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Edited by David Johnson
| ISSUE #38 | March 5, 1999 |
The CDI Russia Weekly is an e-mail newsletter that carries news and
analysis on all aspects of today's Russia, including political, economic,
social, military, and foreign policy issues. With funding from the Carnegie
Corporation of New York, CDI Russia Weekly is a project of the Washington-based
Center for Defense Information (CDI), a nonprofit research and education
organization.
Moscow, 2 March 1999 (RFE/RL) -- Russian
military officials acknowledge that
the combat readiness of the country's
armed forces has declined dramatically
in recent years, but some say there are
signs that the fall may have been
halted.
Our correspondent contacted several Russian
military officials to ask about
the state of the Russian military. Their
comments followed the recent release
of a report by the U.S. State Department
that presented a pessimistic view of
Russian combat readiness. The report linked
the problems to Russia's severe
financial troubles.
The U.S. report specifically stated that
Russian combat training has largely
ceased, with the military receiving a
mere six percent of the funds it needed
for training in 1998. The report also
said that plans to modernize Russia's
military -- including the acquisition
of new equipment -- have been deferred
"well into the next decade."
According to Vladimir Potyomkin -- chief
of the Russian General Staff's Center
for Military Strategic Studies -- the
current level of the military's combat
readiness is three times lower than it
was at the time of the breakup of the
Soviet Union in 1991.
Potyomkin also says that some 70 per cent
of the ground force's hardware and
weaponry is outdated.
Anatoly Kvashnin -- Naval chief in the
General Staff -- says that almost 60
per cent of the Navy's submarines and
surface ships need repairs. Some rusted
warships and submarines have already sunk
at their moorings after waiting
years to be repaired.
The service life of more than half of the
ballistic arsenal of the country's
Strategic Missile Force is said to have
expired, and the rest is degenerating
and aging fast.
The Russian media have recently reported
that in Kaliningrad, a local ship-
construction company -- frustrated at
the Navy's failure to pay for a warship
it commissioned -- launched the vessel
before it was complete to free up the
dock for more lucrative repair work on
a Norwegian cargo ship.
But some Russian defense ministry officials
say the decline in the combat
readiness of the armed forces may have
been arrested.
One high-ranking officer at the ministry's
central office -- who spoke with
RFE/RL on condition of anonymity -- said
that readiness has stabilized and
that "the fall has already stopped."
Independent experts agree that the downfall
in funding may have stopped.
Aleksander Pikayev -- a defense analyst
with the Moscow Carnegie Center --
told RFE/RL that the worst of the military's
funding problems appear to be
over.
Pikayev went on to say that the Russian
defense ministry can expect better
financing this year as the federal government
continues its "controlled
emission" of rubles. He added that "paradoxically
enough, those emissions --
although they are fueling inflation and
are disastrous from the macroeconomic
point of view -- allow funding the short-term
needs of the armed forces."
#2
Over 100 Nuke Submarines Require Unloading
of Spent Fuel.
ST PETERSBURG, March 4 (Itar-Tass) - Valery
Martynov, head of the North-
Western inter-regional territorial district
of the State Nuclear Inspectorate
of Russia, has told journalists that more
than 100 nuclear-powered submarines
of the Northern Fleet require the unloading
of spent nuclear fuel and
salvaging.
Martynov said all those submarines are
in a storage yard, with some of them
being decommissioned more than 25 years
ago. Thus, their storage time has
exceeded all standard limits.
The expert's forecast is that "for lack
of funds to handle spent fuel, many
years may pass" before all the submarines
are finally salvaged and their
fissile cores are unloaded from them.
The Inspectorate official said only one
special train operates in Russia now
to transport reactor cores. Last year
it made three runs from Murmansk and one
from Severodvinsk, removing spent fuel
from eight submarines.
The expert emphasised that if the removal
of fuel from submarines is conducted
at the same pace, the unloading of all
submarines would take more than 12
years.
Martynov said the situation can be rectified
only by the fact that Norway,
concerned over the radiological situation
on the Kola Peninsula, promised to
build a second special train before the
year 2000.
Inspectorate specialsits say the aggregate
radioactivity of spent fuel and
radioactive waste of the Northern Fleet
is unknown, for "no one counted that
up". Specialists note that radioactivity
depends on the location of this or
that element and may change in the course
of time.
#3
Moscow Times
March 3, 1999
Army Reassures on Millennium Bug
By Simon Saradzhyan
Staff Writer
While acknowledging that the Russian military
has a lot of work to do to
prevent problems due to the computer millenium
bug, generals gave assurances
Tuesday that there will be no major breakdowns
or accidental missile launches.
"I would like to apologize in advance if
I fail to realize someone's hopes for
an apocalypse if we do not solve this
problem," Major General Vladimir
Dvorkin, head of the Defense Ministry's
4th Central Scientific Research
Institute, said at a Moscow news conference.
Dvorkin said his institute's specialists
have already determined that the
command and control systems of Russia's
strategic missile force, as well as of
the navy and air force's nuclear components,
are immune to the bug.
He said these systems' computer networks
have no calendar-based timers in
their chips. They rely on timers that
set intervals between certain
operations, instead of counting days and
years in accordance with the
universally accepted calendar.
The pending millennium poses a threat to
systems that express years in two
digits, causing computers to identify
the year 2000 as the year 1900.
However, Russia's early warning, space
monitoring and spacecraft control
systems do have calendar-based timers
and need to be debugged, Dvorkin said.
But this would only cost some 85 million
rubles ($3.7 million) to fix, he
said.
"Nothing suggest that we will fail to cope with this problem," he said.
Both Dvorkin and Major General Valery Khalansky
of the General Staff admitted,
however, that they cannot guarantee that
the early warning system will be
fully debugged.
Dvorkin said there is a possibility that
the system - which Western media has
reported is partially blind due to a lack
of monitoring satellites - may
misinterpret some "flash" as a missile
launch.
Any false alarm, however, would be taken
care of by a joint U.S.-Russian
launch monitoring center that will be
set up later this year, Dvorkin said.
The general said 134 major military sites
were checked last fall, and computer
networks at about 70 sites will have to
be fixed.
The millennium bug could cause problems
in Russia's civilian computer
networks, but these problems won't spread
to military systems, Dvorkin said
earlier.
"Our computer systems are not so developed
and integrated as in the United
States" and, thus, require less sweeping
debugging efforts, he said in an
interview last fall.
While confident that the Y2K bug will not
cause a ballistic missile launch in
Russia, independent computer experts say
that automated security systems,
which have timers embedded in their computers'
chips, could be paralyzed at
some of Russia's command and control centers
at midnight on Dec. 31, 1999.
"Some doors at bunkers won't open and air
conditioning won't work," said
Andrei Mikhailov, who heads the Moscow-based
KIB computer company, which
administers a Russian 2000 bug site on
the Internet: www.year2000.ru.
The State Communications Committee estimates
that Russia will have to spend
from $1.5 to $3 billion to debug its civilian
and military computer systems.
Unlike Washington, Moscow has not allocated
specific funds for combating the
millennium bug in its 1999 budget.
MANILA, Mar. 02, 1999 -- (Agence France
Presse) A U.S. expert on Tuesday
minimized the risk of an accidental launch
of American and Russian
ballistic missiles as a result of the
looming computer problem with the
approach of the year 2000.
"Missiles do not fire without human intervention,"
said John Koskinen,
chairman of U.S. President Bill Clinton's
presidential council on the
problem known as the "millennium bug."
The real concern was that early warning
systems may crash and radar screens
would go blank, causing defense personnel's
"level of anxiety" to rise, he
told delegates to an international "Y2K"
meeting.
Experts had earlier raised fears that Russian
defense systems, being less
advanced, might accidentally launch missiles.
Older-generation computer systems identify years by the last two digits only.
Many fear they will be unable to distinguish
between the years 2000 and
1900, leading to disruptions as computer
systems running power plants,
banks, medical services and air travel
break down when the new millennium
dawns on Jan. 1.
Koskinen said Russia and the United States
will coordinate action on
defense systems to avoid confusion.
MOSCOW, (Mar. 2) IPS - The snowy wastes
of the Arctic region have become the
latest and greatest casualty of the once-mighty
Soviet military-industrial
complex.
Nuclear weapon tests were carried out for
years on the island of Novaya Zemlya
in the Arctic, with dire consequences
for the surrounding seas.
Arctic waters became the dumping grounds
for radioactive wastes, including
reactors from obsolete nuclear submarines,
and now high levels of arsenic also
have been detected in the seas around
Novaya Zemlya.
According to Lev Fedorov, president of
the Chemical Safety Union, the arsenic
can be traced to the dumping of large
quantities of chemical weapons in the
area. He said that the Soviet army scuttled
at sea or buried on land large
quantities of chemical weapon agents manufactured
during World War II.
Mustard gas and Lewisite (which contains
arsenic) were dumped in the 1950s and
1960s to make storage room for new-generation
chemical weapons such as nerve
gas.
Fedorov calculates that the Soviet Union
had stockpiled more than 120,000
metric tons of chemicals by the end of
the last world war, some stored in
barrels and tanks, and others loaded into
munitions -- bombs, artillery and
mortar shells and Katyusha rockets.
"The army either buried or destroyed war
stockpiles to free up storage space
for the new generation of war gases,"
he said. "Chemical weapons were
destroyed in Chapayevsk (Samara Region),
Gorny (Saratov region), Kambarka
(Udmurtia), Arys (Kazakhstan) and Leonidovka
(Penza Region)...(and) that's far
from a complete list."
They were even destroyed in Moscow, Fedorov said.
"Some Muscovites may have received a dose
of poison and are perhaps being
poisoned even now, by taking walks near
those places where, next to some ponds
behind a broken down barbed-wire fence,
abandoned military equipment is
rusting to this day, and empty mustard
gas barrels are lying around," he
added.
In December, Russian President Boris Yeltsin
ordered Prime Minister Yevgeny
Primakov to increase efforts to attract
financing to construct facilities this
year to destroy the aging chemical weapons.
"Russian and foreign investments in these
plants must be encouraged," Yeltsin
said, and recommended government guarantees
for any investments.
Russia is planning to build disposal facilities
at its seven chemical storage
sites, most urgently in the Saratov region
and in Udmurtia, where chemical
arms have been stored since 1946.
At the end of November, Gen. Stanislav
Petrov, the head of the country's
radiation, chemical and biological protection
forces said that, despite
financial difficulties, Russia was determined
to meet its obligations under
the international Chemical Weapons Convention
(CWC) to eliminate stocks of
toxic agents.
Russia is required to destroy the first
400 tons of its present 44,000-ton
stockpile by 2000. It stopped producing
and developing new chemical weapons in
1987.
The cost of disposal is estimated at $6
billion over the next 10 to 15 years
and so far not one destruction facility
has been built.
The government has released only a fraction
of the necessary funds, $10
million, from 1995 to 1997. Foreign financial
and technical support for
destruction has also been less than expected.
The United States has been the single largest
donor, since 1994 providing $194
million for a facility at Saratov, which
is now under construction.
An agreement has been signed with Germany
and another is about to be signed
with the Netherlands, while negotiations
with Italy, Finland and Sweden are
underway. France, Britain and Norway also
declared that they too will help
finance destruction facilities.
Meanwhile the arsenic legacy remains, and not just in the Arctic.
Fedorov said that in Chapayevsk monitoring
by environmental organizations
showed that old plant is contaminating
nearby residential districts. Some 50
years after the manufacture of lewisite
was terminated, the concentration of
arsenic in all soil samples remained at
15 times the maximum permissible
concentration (mpc).
Arsenic concentrations up to 8,500 times
mpc were detected former
manufacturing areas. Arsenic concentration
in sediments of the Chapayevka
River were up to 17 times mpc and in residential
areas around the plant they
were up to 10 times mpc.
"Young wives in Chapayevsk fall ill several
times more frequently than do
women in 'clean' cities," said Fedorov.
"They have three times more
pathological pregnancies and births, and
far fewer healthy children.
'Chemical' disease among Chapayevsk's
children has been termed 'pathological
aging and intellectual degeneration syndrome.'"
But the official information on these matters
has yet to be declassified, he
points out.
"Until we make public the secret environmental
and medical information on
chemical weapons, it will be impossible
to do anything to alleviate the
consequences of our preparations for chemical
warfare," Fedorov warns.
Washington, 4 March 1999 (RFE/RL) -- The
U.S. government's top official
shepherding America's support for multiple
oil and gas pipelines from the
Caspian Sea says there is substantial
progress toward that goal and that the
major pipeline from Baku to Ceyhan is
economically feasible.
Two representatives of American business
firms being encouraged to build and
use the pipelines, however, say that isn't
necessarily so. They say that if
the projects don't show promise of a reasonable
return, the private investors
will simply walk away.
The clash of views came Wednesday at a
hearing before the U.S. Senate Foreign
Relations Subcommittee on International
Economic Policy. It was reviewing
whether the main U.S. supported oil pipeline,
which is to run under the
Caspian from Turkmenistan to Baku, Azerbaijan,
then on through Georgia to the
Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan,
is economically viable.
Richard Morningstar, U.S. President Bill
Clinton's special advisor for Caspian
Basin energy diplomacy, told the subcommittee
that with price incentives from
Turkey for construction and transmission
fees, along with a guaranteed cap on
the cost of the total project, the Baku-Ceyhan
pipeline is viable.
But Mike Stinson, senior vice president
of Conoco oil company, told the
subcommittee that there is a big difference
between commercially "viable" and
commercially "attractive." If projects
are viable but only marginally
economic, they will not attract the private
sector capital which will make
them a reality, he said.
Conoco is a major participant in many of
the Caspian sea projects, but Stinson
said there are factors which are making
the Caspian less attractive than it
appeared to be two or three years ago,
while opportunities in Saudi Arabia and
other places are looking more appealing
as places for the oil companies to
invest their money.
A key factor, said Stinson, is that most
energy companies working in the
region "believe a transport route through
Iran would be highly competitive and
probably represent the lowest capital
costs."
Unilateral U.S. sanctions against Iran
hurt American companies, he said,
because the most optimal transport routes
out of the region appear to be
through Iran. A major part of the infrastructure
already exists there, he
said, and a spur line costing a mere $50
million could be built connecting
with Turkmenistan to facilitate oil swaps
to the Persian Gulf for export.
The head of PSG, an American joint venture
which just two weeks ago signed an
agreement with Turkmenistan to lead development
of the Trans-Caspian gas
pipeline project, warned that unless some
major jurisdictional disputes are
settled quickly, the gas pipeline could
be left unbuilt.
PSG President and Chief Executive Officer
Edward Smith told the subcommittee
that the proposal to carry gas in a pipeline
from Turkmenistan under the
Caspian to Baku, and then overland through
Georgia to Ankara, "will not
succeed" if the substantial jurisdiction
issues over the route of the pipeline
and the regulatory regime that will govern
it are not resolved.
Smith said his company expects the pressing
problem of dividing jurisdiction
between Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan will
be solved soon, but the broader
questions of jurisdiction in the Caspian
sea itself are nowhere near being
fixed. Unfortunately, he said, it is "virtually
certain that agreement will
not be reached in the time required to
support the development of the
project."
Making it even more difficult, he said,
is the fact that Iran is strongly
opposing the Trans-Caspian gas and oil
lines. Smith said PSG and it's owners
Bechtel construction and GE Capital still
believe the gas pipeline is an
economically possible project, but also
warned that it could be stopped short
if the Blue Stream gas pipeline project
gets there first.
Blue Stream, backed by Russia's Gazprom
and Italy's ENI, would carry gas under
the Black Sea to Samsun, Turkey, then
on to Ankara.
The Blue Stream project faces more serious
technical problems because of the
depth of the Black Sea, he said, and it
would make Turkey essentially totally
dependent on Russian gas for years. "Russia
has already shut off the existing
gas lines that could accommodate export
of Caspian Basin gas through Russia to
markets in Turkey and elsewhere in Europe,"
said Smith, a warning of the
dangers of one country controlling all
the pipelines.
Still, he said, while Turkey's demand for
natural gas is great, it is not big
enough to support both the Blue Stream
and Trans-Caspian projects at the same
time.
What's important for the Trans-Caspian
line, said Smith, is for the U.S.
government to move ahead quickly in encouraging
the Caspian Sea countries to
reach agreement on the division of the
sea bed resources and the water's
surface.
Ambassador Morningstar said the U.S. government
will not provide direct
subsidies for any of the oil or gas pipelines
out of the Caspian region, but
has put together financing, loan guarantees
and investment insurance from U.S.
export support and investment guarantee
agencies.
But in the end, he said, it is up to the
countries and the companies of the
Caspian to work together to develop commercially
attractive and
environmentally sustainable projects.
Despite Morningstar's optimism, the commercial
company officials say the
Caspian pipelines are still some distance
from a sure thing.
MOSCOW, 3 Mar (Interfax) -- The Russian
318,000-man-strong ground
force is designed to rebuff a large-scale
aggression, deputy chief of the
General Staff Colonel General Yuriy Bukreyev
told the press on Wednesday
[3 March]. "The official idea of the Russian
leadership about possible
hostilities lies at the core of the force
reform," he
said. He said a sudden war is impossible,
because big numbers of troops
cannot be transferred secretly within
a short time. "A possible aggression
against Russia is not foreseeable in the
near future. Local armed conflicts
pose a threat to its security now," Bukreyev
said. "At the
moment the permanent combat readiness
formations of the force comprise
three divisions and four brigades stationed
in the Moscow, Leningrad,
North Caucasian and Siberian military
districts. They are staffed 80% and
supplied with military hardware at 100%
of the war time
standard. They are combat ready 24 hours
a day," he said. There are also 21
divisions and 10 brigades in reduced operation
(10-50% of the personnel
and 100% in military equipment) with a
combat readiness of 30 days. In this
context he said that the coalition force
of NATO recently
joined by Hungary, the Czech Republic
and Poland consists of 54 divisions.
Bukreyev said that the
reform of the force is planned to have two stages:
the first until 2001 and the second until
2006. "In keeping with the plan,
the Siberian and Trans-Baikal military
districts have been
merged into one. There are now seven military
districts--Moscow, Leningrad,
North Caucasian, Volga, Urals, Siberian
and Far Eastern. By 2000 two of
them will be merged into one to make the
Volga-Urals," Bukreyev said.
#8
Yeltsin To Receive Military Reform
Plan by 1 May
Moscow, March 3 (Interfax)--Russian President
Boris Yeltsin, who
is also the Supreme Commander-in-Chief,
will report on ideas about the
formation of the joint command of Russia's
strategic deterrence forces
by May 1. Well-informed sources told
Interfax that the Defense Ministry
has set up a commission to work out its
recommendations.
The commission led by Defense Minister
Igor Sergeyev and Chief of the
General Staff Anatoliy Kvashnin includes
commanders of the armed forces,
experts from the General Staff,
the Air Force, the Strategic Rocket Force,
the Navy and research centers.
According to the sources, there is also
another reform option: to merge the
Air Force and the Strategic Rocket Force.
Financial and economic estimates
are being made about the time of the possible
merger. Some experts believe
it would be rational to carry out the
merger gradually
by 2005-2006. The final decision on the
form and time frame of the reform plan
as well as the very usefulness of the
reform will be made by the top
political leadership on the basis of the
recommendations.
The administration of U.S. President Bill
Clinton has announced that it will
drastically increase the U.S. defense
budget. The last time U.S. military
spending skyrocketed in such a dramatic
fashion was in the early 80s, during
the worst years of the Cold War. At that
time, the Russians were fighting in
Afghanistan and the United States was
deploying new ballistic nuclear missiles
in Europe that could hit and destroy the
Soviet leadership only eight minutes
after their launch. From 1980 to 1985,
a global war appeared to be almost
immanent.
But today the Cold War is over, and Russia,
the old enemy, is in shambles - no
longer a credible military threat that
could warrant a defense buildup.
Last month, at a high-level security conference
in Munich, the U.S. Secretary
of Defense William Cohen was gloating
openly over the windfall of money coming
into his department. "President Bill Clinton's
budget proposal to Congress
makes available $112 billion in additional
defense resources over the next six
years," said Cohen. "It is our largest
sustained increase in defense spending
in 15 years. To ensure today's readiness,
our budget includes the largest
increase in military pay and benefits
in a generation. To ensure tomorrow's
readiness, our budget includes $53 billion
for this year's procurement needs,
the second annual increase since we reversed
a 13-year decline in 1998. These
new resources also keep us on the path
to achieve ou r procurement goal of $60
billion per year by 2001 and growing even
more in subsequent years. This
infusion of funds will allow us to equip
our forces with the next generation
of ships, aircraft and weapons that they
will need to carry out equally
revolutionary operational concepts that
will change the way we fight in the
future."
Cohen challenged European NATO allies to
match the U.S. defense spending hike
- to stop talking of post-cold war "peace
dividends" and increase spending.
"If allied defense budgets continue to
decline in pursuit of peace dividends,
it will be the peace and not the dividend
that will be at risk," said Cohen.
Pressure on Europeans to spend more and
more on defense was, of course, a main
item of transatlantic security exchanges
in the 80s, when the United States
demanded a 3% annual defense spending
increase from all NATO members. However,
now this seasoned tactic seems to be failing.
The German Foreign Minister
Joschka Fscher rebuffed Cohen's demands
and said that spending on arms is not
the best way to buy security and that
Germany is committing more money than
any other country to promote economic
development in Eastern Europe to prevent
possible crises. He also added that "we
spend our money in are own way."
The new German coalition government has
announced plans to further reduce its
armed forces and to actually cut defense
spending. Germany does not see any
serious military threat on the horizon
in Europe. So who is the enemy the U.S.
is preparing to challenge?
Cohen told me last month in Munich that
he is a longtime champion of
developing a U.S. military force that
could perform "Israeli model" special
operations. With an enhanced defense spending
program, Cohen wants to build
the capability to perform long-range special
force operations to seek and
destroy "rogue" leaders and terrorist
groups deep inside hostile territory
without involving massive ground contingents.
I also asked Cohen if the U.S. military
is preparing an "Israeli model"
special operation in Iraq to neutralize
the Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. Cohen
did not give a definitive "Yes" or "No",
but did say before that "a U.S.
ground operation in Iraq is not planned."
Cohen confirmed that the United States
will continue to "contain Saddam using
air power," but added that "Saddam can
be removed by a variety of means,"
which may mean a special force operation,
not a "ground operation"
The U.S. Army has recently announced it
will create small, light strike forces
of 2000 to 5000 soldiers, which probably
will be based in the United States,
but could be swiftly deployed to hot spots
around the world. Specialized
equipment and soldiers could be added
to any force, depending on the need.
The Pentagon is obviously preparing to
play world policeman using special
strike forces and wise rockets to hit
anyone anywhere. The United States is
also enhancing antiterrorist capabilities
and contemplating an antiballistic
defense system to guard its own territory
if the "rogues" hit back. The sudden
U.S. defense spending spree is, in essence,
a bid for total military world
domination.
Pavel Felgenhauer is chief defense correspondent
of Segondnya.
#10
Date: Tue, 02 Mar 1999
From: Rachel Dubin <rdubin@cdi.org>
Subject: Women in Military article,
PRAVDA 1 Mar 99
Pravda, 1 March 1999
The Rights of Women in the Army Must
be Defended, Chief Military Procurator
Yuri Demin Declares to Our Correspondent
unattributed article
[translated by Rachel Dubin]
The rights of women who serve in the army
are generally violated. The Chief
Military Prosecutor’s staff have come
to such a conclusion after an inquiry
into many divisions and subdivisions that
they carried out.
“According to 1998 data, around 120 thousand
women serve in the Russian armed
forces,” Chief Military Prosecutor Yuri
Demin told our correspondent in an
exclusive interview. “This is an
extremely high number of people who are
traditionally not very suitable for performing
military duties. The more
attention and necessary concern that is
given to it, the more hopeful it must
become for their rights to be defended.
In real life, there are more than
enough violations of the rights of women
who serve in the military. The
inquiry found, for example, such facts
as, when a woman is put on the list for
a rifle according to the established schedule,
she is actually made to tidy up
the barracks instead. It is great
work for her to stand in line for an
apartment. Cases when women have
become victims of manhandling, assault and
battery, or of ordinary annoyances, have
been brought to light...In this case,
all of this must be stopped once and for
all by the pointed efforts of the
Chief Military Procurator.”
MOSCOW, March 4 (Itar-Tass) - The parliamentary
hearings, initiated by the
Anti-NATO interfactional group, which
are currently under way in the lower
house of the Russian parliament, are focussing
on the menaces posed to
Russia's national security by the plans
to continue NATO's eastward
enlargement. Taking part in the hearings
are the heads of the largest Duma
factions, including Gennady Zyuganov,
leader of the communist faction, and
Vladimir Zhirinovsky, leader of the Liberal
Democratic Party faction. They
expressed serious concern about the plans
to continue NATO's eastward
expansion and to bring the alliance closer
to the borders of Russia. The
leaders of the two largest Duma factions
believe "it is necessary to do
everything possible to counter the threats
to Russia's national security,
posed by the North Atlantic Alliance'e
eastward enlargement".
This view was shared by Duma Speaker Gennady
Seleznyov, who took the floor
during hearings. He said that the Duma's
stand of principle was that no
actions of the North Atlantic Alliance,
capable of harming Russia's national
security, were permissible. The Russian
mps have expressed this view more than
once, Seleznyov stressed.
Taking part in the hearings are also representatives
from the Russian Foreign
Ministry, Defence Ministry, and other
state structures.
Russia's adequate reply actions to counter
the danger of NATO's eastward
expansion are being actively discussed
within the Duma. After the end of the
hearings, the mps are expected to draw
up recommendations on ways to reduce
the danger of NATO's enlargement. They
are also to map out approaches to the
settlement of this problem.
PRIMAKOV GOVERNMENT APPEARS INCREASINGLY
UNDER SIEGE. The government of
Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov appeared
to be under further fire today in
the wake of a rumor that President Boris
Yeltsin had given him an ultimatum
to fire communist cabinet members. A Russian
news agency, citing unnamed
sources, reported late yesterday that
Yeltsin had given Primakov such an
ultimatum, and that Primakov, who went
on vacation last week, was given ten
days to think about it. According to this
report, if Primakov fails to make
up his mind, he will be removed from office
(Russian agencies, March 4).
Over the last week attacks by the press
have increased against First Deputy
Prime Minister Yuri Maslyukov, a member
of the Communist Party of the
Russian Federation (KPRF) and Deputy Prime
Minister Gennady Kulik, who
belongs to the Agrarian Party, a close
KPRF ally. The attacks on Maslyukov
and Kulik have included accusations of
corruption and criticism over the
Primakov cabinet's inability to reach
an agreement with the International
Monetary Fund (IMF). Maslyukov is Russia's
main negotiator with the IMF.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Yakushkin today
called the report about Yeltsin's
alleged ultimatum to Primakov "nonsense."
Some key political players,
however, seemed less ready to dismiss
the report. Boris Federov, the former
finance minister and tax chief, while
praising Primakov for having
maintained political stability, said the
prime minister has to change his
economic team. Federov said he was ready
to join the government, if asked,
and promised he would institute major
tax reforms within two months and win
renewed IMF lending within three. Moscow
Mayor Yuri Luzhkov was more
careful, but said that the cabinet should
consist of non-ideological
specialists, and that neither politics
nor ideology should be among the
criteria in determining who serves in
it. Luzhkov appears to have been
referring to Maslyukov and Kulik (NTV,
March 4).
CALLS FOR START II APPROVAL RAISES QUESTION
MARKS. Ratification of the START
II strategic arms treaty was in the headlines
once again yesterday, as the
council of the Russian State Duma rejected
a motion which would have put
consideration of the treaty on the Duma's
March 5 agenda. The proposal to
consider the treaty was made--in an apparently
unexpected about-face--by
Vladimir Zhirinovsky's ultranationalist
Liberal Democratic (LDPR) faction.
Roman Popkovich, head of the Duma's Defense
Committee, said that the LDPR
motion had received virtually no support
on the Duma Council. He also
described the LDPR move as a "provocation,"
one which was designed, he
suggested, not to advance the treaty's
chances but "to demolish the law on
ratification entirely." The Duma Council
decided instead to refer the treaty
ratification law for further consideration
to four parliamentary
committees--on defense, security, international
affairs and geopolitics. No
date was set for these committees to complete
their work (Russian agencies,
March 2).
The LDPR had previously been among the
Russian factions most vociferously
opposed to ratifying the START II treaty.
Like a number of other groups
across Russia's political spectrum, LDPR
had held ratification hostage to a
host of domestic and, especially, international
issues. Those have included,
at various times, NATO's enlargement plans,
as well as U.S. and NATO threats
to launch strikes on Iraq and Yugoslavia.
U.S. and British air strikes on
Iraq late last year provoked a furious
reaction in Moscow and appeared to
ensure that the chances for ratification,
which were already slim, had
disappeared entirely for the foreseeable
future. Washington's recent
decision to move forward on the development
of a missile defense system, and
its calls for revisions of the 1972 ABM
treaty, have only stiffened Russian
resistance to START II.
It was no surprise, therefore, that Popkovich
and others were taken aback by
the LDPR's latest move. Popkovich was
one of several Duma leaders who took
the lead last year in drafting a new START
II ratification bill which treaty
proponents hoped might make ratification
possible at last. That is
presumably the bill which the LDPR proposed
be considered on March 5.
In remarks to the press, Aleksei Mitrofanov,
an LDPR member who is also head
of the Duma's Geopolitics Committee, said
that the LDPR had changed its
position because it saw that the United
States was likely to violate the ABM
treaty. A failure by Russia to approve
START II under those conditions,
Mitrofanov said, would only further embolden
Washington to challenge the ABM
treaty. Moreover, he said, "the Americans
have the money, they will deploy a
national ABM [system], while our own missiles
will be aging" (Russian
agencies, March 2).
Zhirinovsky repeated the same arguments
during an interview yesterday on
Russian television. The mercurial Russian
politician also called on Russia
and the United States to go beyond START
II and to negotiate for full and
complete nuclear disarmament (NTV, March
2). That last proposal is likely to
fan suspicions even further that the LDPR's
motives in urging START II
ratification are anything but sincere.
Excerpt
Pravda, 26 January 1999
On the Question of Ratifying START
II
by Valentin Varennikov, Hero of the
Soviet Union, Army General, State Duma
Deputy
words in bold are between double slantlines;
underlined words are between
underscores
[translated by Rachel Dubin]
The implementation of START II will practically
bury our strategic nuclear
forces (SNF), and along with that, our
defense, the country’s greatness, its
sovereignty, and national security as
a whole. Heavy political consequences,
both in the global community and domestically
(everything is mutually
connected), will be guaranteed for us.
With the implementation of START II, the
Americans will not only gain immense
advantages on all positions and completely
secure themselves, but will
simultaneously place us in a situation
of complete military-political
bankruptcy.
// Military-technical aspect of the problem.
Historically, the USSR, from the
triad of the Strategic Nuclear Forces
(land, sea, and air-based missiles)
developed in the first place Special Strategic
Missile Forces, that is,
land-based missiles. Collectively (more
than 60% of the total number) and
especially qualitatively, they constituted,
and constitute, the basic power of
our country’s nuclear shield; naturally,
they are the main danger for the US.
This is why the Americans are undertaking
this, in order to eliminate all our
missiles. Regarding our submarine
fleet and long-range missile-bearing air
force: they are reduced to such a condition
today that they are incapable of
striking the American continent.
Therefore, our partners in the negotiations
are, so to say, not displaying a special
interest in them. On the contrary,
they are urging us to it, so that we increase
their number and waste the means
for what cannot be guaranteed and used
effectively against the US.//
//At the same time, US sea-based missiles,
the flying time of which is 10-12
minutes (plus 2-3 minutes, depending on
the distance of the launch site and
the type of trajectory), are the main
danger to Russia. Therefore, sea-based
missiles, the carriers of which are themselves
cruise missiles, are actually
invulnerable to our ABM today. Concerning
the outdated silo-based ICBMs, the
Minuteman and the MX: they will be scrapped
by the Americans even if there are
no such treaties to that effect.
But the US would like to “sell” a little
moreexpensivelyin exchange for our
destruction of vintage heavy missiles.//
//In general, under the conditions of START
I, the sides can have 6000
warheads; we had the right to have 1540
warheads on heavy ICBMs. That is, we
were allowed to leave 154 launchers (silos)
with MIRVed missiles on 10
warheads. The rest of the warheads
reached 6000 at the expense of missiles of
other kinds of deployment. This
is already detrimental to us, as this
partthat is, the naval and air forcecannot
generally be adapted for us. It
is important to keep in mind, too, that
in 1990 the total number of
warheads inthe USSR and the US was, respectively,
10,200 and 10,500; of them,
we had 6000warheads on heavy missiles,
and the US had 2000. The rest was
reached on account of other missiles (in
the US, basically on submarines). But under
START I, to please the Americans, we have
already cut almost 4500 warheads on
heavy missiles, leaving 1540 units.
However, it must be observed that this
number (1540) is the main deterrent with
which the US and other nuclear powers
must contend.// ....
Conclusion.
As a result, the following may be said.
_ First. START II completely fractures
our nuclear triad, forcing us to
destroy the most effective means of retaliationheavy
MIRVed ICBMsas soon as
they are capable of inflicting irreparable
damage on an aggressor under any
conditions._
_Second. In connection with our most
difficult economic and financial
conditions, the state cannot guarantee
the reconstruction of the strategic
nuclear forces according to START II.
At the same time, they are not
undergoing a reconstruction of the strategic
nuclear forces in the US._
_Third. The unconditional replacement
of heavy missiles with the
single-warhead Topol-M missiles will sharply
lower the effectiveness of our
strategic nuclear forces’ impact.
The Topol warheads will be completely
neutralized by the tactical and strategic
antiballistic missile defense that
the US is intent on developing.
For that reason, having deployed the Topol-M
missile complex, it is necessary to continue
working on its improvement._
_Fourth. Having eliminated our most
effective means of retaliationheavy
missilesSTART II creates the conditions
for our absolute lack of defense. In
connection with this, it will be entirely
probable for the US to be tempted to
move to dictate and finish off Russia
once and for all._
_Fifth. The Russian people would
never allow the breakup of the Soviet Union,
and, what is more, will not allow the
collapse and disintegration of Russia,
which is potentially laid out in START
II._
The general conclusion is obvious: it is
necessary to refrain temporarily from
ratifying START II, which is an inequitable
and humiliating treaty for us.
But we must explain to our people, to
the people of the US and to all the
people of the world why we are taking
this step and why it is called for. It is
convincing to argue our decision.
It is to show that we are in favor of the
further preservation of nuclear arsenals,
but on the principles of equal
security, with regards to the interests
of the parties, without decree or
discrimination.
In connection with this, we propose that
the US go farther than START II and
begin creating START III, which fully
addresses the interests of the people of
the world.
Only a peaceful and balanced approach to
this problem that takes into account
the real state of our country and Armed
Forces today, will allow us to find a
solution that is in the interests of our
people and the Russian state.
WAR OF WORDS WITH IMF CONTINUES... As statements
of both IMF
and Russian government officials have
taken on a new testy
tone, the Russian government repeated
its old threat that it
will print its way out of its current
economic crisis if no
help from the IMF is forthcoming. Finance
Minister Mikhail
Zadornov warned on 3 March in an interview
with the
"Financial Times" that if the Russian
government does not
reach an agreement with the IMF within
the next few weeks,
its hard currency reserves used for repaying
foreign debts
will be exhausted. In such a situation,
he concluded, the
government will have no choice but to
print more money.
Russian Television said that the 1999
budget, which has
already been signed into law, would also
have to be revised.
State Duma Chairman Gennadii Seleznev
remains blase, telling
reporters that "we shall get out of the
situation somehow,
and Russian will not crumble because of
[IMF Managing
Director Michel] Camdessus's capricious
behavior." JAC
...WHILE YELTSIN TO COME TO THE RESCUE?
Calling Camdessus's
recent negative assessment of Russia's
economic program
"very, very disappointing," deputy chief
of the
presidential administration Oleg Sysuev
suggested that
ailing Russian President Boris Yeltsin
may "at some point"
intervene in talks with the IMF. Yeltsin's
doctors want him
to remain in the hospital until he makes
a full recovery,
presidential spokesman Dmitrii Yakushkin
reported,
suggesting that Yeltsin's hospital stay
will be extended
beyond the one week originally forecast.
Yakushkin admitted
that Yeltsin's hospitalization will likely
alter his
working schedule, but he declined to say
that an upcoming
trip to France would be delayed, ITAR-TASS
reported.
However, Interfax said that Yakushkin
announced the trip
has been postponed. "Komsomolskaya pravda"
reported on 4
March that naive Kremlin doctors believe
that since Yeltsin
has fallen ill, then he might content
himself with working
only with documents. But, the newspaper
commented, they
obviously do not know about his cellular
phone. JAC
RUSSIA SEES NO TRIANGLE ALLIANCE WITH INDIA,
CHINA. Russian
Foreign Ministry spokesman Vladimir Rakhmanin
said on 3 March
that his country has no plans to establish
a strategic
alliance with India and China, Interfax
and ITAR-TASS
reported. Rakhmanin, alluding to remarks
made by Prime
Minister Yevgenii Primakov in India late
last year (see
"RFE/RL Newsline," 21 and 22 December
1998), said the
creation of such a triangle "is not a
goal that Russia is
pursuing." He said Russia favors close
ties with the two
countries and welcomes an improvement
in relations between
India and China. BP
BRITAIN ASSISTS IN RUSSIAN NUCLEAR CLEANUP.
British Foreign
Secretary Robin Cook, speaking in Murmansk
on 3 March,
announced aid worth $4.8 million to help
deal with nuclear
waste from the Northern Fleet's decommissioned
submarines,
ITAR-TASS and Reuters reported. Most of
the aid, Cook said,
would be used to provide storage facilities
for waste such
as spent fuel rods currently stacked on
vessels in the
northern port. According to Reuters, environmental
activists expect the fleet to accumulate
320 discarded
nuclear reactor cores (some 20 percent
of the world's
total) and 75,000 spent fuel rods by next
year. Norway and
the EU have granted almost $100 million
to help deal with
the problem. Cook also said that during
talks in Moscow on
4 March, he will raise the issue of Northern
Fleet officer
Aleksandr Nikitin, who has been charged
with treason and
espionage for informing a Norwegian environmental
group
about the extent of the nuclear waste
problem in Russia's
North. JC
DIVISION IN RANKS OF START-II SUPPORTERS
OVER NUCLEAR FORCES
LAW. First Deputy Prime Minister Yurii
Maslyukov slammed the
draft law on financing Russia's Strategic
Nuclear Forces
until 2010, calling its adoption "ill-advised,"
"Izvestiya"
reported on 3 March. He also noted that
the law contradicts
the already passed law on the federal
budget. Duma Defense
Committee Chairman and member of the Our
Home Is Russia
faction Roman Popkovich has repeatedly
said the passage of
this law is crucial to the ratification
of the START-II
treaty, of which Maslyukov is also a strong
supporter. JAC
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