#1
Moscow Times
November 4, 1999 
SEASON OF DISCONTENT: Are Russians Ready to Win Chechen War? 
By Andrei Piontkovsky 


Do you approve of the decisive actions of the government in the fight against 
international terrorism and the protection of the integrity of the Russian 
Federation? Yes or no?" 


The question sounds like a gunshot, and Joe Public - scared and well drilled 
by six television stations at once - stands at attention and shouts out "Yes 
Mr. Lieutenant Colonel." 


First, Joe Public knows that these "blacks" that he is not overly fond of 
blew up a building in Moscow and you have to massacre them all. In the second 
place, two or three fattened-up, star-studded generals in camouflage and 
striped undershirts appear on television every night and repeat the same 
well-rehearsed, Putin-PR-approved text: This time, we are going all the way 
to the end, to total victory and we won't let those traitors in Moscow stop 
us. 


Nobody wants to look like an accomplice to traitors, and therefore no one 
dares ask the clarifying question: Where are these generals' roots, and what 
is their definition of victory? 


Let's try to fill the yawning gap in the Russian Federation's newest military 
concept. Contemporary wars, like local conflicts such as Afghanistan, 
Yugoslavia and Chechnya, differ from classical wars like World War II by 
their sharply rising ratio of civilian to military losses. This ratio in the 
last Chechen war - civilian to military deaths - was 10-to-1. Thousands of 
soldiers died, but tens of thousands of civilians were killed. It will be the 
same this time. It's just the statistical norm that prevails when a regular 
army collides with partisan resistance. 


It was therefore senseless to put forth a dozen contradictory versions of 
what happened at that Grozny market. For every dead Chechen militant, we will 
kill 10 civilians. Each one of them has relatives and they will stand up in 
the place of the dead soldier. Sergei Stepashin understood this long ago. 
Recently, on NTV's "Itogi," he said what everyone has been afraid to say 
aloud: "In order to win this war, you have to destroy the entire male 
population of Chechnya." 


In his time, Stepashin looked pretty spiffy in camouflage and stripes, 
marching the roads of the Chechen war toward victory. However, understanding 
sooner than others what such a victory consists of, he was horrified and 
recoiled. It was no accident that he was replaced. 


We left Chechnya the last time because society was not ready for such a 
victory. Shamil Basayev's raids into Dagestan and the blasts in Moscow have 
boiled societyto the necessary heat. 


The Communists burned down the Reichstag and they should have been destroyed. 
Enemies of the people killed comrade Sergei Kirov and they should have been 
destroyed. Chechens blew up buildings in Moscow and Volgodonsk and they must 
be destroyed. 


But then the question we began with - for whom the bell of the new Chechen 
war tolls - has to be asked in a few different forms. Do you approve of the 
government's decisive actions toward the physical elimination of one of 
Russia's ethnic groups? Do you approve of the government's decisive actions 
toward turning Russia into Satan No. 1 in the eyes of the entire Islamic 
world? 


Where are you dashing off to, you winged troika with Putin in the coachman's 
seat, and will other peoples and other states yield the road to you? 


There is no answer to be heard.   

#4
Moscow Times
November 5, 1999 
Generals Tell Politicians: Hands Off 
By Simon Saradzhyan
Staff Writer


General Vladimir Shamanov is one of the leading Russian commanders waging war 
in Chechnya - and to hear him tell it, elected officials best not hinder the 
army this time around. 


Shamanov, commander of the western group of forces in Chechnya, was quoted in 
Nezavisimaya Gazeta on Thursday as saying if "politicians" intercede in the 
fighting and "prevent" the military from achieving victory, then infuriated 
officers will leave the army en masse. 


"Some even believe the country will be driven to the brink of civil war" if 
that happens, he was quoted as saying. In any case, he said, "There will be a 
powerful exodus of officers of various ranks, including generals, from the 
armed forces, because the officers corps may not survive another slap in the 
face." 


Similar rhetoric came from Shamanov's boss, the commander of the North 
Caucasus military district. General Viktor Kazantsev has also recently warned 
that Russia's officers and generals will view any attempt by Moscow to stop 
the war as "betrayal." 


Ever since Russian troops made their June dash to Yugoslavia's Pristina 
airport, Russia watchers have been asking how much of what the military does 
is freelancing by top generals, and how much is policy dictated by the 
government or the president. 


Those questions have grown louder since Russian forces rolled into Chechnya 
about five weeks ago. The military has been proclaiming it intends to finish 
a job left undone during the first 1994-1996 Chechen war - the pacification 
of the republic. It has taken over duties usually associated with other arms 
of government, like the Interior Ministry or the Emergency Situations 
Ministry. And it has ignored with impunity the anger of influential regional 
leaders like Ruslan Aushev, president of neighboring Ingushetia. 


It is not clear exactly who is in charge of who. But at minimum, Russia's 
generals look to have won an unprecedented amount of autonomy for the war 
from Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and President Boris Yeltsin. 


"The military is determined to go to the end and it looks like politicians 
will not be able to stop them," said Dmitry Trenin, a military analyst with 
the Moscow Carnegie Center. "The government is too weak to [check military 
plans] while Putin's popularity largely depends on this campaign." 


The newspaper Izvestia agreed. The top half of Thursday's edition was 
occupied by an article under the headline "Yes, My General!" which argued the 
military was overstepping its authority by controlling refugee flows and 
mining regions of Ingushetia. 


"One hopes that generals euphoric at their success and at the public's 
approval won't in the future get involved in civilian matters while citing 
the Chechen-Ingush precedents," Izvestia wrote. 


Yeltsin and Putin have explained the war in terms of restoring order to 
kidnapping- and crime-ridden Chechnya and stamping out "terrorism." "Russian 
soldiers and officers are bringing peace back to the long-suffering Chechen 
land," Yeltsin said last Wednesday in his most extensive comments on the war 
so far. 


Yet a day later, a public statement by Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev 
dramatically expanded the scope of the war from what politicians have been 
saying. Sergeyev said Russian troops had invaded Chechnya and would "never 
leave." 


Neither Yeltsin nor Putin have either contradicted or reinforced Sergeyev. 
But in a sign of the times, Interfax reported Thursday, citing "well-informed 
sources," that Yeltsin has awarded Hero of Russia medals to Sergeyev, Federal 
Security Service chief Nikolai Patrushev, foreign counterintelligence chief 
Vyacheslav Trubnikov and General Staff chief Anatoly Kvashnin. 


The last time Yeltsin so lavishly courted the nation's generals was in the 
wake of the Pristina airport adventure. 


In July, the president gathered top military officials in the Kremlin for a 
somewhat contradictory performance. Yeltsin warned them that relations with 
NATO and the United States were "a very sensitive, delicate and difficult 
issue,'' and told them, "Each one of you must pursue one policy, the policy 
of the president." 


That sounded like a rebuke, but Yeltsin then muddied the waters by singling 
out for special attention General Viktor Zavarzin - who led 200 paratroopers 
from Bosnia to seize the airport in the Kosovo capital. Yeltsin shook 
Zavarzin's hand and announced, "we must decorate Russian soldiers for 
Kosovo." 


Veterans of Russia's wars in Chechnya, like Shamanov, believe they could have 
won the first war if federal officials had not repeatedly ordered cease-fires 
for truce talks. The generals argue this only allowed Chechen rebels to 
regroup and strike again. 


"The most terrible thing is that a bitter taste remains from the last war - 
that the soldiers and officers of Russia gave everything they had, but were 
betrayed," Shamanov told Russian television last Saturday. "I will tell you 
directly and openly: For me, this war is above all to restore the 
trampled-upon honor of my motherland." 


Even as they warn darkly against betrayals, however, Russia's generals 
continue to say they have confidence in Putin. They believe it was Putin who 
convinced Yeltsin to give the military carte blanche; and they, along with 
everyone else, see Putin's popularity rising on the strength of their 
military prowess. 


As Putin's popularity may suggest, the Kremlin may be well satisfied leaving 
the military in the driver's seat. As Izvestia's article put it, "Russian 
politicians don't want to control the military's actions in the Caucasus." 


The test, of course, will come when the Russian campaign starts to falter. 
Alexander Iskandaryan, an expert on the Caucasus, said that day may well be 
coming. 


Iskandaryan noted that in the 1994-1996 war, federal forces never enjoyed 
much more than the illusion of control over its occupied territory. And he 
said it was repeated military defeats - and not repeated cease-fires - that 
forced the Kremlin to clinch a peace deal with Chechen leader Aslan 
Maskhadov. 


"History will repeat itself" if the military convinces itself it controls 
Chechnya, Iskandaryan said. Colonel Charles Blandy, a military analyst with 
Great Britain's Sandhurst Military Academy who has followed Russia's wars in 
Chechnya, agreed. Both men said Russia should negotiate with Maskhadov now, 
while it can do so from a position of strength. 


But the generals, of course, oppose all such negotiations, and for the 
moment, they are not in the cards. 

#5
Voice of America
DATE=11/3/1999
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=UNICEF / EASTERN EUROPE (L ONLY)
BYLINE=LISA SCHLEIN
DATELINE=GENEVA


INTRO:  A study by UNICEF, the United Nations 
Children's Fund, finds serious problems for millions 
of children in the former Communist nations of central 
and eastern Europe and of the former Soviet Union.  
Lisa Schlein reports from Geneva.


TEXT:  The study says the majority of the region's 
150-million children are victims of shrinking 
economies, inadequate social welfare programs, and the 
spread of armed conflict.  


The UNICEF report acknowledges that life for children 
is improving in some countries of central and eastern 
Europe -- notably the Czech republic, Hungary, and 
Poland. 


But it says conditions for children are generally 
difficult in central Asia, the Caucuses, Russia, 
Belarus, and Ukraine. 


UNICEF regional adviser Yuri Oksamitniy says these 
countries spend very little money on the welfare of 
children.  As a result, he says the health of children 
and women has seriously deteriorated.  And he says the 
region has infant mortality rates that are quite high.


            ///  OKSAMITNIY ACT ONE  ///


      Although these rates are going a bit down, still 
      they are at a level which is three-four times 
      higher than in Europe, for example.  A 
      surprisingly high level of maternal mortality 
      going up to 60 or 70 in several countries per 
      100-thousand live births.


            ///  END ACT  ///


The report says so-called poverty diseases such as 
diphtheria and tuberculosis have reappeared.  And, it 
says the number of HIV infections and other sexually 
transmitted diseases has skyrocketed.  


The UNICEF study finds government budgets for 
education have shrunk considerably.  In many countries 
in the region, teachers are  not  getting paid and 
fewer children are going to school.  


Mr. Oksamitniy says a another problem is the lack of 
adequate facilities for orphans and mentally retarded 
children in Russia and Romania.  He says these 
children are thrown into institutions which are 
underfunded and lack proper facilities.  He says the 
children are totally unprepared to face life when they 
leave the institutions at age 16.  


            ///  OKSAMITNIY ACT TWO  ///


      It's kind of a struggle.  It's kind of a fight 
      for survival for these children.  They may end 
      up in the street.  They may end up in drugs or 
      any other forms of crime.  Some of them, they 
      commit suicides. 


            ///  END ACT  ///


The report does  not  blame the social and economic 
crises of the past 10 years solely on the process of 
transition.  It says many of today's problems have 
their roots in the old communist governments of the 
past. 

#6
Russia: Chechen Operation Threatens Arms Treaty
By Roland Eggleston


Diplomats in Vienna say that Russia's military intervention in Chechnya has 
thrown into doubt the signing of an important treaty governing the deployment 
of troops and other conventional forces in all European countries. RFE/RL 
correspondent Roland Eggleston in Vienna spoke to negotiators with the 
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and other 
diplomats. 


Vienna, 4 November 1999 (RFE/RL) -- The number of Russian troops and weapons 
in Chechnya already exceeds the limits set under the existing Treaty on 
Conventional Forces in Europe -- known as the CFE treaty. 


And diplomats say the Russian contingent far exceeds what it would be allowed 
to deploy in the North Caucasus under the planned amendments to the treaty. 
Several said their governments are uneasy about accepting the new treaty in 
these circumstances.


The diplomats include negotiators at the OSCE and embassy officials who keep 
in touch with the negotiations. All requested anonymity in their 
conversations with an RFE/RL correspondent. 


A senior Western diplomat told RFE/RL that Russia's standard response in the 
Vienna talks is that the limits have been exceeded because Russia has what it 
says are "supreme national interests" at stake in Chechnya. The diplomat said 
several countries consider that formulation to be an exaggeration. They fear 
that Moscow might raise the same claim about other areas to justify breaching 
the new CFE treaty.


The diplomats said a decision on what to do should be made by Friday (Nov. 
5), when work on the new treaty comes to an end. The treaty is scheduled to 
be signed in Istanbul later this month at an OSCE summit meeting (Nov. 18-19).


The diplomats who spoke to RFE/RL declined to speculate on what decisions 
would be made on Friday. One of them said: "It could go either way. The 
doubts are strong. But there is also a strong desire by some countries to get 
something down on paper which can be held up to Russia, so that it can be 
told: 'This is what you committed yourself to do.'"


The same diplomat said the problems regarding the Istanbul summit were raised 
by U.S. President Bill Clinton at his meeting with Russian Prime Minister 
Vladimir Putin in Oslo on Tuesday. He said Clinton was "very forceful" and 
left Putin in no doubt about Washington's position on the Chechnya conflict. 
Before the meeting, Russia had agreed that the OSCE could send a team of 
observers to Chechnya and the neighboring Russian republic of Dagestan to 
monitor the humanitarian situation.


A French diplomat told RFE/RL it would be a severe setback for European peace 
and security if the new treaty on conventional weapons is not signed at the 
OSCE summit. The existing CFE treaty -- which has been in force since 1992 -- 
regulates the number and location of troops and conventional weapons that may 
be held by individual European countries.


The new treaty goes much further. Its basic idea is that no single country 
will be able to maintain military forces at levels that would enable it to 
hold a dominating position in Europe. NATO describes this concept as the 
"cornerstone" of a new security regime in Europe. Under the new treaty, 
countries will be assigned a maximum number of conventional forces of their 
own. They may also allow other countries to deploy a limited number of forces 
within their borders, up to a fixed limit of total forces. The limits specify 
numbers of tanks, helicopters and other equipment.


A senior Western diplomat engaged in the negotiations on the new treaty said 
that during most of the talks, Russia argued there should be no restrictions 
on the number of troops and equipment it deployed in the Caucasus. This was 
strongly rejected by the U.S. and other NATO countries, as well as by Georgia 
and Azerbaijan.


This diplomat also said Russia had long ignored the restrictions contained in 
the existing treaty, but other countries tolerated its behavior because the 
numbers were below those envisaged in the new treaty. But since September, he 
noted, the Russian build-up had far exceeded the limits for the North 
Caucasus in the new treaty. 


When asked by how much, the diplomat responded: "Way, way beyond the limits." 
He added that, when challenged, Russia always repeated its claim that supreme 
national interests were at stake. The Vienna-based diplomats said that, in 
advance of the Istanbul summit, Russia has made some gestures toward meeting 
the concerns expressed by other countries. In the past few days, they said, 
Russia has provided some details of troop movements and the number of forces 
deployed in the North Caucasus. This was in response to demands from OSCE 
members for more transparency about Moscow's military operations in the area. 


NATO's 19 members and other countries want to verify these figures in 
accordance with their rights under previous OSCE agreements. Russia has 
promised to allow foreign inspectors to monitor the situation, but said this 
can happen only when it is, in Moscow's phrase, "physically possible." This 
reservation has dismayed NATO members and several other countries.


For the past two months, NATO and the U.S. separately have also sought from 
Moscow a political declaration at the highest level on the new CFE treaty. 
They wanted an affirmation of Russia's commitment to honoring the new 
treaty's clauses on the deployment of conventional forces. Western diplomats 
said that Prime Minister Putin provided such a declaration in Oslo on Tuesday.


Another demand on Russia in advance of the Istanbul summit is for progress on 
matters such as the military withdrawal from Georgia and Moldova. A senior 
diplomat said there had been no real movement by Russia to meet these demands.


One diplomat summed up the situation yesterday in these words: "We have the 
high-level statement committing Russia to the CFE. We have some progress on 
the transparency of military action in the North Caucasus, and not much on 
Georgia and Moldova."


Whether that is enough to meet the OSCE's demands on Russia will probably be 
decided on Friday.  

#7
US State Department
04 November 1999 
Sestanovich Statement on Chechnya to Senate Committee Nov. 4 
(Albright advisor criticizes Russia on force, refugees, human rights)


While emphasizing Russia's "obligation to protect itself and its
citizens from terrorist and other attacks," U.S. Ambassador-at-Large
Stephen Sestanovich told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
November 4 that "this obligation does not and cannot justify
indiscriminate attacks on civilians, the blocking of borders to
prevent civilians from fleeing, or other violations of human rights."


"How Russia resolves these issues," Sestanovich continued in his
prepared statement, "how it counters this insurgency and how it treats
its own people -- will determine what kind of country it will become
and what kind of relationship we have with it. That will be Russia's
challenge and ours."


Sestanovich, who is special advisor to the Secretary of State for the
New Independent States, characterized Russia's response to terrorism
in Chechnya as "deeply troubling" because of the "indiscriminate use
of force," the growing humanitarian crisis and the human rights
violations committed against certain ethnic groups.


In addition, he said, the United States is concerned that the violence
in Chechnya could "spread beyond Russia's borders and pose threats to
the independence and security of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia."


Sestanovich also expressed concern that the adapted Conventional
Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty that was to have been signed at the
summit of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe
(OSCE) in Istanbul November 18-19 may be in jeopardy because Russian
deployments in the North Caucasus exceed those allowed under the
document. However, he termed "a step in the right direction" the news
that Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov has invited an OSCE mission
to visit the North Caucasus.


The United States has said repeatedly "that there cannot be a purely
military solution to the conflict in Chechnya," Sestanovich told the
committee. "A durable settlement requires dialogue and the
participation of regional leaders. Unfortunately, neither the Russian
government nor Chechen leaders have shown much interest in such a
dialogue, and the military escalation that is underway obviously makes
it very difficult to open talks."

#8
Date: Wed, 03 Nov 1999
From: Brian Taylor  (by way of David Johnson)
Subject: Moscow News article

Moscow News
26 October-1 November 1999
Superpower Rogueness
By Brian Taylor
Brian Taylor is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the 
University of Oklahoma. 


The appearance of a new draft Russian military doctrine once again has
tongues wagging in Moscow, Washington, Brussels, and other major
international capitals.  "What does it mean?" ask the politicians and
the experts.  Frankly, not much.  The new draft is likely to be even
shorter-lived and less consequential than the 1993 version that it is
designed to replace.


The aspect of the new doctrine that has attracted the most attention is
what First Deputy Chief of the General Staff Colonel-General Valeriy
Manilov referred to as the "basic contradiction of the current period." 
This contradiction, according to the draft doctrine, is between the
striving of one superpower to establish a uni-polar world based on force
and a second tendency toward the creation of a multipolar world based on
a balance of national interests and international law.


Modesty seemingly prevented the authors from naming the offending
superpower.  To preserve the anonymity of the miscreant, we will refer
to it with random initials rather than its full-name - say, USA.


Now, this "USA" certainly has been working overtime to create the
impression that it has boundless ambitions.  NATO expansion, the war in
Kosovo, and moves toward withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile
(ABM) Treaty of 1972 are all indicators of this trend.  The failure of
the US Senate to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) last
week is just the latest example of what the American political scientist
Samuel Huntington refers to as the "rogue superpower" tendencies of the
USA.


Moreover, perhaps it is a step forward from the "Basic Principles of
the Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation" (1993) that a potential
enemy has been found.  In 1993 it was declared that Russia "does not
consider any state its adversary." Military officers complained that it
was impossible to carry out military reform without some idea of who the
threat is.  Former Minister of Defense Igor Rodionov's enumeration of
every state that bordered Russia and the near-abroad as a potential
enemy, from Norway to Japan, was hardly an improvement - more geography
than politics, the critics noted.       


So at last an opponent has been found.  But even Americans sympathetic
to Russian concerns (if this phrase is not considered oxymoronic) cannot
overlook some of the contradictions and steps backward in the new draft
doctrine.


Most important, there is no acknowledgement that a state's national
security concept and military doctrine have to be based on a balancing
of means and ends.  The 1993 military doctrine noted the need to take
account of "the economic possibilities of the country" and the 1997
National Security Concept stated that "the economy is the main cause of
the emergence of a threat to the Russian Federation's national
security."  This basic point about the relationship between economic
means and strategic ends is absent from the new draft military doctrine
- one hopes that it remains in the new national security concept under
consideration.


In this respect the new draft doctrine appears wildly ambitious.  The
entire Russian Federation budget in 2000 is little more than ten percent
of the US military budget.  If we add in the economic and military power
of the rest of NATO the disbalance becomes even more extreme.  Trying to
create a countervailing alliance with China and India, let alone smaller
nations like Iraq and Libya, is hardly going to change this basic fact -
and is extremely unlikely to materialize anyway.  If Russia would not
agree to play second fiddle to the US, it is hardly likely to accept
this role in its relations with China.


Moreover, a map and a list of places where Russian forces have seen
action in the last decade show rather clearly that Russia's main threats
are not in the West, but in the South.  18-year old boys digging in for
the winter on the Terek probably care little about the polarity of the
international system.  Spending limited resources on preparing for a
highly unlikely conflict with the West will not advance Russian
security.


Finally, a prominent theme from the 1993 doctrine has largely
disappeared - that of countering proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction.  Notwithstanding the debacle in the US Senate over the
CTBT, Russia and the US share a common interest in this regard, as
bilateral programs such as the Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR)
program demonstrate.  Even the American pursuit of national-missile
defense should be seen not as an attempt to dominate Russia but as a
clumsy and misguided response to proliferation fears.


Regardless of the merits or flaws of the new draft doctrine, it is
likely to be short-lived.  With new elections and the end of the Yeltsin
era approaching, we can expect a new national security concept and
military doctrine in a few years from the new boss.


The British rock star Elvis Costello once sang that "pretty words don't
mean much anymore."  This sentiment also applies to Russia's new draft
military doctrine.  Russia's future security will depend more on
political and economic development, including the building of a state
capable of carrying out its basic functions (collecting taxes, paying
salaries and pensions, etc.) and fighting crime and corruption, than it
will on the contents of any doctrine or concept.

#9
US State Department
04 November 1999 
Amb. Vershbow Remarks at Moscow State Institute Oct. 28 
("Time for Russia to turn the page and resume cooperation")


U.S. Ambassador to NATO Alexander Vershbow, in what he called a
"brutally frank" address at the Moscow State Institute for
International Relations October 28, outlined the present uneasy state
of NATO-Russia relations, criticized Russia for many of its actions
during the Kosovo crisis, and called on Russia "to view NATO and its
offers of cooperation not through the prism of the past, but in the
light of the new possibilities a changing world presents us."


For NATO's part, he added, "we are ready to listen to Russia's side of
the argument."


Vershbow outlined the goals and attributes of NATO today, noting that
"the only reference to Russia in our new Strategic Concept is in the
context of cooperation and partnership."


The Kosovo crisis, he said, "showed how important it is to strengthen
NATO's partnership with Russia. That partnership was important in
early efforts to manage the Kosovo crisis and was even more important
at the end in solving it. However, the NATO-Russia relationship broke
down at the height of the conflict."


Outlining the basis for NATO's actions against Kosovo -- UN Security
Council Resolution 1199, which Russia supported -- Vershbow observed
that "Russia hampered efforts to find a political solution at the
Rambouillet and Paris negotiations, leaving no alternative but the use
of force."


Russia also made the mistake, he maintained, of suspending
consultations in the Permanent Joint Council (PJC) as soon as the NATO
air campaign began, shutting off "an important channel through which
we could have explained our respective positions and perhaps found
ways to cooperate in finding an early solution to the crisis."


Although Russia "did decide to join with us in finding a solution
through the mechanism of the G-8," and thus helped "restore the UN
Security Council to the role it should have been playing all along,"
Vershbow said, "NATO-Russia cooperation is still running on only one
cylinder. Russia insists that PJC can only address Kosovo, and has
frozen other aspects of our work under the Founding Act."


Vershbow said NATO believes partnership has to be "a two-way street,"
and that NATO is "upholding its side of the bargain" in Kosovo and is
prepared to engage on other issues whenever Russia is ready. "We
believe it is time for Russia to turn the page and resume cooperation
on other issues where there is a common interest."


Some of those issues, Vershbow said, include: military strategies and
doctrines so as "to dispel misperceptions"; preventing proliferation
of weapons of mass destruction; theater missile defense against rogue
states; regional security problems in areas such as Southeastern
Europe and the Caucasus; arms control; military and political
interoperability during peace support operations; military-industrial
cooperation; and the retraining of retired Russian military officers.


He praised the "excellent" cooperation in Kosovo between NATO and
Russian military forces on the ground, noting "it is clear that our
forces are working closely together with the same mission, the same
rules of engagement, and the same commitment to an even-handed
application of the UNSC resolution."


Vershbow also discussed the results of the previous day's PJC meeting
to discuss NATO-Russian cooperation in Kosovo. "In contrast to the
first two meetings (which I have frequently compared to a visit to the
dentist, Dr. Kislyak), this meeting led to positive conclusions," he
said. "NATO and Russia agreed on how their respective KFOR forces
should manage many of the sensitive issues that remain in implementing
the peace in Kosovo... We still have our differences, but our
cooperation in Kosovo is on the right track. Therefore, we believe it
is time for Russia to turn the page and resume cooperation on other
issues where there is a common interest."


While acknowledging that many people in Russia and in NATO countries
are skeptical about what can be gained through NATO-Russia cooperation
and partnership, Vershbow said that "for me and all my colleagues on
the North Atlantic Council, there is nothing that matters more than
getting our relationship with Russia right."

#11
RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol. 3, No. 215, Part I, 4 November 1999


PUTIN'S POPULARITY REPORTEDLY SOARS. According to a
recent survey conducted by the Public Opinion Foundation
among 1,500 people in 29 regions, 29 percent of Russians
would vote for Prime Minister Putin in presidential elections
if those elections were held on 6-7 November 1999, AP
reported. Foundation director Aleksandr Olson said the rating
exceeds the previous record, held by General Aleksandr Lebed
in 1996. According to AFP, the polling group VTsIOM will soon
release a survey also showing strong support for Putin.
Addressing a meeting of rectors of higher-education
institutions in Russia on 3 November, Putin suggested that
Russia needs a new national ideology based on patriotism,
Interfax reported. "One ideology was lost and nothing new was
suggested to replace it," Putin said. "Patriotism in the most
positive sense of this word" must be the backbone of the new
ideology. JAC