#1
Emotional Mikhail Gorbachev bids final farewell to his beloved Raisa

MOSCOW, Sept 23 (AFP) - Mikhail Gorbachev bid an emotional farewell to his 
beloved wife Raisa on Thursday, as a host of European dignitaries attended 
the funeral of the Soviet Union's greatest and most glamorous first lady.
Dignified in his grief, Mikhail Gorbachev spent the day on the verge of 
tears, supported by the couple's only daughter Irina and his sister-in-law 
Lyudmilla.


Gorbachev, the last president of the now defunct Soviet Union, only gave his 
permission for a religious ceremony at the convent's cathedral church on the 
eve of the funeral. Despite his Communist past he is himself baptised.


As the cathedral bells tolled, six pall bearers carried the plain wooden 
coffin to the graveside, set in the picturesque grounds of the historic 
Novodevichy monastery.


Orthodox priests struck up in mournful song amid a cloud of sweet-smelling 
incense as the coffin was finally committed to the earth.


Ex-chancellor Helmut Kohl led a high-powered German delegation at the funeral 
which included his long-serving foreign minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, the 
speaker of the German Bundestag Wolfgang Thierse and Doris Schroeder-Koepf, 
wife of the current Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.


Former premier Yevgeny Primakov and his successor Sergei Stepashin were among 
Russian personalities to pay their last respects before Raisa's coffin was 
transported to Novodevichy.


France, Italy, Spain and the United States were represented by their 
ambassadors. Britain's ex-premier Margaret Thatcher was not seen at the 
ceremony, despite reports that she would attend.


Naina Yeltsin represented her husband President Boris Yeltsin, while Belarus 
President Alexander Lukashenko was among foreign leaders to file past Raisa's 
body in Moscow's Cultural Foundation which she created.


Raisa, 67, died on Monday after losing a long battle against leukaemia, a 
blood disorder she had spent much time trying to combat through her 
charitable work.


Gorbachev spent two months by his ailing wife's bedside in a clinic in the 
German city of Muenster as doctors fought vainly to save her life.


He was in daily contact with Kohl, who paid a resounding tribute to Raisa and 
the man who played a key role in the reunification of Germany in 1990.


"We spoke every day with Mikhail Gorbachev while he was in Muenster," Kohl 
said. "Raisa played a vital political role, from the beginning of perestroika 
(the reform movement launched by Gorbachev) to the reunification of Germany 
and the arms reductions negotiations.


"When people talked of the Gorbachevs, they said: 'they are a couple'," added 
Kohl, the longest-serving chancellor in German history, underscoring the 
intense personal bond that linked the Gorbachevs during their 46-year 
marriage.


On Wednesday, hundreds of ordinary Muscovites queued patiently to enter the 
ornate building in downtown Moscow where Raisa's body lay in state to pay 
their respects to the woman the business daily Kommersant described as 
Russia's "first First Lady."


The last goodbyes said, Raisa's body, displayed in an open coffin on a podium 
surrounded by wreaths of flowers brought by mourners, was lifted into a 
waiting hearse.


The funeral cortege then left for the cemetery in southern Moscow where the 
great and the good of Russian history are traditionally buried, including 
composer Dmitry Shostakovich, playwright Anton Chekhov, author Mikhail 
Bulgakov and former Soviet chief Nikita Khrushchev.


Reviled during her husband's reign as Kremlin boss for her love of luxury and 
overseas shopping sprees, Raisa was quickly dubbed by critics as the "Red 
Tsarina," whose excesses went down badly in a country of shortages and 
poverty.


However, Raisa's illness triggered a remarkable change of heart among many 
ordinary Russians, who had resented her glamour and influence over her 
powerful husband but who mourned her death.


Mikhail Gorbachev has cut a tragic figure on the nation's television screens 
during his wife's last illness, and his evident love of the woman he married 
in 1953 touched a chord among the sentimental Russian populace.

#4
Russia: Lawmaker Questions U.S. Interest In Corruption
By Andrew F. Tully


Washington, 23 September 1999 (RFE/RL) -- A member of the Russian state Duma 
is skeptical about America's sudden interest in financial corruption in his 
country which he says has been around for so long.


Yuri Shchekochikhin, who is also the editor of the Moscow newspaper "Novaya 
Gazeta," testified Wednesday before a Congressional hearing on Russian 
corruption.


American law enforcement officials are investigating whether Russian 
businessmen, criminals and senior officials "laundered" as much as $15 
billion through the Bank of New York. Recent American news accounts say some 
of that money may have included aid from the International Monetary Fund. 


"Money laundering" is transferring illegal profits through many bank accounts 
until the source of the money cannot be traced, and the funds appear to be 
legitimately earned.


Shchekochikhin said recent American news reports about Russian money 
laundering and other corruption remind him of a "bombing attack."


Shchekochikhin said: "The constant publications in the press here, and 
releases, remind me of a bombing attack. ...All of this happened a long time 
ago. ...America knew about this. ...Why only today?...I want to warn you 
about making -- about coming to conclusions about the money-laundering 
situation in the Bank of New York."


Shchekochikhin testified on the second of two days of hearings by the House 
of Representatives Banking Committee, which plans to hold further hearings on 
Russian corruption in the coming weeks.


On Tuesday, U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers testified before the 
same committee that Russia's problems with financial corruption should not 
drive the United States to abandon the Russian people. He did say, however, 
that Washington should be stricter in its financial dealings with Moscow.


And the secretary said the administration of U.S. President Bill Clinton 
supports the decision by the International Monetary Fund to loan Russia money 
that can be used only to repay existing debt to the IMF.


After Summers spoke, two members of the Nixon Center, a conservative think 
tank, testified that the Clinton administration was at least in part to blame 
for the current scandal.


Paul Saunders and Dmitri Simes said the administration had been aware for a 
long time that Russian banks were stealing public money, and yet it pushed 
for billions of dollars in IMF loans to Russia anyway.


Wednesday's hearing began with testimony from James Robinson, the U.S. 
assistant attorney general in charge of the Justice Department's Criminal 
Division.


Robinson said American law-enforcement agencies need more resources to fight 
the illegal flow of Russian foreign money into the United States. He said 
such "capital flight" threatens to corrupt Russia's financial institutions.


The assistant attorney general said the meetings last week in Washington 
between U.S. and Russian law-enforcement officials about the money-laundering 
investigation was "productive." Hours later, Russian Foreign Minister Igor 
Ivanov echoed that. Speaking with reporters at the White House, Ivanov said 
Moscow has agreed "to fully cooperate" in the investigation with the United 
States and all other nations involved.


Also testifying at the House Banking Committee hearing on Wednesday was 
Thomas Renyi, chairman of the Bank of New York. He stressed that his 
institution has not been formally charged with wrongdoing. But Renyi conceded 
that the bank was slow to recognize the questionable flow of money through 
one of the accounts involved in the scandal because the holder of the account 
was married to one of the bank's executives.


Otherwise, Renyi said, the Bank of New York acted responsibly and according 
to accepted practice, and he said it has instituted new procedures to prevent 
similar trouble in the future.


Meanwhile, a parallel Congressional investigation into Russian corruption is 
opening in Washington. Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, the 
second-ranking diplomat in the Clinton administration, is scheduled to 
testify Thursday (today) about the scandal before a hearing of the Senate 
Foreign Relations Committee.


Also on Thursday, U.S. Attorney-General Janet Reno and Summers, the treasury 
secretary, are expected to announce a new joint initiative of the Justice 
Department and the Treasury to fight money laundering. Robinson mentioned the 
program during his testimony Wednesday, but declined to give details.


During Wednesday's congressional hearing, Representative Jim Leach, the 
chairman of the Banking Committee, asked Shchekochikhin why he believes so 
much money is being siphoned out of Russia. The Russian legislator replied by 
recalling the end of World War II, when Charles DeGaulle became president of 
France. DeGaulle, he said, asked the French to put all their money into 
French banks, and promised that "not one centime will be lost."


Shchekochikhin said there is no one in Russia today who can make the same 
assurances to the Russian people.


Therefore, he said, Russians are eager to get their money out of the country.


In his words: "And of course lack of trust in the government is the first or 
the foremost reason."


The Russians do not distrust only their own leaders, Shchekochikhin said. 
They also have become disillusioned with the United States, at part because 
of its conduct in Vietnam, in Iraq, and in Yugoslavia.


"Well, right now, the hope for America in Russia is gone," says 
Shchekochikhin. 

#5
Izvestia
23 September 1999
Scandal Of America 
By Vladimir Abarinov 
 
The current hearings in the U.S. Congress on corruption in Russia are 
motivated by America's own economic interests, writes IZVESTIA. It is not 
accidental that at this very moment the new head of the World Trade 
Organization (WTO), Mike Moore, said that there was no ground so far for 
Russia to become a member of that organization. Moreover, he said that out of 
the big countries China was one of the most likely candidates for membership 
-- it may join the WTO within the nearest few weeks. 


"These words reflect the U.S. official position," the paper points out. "The 
U.S. Administration actively supports the anti- dumping investigation with 
respect to Russia. The obstacles to Russia's admission to the WTO and the 
scandal around the Russian mafia are the best way of delaying the lifting of 
the trade restrictions against Russia, imposed back during the Cold War. 
Moreover, the Clinton Administration promised in public that in September it 
would recognize Russia as a country with a market economy. Now it can safely 
not do it." 


As for the hearings per se, the Russian delegation invited to participate 
wants to receive documents proving that Russian money is really laundered in 
America. The delegation head, Alexander Kulikov (a communist Duma member) 
said flatly on his arrival in Washington: "If such documents are not 
produced, we will have the right to say that the interests of the Russian 
state are discredited purposefully to achieve certain political goals." 


But the American reality is such, the paper notes, that normally the 
Congressmen do not deal with any documents -- they simply hear witness 
testimony. The purpose of congressional hearings is to formulate the problem 
and then decide what to do about it. 


The paper also notes that many important witnesses, such as Natasha 
Gurfinkel-Kagalovskaya and Lucy Edwards from the Bank of New York, Geneva 
banker Bruce Rappaport and Russian financier Mikhail Khodorkovsky refused to 
come to testify in Congress. The suspended Russian Prosecutor General, Yury 
Skuratov, said he was unable to come but promised to cooperate. The former 
Swiss Federal Prosecutor Carla del Ponte was also absent due to her new 
assignment in the Hague. 


As for the U.S. Administration, sharply criticized now for the "loss" of 
Russia, it is represented at the hearings by Secretary of the Treasury Larry 
Summers. The latter tried hard to defend Washington's Russia policies, saying 
that a stable, democratic, prosperous and disarming Russia was in America's 
interest. Other leading U.S. politicians, the architects of Bill Clinton's 
Russia course, such as Madeleine Albright, Strobe Talbott, Al Gore, Sandy 
Berger and Willian Cohen, also vigorously uphold this course in numerous 
public statements, the paper says. 

#6
Moscow Times
September 24, 1999 
PARTY LINES: Elections Are Political Y2K For 'Family' 
By Brian Whitmore
Staff Writer


Russia's super-presidential system was designed back in 1993. And while it 
may now seem incredibly short-sighted, it seems there is a design flaw f a 
bug if you will. The entire system could crash in 2000 when President Boris 
Yeltsin goes. Call it Russia's political Y2K problem. 


The problem is that the fabled "family" f that cabal of Kremlin insiders who 
got rich and powerful due to their proximity to Yeltsin f are bumping into a 
biological reality. One of these days, sooner or later, one way or another, 
Yeltsin is going to leave the Kremlin. The system as set up now works 
beautifully for the family and its state-assets-fattened oligarchs. But when 
Yeltsin leaves, things go a bit haywire f elections are supposed to choose 
his successor. 


For some oligarchs, this is the functional equivalent of the power grid 
crashing, electronic bank accounts evaporating, planes dropping out of the 
sky and other calamities associated with Y2K crises. 


The family f first daughter Tatyana Dyachenko, oil tycoons Boris Berezovsky 
and Roman Abramovich, Kremlin chief of staff Alexander Voloshin and 
presidential ghostwriter Valentin Yumashev f is safe as long as Yeltsin is 
alive and kicking (although the more feebly he's kicking the better). But as 
soon as he goes, they are toast f or so they appear to assume. 


This is what drives all the searches for a suitable successor f Viktor 
Chernomyrdin, Sergei Stepashin, Vladimir Putin, Alexander Lebed f to the same 
inescapable conclusion: no matter how loyal a president-in-waiting appears, 
there is no guarantee that he will not turn on the family once his wait ends. 


Once securely in the Kremlin, what use would Stepashin, Putin or Lebed have 
for Dyachenko, Berezovsky and Abramovich? None whatsoever. Any new president 
who wants to make a clean break in the public mind with the corruption of the 
past decade will need to at least appear to clean house upon coming to 
office. Either way, Berezovsky gets it. Therefore, the family won't trust any 
heir, no matter how loyal he may be to Yeltsin. 


When Sergei Stepashin was appointed prime minister in May, the consensus was 
that the Kremlin valued his "loyalty." There was also his law-enforcement 
background, which would come in handy if the need arose to declare a state of 
emergency. 


Just 82 days after his appointment, Stepashin was cast by Yeltsin on to the 
trash heap of loyal ex-prime ministers. Analysts like the respected 
journalist Alexander Zhilin said Stepashin's ouster came because he refused 
to go along with plans to subvert the Constitution and cancel elections. 


Enter Vladimir Putin. Putin's most attractive attribute from the Kremlin's 
point of view was his loyalty to Yeltsin. And yes, there is also his KGB 
background should emergency rule be needed. 


Putin has been in office for a month and the media is already whispering that 
he is on the way out f to be traded for Krasnoyarsk Governor Alexander Lebed, 
who was a Kremlin security tsar in 1996 and negotiated peace in Chechnya. But 
even if it's Lebed who ultimately comes to power through elections, why would 
he tolerate the family more than Putin, say, or Yevgeny Primakov? 


For the family, Y2K is a systems problem: It all crashes with elections. 
Solving Y2K means rooting the democracy out of the system like a line of 
defective computer code.  

#8
Christian Science Monitor
September 24, 1999
Through red-colored glasses
'Red Files' explores Soviet views of atomic secrets, sports, space race 
By Gloria Goodale, Arts and culture correspondent of The Christian Science 
Monitor 


Cold war secrets are hot all over again. Witness the hoopla over recent 
revelations that a British great-grandmother was a career spy for the Soviet 
Union. 


Most students of the cold-war era know the story of Julius and Ethel 
Rosenberg, the New York couple who were put to death in 1953 for passing 
secrets to the Soviets. But most Americans still don't know about the other 
United States citizens who were guilty of far more overt and egregious 
espionage for the Russians and were never punished. 


Lona Cohen carried American A-bomb secrets in a Kleenex box in 1945, which 
she displayed openly as she journeyed across the country from the Los Alamos, 
N.M., laboratory. 


Of potentially greater meaning to contemporary audiences is the ease with 
which Mrs. Cohen and her husband, Morris, penetrated the most secret 
scientific laboratories of the time. As recent scandals involving the same 
facility suggest, little appears to have changed. 


In a compelling four-part series, Red Files (airing Mondays in one-hour 
segments, Sept. 27-Oct. 18), PBS explores the Russian view of recent history 
through interviews with key Soviet participants, newly released archival 
film, and declassified dossiers. 


The first night examines the group of Americans who helped the Soviet Union 
obtain US atomic secrets. In the second evening, former gymnast Olga Korbut 
tells of the toll the Soviet sports machine took on young athletes. The space 
race is the theme of the third episode, and the final segment looks at Soviet 
propaganda. 


"It's soon that you're not going to find people with any real kind of 
political ideals in Russia" because of the effects of years of propaganda, 
says Russian journalist Vladimir Pozner, who narrates in the final show. 
"They've been lied to so terribly that they no longer have the desire to 
believe in anything." 


Beyond that is a "very strong anti-American feeling" in Russia today, says 
the son of former Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, Sergei Khrushchev. 


"The last polls show that 78 percent of Russians all over the country, not 
only in Moscow, have more or less anti-American feelings," the younger 
Khrushchev says. 


That hard truth may be the most compelling reason to tune in to this 
deconstruction of recent history. In order to understand just how far events 
have come since the fall of communism in Russia, it is enormously revealing 
to grasp how they progressed to that point in the mid-1980s. 


In the sports segment, the now middle-aged gymnast Ms. Korbut, who wowed the 
world as a petite 17-year-old wonder in 1972, says she paid the price for her 
uniqueness. 


"I destroyed everything by trying to think, trying to do new," she says. "And 
of course, the government didn't like that." She was banned from travel after 
the 1976 Olympics, where she was overshadowed by the even younger 14-year-old 
Nadia Comaneci. 


Many of her colleagues also share a sense of the political price they paid 
for their prowess. But they also demonstrate a sense of pride about how far 
Russia has come since the fall of communism. 


Perhaps the most curious presence in the series is the younger Khrushchev. He 
says that he was extremely close to his father in later life and is able to 
share many anecdotes about life behind the scenes during momentous historic 
events. 


He explains why his father banged his shoe on the table during his address to 
the United Nations in 1961. Look at the American fly-over of Soviet territory 
the previous year, he says. 


"It was part of the cold war behavior, when both sides tried to show that 
they're equal," the younger Khrushchev says. "America was much stronger, so 
it was much more difficult [for] my father to show that he's equal." 


He also includes a warning note about what he calls the deterioration of his 
native country. 


"The situation there structurally and maybe psychologically is very close to 
what happened in Russia in 1907 to 1917" prior to the Communist Revolution, 
he says, "just the selfish rule of one group of people to control the state 
through ... the Mafia....I'm very pessimistic about the future."   

#10
Albright Seen Promoting U.S.-Russian Cooperation  

Rossiyskaya Gazeta
September 18, 1999
[for personal use only]
Rossiyskaya Gazeta/ITAR-TASS "Direct Speech" report: "Russia Cannot 
Be Lost Like a Watch or a Bunch of Keys. United States Must Now Expand, 
Not Reduce, Cooperation With Russia, Madeleine Albright Says" 


This thought [reference to headline] was the 
leitmotiv of U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's policy speech 
at one of Washington's most influential research organizations -- the 
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The speech confirmed that the 
U.S. Government intends to counter the recent spate of attacks on its 
policy toward Russia. 


Albright could not, of course, avoid expressing concern at the reports about 
corruption in Russia. According to her, the U.S. Administration is 
currently studying them carefully. "The problem is real and must be taken 
seriously," she said, adding that the Russian Government "needs, at last, 
to make fighting corruption a priority." She described the Russian 
authorities' previous approach to this problem as "inadequate." 


The U.S. secretary of state repeated previous assurances that Washington 
"will not support further multilateral aid to Russia until adequate 
safeguards are in place." "We have always closely monitored our bilateral 
aid too," she added. 


"I hope we will bear in mind that Russia cannot be lost like a watch or 
a bunch of keys. It is a country with a population of almost 150 million 
which has ranked among the major world powers for over three centuries. 
The claim made by some that Russia is ours to 'lose' is arrogant. The 
claim that Russia is already 'lost' is simply wrong." Both the main aims 
of Washington's policy toward Moscow -- to strengthen security on the 
basis of disarmament and to assist Russia's democratic and market 
transformation -- remain valid; they have not been fully achieved, but 
they have not been removed from the agenda either. 


"Russia's future course is uncertain. There has been a liberation of forces 
many of which are opposed to each other. The currents of free enterprise 
and initiative are colliding with those of corruption and crime. Impulses 
toward integration and openness are in conflict with trends toward 
isolation and enmity. Time will tell which of these forces prevail. What 
we can be sure of now is that the result will be thoroughly Russian. And 
that it will depend far less on edicts issued from Moscow or on 
foreigners' advice than on decisions made and opinions formed in Russian 
school classrooms, farms, plants, and families. 


"It is inspiring that the Russians take every opportunity to display 
their rejection of both the Soviet past and a dictatorial future, despite 
the gloomy present. They have not yet tasted the fruits of democracy, but 
they have not lost faith in it. U.S. policy toward Russia is based on the 
fact that it is in our own interests that these expectations should be 
fulfilled." 


Albright believes that one of the most eloquent signs of the "revolutionary 
changes" that have taken place in the Russian state and Russian society 
in recent years is the very fact that questions of "corruption, 
incompetence, and other shortcomings" at even the highest echelons of 
power are openly raised and discussed in today's Russia.. Albright 
regards this as grounds for "making greater efforts to cooperate with 
Russia, rather than for halting aid and abandoning Russia, as some people 
suggest." 


To all appearances, this reproach is aimed mainly at the incumbent U.S. 
Administration's main opponents on Capitol Hill. "Unfortunately, Congress 
is proposing to reduce by 25-30 percent the sums that President Clinton 
requested for programs in Russia and the other newly independent states 
next year," Albright said. "This would require us to make unacceptable 
and defeatist compromises." The secretary of state is convinced that the 
programs of cooperation with Russia "promote important U.S. interests and 
values," and she accused the opposition of "ignoring this fact." 

#11
The Guardian (UK)
23 September 1999
[for personal use only]
White House under fire for 'covering up' Russian corruption 
Julian Borger in Washington 


A Washington consultant told congress yesterday that the Clinton 
administration had covered up a failed CIA attempt to infiltrate a money 
laundering venture run by KGB agents including a former close aide of the 
Russian president, Boris Yeltsin. 


Testifying to a house of representatives committee investigating Russian 
money laundering in the United States, Karon von Gerhke-Thompson said the CIA 
and the White House were well aware of the role played by top Russian 
politicians and intelligence officials in the flow of embezzled funds through 
US banks.


Her evidence provided fuel for critics who argue that the Clinton 
administration, in its unquestioning support for the Yeltsin regime, turned a 
blind eye to blatant corruption in the Kremlin, and thus helped encourage the 
growth of Russian organised crime and money laundering.


Ms Von Gerhke-Thompson, the vice-president of a political consulting firm 
called First Columbia Co Ltd, told the house banking committee she had been 
approached in 1993 by Alexandre Konanykhine, a young Russian tycoon, Yeltsin 
fundraiser and member of the Russian president's entourage on his visit to 
Washington the previous year.


He presented himself as the US vice-president of Menatep Bank, owned by one 
of Russia's most powerful financial oligarchs, Mikhail Khodorkovsky.


"Konanykhine alleged that Menatep Bank controlled $1.7bn [Ł1bn] in assets and 
investment portfolios of Russia's most prominent political and social elite," 
she recalled. She said he wanted to move the bank's assets off shore and 
asked her to help buy foreign passports for its "very, very special clients".


In her testimony to the committee Ms Von Gerhke-Thompson said she informed 
the CIA of the deal, and the agency told her that it believed Mr Konanykhine 
and Mr Khodorkovsky "were engaged in an elaborate money laundering scheme to 
launder billions of dollars stolen by members of the KGB and high-level 
government officials".


She said she agreed to go along with the passport buying scheme and report 
back to the CIA, a claim confirmed by intelligence officials interviewed by 
the Washington Post newspaper. It quoted them as saying Mr Konanykhine was 
one of an elite group of rich young former communists, known as the "miracle 
boys", who helped the KGB move large quantities of embezzled money abroad.


Mr Konanykhine, now 33 and living in New York, denies any links to the KGB or 
claims he was involved in large-scale money laundering. He told a US 
journalist it was normal for Russian businesses to offer clients foreign 
passports in return for big investments. He was granted political asylum 
after saying he would be killed by the Russian mafia.


Ms Von Gerhke-Thompson's attempt to infiltrate the Menatep Bank was cut short 
in September 1993, when Mr Konanykhine and his colleagues broke off contacts. 
She said she was told by CIA officials that her role had been compromised by 
Aldrich Ames, a Russian mole uncovered in the CIA in 1994.


She said Mr Konanykhine had broken off links during a trip to Turkey which 
coincided with a visit there by Mr Ames.


However, Ms Von Gerhke-Thompson told the committee neither the operation nor 
its failure were reported to congress, as stipulated by the national security 
act. The silence, she argued, was to avoid embarrassing US policymakers.


"It seemed to me that it was a 'policy' versus 'intelligence' failure," she 
said.


"Konanykhine's money laundering trail led directly to Boris Yeltsin. It was a 
politically unpalatable situation for the Clinton administration, the Yeltsin 
administration and the CIA."

#13
Russia Needs New Approach to Armaments: View.


MOSCOW, September 22 (Itar-Tass) - The president of Russia's League for 
Assistance to Defense Companies, Anatoly Dolgolaptev, has said the recent 
events in Daghestan call for new approaches to providing the army with 
weaponry. 


Speaking at a conference on Thursday which analyzed the actions by Russian 
troops in Daghestan, Dolgolaptev said the characteristics of weapons used 
against Islamic extremists were comparable to World War II models. 


Russian defense companies are ready and capable of providing the army with 
the most advanced weaponry, especially to the units that have to engage in 
guerrilla-style combat, he noted. 


"The scientists who had analyzed the actions by federal forces in Chechnya 
warned that new wars and conflicts will run in special conditions, where 
there is no clear line of contact with the enemy and where traditional 
weapons are ineffective," Dolgolaptev said. 


However, these views were ignored, and the budget allocates less than 16 
percent of the approved funds for military science, and a mere 6 percent for 
designing and testing, he noted. 


A new system of armaments is needed, because no large-scale or drawn-out war 
are expected in the future, while possible local wars require a completely 
new approach. 


"One should not explain irreplaceable losses by a lack of modern equipment, 
because our industry has a high potential and unique technologies and can 
provide superior weapons to the army," he said. 


Such advanced technologies will also help pull other sectors and the whole 
economy out of the crisis, according to Dolgolaptev.