity
independent of NATO; and limiting the rights of national governments to
veto the European Parliament's decisions. In short, the federalists want to
see an unprecedented degree of European integration.

What do the adherents of firm nation-state authority want? Just the
opposite. Ideally, the political status quo.

The trouble is that the European nations, much as they would like to, will
not succeed in preserving the present political state of affairs. In the
opinion of Mr. Dehaene, the dilemma is pretty acute: The EU must undergo
drastic changes, or face extinction. "When the number of EU countries rose
from 12 to 15, it became very difficult for the Union to pass coordinated
decisions," Dehaene explains. "The scandal- and suspicion-torn EU
conference held in Nice in 2000 showed that if it had 25 or 30 member
states, the system would simply grind to a halt."

Meanwhile, there are already 13 nations queuing for EU membership, and they
are represented at the Convention.

The old system of taking care of contradictions through backstage deals
between individual governments has reached a blind alley. That's why the
federalists, who want change, form a majority at the Convention. All the
speeches made there will be televised; all constitutional proposals will be
debated in the media, while some countries will also hold referendums on
them. In other words, the debates on Europe's future will get maximum
publicity.

Giscard d'Estaing took the floor to stress the importance of a politically
united Europe. He warned the delegates that in the event of a setback, no
European country, however strong, would carry sufficient weight to speak as
an equal with the world's mightiest powers. The reference seems to have
been to America, from which it can be inferred that the Convention's
liberal majority do not differ all that much from its radicals. As for me,
my sympathies lie with the federalists. Why?

Europe has gone a long way toward pulling itself out of the old world of
geopolitics, where military power has reigned supreme since times out of
mind. (That state of affairs was described as "national egoism" by Russian
19th-century religious philosopher Vladimir Solovyov). The Europe of today
is following liberal rules; granted, on its small territory with a
population of just 380 million. The point is that it is mutual trust rather
than military strength that determines interstate relations in today's
Europe. And the interests of the European Union as a whole take precedence
over the national interests of each individual EU member state. Moreover,
frontiers between the member states are transparent. Thus, the Constitution
of Europe poses, as it were, an open challenge to the old world.

What's in it for Russia? In the long term, there will be a safe haven free
from imperial ambitions and superpower temptations. In effect, the same
thing that Germany has at long last acquired after ages of self-destructive
wanderings in the imperial wilderness.

That is another reason why I am eager to follow developments in the drama
of establishing a federal Europe, the outcome of which will be crucial to
world politics. In these developments, my sympathies will be with the
federalists, who are embarking on an untrodden path of the 21st century.

******

#6
From: "Robert Jaeger" <rnj@jaegerdesigns.com>
Subject: Aleksandr Nikitin summary
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 2002

Aleksandr Nikitin
Speaking at the University of Washington
Jackson School of International Studies
On Environmental Activism and Human Rights
(Summary of his 12 March 2002 presentation, by Lois DuPey and Robert Jaeger)

Alexandr Nikitin, who received training as a nuclear engineer at the
Sevastopol Engineering Institute and served in Russia's Northern Fleet as
an officer on a nuclear submarine is well qualified to comment on the state
of environmental activism and human rights in Russia.  His contribution to
the Bellona Foundation report on the Russian Northern (nuclear) Fleet
resulted in his imprisonment and house arrest while he fought a successful
legal battle for five years in defense of his right to expose safety
information regarding the Russian nuclear industry.

His Seattle talk focused on Russia's nuclear policy, dangers to public
health and the environment posed by currently inadequate nuclear safety
regimes and the state of US-Russian cooperation on nuclear threat
reduction.  The specific content of the talk seemed well matched to the
constituency present, the audience being mainly students of foreign affairs
and political science.

Geographically prioritizing areas where public safety is most threatened by
nuclear materials and waste, in addition to the Mayak nuclear facility at
Chelyabinsk he ranked Kola Peninsula, Severodvinsk, Krasnoyarsk,
Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskii and Vladivostok as posing the gravest dangers.
Upon private questioning, Mr. Nikitin was clear in saying that quality
information about specifics of the distribution of nuclear materials and
related waste was not generally accessible. The direct implication of this
observation being that the actual magnitude of this disaster in Russia and
the FSU has never been published in open sources, and by inference may be
vastly greater than here-to-fore indicated.

He sees an imminent threat posed by the Northern and Eastern nuclear fleets
to the Russian nation and to the international environment.  He contends
that this threat entails some 260 nuclear submarines of which 80 remain
active.  The others have been removed from service but cannot be scrapped
safely due to a lack of funds and total absence of facilities to accomplish
safe defueling and contamination removal.

 In addition, 15,000 tons of highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel is being
temporarily stored in various repositories.  It should be emphasized that
while depleted fuel material is the most energetic and potentially toxic
substance involved, it does not comprise the bulk of the contamination
hazard. The largest volume and mass of material of concern in this regard
is contaminated secondary material from the manufacturing, use and removal
of the fuel. This amounts to an unknown but many times larger mass than the
fuel, itself.

Forty years of accumulated radioactive waste in these nuclear hotspots
includes discarded reactors with liquid and solid waste inside.  Some waste
is stored underwater (dumped) in highly ecologically sensitive arctic and
northern environments.  These are the priority threats in Mr. Nikitin's
view, to say nothing of the nation's nuclear power plants that also lack
adequate security of all kinds and suffer repeated mechanical difficulties.

Information on the range of problems presented can be perused in detail on
the website www.bellona.org.  Mr. Nikitin observed that secure repositories
do not exist for dismantled existing vessels and spent nuclear fuel.  This
has direct implication for the contemporary and future problem of special
nuclear material diversion.

With respect to protection of the legal rights of individuals to
environmental advocacy, Mr. Nikitin's message contained both positive and
negative information.  He suggested that there has been a definite increase
during the past decade in unjustified imprisonment and harassment of
scientists and activists concerned with nuclear and environmental security.
 However, the recent decision of the Russian Supreme Court in favor of
military journalist Grigory Pasko, not unlike its earlier decision clearing
Mr. Nikitin suggests that judicial reforms are moving in the direction of
protection of human rights.  Mr. Nikitin's extended battle for those rights
has resulted in formation of a nascent constituency capable of pioneering
the organizing and securing of legal protections under the current body of
law, in spite of resistance from state organs.

Mr. Nikitin touched on the dangers posed by those U.S. policies that could
potentially result in further degradation of the security environment of
the Russian nuclear industry.  In this regard, he warned that U.S.
financing of Minatom (the Russian Atomic Energy Ministry) should be
accompanied by strict functional control over the uses of such financing,
rather than the loosely conceived accountability measures expressed in
recent negotiations.  It is anticipated that funds provided to existing
Russian governmental agencies will be used for non-program activities,
leaving the main mission unfunded and unaccomplished, and 'private' groups
enriched. When this fiscal forecast is combined with the materials in
question, the resulting threat to US national security as well as global
concerns cannot be ignored.

Mr. Nikitin pointed out that U.S. approval of proposed imports into Russia
of some 20,000 tons of additional spent nuclear fuel from Asian countries
would add substantially to the already unmanageable level of security risk
posed by unsafe storage conditions, lack of secure infrastructure and
untenable transportation options.  Such policies could significantly
decrease the effectiveness of counterproliferation and counterterrorism
efforts by both nations.  The main goal of such policy on the part of the
Russian agencies concerned seems to be revenue generation.  The implication
is that more creative and effective non-proliferation and cooperative
threat reduction programs should be introduced, obviating the need to
import additional dangerous materials.

Mr. Nikitin expressed considerable concern regarding further expansion of
closed cycle spent fuel reprocessing capability in Russia, citing this as
the primary area of immediate risk.  The Mayak facility at Chelyabinsk was
identified as an especially vulnerable target for diversion of special
materials.  In short, his expert opinion suggests that U.S.-Russian
cooperation in nuclear threat reduction must be substantially redirected in
order to avoid aggravating the grave dangers that have accumulated in
Russia, as well as elsewhere in the world, as a result of the Cold War.

This presentation in Seattle was at the invitation of groups directly
involved with academic research and environmental awareness, and their
interests were articulately addressed.  Not publicly addressed was the
direct connection between these activities and conventional national
security, of both Russia and the USA.  Mr. Nikitin demonstrated his
awareness of this connection in private communication.  Much information
exists in open sources describing various paths leading from nuclear
material issues to direct interaction between national representatives.

Mr. Nikitin so aptly emphasizes the critical value of open publication of
information previously considered not for public consumption in either
country. It is really no surprise, then, that many barriers remain between
the fact of what currently exists and the general knowledge of it.  Mr.
Nikitin has demonstrated his conviction and ability to lead others in
bridging this gap. We can anticipate more publications of specifics about
this issue, enabling discerning observers to make verifiable and correct
assessments for a change.

L. DuPey is a private consultant working on economic development issues.
R. Jaeger is an independent consultant in security, counterterror and
related issues.

*******

#7
Financial Times (UK)
18 March 2002
Putin plays a weak hand well
The Russian president's skilful diplomacy succeeds because he can play the
US and Europe off against each other
By Quentin Peel

Like all well-trained spies, Russia's President Vladimir Putin is a very
hard man to pin down.

On the face of it, the former KGB apparatchik appears to be a grey
bureaucrat presiding over the ruins of a former superpower. In spite of his
efforts to reassert national pride, he has suffered repeated humiliation at
the hands of the western powers, led by America, with whom he has tried to
make friends.

That is certainly how many of his detractors in Moscow would see him. They
cite US unilateral abrogation of the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, Nato
enlargement into central Europe, the establishment of US bases in central
Asia, and most recently, American intervention in Georgia, as proof. Russia
has been powerless to resist.

On the other hand, Mr Putin can be portrayed as a remarkably successful
poker player with lousy cards. In spite of inheriting a ruined economy, a
demoralised military establishment and a vast arsenal of rusting nuclear
missiles, he has made his way back to the top table of world diplomacy.

Which image is closer to the truth? And does it really matter how Mr Putin
behaves? Can Russia be written off as an irrelevance in the post-cold war
world?

The Russian leader and his closest associates have no intention of letting
that happen. They certainly see themselves playing a role far beyond their
capacity to deliver either economically or militarily. On key questions
such as the fight against terrorism, European security and the future of
the Nato alliance, and peace in the Middle East - both in Iraq and Israel -
they could prove pivotal players.

But two factors remain largely beyond Mr Putin's control, however well he
may play his diplomatic cards. One is how President George W. Bush will
react, given that he holds pretty well all the aces. The other is how the
Russian economy holds up. For Mr Putin needs to show some semblance of
prosperity seeping through to ordinary Russians if he is to head off any
backlash against his rule.

The balancing act that the Russian leader is seeking to perform is
perfectly illustrated by the recent intervention by Washington in
neighbouring Georgia. It was bad enough having American troops set up camp
in former Soviet central Asia, including Uzbekistan and Kyrgysztan,
ostensibly to co-ordinate the campaign in Afghanistan. To have US
helicopters and special forces' trainers arrive right on the border of
strife-torn Chechnya was a blatant provocation.

That is certainly how Igor Ivanov, the foreign minister, initially
portrayed it, not to mention most of the members of the Russian Duma. But
Mr Putin has refused to be alarmed. He has even welcomed it.

The explanation is not hard to find. By intervening in Georgia as part of
the anti-terrorist campaign, Mr Bush is accepting the most important part
of Moscow's argument for it to be welcomed into the international
coalition. He is recognising that the war in Chechnya involves
international terrorists, and not simply would-be separatists.

Mikhail Margelov, chairman of the international affairs committee of the
Federation Council, upper house of the Russian parliament, and one of the
president's closest advisers, is thoroughly positive. "In Afghanistan, the
Americans are doing our job for us," he says. "I hate to say this, but
fortunately for us the Americans got involved.

"In Georgia, before last week it was only our question. Now it is an
American question. We share the responsibility.

"We opened the first front against international terrorism in 1999 in
Dagestan. Now the Americans have opened the second front. September 11
showed that we have a common enemy. Either we fight that together, or we
will be killed."

Like Mr Putin, Mr Margelov used to work for the KGB. Now he sees the level
of co-operation between Russian and US intelligence services in the
anti-terrorist campaign in Central Asia as "very helpful in establishing
new relations" between the two former rivals.

In response, Russia is showing many indications of shifting its attitudes
in the Middle East, not least over Iraq. "We were never blind about Saddam
Hussein," Mr Margelov says. "We don't have any illusions. But we have our
interests, especially in the oil sphere, to be protected."

Russia is owed some $8bn by Iraq, and several Russian oil companies have
lucrative contracts to export Iraqi oil for food under United Nations
auspices. Moscow certainly does not want any action that leaves the country
ruled by fundamentalists, or stokes the conflict between Kurds and Arabs.
But apart from that, it sounds as if the only question is cash.

Mr Putin's advisers are also keen to present Russia as an alternative
source of energy supplies to the Gulf states in Opec. "The Americans
realise they are approaching a period when many Arab regimes will fall,"
says Sergei Karaganov, chairman of the Council on Foreign and Defence
Policy. "That is where Russia comes in with its oil."

The arrival of up to 1m Russian-speaking immigrants in Israel is another
factor influencing a rethink of Russian policy on the Middle East. It does
not necessarily make Moscow pro-Israeli, but it shifts the centre of gravity.

Indeed, some Russian commentators see a natural affinity between the US,
Israel and Russia in their hardline attitudes towards terrorism, and
refusal to distinguish between global terrorists and nationalist ones, in
contrast to the more equivocal approach of the western Europeans.

But what of Nato, and the apparent determination of Mr Bush to press ahead
with Nato enlargement to include even the Baltic republics from the former
Soviet Union? Does that at least not infuriate Mr Putin?

Not according to some. For they have realised that Nato will never be the
same again. "We think Nato is part of the past, but you [in the west] need
some considerable period of time to come to the same conclusion and adapt
Nato to the new challenges," says one Kremlin official.

"There is a crisis of identity in Nato. It has not been used in Afghanistan
because the machinery is extremely conservative. The Russians in the first
stage were much more useful."

All of which suggests that in spite of having weak cards, Mr Putin has
every intention of playing a mean game of poker. He still has to decide if
his partner is going to be the US or Europe. It is certainly not beyond him
to play them off against each other.

********

#8
Washington Post
March 18, 2002
Our Cold War Hangover
By Jackson Diehl

Islam Karimov, strongman of Uzbekistan and newly minted U.S. strategic
ally, had just finished delivering a paean to democracy over the conference
table at Blair House. So the follow-up question from the assembled
journalists seemed logical enough: Does this mean, Mr. President, that you
might be willing to hold free elections in your country?

Central Asia's leading autocrat returned an indignant stare. "Do you mean
to say that so far we have not had democratic elections in our country?" he
demanded. "I do not agree with that."

Although he may have been raised on the politics of the Soviet politburo,
Karimov is quickly learning the art of American clienthood, as practiced by
friendly dictators. First, be quickest among your neighbors -- Karimov's
are Afghanistan and the former Soviet republics of Central Asia -- to
volunteer bases and staging areas to the Pentagon. Next, serenade
Washington with speeches about your love of capitalism and democracy, while
releasing a political prisoner or two to appease the State Department.
Finally, sit back and count the U.S. aid money that rolls in -- $160
million for Uzbekistan this year -- while quietly sustaining the repression
that keeps you in power.

The master of this routine is Egypt's Hosni Mubarak, who was in town the
week before Karimov. In fact, he might well be Karimov's model. The
Egyptian dictator delivered a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations
proclaiming that "democracy in Egypt is an ever-evolving goal, constantly
growing, taking root in our midst, building on a growing maturity." He did
this despite running unopposed for his four six-year terms as president --
he claimed to have received 94 percent of the vote in the last referendum.
He is openly grooming his son as his successor. Mubarak did release one of
his most famous political prisoners just before coming to Washington; this
year he will collect $700 million in American economic aid, more than twice
the amount budgeted for Afghanistan.

Karimov must figure that if Mubarak can do it, so can he. After all, he
released three well-known political prisoners before his visit and met a
State Department demand that he allow the legal registration of an Uzbek
human rights group. Moreover, in the last referendum he staged to extend
his presidential term just two months ago, Karimov was modest; he awarded
himself a mere 91 percent of the vote.

This is the old politics of the Cold War -- which Karimov seems to be
trying, and Mubarak never forgot -- when thugs could be our thugs if they
opposed Communists and at least pretended to favor democracy. That's why
the Bush administration's handling of the Uzbek president last week was
interesting. In the new global war on terrorism, Karimov is the most
conspicuous new U.S. client -- and the administration's management of him
suggests that it may be prepared to revise some of the old Cold War rules.

Certainly much of the old logic still applies. Access to Uzbekistan's
Khanabad air base has been important to the Afghan campaign, and Karimov's
most dangerous enemy, the terrorist Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, has
fought side-by-side with al Qaeda and the Taliban. On the other hand,
Karimov's economic mismanagement and political repression, which includes
the arrest and torture of thousands of democratic activists and devout
Muslims with no connection to terrorism, are breeding more extremism --
Uzbekistan, like Egypt, has been the source of a disproportionate number of
al Qaeda recruits. So while the United States has a military interest in
allying itself with Karimov, it also has a military interest in
liberalizing his regime.

So far the Bush administration seems disinclined to act directly on this
linkage -- no one has suggested that the continuation of the U.S.-Uzbek
military relationship will be conditioned on Karimov's political behavior.
Unlike most of its Cold War predecessors, however, the Bush administration
seems to have accepted and internalized the dangers of the relationship.
For one thing, senior officials, such as Secretary of State Colin Powell,
have been speaking publicly about Karimov's bad record and making the point
that his policies risk making the problem of terrorism worse.

Even more interesting was the "declaration of strategic partnership" that
Powell and Uzbek Foreign Minister Adulaziz Kamilov signed -- a 20-page
agreement that is quite remarkable in its detail. The accord gives Karimov
what he wants -- a vague U.S. pledge to support Uzbekistan against "any
external threat," along with promises of military training and hardware.
But in exchange, the Uzbek ruler committed himself, in writing, to a long
list of political and economic reforms. These include "establishing a
multiparty system," "ensuring free and fair elections" and "ensuring
independence of the media." There are also promises to reform the judiciary
and carry out the free-market economic program that the World Bank and
International Monetary Fund have been unsuccessfully pressing on Uzbekistan
for years.

As administration officials see it, the agreement could be used the way the
Helsinki accords once were with the Soviet Bloc -- even as the State
Department delivers demarches holding Karimov accountable for his promises,
U.S. aid can be explicitly targeted at developing the civil society and
democratic institutions that Karimov has formally committed to. It might
not work -- the dictator might go on insisting, as he did at Blair House
last week, that he already has created a democracy.

In the handling of Karimov, however, is the shape of a policy that might
just take the United States past the bad theater and tokenism that governed
such relationships in the Cold War and the disasters that resulted in
places such as Iran and Nicaragua and Zaire. A version of that Uzbek
agreement, in fact, would be well worth trying with another of America's
ugly friends: Hosni Mubarak.

******

#9
Russia's gas behemoth smells a rat over tax-evasion story
Interfax

Moscow, 18 March: Gazprom Deputy CEO Vitaliy Savelyev said players on the
Russian stock market should behave in a civilized way.

Speaking to RTR [Russian state] television on Sunday [17 March], Savelyev
said he is sure the sharp fluctuations in prices for Gazprom shares last
week, which came after the press reported that tax agencies suspected
Gazprom of tax evasion, were a planned action.

Before negative reports about Gazprom were released, a Gazprom share cost
almost R23 on the market. After these reports came out last Tuesday [12
March], the price dropped to R21. In the meantime, someone immediately
started buying the cheaper shares, Savelyev noted. "And this was not an
accident, because the next day, the shares again cost R23 roubles," he said.

"I am sure this was a well-targeted action" and "there are going to be a
lot of such gamblers", Savelyev said. "However, I would like them to follow
a civilized path, because Gazprom is also able to retaliate," he warned.

Savelyev said he has made efforts to find the reasons for these events. In
particular, he phoned Viktor Vasilyev, head of the Moscow office of the
Russian Federal Tax Police, as it was after his news conference that the
press started reporting that the Tax Police suspected Gazprom of tax evasion.

Vasilyev "assured me he did not make public any facts, not to mention
figures [concerning Gazprom] at the press conference" Savelyev said.

He also categorically denied press reports about possible resignations
among Gazprom managers. "I would say they should not waste time waiting for
this," he said.

********

#10
BBC Monitoring
Russia: Top manager praises new NTV
Source: Ekho Moskvy news agency, Moscow, in Russian 0945 gmt 17 Mar 02

[No dateline as received] The television company NTV "has remained an
independent one" after management reshuffle [in May 2001] and "the work
that has been done since then was done very well", NTV managing director
Boris Jordan told Ekho Moskvy.

Jordan, who was the guest of Irina Zaytseva's programme "Without a Tie" [on
16 March], noted "a very high quality" of channel's work. "I am very proud
of the people who are working there, we were in a very difficult situation
most part of the last year and only now we begin to recover," he said.

Jordan said he was not afraid of critical remarks. "Objective criticism
only helps me. I cannot suit everyone in the country," he said. He believes
that "lots of critical remarks" about himself and [the new] NTV were
"politically motivated". "History will judge us by the results of our
work," he said.

[Omitted: Jordan says it is exciting to make business in Russia]

Jordan said that he "had never been involved in Russian politics" and had
no intention of doing it in the future. "I was invited to NTV as a
professional financier and a crisis manager," he said.

Answering the question whether he was afraid to find himself in the same
situation as the previous NTV owner, Vladimir Gusinskiy, Jordan said that
he never was afraid of problems. "I survived the 1998 default when I and my
reputation in the West suffered a serious blow," he said.

[Omitted: a real man must be able to keep the blow]

As for Gusinskiy, Jordan said that he "had made a great contribution in the
development of Russian television". "Of course, Gusinskiy did many
mistakes, as well as our politicians. That situation should have been
resolved in quite a different way," he said.

******

#11
BBC Monitoring
Russian NTV will not show Berezovskiy's film about explosions - manager
Source: Ekho Moskvy news agency, Moscow, in Russian 1010 gmt 17 Mar 02

[No dateline as received] The NTV management has decided not to show
[Boris] Berezovskiy's film about explosions of apartment blocks in Russia
[in September 1999] because the accusations made by the businessman are not
substantiated and because the documentary video included in the film was
already shown by NTV [in the "Private Investigation" programme created by
former NTV journalist Nikolay Nikolayev in autumn 1999].

NTV managing director Boris Jordan said this in the programme "Without a
Tie" broadcast by Ekho Moskvy radio [on 16 March].

"Berezovskiy's film is based on NTV production and the bulk of it has
already been shown on the channel," Jordan said.

Moreover, "we consulted on our lawyers and they told us that many
accusations in the film have no evidence, so our channel should be careful
to avoid libel charges," he said.

******

#12
New Russian c.bank chief seen as welcome reformer
By Julie Tolkacheva

MOSCOW, March 18 (Reuters) - Russia's surprise new central bank chief is
likely to focus on desperately-needed banking reform, albeit gradually, and
leave monetary policy largely as it is, analysts said on Monday.

The heavily-criticised outgoing chairman, Viktor Gerashchenko, quit on
Friday and President Vladimir Putin immediately asked parliament to approve
First Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Ignatiev as successor.

"It is a strong, confident, enlightened move by the president and better
than anything we had expected," brokererage UFG said in a research note.

Gerashchenko's skills in helping the country stay afloat in its 1998
financial crisis came to be seen as a brake on the economy and he was
particularly criticised for dragging his feet on reform of Russia's damaged
and inefficient banking system.

Ignatiev was deputy central bank chief in the early 1990s. He later moved
to the Finance Ministry where he was responsible for macroeconomic policy
and relations, sometimes prickly, with the central bank. At the ministry he
earned a reputation for being cautious and honest.

Ignatiev, widely expected to be confirmed by legislators later this week,
warned against expecting rapid change.

"Necessary and unavoidable changes in the banking sphere are a matter of
years, not months," he told the Vedomosti daily.

Under Putin, Russia has implemented a wide range of reforms but bankers say
their industry could become the Achilles' heel in expected economic growth.

The banking system is dominated by one huge bank -- Sberbank (SBER.RTS) --
which alone enjoys central bank guarantees on household deposits, one of
the cheapest and longest-term sources of money.

It controls over 70 percent of such deposits leaving the more than 1,000
other Russian banks to scramble for the rest and complain that they can
only offer short-term and expensive loans.

Analysts have long said that there are too many banks in Russia and the
smaller ones need to merge with bigger institutions or disappear.

However, Yuliya Tseplyayeva, an analyst with ING Barings, said she expected
Ignatiev to prepare and send dozens of bills necessary for banking sector
reform to parliament very quickly.

"Reforms will at last start," she said.

ROUBLE POLICY

Ignatiev said he was inclined to stick to the policy of keeping the rouble
stable pursued by Gerashchenko, whom exporters had been pressuring to let
the rouble drop faster.

"I think the rouble rate is not too low or too high. It reflects current
market trends," he told Vedomosti. "This is normal and one should not
introduce anything articifial in the central bank currency policy."

But most analysts said the rouble would be even more stable under Ignatiev,
seeing him as likely to bring better relations between the central bank and
the government.

"A more coordinated policy of the finance minitry and the central bank will
be carried out now," said Konstantin Korishchenko, a managing director at
Troika Dailog and a former colleague of Ignatiev.

Tseplyayeva forecast the rouble would firm five percent this year in real
terms and central bank reserves would rise to $39-40 billion by the end of
the year from $37 billion now.

However, Alfa-Bank said in a research note that Ignatiev would target a
quicker rouble depreciation.

"Not only is the exchange rate likely to drop to a level of 31.2-31.3
roubles to the dollar before the end of March, the year-end rate will
probably be close to 35 roubles per dollar," it said.

The 2002 budget sets the average rouble/dollar rate at 31.5.

******

#13
Russia, Ukraine vow to build economic powerhouse
By Elizabeth Piper

ODESSA, Ukraine, March 17 (Reuters) - Russia and Ukraine vowed on Sunday to
strengthen economic ties and boost trade to forge a new post-Soviet
financial power to compete on European and world markets.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said both states had to work together to
regain their economic and political clout, underlining Moscow's desire to
keep its biggest neighbour in its fold.

Putin said trade in energy, defence and technology would be stepped up in
what was seen as a boost for Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma ahead of a
parliamentary election this month. The poll will be watched closely by
Western observers who hope to see the country shed its Soviet past.

"(Economic cooperation) helps because we will become stronger...as partners
for Europe," Putin told reporters after the talks in Ukraine's Black Sea
Port of Odessa.

"We will be able to strongly influence the development of Europe's economy,
we will be taken more seriously and our own economies will be more stable,"
he added.

Kuchma, whose political future is seen to be tied to the success of the
so-called parties of power in the poll on March 31, hinted that Kiev's
earlier overtures to European organisations had fallen flat.

"Weakness is not liked by Europe, but strength is. We can only become
strong by ourselves, no one else is going to do that for us," Kuchma said
after the talks with Putin and Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin.

He said Ukraine would become a focus for gas and oil provision to Europe
from the former Soviet Union.

Moscow and Kiev have had a rocky 10 years since the break-up of the Soviet
Union.

Ukraine's early enthusiasm for the West rang alarm bells in Moscow and
prompted officials to become largely uncritical of its neighbour.

Putin was one of the few leaders who was quiet as Kuchma came under
pressure for his alleged role in the scandal of a murdered journalist who
criticised the authorities. Kuchma denied any involvement.

Ahead of the election, a series of European and U.S. officials have
encouraged Ukraine to shed its Soviet past and turn to the West, urging
Kiev to stick to the democratic rules.

Russian officials have said they are confident the poll will be free and
fair.

******

#14
Washington Post
March 18, 2002
Makings of a 'Dirty Bomb'
Radioactive Devices Left by Soviets Could Attract Terrorists
By Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writer

Six months ago, they were mere Cold War trash: hundreds of small radioactive
power generators scattered across the Soviet Union decades ago and largely
forgotten, except when the odd lumberjack turned up with severe radiation
burns.

But in the aftermath of Sept. 11, these aging but potentially lethal devices
are being viewed in a troubling new light: as possible components in a weapon
to be used in a terrorist strike. Even more troubling, some of them have
vanished.

In Georgia, on the Black Sea, a search is underway for at least two of the
devices, called radiothermal generators, or RTGs, believed to have been
abandoned and then stolen after the closing of a Soviet military base. Just
before Christmas, three woodcutters in northwestern Georgia suffered massive
injuries after stumbling upon a similar device in the middle of a forest.

In the far-eastern Russian region of Chukotka, investigators discovered a
complete breakdown in controls over 85 radiothermal generators placed along
the arctic coast by the Soviets in the 1960s and '70s. Some of the machines
had been vandalized for scrap metal, others were literally falling into the
surf and at least one could not be found, according to Russian government
documents obtained by The Washington Post.

"The generators are placed on open land, are clearly visible from the sea and
are visited by staff no more than once a year (in recent years, staff has not
visited the sites at all)," said a report by a Russian commission that
inspected the generators in 1997. "They would be easy targets for a terrorist
attack, the consequences of which could be extremely serious."

Vladimir Yetylin, a legislator from Chukotka, located on the Bering Sea, said
in an interview Friday that he suspected some generators were still missing
and planned to press for an investigation.

"At the time, there was not enough money to gather up these [power] sources,"
said Yetylin, a member of the lower house of the Russian parliament, the
State Duma, blaming the chaos that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union
in 1991.

The RTGs, used by the Soviets to power navigational beacons and
communications equipment in remote areas, each contain up to 40,000 curies of
highly radioactive strontium or cesium. Even a tiny fraction of a single
curie of strontium has a high probability of causing a fatal cancer,
according to a calculation by the Institute for Energy and Environmental
Research (IEER), a nuclear watchdog group. While cesium and strontium cannot
be used to make nuclear weapons, the two heavy metals could contaminate large
areas if combined with conventional explosives in a radiological weapon or
"dirty bomb."

"This stuff can be just ghastly to clean up," said Federation of American
Scientists President Henry Kelly, a physicist who testified this month at a
Senate hearing on dirty bombs. Such a bomb detonated in a large city could
render several blocks uninhabitable, he added.

There are literally hundreds of places where terrorists could obtain material
for such a bomb, including former dumping grounds for medical waste in this
country. But the recent discoveries in the former Soviet Union have further
heightened international concerns about the possibility of nuclear theft. The
RTGs in particular offer high concentrations of radioactivity with minimal
controls -- and sometimes no controls, according to officials of the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the nuclear watchdog of the United
Nations.

"After the Soviet Union broke up so abruptly, the newly formed nations had no
use for these things and no infrastructure," said Melissa Fleming, an IAEA
spokeswoman in Vienna. "They didn't have the means or even the information to
locate, recover and dispose of them."

The IAEA classifies the Soviet RTGs as "orphaned" nuclear sources and has
called for a major international effort to find them and lock them up. "They
are a problem, from the point of view of terrorism," Fleming said. But she
added: "Since we can't find them, presumably it would be hard for terrorists
to find them as well."

RTGs are self-contained power sources that convert radioactive energy into
electricity. Compact and relatively small -- Soviet models are between two
and four feet in length and weigh between 1,000 and 3,000 pounds -- they are
ideal for remote areas with little access to traditional fuels. The Soviets
are known to have built more than 300 of the devices, most of them to power
navigational beacons along arctic shipping lanes.

The U.S. government also built RTGs; some were used to power spacecraft, but
at least 10 of the devices were installed at remote military listening posts
in Alaska in the 1960s and '70s. After a brush fire threatened one of the
devices in 1992, the Air Force began replacing them with diesel-powered
generators.

In Soviet-made RTGs, the device's core typically is a flashlight-size capsule
of strontium 90, surrounded by thick lead to absorb the radiation. When the
lead cladding is intact, the generator is essentially harmless. But if the
shielding were missing or cracked, someone standing nearby would receive a
fatal dose of radiation within hours, IAEA officials said.

It was the strontium core that the Georgian woodcutters discovered in
December while working in a remote forest in the northwestern region of
Abkhazia. According to IAEA officials, the metal cylinder caught the men's
attention because its heat had melted the surrounding snow. Oblivious to the
risk, the men took the device back to their campsite.

Within hours the men suffered severe skin burns and internal organ damage.
Nearly three months later, two of them are still critically ill in hospitals
in Moscow and Paris, while the third has recovered.

Last month, an international team led by the IAEA recovered the strontium
core and a sister device that had been abandoned in the same area. Even
though special one-ton lead shields were constructed for the recovery effort,
the workers were allowed to approach the cores for only 40 seconds at a time.
The cores were trucked to the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, where they are being
temporarily stored along with four others that have been recovered since 1998.

Still far from clear, the IAEA says, is how the cores ended up in the woods
-- or how the Georgian government eventually will dispose of them. According
to the IAEA, Georgian officials are convinced that more remain unaccounted
for.

"Based on inventories, we think there are two more," Fleming said. "And there
is some information that suggests still other sources in Georgia."

In other corners of the former Soviet Union, the fact that officials know the
location of the devices has done little to ease local safety concerns.

The Russian government commission that visited Chukotka in 1997 set out in
ships to inspect 85 radiothermal generators believed to be scattered along
the region's northern coast. The officials were unable to reach about a third
of the devices because of harsh terrain and bad weather. But of the 52 RTGs
inspected, nearly half no longer functioned, and only three had any sort of
fencing or protection.

The commission's report describes six of the devices as heavily damaged and
leaking potentially lethal amounts of radiation. One of the generators was
nearly buried in frozen mud, it said, a second was lying in water and at
least one could not be located.

"This lack of control means that it is entirely within the realm of
possibility that . . . one or several RTGs might have been lost," said the
report, signed by the province's chief health inspector, G.B. Lebedev, and
chief inspector, Yuri Skobelev.

The generators had long sparked concern among local health officials and
international wildlife groups worried about the potential for radiation
leaks. But even before the Sept. 11 attacks, environmentalists who visited
the region expressed concern about the apparent lack of security for the
devices.

"It was just sitting in a wooden hutch -- I could have walked right up to
it," said David Kleine, director of the World Wildlife Fund's Alaska field
office, who passed within a few yards of one of the generators during a 1991
Bering Sea trip.

Still, there is an enormous difference between finding an abandoned generator
and successfully carting it away to create a weapon, nuclear experts say.
IEER President Arjun Makhijani said an amateur tampering with such a device
would put his own life in peril. But for someone with proper training and a
bent for terror, the generators could be a means for inflicting significant
harm.

"If you don't know what you are doing, it will kill you first," Makhijani
said. "But if you know what you're doing, it will do an extreme amount of
damage."

Staff writer Alan Cooperman contributed to this report.

*****

#15
Voronin: Talks with separatists to resume

ODESSA, Ukraine, March 17 (UPI) -- Moldova is ready to grant the separatists
in the province of Trans-Dniester "the broadest (autonomous) status,"
Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin told reporters Sunday after meeting with
his Russian and Ukrainian counterparts to discuss the situation in the
troubled region.

Vladimir Putin, Leonid Kuchma and Voronin gathered Sunday in the Black Sea
resort of Odessa for talks on a number of trilateral issues that were
dominated by the problem of separatism in Europe's poorest country.

Voronin said that the unification of Moldova was the country's "most
important problem today."

The Moldovan leader added that a wider autonomy promised by Chisinau would be
guaranteed by amendments to the Constitution.

He also said he hoped that the talks with the separatist regime in the
Trans-Dniester capital of Tiraspol would be resumed and praised Sunday's
meeting which he said was important for "unblocking the negotiating process."

Trans-Dniester, inhabited predominantly by ethnic Russians and Ukrainians,
broke away from Chisinau after months of armed clashes with Moldovan
authorities in 1992.

The separatists maintained they were seceding out of fear that Chisinau
authorities would merge Moldova with Romania, its bigger neighbor and a kin
nation.

Trans-Dniester won de facto independence, refusing to recognize the regime in
Chisinau and relying on the military presence of Russian troops stationed
there.

Last spring, Moldova's communists swept to power in Chisinau and Voronin
became president pledging to build stronger ties with Moscow.

The two countries soon signed a bilateral agreement aiming to revive stalled
relations and Putin ordered Russian troops to pull out of Moldova.

Bolstered Russian-Moldovan ties irked Trans-Dniester leader Igor Smirnov who
saw the Kremlin's once generous support for his regime subside as Putin
pledged to Voronin that Moscow would invariably recognize Moldova's
sovereignty and territorial integrity.

On Sunday, Ukraine and Russia, acting as guarantors of the peace process in
Trans-Dniester, reiterated their intentions to pursue a peaceful solution to
the conflict.

The absence of Smirnov in Odessa clearly indicated, though, that none of the
three nations would tolerate separatism.

Voronin also revealed on Sunday that Moldova had applied two months ago for
membership in the five-nation economic alliance of ex-Soviet states headed by
Russia.

"We hope that we will be included in EvrAzEs at the May summit of the
Commonwealth of Independent States," said Voronin.

Besides Russia, EvrAzEs includes Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and
Tajikistan.

Ukraine's Kuchma said that Kiev was also contemplating a similar move as "the
world is not treating us any better ... erecting new barriers to our goods,
so we have to think how to survive."

The evident signs of rapprochement between Chisinau and Moscow annoyed
Moldova's nationalists and anti-Russian opposition leaders who in recent
months have staged rallies in the capital to protest the government's
decision to introduce compulsory teaching of Russian in Moldova's schools and
to put on the curriculum a new subject called "History of Moldova" instead of
the "History of Romania," taught prior to that.

In February, the government revoked the problematic decrees, but the rallies
continued as Voronin's opposition demanded a government ouster and early
parliamentary elections.

On Friday, opposition leader Yuri Roshka told reporters that rallies would
from now on be staged twice a week ahead of the Grand National Convention,
scheduled for March 31.

Until Friday, the protests were held daily since Jan. 9, peaking in late
February as nearly 100,000 people gathered to mark what they said was a year
of "Bolshevik rule" in Moldova.

*******