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Edited by David Johnson
| ISSUE #65 | September 10, 1999 |
| ISSUE #65 | September 10, 1999 |
#1 Moscow Times September 10, 1999 EDITORIAL: It's Time to Share U.S. Intelligence Should the taxpayers of the United States shell out $200 million to help Russia launch satellites for use in spying on America? After all of the evidence that international financial aid to Russia has gone wasted - at best - this sounds ludicrous. One can almost imagine snickers in the Kremlin: Maybe they'll even do it for us! The U.S. Congressional Budget Office has recommended the United States pick up the tab for putting six Russian satellites in orbit, so as to give the Kremlin "24-hour coverage of U.S. missile fields." The idea is that if the Kremlin can see we aren't launching a nuclear missile attack, they will feel more secure - and will be less likely to fall for false alarms. That apparently almost happened in 1995: A research rocket launched off the coast of Norway caused Russia's rickety early warning system to shriek in alarm. The system concluded, in error, that Russia was under nuclear attack. Had the false alarm not been detected in time, this could have triggered a Russian nuclear counterstrike. That, at least, is the story that has emerged in a handful of Western press reports. It is a frightening tale. And it is backed up by the testimony of U.S. scientists, who say Russia's early warning system is "an accident waiting to happen." The Congressional Budget Office proposal can't be rejected out of hand. A properly structured deal - one that let U.S. experts confirm the nature of the satellites to be launched - might be an intelligent investment in nuclear safety. True, the Russian government could be making it themselves. But for whatever reason, they simply aren't. However, this $200 million gift would only give Russia a view of nuclear launch sites in the United States - not China, not India and Pakistan, not Norway, and certainly not in the oceans, where nuclear missile-armed submarines can roam freely. Concerned U.S. scientists originally proposed that Russia be given access to the U.S.'s early warning system. This would give them the most complete view of the world available - apparently for a much more modest price tag than the one attached to putting up a duplicate fleet of Russian satellite hardware. U.S. Senate leaders balked at this idea, apparently because of the political ramifications of giving the Russians such "sensitive information." That's how the budget office study came about: Senators ordered up a study of other alternatives. Nevertheless, of all the difficult choices on the table, sharing U.S. intelligence with other nations might be the smartest. It will make the world a safer, less jittery place. And it's certainly better than the current situation.
#4 IntellectualCapital.com September 9, 1999 Russia's Troublesome, Scandalous Times by Richard Pipes Richard Pipes is Research Professor of History at Harvard University. In 1981-82 he served as Director of East European and Soviet Affairs in the National Security Council. He is a contributing editor of IntellectualCapital.com. For the past several weeks, news reports from Russia have focused on two subjects: the Muslim fundamentalist rebellion in the Northern Caucasus, whose leaders demand independence for Dagestan, and financial scandals implicating some of the country's highest officials. Russia in trouble The rebellion in Dagestan is most unwelcome news for Moscow for it raises once again the question of Russia's territorial integrity. After failing to suppress the uprising in neighboring Chechnia, Moscow has settled on a truce that grants this Muslim region de facto independence. The Dagestan turmoil revives the threat to Russia's southern flank and jeopardizes the calm in Chechnia. The new Russian prime minister, Vladimir Putin, has promised to liquidate the insurgency within two weeks, but more than a month has passed, and the fighting continues. Experience indicates that a regular army, especially one as enfeebled as the Russian one, cannot quickly crush guerrillas operating in mountainous territory, least of all if they are inspired by religious fanaticism. But the Dagestan conflict has been overshadowed by insistent reports of gigantic financial frauds involving billions of dollars. Although it is commonly believed that the frauds involve only the Russian Mafia, in fact they also incriminate President Boris Yeltsin and his closest advisers. Financial fraud reports incriminated Yeltsin Recently, the Italian daily, Corriere de la Sera, reported that a Swiss construction firm, Mabetex, which had been hired to renovate the Kremlin at the cost of $300 million, had deposited $1 million for Yeltsin's personal disposal at a Hungarian bank in 1994. It further claimed that Mabetex has paid credit-card charges for him and his family. Swiss authorities have confirmed that in a raid on Mabetex offices last January they found credit-card slips signed by Yeltsin as well as his two daughters, Tatiana Diachenko and Elena Okulova. The president's office has indignantly rejected these accusations, blaming them on Republican politicians in the United States, allegedly interested in embarrassing President Clinton for his pro-Yeltsin policies. But it has added fuel to the suspicions by dismissing, without explanation, the Russian official in charge of the investigation of these charges as he was about to depart for Switzerland. Missing money An even greater financial scandal, which might also involve the Russian government, broke in mid-August when it was revealed that the Bank of New York had quietly handled at least $4.2 billion and possibly as much as $10 billion of Russian funds in 1998 and 1999, much if not most of it probably money "laundered" by criminal elements in and out of government. Involved in these operations were bank employees of Russian origin. Again, Moscow responded to the allegations of corruption with political counter-charges. Foreign minister Igor Ivanov has said that the charges were "politically orchestrated" and intended to isolate Russia from the world economy. The reality is entirely different. The Clinton administration, which has based its Russian policy since 1993 on consistent support of Yeltsin, has been impeding inquests into corruption by Yeltsin and his Cabinet. Afraid that Republicans will use the administration's Russia policy as a weapon against Vice President Al Gore in next year's presidential campaign -- Gore being in charge of relations with Russia -- it has done all it can to downplay evidence of financial irregularities there. And last but not least is the issue of the loans extended to Russian by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Rumors abound that some of the money laundered by the Bank of New York was diverted from IMF loans. The IMF has denied it has any evidence to this effect, but it has also acknowledged that it does not know how the more than $20 billion it has loaned to Russia has been used. Furthermore, the IMF admitted that in 1997 and 1998 -- that is, the year and a half immediately preceding Russia's financial crash of August 1998 -- the Central Bank of Russia has lied to it about its international reserves and other economic data. Even so, the IMF gives every indication that it intends to pay out the next installment of the $4.2-billion loan to Russia approved earlier this year. A country of thieves? The English weekly, The Economist, has called Russia "the world's leading kleptocracy." A survey of 4,000 leading businessmen asked to enumerate the world's countries most favorable to private enterprise placed Singapore as number one, the United States as number two, and Russia, along with Colombia, Zimbabwe and the Ukraine, at the very bottom of the list. This pervasive crookedness and corruption is not the fault of Russian national culture, as some westerners think, nor of the capitalist system, as many Russians believe, but the legacy of 70 years of Communist rule which taught Russia's citizens that crookedness and corruption are the keys to personal survival. It will take much time to unlearn this lesson.
#5 Izvestia September 9, 1999 Russia's Surprise For United States Yury Golotyuk It was last Friday (September 3) that Russia's Strategic Missile Force carried out its eighth test firing of the latest IBM "Topol-M." In a matter of 23 minutes, the dummy warhead covered the distance from Plesetsk [northern Russia to a proving ground in Kamchatka on the Pacific] and hit the target right on the dot. This was the surprise that Russia prepared for Strobe Talbott, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State, who has arrived in Moscow for consultations on problems of strategic security, IZVESTIA writes in its story. Moscow decided to make the dialogue with the Americans "easier" by giving them a vivid demonstration of Russia's new nuclear missile capabilities. So far, the author explains, Russia has 10 "stationary" based "Topol-M's" and plans to supplement them with another 10 in the next few months. Besides that, Russia expects to test a mobile version of this missile system by the end of the year. The beefing up of Russia's Strategic Missile Force [SMF], in the Kremlin's opinion, should convince the Americans of the hopelessness of re-examining the 1972 ABM Treaty. The introduction of changes in this Treaty, which the Americans are insisting upon, is the most painful subject for Russian military and diplomats. Moscow fears that if Washington covers the United States and its allies with an ABM shield, this will "nullify" Russia's last feature of a super power - its nuclear arsenals. And that is precisely why in its latest missile test, Russia especially emphasized the capabilities of the new missile system "to break through" the anti-missile defense system of "a probable enemy." The Commander of Russia's SMF, Vladimir Yakovlyev, has announced that if the United States steps out of the ABM Treaty, Russia has worked out a number of measures of an "asymmetrical nature." Including the possibility of tipping the "Topol-M" with multiple, independent re-entry vehicles. On the eve Talbott's visit, the Chairman of the Duma's Defense Committee, Roman Popkovich, was even more categorical. Russia's military-industrial complex, he explained, had already developed absolutely new ballistic missiles that could pierce any anti-missile defense system, "...so let the Americans waste their money." Popkovich made it understood that Russia's atomic-powered submarines could be armed with the newest type of missiles. At the consultations in Moscow, Talbott will be discussing not only problems related to strategic stability, nuclear missiles, disarmament, etc., but also the situation around the Bank of New York scandal concerning allegations of laundering money. Talbott has arrived in Moscow "to launder" the Kremlin, declares another newspaper, KOMMERSANT-DAILY [09/09/99, pp. 1, 3]. Right from the beginning, the author writes, Talbott's visit to Moscow was veiled in a cloak of secrecy. Washington's plans to modify the ABM system and the Duma's refusal to ratify SALT-2 are indeed the most pressing problems in Russo-American relations. However, it seems clear that productive talks on these questions should not be expected before the summer of next year - after the parliamentary and presidential elections in Russia. Incidentally, the author notes, the presidential election campaign in the United States will be at its peak at that time as well. And the chances that the Democrats will remain in power depend, in large measure, on the development of the situation in Russia. According to Talbott, Washington realized right from the beginning that corruption and crime constituted a big problem for Russia, and a formidable obstacle in the way of Russian reforms, but continued to cooperate with Moscow since the problems would become more aggravated if Russia was isolated. Very soon, the author continues, the U.S. Administration will have to finally determine its stand not even so much toward the banking scandal, as to the current centers of power in Russia. It will have to decide whether to continue supporting President Yeltsin, or to place its stakes on a new figure. And the first man in the list of new figures is Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin with whom President Bill Clinton is to meet within the framework of the APEC Forum in New Zealand on Sunday (September 12). Incidentally, another subject - preparations for the Clinton- Putin meeting - was added to the first, official version (SALT-2, ABM) of the purpose of Talbott's visit to Moscow. Russia's Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov has announced that on Monday (September 13) a group of representatives from Russian law enforcement agencies, headed by a Deputy Director of the Federal Security Service, or FSB, would be flying to the United States to discuss the situation around the bank scandal. The FSB, the author concludes, was recently headed by Vladimir Putin.
#6 From The Center for Defense Information The Weekly Defense Monitor VOLUME 3, ISSUE #35 September 9, 1999 Round Two Or a Whole New War? By Tomas Valasek, Research Analyst, tvalasek@cdi.org The conflict in Dagestan, a republic in the south of the Russian Federation, has entered a new and potentially more dangerous stage. After beating back the initial invasion of Chechen and Dagestani fighters from Chechnya, Russian forces trained their sights on home-grown militants. Beginning in August 29, Russian artillery and attack aircraft have been pounding a number of villages in central Dagestan. Since 1998, when the population of the Buynaksk region (see map information below) openly denounced the republic's government, the villages have lived under the rule of Islamic Sharia law. By some estimates, over 60 such localities exist in the republic. But only a few days after the Russians concentrated their forces on the rebellious villages, the invaders from Chechnya came back. Their latest attack, estimated at 2,000 strong and launched over the past weekend, took place in the Khasavyurt region, along a main road leading straight into the republic's capital, Makhachkala. The stated purpose of the latest offensive is to help the villages besieged by Russian forces last week. In truth, the goal seems to be to relieve the villages by threatening the city of Khasavyurt and possible Makhachkala itself and thus tying down Russian units, rather than linking up the two forces rebelling against the pro-Moscow government of Dagestan. The new developments carry several potential dangers for the Russian forces. Their success in repelling the initial invasion in the beginning of August can be attributed to the opposition of the local population of Dagestan. The Russians helped arm and organize local self-defense units. Also, the invading troops did not receive crucial support from two potentially sympathetic groups in Dagestan -- the local ethnic Chechens and the Islamic radicals. Without local support the rebels could not sustain their invasion forces in the face of Russian attacks and pulled back. But when Russian units subsequently attacked local villages controlled by Islamic fundamentalists, the nature of the conflict for the Dagestanis changed. It went from defending against outside forces (dominated by Chechens, who are widely disliked by other ethnic groups in Dagestan), to an internal conflict between the government supporters and opposition, between different ethnic groups and two forms of Islam (See "Demystifying The Role of Islam in The Former Soviet South," Weekly Defense Monitor, Volume 3, Issue #33, August 26, 1999, at: http://www.cdi.org/weekly/1999/issue33.html#1). The Russian forces are walking a dangerously thin line. If they begin to be perceived by Dagestan's larger ethnic groups as intruders, Russia may find itself fighting an insurgency armed and supported from within the republic, and therefore much harder to suppress than an invading force. In the 1994-96 Chechnya war, Russia lost to poorly-equipped guerillas who, however, routinely derived support from and found shelter among the local Chechens who were sympathetic to the guerillas' drive for independence. Moscow may be about to commit the same mistake by alienating the ethnic Chechens in Dagestan, who have mostly stayed out of the fighting so far. Russian allies in the Dagestan government began warning against the "fifth column" the ethnic Chechens represent. Russian forces also bombed villages in Chechnya proper. For their part, some local Chechen leaders in Dagestan threw their support -- verbal, so far -- behind the rebel forces coming from Chechnya. Should the nature of the conflict change to "Russians vs. Chechens," large parts of Dagestan could sink into chaos and Moscow may find itself drawn into a second war with Chechnya. The Chechen leadership has so far distanced itself from the fighters operating across the border with Dagestan -- the same Chechen troops attacking Dagestan also challenged President Aslan Maskhadov's government in Chechnya. But with Russian aircraft attacking Chechen villages, even Maskhadov's ministers threatened retaliation against Moscow. Uniting the Chechen factions in Chechnya and Dagestan against Moscow is a sure way to launch a new disastrous war in north Caucasus. For a map of the region, see: http://www.unhcr.ch/refworld/maps/europe/caucasus.htm
#7 Moscow Times September 9, 1999 DEFENSE DOSSIER: Medals Awarded Too Soon By Pavel Felgenhauer Last month Russian officials declared victory after Chechen-led Moslem rebels withdrew from several Dagestani mountain villages in the Botlikh region. The declaration was phony: The rebels had not been crushed but had pulled out in an organized manner to fight again. However, the Russian military believed their own fiction, and a new incursion of rebels this week into another area of Dagestan caught the Russians off guard. Two weeks ago, soon after the fighting in Botlikh ended, I asked General Georgi Shpak, commander of the airborne forces, when the Chechen warlords would strike in Dagestan again. Shpak's airborne soldiers, the spearhead of the Russian offensive in Botlikh, sustained most of the casualties. Shpak was adamant: "Those bandits will be licking their wounds for three months at least. We have killed 1,000 rebels in the Botlikh area and totally decimated the Chechen-led force. But the Chechens deployed 1,500 donkeys to take away their dead, so we did not find those corpses on the battlefield. However, our military intelligence counted them all and knows everything that is happening in Chechnya." Shpak's arrogant dismissal of the Chechen-led rebels as a spent force has been the official Russian point of view for the last two weeks. The Defense Ministry swiftly sent away the combined battalions that were gathered from all over Russia to fight in Botlikh. It was announced that soldiers that took part in the fighting in Botlikh and gained some combat experience will be promptly mustered out of the army. The Russian generals behaved as if the war was over, victory achieved and that it was time to hand out stars and medals and send the boys home. Today, of course, this demobilization has been reversed and troop reinforcements are again being rushed in from places as far off as Vladivostok and Kamchatka in the Far East. However, when it comes to fighting, the rebels in Dagestan often enjoy numerical superiority on the battlefield because most Russian units are unfit for action. Local police, the newly formed Dagestani volunteers and also most army and Interior Ministry units can defend established positions, but are not ready to perform effective infantry offensives in close cohesion with air power and heavy guns. The absence of combat-ready infantry is severely impeding Russian military operations in the Caucasus. When this weekend Chechen-led rebels poured over the border into the Novolak region of Dagestan, the Russian command managed only to gather a handful of army troops and local volunteers to stop the rebel advance after they were inside Dagestan, but could not repel the invaders. Small garrisons of Interior Ministry troops and local militia were left surrounded in villages occupied by advancing rebels to fight or break through on their own. For almost two weeks, army and Interior Ministry troops have been fighting to control two villages in central Dagestan, Karamakhi and Chabanmakhi, without much success. These villages are defended by local Dagestani Moslem rebels. After Russian forces were bogged down in Karamakhi for more than a week, they had to change command. The Interior Ministry forces chief Vyacheslav Ovchinnikov was replaced by army General Gennady Troshin. Only when the two villages are captured, and the Moslem dissidents ousted, can the Russians turn their very limited military resources around to begin dealing with the rebels in Novolak. Meanwhile the well-disciplined Chechen-led rebels are digging in near Novolak as good infantrymen always do. When the Russian command gathers an eviction force, it will no doubt encounter stiff resistance. The Russians may in the end repulse the rebels and once again declare victory, but only after the "liberated" villages are razed by bombs, as is happening today in Karamakhi and as happened in Botlikh last month. The Chechen warlords are effectively transforming Dagestan into a devastated war zone - attacking a different region each time and wreaking havoc. The multiple Dagestani ethnicities are swiftly forming armed, private, volunteer armies. A total disintegration of centralized law and order in Dagestan is increasingly possible as these armies get frustrated with the inability of Russian troops to deal efficiently with the rebels. As long as the Russian war effort is led by the present team of useless generals, this new war in the Caucasus can continue for years to come. Pavel Felgenhauer is a Moscow-based independent defense analyst.
#8 New Book on Development of Soviet Atom Bomb MOSCOW. Sept 4 (Interfax) - The intelligence agency of the forme Soviet Union gave the early push towards the development of an atomic weapon in the USSR, playing a principal role in its impementation," Russian First Deputy Nuclear Power Engineering Minister Lev Rebev said in Moscow Saturday. Speaking at the official presentation of a new book by the Nauka publishers "The USSR Atomic Project 1938-1954", held at the 12th Moscow international book fair in the Russian capital, Rebev said that "nothing like that" has earlier been published in the country. He reported that the book contains unique official reports, revealing the true story of the creation of atomic and hydrogen bombs in the former USSR. According to the book, the first claim to the atomic bomb invention in USSR was made back in 1940, and Stalin knew about it. According to Rebev, the volume will include many of the 35,000 classified papers being kept in Russian archives. Rebev also said that the Russian nuclear arsenal is no worse than that of the United States and is even superior to it in some ways. Today, one third of the world uranium enrichment capacities is i Russia. At the same time, the country does not need to produce enriched plutonium in the same amount as before. "We have now only two aggregates for the production of weapon-grade plutonium - at the Tomsk-7 and Krasnoyarsk-26 complexes. The rest need to be transferred for the production of peaceful electric energy," Rebev said. He reported that the nuclear arsenal has begun to be significantly reduced in the last years because of the conversion of part of the munitions industry for civilian production. According to Rebev, the leadership of the nuclear power ministry regards as "a change for the better" the increased government allocations for the ministry to restructure the defense industry and convert part of it for civilian needs. According to the first deputy minister, 1.7 billion rubles are planned to be earmarked for these purposes in 1999. "In the year 2000, the figure will probably be still larger," Rebev said. [Description
#9 Christian Science Monitor 9 September 1999 When hated in Russia, run for office Unapologetic of its policies, an alliance of pro-West reformers joins the election fray. By Fred Weir, Special to The Christian Science Monitor They were the broom that was going to sweep Russia into the modern era of capitalism and democracy. Young, liberal, Western-oriented, and schooled in market economics, they were the antithesis of dogmatic Communist apparatchiks. Promoted by President Boris Yeltsin to the highest levels of government through the post-Soviet years, their presence was seen in the West as the best guarantee that Russia's transition was on track. Then came the financial crash of 1998, and the youthful champions of fast-track market reform started to look more like con artists than saviors to a long-suffering Russian public. Today, as campaigning for the Dec. 19 parliamentary elections gets under way in earnest, they are fighting what many experts say is a hopeless battle to stave off political oblivion. "Our main aim is to preserve the ideas of democracy and the market for eight years or so, until a new generation of politicians can make it reality," says Irina Khakamada, a leader of the Union of Right-Wing Forces, an alliance formed late last month in Moscow. Most of the Kremlin's most famous champions of reform are standing together on a single electoral ticket, which experts say Russians will probably savage at the polls. Even Ms. Khakamada agrees. "We are ready to be an aggressive voice in the wilderness," she says. The new movement's list of founders reads like a Who's Who of past Yeltsin governments. It includes two former prime ministers: Yegor Gaidar, who launched Russia's reforms in 1992 with price liberalization and privatization, and Sergei Kiriyenko, who steered them onto the rocks of last year's financial collapse. There are also ex-deputy premiers, such as Boris Nemtsov, once regarded as the Kremlin's heir apparent. Anatoly Chubais, a veteran of several post-Soviet governments who engineered Mr. Yeltsin's narrow 1996 electoral victory, is the group's chairman. Trusted by the West "They were the ones who staked everything on making Russia a Western type of society. And for years the West trusted them, more than Yeltsin, to make the necessary changes," says Alexei Zudin, an analyst with the independent Center for Political Trends in Moscow. "Whenever Yeltsin included Chubais in a government, they said in the West that things are going well in Russia. Whenever Chubais was fired, they said the antireformers must be winning," he says. All were fired in the wake of last year's economic crisis, and a floundering Yeltsin has gone through three more governments since. Though it is still early, virtually all projections for the next Duma, or lower house of parliament, indicate it will be divided between Communists and a new centrist bloc led by former Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov. That could mean a shift toward more state intervention in the economy, protectionism, anti-Western foreign policy, and, some say, a crackdown on independent institutions and the free press. Perhaps sensing doom in the air, other long-time Kremlin loyalists have shunned the new Right Wing Union. Former Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin, fired by Yeltsin in August after just three months in office, has made an electoral pact with Russia's other liberal group, Yabloko. Former Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, who heads the Our Home is Russia parliamentary group, also declined to join. Mr. Chernomyrdin will team up with former Finance Minister Boris Fyodorov, an outspoken reformer, to form a separate coalition, his office said. Reforms bring good and bad Khakamada, a professional economist who served for a year as minister for small business, is third on the Right Wing Union's ticket. She refuses to entertain any suggestion that Russia's post-Soviet road might have been misguided. "People have many negative myths of reform," she says. "But in fact we accomplished historic modernization in Russia against terrible odds. This is not appreciated today." Price liberalization in 1992 ignited inflation and ruined the savings of millions, but it also ended the Soviet economy of shortages and created real market dynamics in Russia, she says. Privatization led to the concentration of national wealth into the hands of a tiny few, but it also led to mass ownership of property, such as personal apartments and country cottages, for the first time in history. "We have created a society of 100 million property owners," Khakamada says. "That is what will define Russia's long-term future, even if we aren't around to see it." It is precisely this attitude that analysts say ensures electoral oblivion for the Right-Wing Forces ticket. "They will be very lucky to get 2 percent of the vote," says Boris Grushin, director of the private Vox Populi public opinion agency in Moscow. "They are badly hampered by the general feeling that they are to blame for all the problems, the corruption, the economic failures of the past several years. "But the main drawback is that they are incapable of self-criticism. They are too sure of themselves, too categorical, and they cannot adjust to the changing times," he says.
#10 The Russia Journal www.russiajournal.com September 6-12, 1999 Brezhnev's grandson looks back Says Soviet leader's rule was not time of stagnation By Gregory Feifer Andrei Brezhnev was unsuccessful in his bid for the Sverdlovsk gubernatorial post. Last September, Andrei Brezhnev announced he was forming his own communist political movement after receiving letters in response to an article in Komsomolskaya Pravda that reminisced about the stability and calm under his grandfather's rule. Earlier this year, Brezhnev signed up to run in last week's Sverdlovsk gubernatorial elections, but the local electoral commission refused him registration ahead of the election, ruling that a number of the roughly 30,000 signatures he needed to collect had been falsified. So, after trumpeting the birth of his movement last year, Brezhnev seems to have slid back into obscurity. Is his political career dead in its tracks? Or does Brezhnev have a chance of becoming a prominent politician, as some analysts say? Is there a future in playing on nostalgia for the Brezhnev era? With these questions in mind, I met Brezhnev outside the State Duma (lower house of parliament) offices of Alexei Mitrofanov, the top Liberal Democratic Party Duma deputy, whom Brezhnev advises. Though Brezhnev was wearing a denim shirt and jeans, Andrei Yurievich's resemblance to Leonid Ilych is uncanny. Both share the same facial features, the same broad frame. The young Brezhnev seemed earnest in his replies to my questions. Perhaps that accounted for the many contradictions in his version of how the Soviet Union was ruled. Brezhnev entirely disagrees that his grandfather's rule marked an era of stagnation, as it is commonly called in Russia. 'Question of propaganda' "In my opinion, it's entirely a question of propaganda thought up by Gorbachev," he said. "Because the stagnation was basically in the ideological sphere. Economically, the machine started slowing down, but it still worked. We had space. We had medicine. Social programs. We had construction. "I can't say one way or the other," he adds. "I can see the strengths and weaknesses of that system." The system aside, how did Brezhnev see his seemingly all-powerful grandfather? "When I was younger, I saw him as a grandfather, as an elder is seen in a family," Brezhnev said. "I was absolutely not interested then whether he was general secretary or some factory worker. "As I grew, my view of him changed, I began to understand there was some kind of stamp on me, this family - and that that would not go away. Later, I began to value him as a politician, as a person, less as a family man because his wife, Viktoria Petrovna, dealt largely with the family. She was the head of the family. She organized daily life. I don't want to say Leonid Ilych was like an icon, but he was there and around him, his wife protected him, fed him, and so on." Brezhnev says he respects the former general secretary, to whom he refers by his first name and patronymic - Leonid Ilych - for undertaking strategic decisions for the state and because of his relations with different members of the Politburo. Popular images of strong-arm Soviet dictators aside, important political decisions were made collegially, Brezhnev says. Against Afghanistan move "Yes, of course, Leonid Ilych had some weight in the reaching of some decisions," Brezhnev said. "But Andropov also wasn't just an average person - he had political weight. Gromyko was a respected person, who had some authority on international affairs. Defense Minister Ustinov also. "Leonid Ilych was against sending troops to Afghanistan. But, paradoxically, the fact is the decision was signed by Brezhnev when it was made by the Politburo. The majority of the Politburo voted for sending in troops to Afghanistan, and Leonid Ilych couldn't do anything about that." The young Brezhnev enrolled in the Soviet Union's most prestigious university, Moscow State Institute of Foreign Relations (MGIMO), reserved mostly for the children of Party elite. After graduating, Brezhnev worked for the Foreign Trade Ministry, which his father headed as minister. After two years, however, the younger Brezhnev put in for a transfer when rumors of nepotism became too compromising. Brezhnev was moved to the Foreign Ministry, where he worked until 1987. "After that, I worked in different places," he says. "The system was beginning to crack, ministries started to fall, they were reorganized, split up, and I was a free agent - I worked and earned money." Brezhnev says he felt the most sorrow for the crumbling state. "It might have been necessary, but not in such a way," he said. "Okay, if it happens slowly. But when it happens suddenly - it's like someone after spending a month in the desert. He can't drink and eat right away all he wants, because he won't be able to keep it down. But we were given everything, and in a stupid way." Brezhnev then hooked up with Mitrofanov, whom he had befriended at MGIMO, although he stresses he does not share Mitrofanov's political views. Last year, he decided to form his own party. "I can't say why right off," he said. "But I was given a little push by an article in Komsamolskaya Pravda last year. I didn't think I would receive so many replies, so many letters. But every third or fourth letter asked why I don't want to start a movement or a party and said that they would help in the name of old times and so on." Brezhnev says he's not against Russia's major communist party, the KPRF, as much as its leadership, which he calls ineffectual. He is also critical of Russia's emerging party of power, led by Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov's Otechestvo movement. "My attitude toward Luzhkov and Otechestvo is negative," Brezhnev says. "Yury Mikhailovich (Luzhkov) is a good boss and manager. It's one thing to build a household when you're sitting on a bag of money - that is easy enough. All the more so since he built Moscow for the wealthy. "The city's central streets are beautiful, like in New York and London," Brezhnev adds. "But step into a side street and it's another thing, or the residential areas. It's the same garbage, bad construction, dirt and everything that's tied to it." Brezhnev thinks President Boris Yeltsin is still politically strong enough to prevent Luzhkov's alliance from doing well in parliamentary elections this December. "I think there won't be Duma elections at all, or that if they do take place, they will be well planned by the Kremlin," he said. "So either elections won't take place, or they will take place and the Duma will be made up of tens of various groups who won't have a majority, and it will be easy to control them." Of his failure to register in the Sverdlovsk elections, Brezhnev says he was told in the local corridors of power that anyone who could take votes away from the incumbent flamboyant governor, Eduard Rossel, wasn't allowed to run one way or another. "That's politics, of course," Brezhnev rues. "One can't yet talk about democratic elections in Russia. It's elections through interests." No chance of 5 percent As for upcoming Duma elections, Brezhnev says his movement won't run as a unified political entity because it has virtually no chance of getting the 5 percent vote needed to qualify for Duma seats. Instead, the movement will support some candidates - possibly Brezhnev himself - to run in single-seat districts. Although he was reported to have said he might run for president next year, Brezhnev insists he never said that. "What I did say was that we would take part in presidential elections. But how and whom we'd support is not yet clear." Brezhnev acknowledges that Russia has changed irreversibly since perestroika - and adds he thinks some transformation has been for the better. But he reflects society's frustration with the current corrupt and economically ruinous state of Russia's affairs. "Russia's ways have changed," he said. "Capital, private property is already a necessary part. But it must be developed. But there cannot be 2 percent of people who are very wealthy and 98 percent who live from check to check." Russia's largest obstacle is a lack of unified policy, Brezhnev says. "There are some one-time decisions, but no structure or policy in production or military politics," he said. "Russia does not have a system of politics. Aside from Yeltsin, there's no one."
#11
msnbc.com
September 3, 1999
Worries about Baltic chemical soup
Mustard gas dumped in sea
The Baltic Sea looks tranquil from the surface, but below lie at least 26
ships with chemical weapons that the Allies sunk there after World War II.
By Rebecca Santana
SPECIAL TO MSNBC
MOSCOW, Sept. 3 — As people try to get back to their lives in Kosovo, one
has only to look to the Baltic Sea — home to chemical weapons and explosives
left from both World Wars and Soviet times — to see how the environmental
effects of war can last long after the combatants have ceased fighting.
MORE THAN 50 years ago, the Allied forces dumped almost 300,000 tons of
chemical weapons in and near the Baltic Sea. Now environmentalists are
worried the weapons, mostly filled with highly toxic mustard gas, are on the
verge of rupturing. They warn that this could spell disaster for the region’s
fishing industry and environment.
“It could destroy all life,” claimed Ivan Blokov, director of
Greenpeace Russia.
BALTIC BACKGROUND
At the end of World War II, the Allies planned to dump Hitler’s stored
chemical weapons in the North Sea, which reaches depths of 2.5 miles.
But bad weather and other factors forced them to abandon that idea,
and they decided to sink the ships in and near the Baltic Sea, where the
water is no deeper than half a mile.
Between 1945 and 1948, the Allies sunk at least 26 and maybe as many
as 60 German merchant ships filled with chemical weapons. The chemicals were
packed into different ordnance like shells or grenades.
Although fishing is not allowed in these areas, the weapons have
drifted across the sea floor. No one has been hurt so far, but there have
been cases where fishermen pulled up mustard gas in their nets.
Mustard gas is so toxic that one thousandth of the total dumped —
27,000 kilograms — could kill more than five million people.
So far Russia’s is the only local government urging that the situation
be investigated further. A recent report by the Dr. A. H. Heineken Foundation
for the Environment, in conjunction with the Russian government, recommended
that countries surrounding the Baltic Sea investigate the possibility of
covering the ships in a sarcophagus. The Russian National Committee for
Environmental Safety also released a warning that the chemicals could pose a
huge problem for the Baltic Sea.
MASSIVE RELEASE?
Vadim Paka, director of the Shirshov Institute of Oceanology in
Kaliningrad, Russia, has been researching the issue for years. He estimates
that some of the weapon casings have been decomposing at a rate of one
millimeter every 10 years, meaning that the first of the shells would already
have deteriorated.
“Many walls of thickness are about three millimeters, and they’ve
disappeared by now,” said Paka.
The fear is that the weapon casings are all reaching the end of
their lifespan, resulting in one massive release, instead of a slow, gradual
release of chemicals.
“Simultaneously huge volumes of weapons may burst into the water, many
thousands of tons in one moment,” said Paka, who is trying to mount an
expedition to investigate the situation.
OTHERS DOWNPLAY RISK
But other governments in the region are downplaying the risks. HELCOM,
the regional government group that monitors the Baltic Sea environment,
recommends that nothing be done with the ships since the small leakage of
chemicals poses little risk.
“It has been released over fifty years, and it will continue to be
released,” said HELCOM’s Kjeld Jorgensen, adding that the likelihood of all
the chemicals pouring out at once was small.
But Tenzig Borisov, who was investigating the problem for the Russian
government, said the Western countries reluctance to address the situation is
due to public relations.
“They don’t want a panic, like there was with the British beef scare,”
said Borisov. “Every year it is getting worse and worse. A real danger exists
and it is a danger for the life and health of several generations of
Europeans.”
ALSO MINES, BOMBS
Another legacy of World War II and the Soviet era can be found closer
to the surface of the water: mines and bombs.
The Baltic Sea was one of the most heavily mined areas during both
World Wars. Although the Soviets spent 15 years removing mines after World
War II, they added to the problem as well. They used a number of the islands
off the coast of Estonia for bombing practice during the Cold War, leaving
thousands of unexploded munitions in the water.
While the major shipping lanes have been cleared of explosives, mines
often come lose from their moorings, or bombs float to the surface.
In June, students on a school excursion in Estonia found a bomb in the
water and threw it into a bonfire. One student was killed and six others
injured when the bomb exploded.
“I don’t think we will ever be absolutely free of them,” said Igor
Schvede, chief of staff at the Baltic Naval Organization, which is
responsible for mine clearance.
Even with the proper ships, which the former Soviet republics don’t
have, mineclearing is a difficult job. During an 11-day operation last fall
with mostly German Navy ships, 28 mines were found and detonated.