October 17, 1998   
This Date's Issues: 2435 •2436• 

Johnson's Russia List
#2436
17 October 1998
davidjohnson@erols.com

[Note from David Johnson:
1. Fred Weir on the political scramble.
2. AP: Russia Consumer Prices Up 45 Pct.
3. The Globe and Mail (Canada): Geoffrey York, Freedom of speech.
4. Victor Kalashnikov: Clean & Closed.
5. Matthew Rendall: Russia, the Balkans, Chudowsky, Baev and Blundy.
6. Reuters: Russian ex-PM blames coalition for collapse. (Kiriyenko).
7. San Francisco Chronicle: Brian Humphreys, RUSSIA: A Pro-Serbian 
Policy. Moscow sees Serbia with Soviet eyes.
8. Interfax: Duma Fails To Acquire Parliamentary Investigation Powers.
9. Moscow News: David McHugh, NEWS ANALYSIS: Chance of Early Elections 
Forces Mayor's Hand.
10. Interfax: Maslyukov Unhappy With Volume of Arms Exports.
11. BBC: Nick Haslam, Rouble slide hits holiday trade. (Yalta)]

*******

#1
From: fweir@rex.iasnet.ru
Date: Sat, 17 Oct 1998 
For the Hindustan Times
From: Fred Weir in Moscow

MOSCOW (HT Oct 18) -- An ill and increasingly isolated Boris
Yeltsin is fading from the political scene as his erstwhile
allies scramble to join the race for next President of Russia --
and analysts say the showdown is more likely to come sooner than
later.
"The activity is growing frantic as potential candidates
jockey for the starting position," says Nikolai Petrov, an expert
with the Carnegie Endowment in Moscow.
"The fact is that Yeltsin is already irrelevant. Everything
is becoming focussed on who will replace him, and how."
One of those hoping to grab Mr. Yeltsin's job is the dynamic
populist Mayor of Moscow, Yury Luzhkov. Until recently Mr.
Luzhkov was extremely wary of openly declaring his presidential
ambitions and was careful never to say anything that might offend
Mr. Yeltsin.
But earlier this month Mr. Luzhkov officially joined the
race for the Kremlin, and last week he made his first public
criticism, suggesting the beleaguered President may be too ill to
do his job.
"Temporary incapacity is one thing, but if a person cannot
work and permanently perform his functions, he should muster the
will and courage to say that," Mr. Luzhkov said. "Everything now
depends on the President himself."
Analysts say Mr. Luzhkov's move into open antagonism with
the Kremlin reflects a calculation that Mr. Yeltsin will not
serve out his complete term, until June 2000, and that fresh
presidential elections may be a matter of months away.
"The political establishment has written off Yeltsin and has
entered the presidential race," says Andrei Piontkovsky, an
independent political analyst. "The main thing for Luzhkov is
that he fears being too late. He senses that early elections are
inevitable."
Mr. Yeltsin, 67, has been greatly weakened in recent months
by the collapse of Russia's financial system and his own
inability to form a stable government or produce a coherent anti-
crisis program.
To make matters worse, the President's fragile state of
health was highlighted again last week when he stumbled and
mumbled his way through an important state visit to former Soviet
Central Asia.
His spokesman said Mr. Yeltsin was merely suffering from a
bout of bronchitis, but the Moscow political establishment read
it as a clear sign that the Yeltsin era is waning fast.
"The Russian Constitution makes the President indispensible
to the daily working of government, and when he is not capable
the whole system becomes paralyzed," says Alexander Konovalov, an
analyst with the independent Institute of Strategic Assessments.
"When he can't manage a simple speech at a reception, or to
sign his name on a document, it's more than just embarassing for
Russia -- it's dangerous."
Mr. Yeltsin's office said at the weekend that the President
was resting in his country home and had cancelled all meetings on
doctor's orders.
The Kremlin also announced that Mr. Yeltsin has cut plans to
attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Malaysia
next month, and will send Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov in his
place.
The President's office has not indicated any changes to
other scheduled trips abroad by Mr. Yeltsin, including a state
visit to India in December.
According to the Russian Constitution, if the President dies
or leaves office the Prime Minister takes his place as caretaker
for three months, after which new elections must be held.
Few believe the present Prime Minister, Mr. Primakov, has
either the ambition or the independent power base to seek
election as President himself.
The line-up of candidates waiting to pounce the minute the
top Kremlin job becomes vacant keeps growing longer. The list now
includes Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov, liberal Grigory
Yavlinsky, Mayor Luzhkov, Siberian governor and former general
Alexander Lebed and the Communist Speaker of Parliament, Gennady
Seleznyov.

******

#2
Russia Consumer Prices Up 45 Pct.
October 17, 1998
By ANGELA CHARLTON

MOSCOW (AP) -- Consumer prices have soared 45 percent since Russia devalued
the ruble and put off its foreign debts two months ago, according to Central
Bank and government statistics, a news report said Saturday.
A key architect of the Aug. 17 devaluation and default plan, former Prime
Minister Sergei Kiriyenko, said in an interview published Saturday that he was
not to blame for the ensuing economic meltdown and predicted things would only
get worse.
Economic analysts with the Interfax news agency said they calculated the
consumer price estimate based on figures from the Central Bank and the State
Statistics Committee. It gave no other details.
Prices jumped immediately after the crisis hit and imports -- which Russia had
come to rely upon for half its consumer goods -- plunged. Basic foods have
remained available and the government insists it doesn't expect shortages,
though the lowest grain harvest in decades has aggravated concerns about
feeding the world's largest country.
Kiriyenko said it wasn't supposed to turn out so badly. He told the daily
Kommersant that the government that replaced him, widely seen as a compromise
to appease President Boris Yeltsin's hard-line foes, is not prepared ``to take
unpopular, harsh measures -- and those are exactly what needs to be taken.''
He said the 90-day moratorium on debt repayments declared Aug. 17 was supposed
to be followed up with an agreement on repayment terms within 60 days -- a
period that ended Saturday with no such plan.
With the debts to come due in a month, the government has yet to announce how
it will tackle Russia's worst economic crisis since the 1991 Soviet collapse.
Russian negotiators held talks on restructuring the debts with Western bank
creditors in London this week but failed to reach an agreement.
``It has become clear. ... There will be no strict anti-crisis program,
instead there will be populist measures, there will be more spending than
revenues, and as a result, we won't be able to pay off our debt,'' Kiriyenko
said.
Kiriyenko blamed the Communist-dominated parliament for resisting a tough
anti-crisis program.
``I was told, `We all understand that yes, there's a crisis, yes, there's
threat of collapse, but you have to understand -- we have elections in a
year,''' Kommersant quoted him as saying.
In the two months since the crisis hit, the ruble has nosedived from 6.29
against the dollar to 17.1.
Russia's Deputy Prime Minister for social issues suggested price controls on
medicines during a visit to Greece on Saturday. Russia depends heavily on
imported medicine, and rising prices are feeding the black market, Valentina
Matvienko told the ITAR-Tass news agency.
The European Union may revise its aid to Russia in light of the crisis,
European Commission President Jacques Santer told Interfax. About 140 million
ECU ($115 million) in EU aid is spent on Russia annually.
Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov appealed to Santer for food and
medicine aid earlier this month.

******

#3
Date: Sat, 17 Oct 1998
Organization: The Globe and Mail
Subject: freedom of speech

By Geoffrey York
The Globe and Mail (Canada)
Oct. 17, 1998

MOSCOW -- Communist deputy Anatoly Lukyanov scowls fiercely when he is
asked about the avant-garde Russian artists who baked and devoured an
80-kilogram life-sized cake of Vladimir Lenin.
~They must be prosecuted,” he declares in a menacing tone. ~It’s
blasphemous to our sacred things. If someone dares to touch Lenin, they
will pay for it.”
A sponge-cake of Lenin, decorated with 250 cream roses, might seem a
trivial matter to many people -- but it’s a deadly serious issue for Mr.
Lukyanov and his Communist comrades in parliament. Earlier this year, a
group of 20 deputies ordered the Moscow city prosecutor’s office to
launch a criminal investigation of the performance artists who dared to
dine on slices of Lenin cake.
Sergei Tarabarov, a bearded and bespectacled artist who runs the Dar
Gallery in Moscow, has endured three interrogations by the city
prosecutors in the past four months. They asked him who paid for the
cake, who organized the cake-eating session at his gallery, and who
invited the 200 guests. They also wanted a list of all guests who
partook of the cake.
~It’s not very pleasant to be invited to the prosecutor’s office,” Mr.
Tarabarov said. ~It’s disquieting and worrying. We remember the Soviet
times. Sometimes it seems that nothing has changed. There are still
Bolshevik methods of solving things.”
Freedom of speech is perhaps Russia’s biggest achievement since the
collapse of the Soviet Union. But this freedom remains under threat from
hardline politicians and old-guard police authorities, who continue to
wield considerable influence here.
The Communists, in particular, have expanded their power since the
Russian economic crisis began in August. As the biggest party in
parliament, they have exploited the weakness of President Boris Yeltsin
to boost their demands for greater control of Russian media and culture.
Last month, in a bid for Communist support for his prime ministerial
nominee, Mr. Yeltsin promised new federal laws to ~strengthen public
influence on the mass media” and to create ~supervisory councils” to
oversee Russian television channels. The Communists want the supervisory
councils to have an equal say in television programming and budget
decisions.
Many journalists are worried that the supervisory councils could bring
a revival of Soviet-style censorship and political pressure on the
media. ~Forces which want to muzzle the press have appeared in the
country and, notably, in parliament,” warned Vsevolod Bogdanov, head of
the Russian journalists union.
One of the state-owned television channels, RTR, has already tried to
placate the Communists by agreeing to be monitored by a supervisory
council with Communist representation.
Control of television has always been a key issue for the Communists,
especially after the 1996 election when the Russian media campaigned
openly for Mr. Yeltsin. Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov has denounced
television as ~an infernal machine that is destroying our country’s
morality, culture and identity.”
In a massive anti-Yeltsin rally in Moscow last week, some protestors
demanded the nationalization of private television. ~Television and
radio under the people’s control,” proclaimed a huge banner carried by
several protestors.
Control of foreign culture, too, is a favourite demand of many Russian
politicians. Last week, the Communist-dominated lower house of
parliament voted to condemn the Hollywood movie Armageddon for ~mocking
the achievements of Soviet and Russian technology” by portraying a
dilapidated Russian space station that explodes because of a leaky pipe.
The chamber ordered a state official to appear before parliament to
explain why the film was allowed in Russian cinemas.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russia media have been
relatively free of political control, with the exception of the 1996
election and the early phases of Chechnya war.
But because of the economic crisis today, the Russian media are
increasingly vulnerable to political pressure. Advertising has collapsed
by as much as 80 per cent in the past two months. Some newspapers have
closed or merged, and printing presses are increasingly controlled by
local governments.
Russia’s police and security agencies are another continuing threat to
the media. The former KGB, now known as the FSB, has drafted a proposed
regulation to install a ~black box” snooping device on the main
computers of every Internet provider in Russia, along with a high-speed
data link to the FSB’s control rooms. This would allow the security
police to monitor any e-mail message in the country.
In another case, the FSB arrested a military journalist and charged him
with espionage after he documented how the Russian navy was illegally
dumping nuclear waste into the Sea of Japan. The journalist, Grigory
Pasko, has spent almost a year in jail and now faces a closed military
trial. The trial was scheduled to begin yesterday but was postponed.
One of the biggest grievances of the Communists is the flood of Western
pop culture and advertising that poured into Russia after the collapse
of the Soviet Union. From his office window on a top floor of the
Russian parliament, Mr. Lukyanov points angrily at the English-language
advertising slogans on the billboards of a Moscow street. ~Are there any
Russian signs left?” he asks. ~If we have any more of these signs,
you’ll see more anti-American feelings here.”
Mr. Lukyanov, a leader of the hardline Communist coup against Soviet
president Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991, is now an influential
parliamentarian and a member of the Central Committee of the Russian
Communist Party.
The proposed supervisory councils, he says, are necessary to ensure
that the media ~reflect the real interests of the people” instead of the
interests of their wealthy owners. The media are ~distorting the views
of society,” he complains.
Since the economic crisis began, however, Mr. Lukyanov has been pleased
by the resurgence of Communist influence in the country. ~Even
television is showing our meetings now,” he boasted.
As for the Lenin cake, he insists it is illegal because it is an
insult to a national symbol. But when he is asked to list the ~sacred
things” that cannot be insulted, he refuses. ~There are so many sacred
things that I could address an auditorium for hours about them,” he
said.
Communist newspapers have denounced the artists as ~Satanic cannibals.”
In a speech to parliament, one deputy claimed it was a plot by Jewish
artists to incite conflicts between ethnic groups.
An investigator in the city prosecutor’s office has told the Dar
Gallery that there are no grounds for a criminal prosecution. Mr.
Lukyanov, however, insists he will appeal to higher bodies to ensure the
gallery is prosecuted.
~The people’s patience is not limitless,” he said. ~This cake was
disgusting. It was hooliganism, against public order, against public
morals.”
Mr. Tarabarov, the gallery director, begs to differ. He says the eating
of the cake was an artistic statement. ~The idea was that we should
enter the third millenium without Lenin,” he said. ~It wasn’t vandalism.
We wanted to make Lenin into something nice and pleasant. By eating a
piece of Lenin, we abolished this debate about the good Lenin or the bad
Lenin.”
He is alarmed by the revival of Communist political influence. ~Their
impulse is to control everything,” he said. ~Seeing the helplessness of
the government, the Communists will try to get as much control of the
information sphere as possible. They live in a Leninism that doesn’t
exist any more. But in this grave economic crisis, they’re supported by
many people and they could gain power.”

******

#4
Date: Sat, 17 Oct 1998 
From: machinegun@glas.apc.org (Victor Kalashnikov)
Subject: Clean & Closed

Clean & Closed

Local and foreign reporters are, seemingly, in difficulty 
about both pronouncing and evaluating the key feature of 
the new Russian premier. You may not like Mr. Primakov's 
'nomenklatura' record or his contacts in the Middle East 
(many get jealous about them, that's true). Yet, you hardly 
find a dozen of top-leaders all over Europe with a 
comparable immunity against personal corruption. 
In Brussels, they maybe would (after another glass of 
'kriek') name one of the Baltic presidents as well as a 
couple of Scandinavian matrons as being presumably 
'clean'. Otherwise, they would complain about gradual 
lowering of accountability and reliability standards among 
highest decision-makers.
The soft and sudden (for well-prepared) 'September-
Revolution' in Moscow poses, indeed, a number of 
problems. Journalists are desperate to find 'something' 
about Primakov's life to apply usual defamation schemes. It 
hasn't worked so far. They start to comprehend that maybe 
there will be nothing there to report about at all. Moreover, 
the Primakov's government has introduced a minimum of 
order into its contacts with media. This causes panic among 
free journalists and makes them moan about restrictions 
and censorship.
Local politicians must constantly have cold shiver in 
anticipation of the moment when Mr. Primakov, as a 
potential N1 now, may take over the entire control. 
Preventing such an option from happening has become a 
kind of collective survival-efforts, a 'criminal resistance' of 
its own. Hence - an headlong brawl for eventual presidency 
(as the best protection against persecution) accompanied 
by widening sabotage.
Foreigners are confused as well. It's unusual to have a 
team here with signs of understanding and strategy. And - 
where's the 'Surrounding'? The 'Family'? The 'Chubais', 
'Tatjana', 'Sergei'?! How to approach, to influence? To get 
this or that agreement or decree signed?.. 
To socialise with reformers in the Kremlin back-rooms has 
previously been regarded as a virtue of convergence and 
openness. Now, attempts to come 'to close' could - again, 
or, like elsewhere - become a tricky and risky business.
Tactics and methods have to be reconsidered now. 
Contacts must get frozen or replaced. Some experts will 
have to be called back from retirement. 
And all this - because of one elderly man's personal ways 
and habits. The 'human factor' - as Founder of 'perestroika' 
liked to name it. 

******

#5
Date: Sat, 17 Oct 1998
From: Matthew Tobias Rendall <mtr7@columbia.edu>
Subject: Russia, the Balkans, Chudowsky, Baev and Blundy

Victor Chudowsky attributes Moscow's policy in the Balkans to
injured pride, "reflexive anti-Westernism" and Slavic solidarity (JRL
2429), but like Goldgeier and McFaul he offers no evidence that it isn't
also shaped by a different understanding of the conflict. Pavel Baev's
view (JRL 2433) is more balanced, but inconsistent: he writes that
"[o]bviously humanitarian considerations had few if any influence" on
Russian policy, but then notes that "Moscow was also able to advance a
strong common-sense argument that humanitarian disasters could not be
resolved by air-strikes." If so, why couldn't its motives be (at least
partly) humanitarian? It is not as if facts in the Balkans speak for
themselves. Not even the European Community could agree about Bosnia;
Germany was notably more sympathetic to Croatia than other powers
(Crawford 1996). Do we attribute Bonn's stance to lingering
anti-Western/Nazi tendencies? 
Chudowsky's second argument is more interesting. Essentially it's
a version of the hegemonic-stability thesis--it's better for one power or
bloc of powers--NATO--to dominate the Balkans than for the various powers
to compete there. "NATO bombing of the Serbs," Chudowsky observes, "has
no negative effect on Russian security. Psyche, yes; security, no.
Western policy has been to keep other players out as well, so therefore
the competitive diplomacy that existed in 1914 does not exist now."
Well, no--not for the time being. But the problem with one
power's dominance is that eventually it breaks down, often followed by war
between the hegemon and a rising challenger (Gilpin 1981; Organski and
Kugler 1980). Because Germany was weak after 1918, people thought that it
could be dragged through the dirt, and we all know what happened then.
One might reply that there is no danger of a Russian resurgence comparable
to Nazi Germany's. But how can we know that? In the 1920s, Russia looked
like it was down for the count, too. Nor is there any reason to assume
that NATO will stay united, or remain the only game in town. 
Instead, it would be wiser to treat Russia generously, and
cultivate the norm of seeking Security Council consensus which, a few
years ago, seemed to be developing (Daugherty 1993). Washington still
pays lip service to this principle, but its practice smacks of legal
chicanery. Chudowsky might reply that what NATO does now will have little
impact on what Russia or any other state does in the future, since
precedents are hard to set in international relations (cf. Kier and Mercer
1996). And it is true that observing the spirit as well as the letter of
the norm would keep the United States out of some conflicts, like Bosnia,
where it has saved lives. But it would also keep Washington out of bad
interventions, such as Vietnam. (Besides, the U. S. wants to save lives,
there are other ways to do it. If the money spent on bombing the Serbs
since 1992 had gone to public health in Russia or India, might not as many
lives have been saved?)
Setting aside precedents and the future, alienating the Russians
can cause plenty of trouble in the here and now. The world needs Moscow's
cooperation on arms control, nuclear proliferation, and many other issues,
and NATO expansion and bombing in the Balkans have already made it a good
deal harder to get. It doesn't matter that such policies pose no
objective threat to a state with a nuclear deterrent, or that Belgrade is
physically as far from Moscow as is Jerusalem. For historical reasons
(and yes, I grant that they matter) Belgrade is a more potent symbol.
By dismissing Russia's objections as "emotional rather than
rational," Chudowsky commits the common error of thinking that emotions
don't matter. But if Russia refuses to ratify START, who cares whether
it's acting emotionally or rationally? The point will be that it has done
it. Chudowsky cites the Yugoslav arms embargo as an example of how the
West's dominance means the Russians' views can be ignored. But the
embargo wouldn't have worked if Moscow hadn't agreed, and Moscow agreed
during the "honeymoon." Next time it will think twice before signing on
the dotted line.
P.S. Re Anna Blundy's piece on Moscow shopping (Times/JRL 2435): What
nonsense! I'm in Moscow this fall, and the shoppers in the kiosks and the
breadshop/grocery down the street (which all smell perfectly fine) are
living neither on "festering meat and cabbage" nor on imports from
Stokmann's. Of course there's gross wealth and poverty here (and God
knows what it's like in the provinces). The number of small kids begging
in the metro is appalling. Still, are Blundy and I in the same city?

*******

#6
Russian ex-PM blames coalition for collapse

MOSCOW, Oct 17 (Reuters) - Former Russian prime minister Sergei Kiriyenko said
the decision to replace his government with a coalition has fuelled Russia's
financial collapse and now threatens to cause a devastating default on
sovereign debt. 
In an interview published on Saturday, Kiriyenko, who was sacked in August
after freeing the rouble and announcing a partial debt moratorium, defended
his government's emergency financial measures, but said the administration
that followed lacked the political will to carry tough measures out. 
``The misfortune was that talk began of a coalition government,'' he said in
the interview, with the business newspaper Kommersant Daily. 
``Who will take responsibility for measures that are clearly painful to the
population, knowing that in a year the same people that you hurt will be
voting? 
``The answer has become clear: there will be no harsh anti-crisis programme.
Instead there will be populist measures, again expenditures will excede
revenues. As a result, we will not be able to pay our debts. In short, we are
heading toward a default on sovereign debt,'' he said. 
A full-blown sovereign debt default would make Russia into a ``pariah with
whom nobody will do business.'' 
He said his government's decision to suspend repayment of short term bonds did
not amount to a default because a restructuring plan was to be agreed upon
with creditors, although he was sacked before the plan could be completed. 
As an example of the trust his government still had after it freed the rouble,
Kiriyenko said a group of Western banks, including some who stood to lose
money in the suspension of the short term bonds, agreed to offer five billion
dollars in loans after the emergency measures were announced. 
The temporary government that replaced Kiriyenko's, led by former minister
Viktor Chernomyrdin, exacerbated the crisis through its paralysis. 
``I have great respect for Viktor Stepanovich (Chernomyrdin)...but his
decisions were not carried out,'' he said. ``The market will not tolerate when
you apply the brakes while skidding on ice.'' 
Chernomyrdin was eventually rejected by parliament and replaced by veteran
foreign minister Yevgeny Primakov. 
As for his own future plans, Kiriyenko said he would stay in politics, but had
not made up his mind whether to run for parliament. ``I am not a public
politician. For me it is more important to fulfil tasks: how to get from point
A to point B,'' he said. 

******

#7
From: "Brian Humphreys" <brian72@online.ru>
Subject: RUSSIA: A Pro-Serbian Policy
Date: Sat, 17 Oct 1998 

RUSSIA: A Pro-Serbian Policy
Moscow sees Serbia with Soviet eyes
By Brian Humphreys
San Francisco Chronicle
Chronicle Foreign Service
Moscow

Russia is preparing for something close to war. 
That, at least, was the impression the country's media projected for
most of the past week. The threats of NATO air attacks against Serbian
targets in Kosovo 
were portrayed as a case of maligned Slavs being bullied by the West, with
little or no mention of the Serbians' well-documented record of human
rights abuses. 
Politicians from across the spectrum denounced the West's attempts to
force Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to abandon his campaign to
subjugate 
the restive majority ethnic Albanian province. Some called for Russia to
tear up its partnership agreement with NATO if the alliance went ahead with
the raids, and 
some even openly suggested that Russia supply Milosevic with anti-aircraft
missiles. 
Typical of the rhetoric was the declaration by Vladimir Ryzhkov, the deputy
speaker of the State Duma and a member of the centrist Our Home Is Russia
party, that any punitive bombing by NATO would be "aggression...and an
unmitigated threat to the Russian Federation."
Communist Gennady Seleznyov, the Duma's speaker, said a NATO attack would
be "an impulse toward a new Cold War.''
Such staunch support of the Serbs, a people blamed for much of the
misery in the Balkans during the past several years, has baffled many in
the West. Explanations vary, but most emphasize the two countries' shared
ethnic and religious heritage, as well as their common strategic interests.
In fact, Russia's almost hysterical support of Serbia is a product of
the frustrations and myths that have driven this country's foreign policy
since the collapse of the Soviet Union. 
Unable to come to terms with its diminished status on the world stage --
exacerbated by years of economic bungling -- Russia has resorted to a sort
of containment policy that seeks to curtail the West's influence in
international affairs by any means available. 
Given its limited diplomatic and military resources, that often means
supporting pariah states like Serbia and Iraq that find creative ways to
give Western policy makers headaches. 
""Russia's foreign policy has become a matter of saying "nyet' to
everything, whether it is in their interests or not,'' said Victor
Chudowsky, a Washington-based U.S. expert on the former Soviet states.
""It's a reflexive response.''
Chudowsky believes that Russia views the situation in Kosovo through the
lens of its Soviet experience. 
""Back when there was still a Warsaw Pact, Russia could legitimately
claim that Yugoslavia was in its back yard and that what happened there
affected its security. 
But that is not the case anymore. The way they look at the world is not in
sync with their current power.''
Russia's demands that it be treated as a great power, even as it
requests financial and humanitarian aid from the international community,
have become an embarrassing spectacle. 
Media and policymakers strained to emphasize that Russia played a key
role in the Kosovo truce agreement worked out this week between U.S. envoy
Richard 
Holbrooke and Milosevic. But when President Clinton announced the deal in a
speech, he made no mention of Russia -- the latest evidence that the rest
of the world does not take Russia as seriously as Russia takes itself. 
""Russia suffers acutely from the French syndrome,'' said Andrei
Piontovsky, a Moscow analyst, referring to France's well-known difficulties
in adjusting to its current status as a second-rate power. "Our political
class is psychologically tormented by Russia's transformation from
superpower to large regional power.''
Piontovsky believes that Russia's real interests abroad often suffer as
a result of the elite's skewed perceptions.
"It would have been a serious diplomatic victory for Russia to have been
the one to force Milosevic to compromise in Kosovo, but unfortunately,
Moscow's actions are being dictated by its psychological complexes rather
than rational calculations of its own best interests,'' he said. 
Yuri Korganyuk of Moscow's INDEM think tank said that Milosevic's use of
Russian support as a disposable prop to bolster his negotiating position
with the West exposes claims of historic solidarity between the two
countries as a 
myth. ""Serbia has always been happy to accept Russian help, but when it
comes to reciprocating, it plays its own game,'' he said.
Korganyuk and other analysts dismiss Russian leaders' talk of the
Orthodox faith and Slavic blood they share with the Serbs as populist
demagoguery.
""It's accepted in political circles that any moves to assert Russia's
status as a great power will win points with the people, but whether that
is true or not is another question,'' Korganyuk said. 
Yuri Levada, chief analyst at the respected VTSIOM public opinion
research center, said: ""It is basically the media that has been attempting
to whip up hysteria. The general population has absolutely no understanding
of the real situation in Kosovo and has shown little interest in it.''
Levada notes that anti-Western sentiment is growing in this country, due
to a widely held perception that Western financial aid and advice was given
with the ulterior motive of subjugating Russia. But he adds that such
sentiments do not appear to register when it comes to foreign affairs. 
""Average people's primary concern is that Russian soldiers not be sent
to fight anywhere -- not Tajikistan, not the Balkans, not the moon,'' he
said. 

******

#8
Duma Fails To Acquire Parliamentary Investigation Powers 

Moscow, Oct 14 (Interfax) -- The Russian State Duma on Wednesday [14
October] failed to pass an amendment to the constitution introducing the
institution of parliamentary investigations.
The shortfall was just 17 votes. To pass, an amendment to the
constitution needs 300 votes in favor. The draft law was backed by 283
Duma deputies with 41 votes against and one abstention.
The draft, prepared by the Duma's Committee on Legislation and Legal
Reform with the participation of all parliamentary groups, was considered
in the first reading.
The amendment defined parliamentary investigations as a key method for
parliament to control the executive power. It envisaged giving the Duma
and the Federation Council the right to set up investigation commissions on
any important issues.
Head of the Duma's Committee on Legislation and Legal Reform Anatoliy
Lukyanov, of the Communist Party faction, said parliamentary investigations
are in place in the majority of countries in the world.
Lukyanov's deputy Yelena Mizulina, of the Yabloko faction, said the
procedure for parliamentary investigation commissions should be determined
by a federal law. Therefore, the amendment to the constitution is not
applied just by itself, she said. Parliamentary investigations would allow
the parliament to control the work of senior officials in the country
better, Mizulina said. "This will also have an impact on the influence of
parliament on other branches of power," she said.
The draft amendment was supported by all parliamentary groups except
for the Our Home Is Russia faction and the Russian Regions group.
Presidential representative for the State Duma Aleksandr Kotenkov said
the president agrees with the need to introduce some changes to the
constitution but does not agree to "unilateral" steps to amend the
Fundamental Law.The president is ready to accept parliamentary control within
clear-cut bounds, Kotenkov said.
"A very dangerous precedent may be created today: a change to the
constitution in favor of one branch of power by this very branch of power,"
he said. "A change to the constitution should be the outcome of accord
among all branches of power."
The package of amendments proposed by the parliament's lower chamber
"may turn the Duma into the country's supreme power," Kotenkov said. "We
have seen this before."
The proposed amendments "violate the principle of separation ofpowers," he
said.
Kotenkov proposed that all branches of power work together on
coordinated changes to the constitution.
Some Duma deputies proposed today that the constitution be amended so
that the Cabinet be formed by the parliamentary majority. Another four
amendments to the constitution will be considered by the Duma later today
after a break.

******

#9
Moscow News
October 17, 1998 
NEWS ANALYSIS: Chance of Early Elections Forces Mayor's Hand 
By David McHugh
Staff Writer

Moscow's ambitious Mayor Yury Luzhkov, wary of being caught unprepared should
President Boris Yeltsin suddenly die or resign, is hurrying to marshal short-
term Communist support for a blitzkrieg early-election run for president,
analysts say. 

Luzhkov hit the stump Friday in far-off Ufa, capital of Bashkortostan. There,
he plugged a prospective "left-center" alliance that would merge his own
political machine with that of Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov, who lost the
1996 election to Yeltsin. 

The new party would avoid mistakes of left and right, said Luzhkov, "uniting
people who want to work normally and remain free, who are striving to create f
and not to destroy the state as the young reformers have done, or to lead the
country into a dilapidated state, as the radical communists did." 

Luzhkov has made similar noises about an alliance with liberal Yabloko leader
Grigory Yavlinsky, sometimes described as a social democrat. 

Such frantic bridge-building suggests Luzhkov has concluded that early
presidential elections are at least as likely as Yeltsin finishing his term in
December 2000. The constitution says elections must be held within three
months should the president die or resign. 

"The political establishment has written off Yeltsin and has entered the
presidential race," said Andrei Piontkovsky, director of the Center for
Strategic Studies. "The main thing for Luzhkov is that he fears being too
late. He senses that early elections are inevitable." 

In publicly flirting with the Communists and Yabloko, both of which have
strong regional organizations, Luzhkov is hoping to court Russia's
impoverished and disgusted provinces f where voters have been historically
suspicious of anyone associated with the capital, and have gotten poorer as
Moscow has thrived. 

For his part, Zyuganov may calculate that he would be better off with a
prominent position under President Luzhkov than he would be by running himself
for the Kremlin only to lose again. 

There is no guarantee that any of this would work. The Communists' rank-and-
file protest electorate might ignore their party bosses and disdain Luzhkov f
who has overseen an unruly capitalist boom in Moscow f just as many did by
supporting Alexander Lebed in the Krasnoyarsk gubernatorial race in May. 

In fact, the ultimate outcome of Zyuganov's flirting with Luzhkov may be a
schism in the Communist Party. 

Already, moderate Communist Gennady Seleznyov, speaker of the State Duma, has
said he might contest leadership of a left-center bloc with Luzhkov. 

The fragile nature of the potential Luzhkov-Zyuganov alliance shows they are
looking at a short-term deal aimed at early elections f not a more permanent
alliance for 2000, wrote observer Maxim Sokolov in the Izvestia newspaper. 

"In the year and a half remaining before the constitutional election date, not
only will Yavlinsky, none of whose alliances last longer than a day, run away,
but so many things could happen with Luzhkov and Zyuganov themselves that the
agreement will be obsolete," Sokolov wrote. "The only meaning þ is here and
now." 

Yeltsin's physical and political health are in question. He has staggered, had
a coughing fit, appeared to doze off and slurred his words in public
appearances over the past week. The Kremlin says he is suffering from a chest
cold. 

His political condition has also worsened, particularly in the wake of the
Aug. 17 ruble collapse. Yeltsin was forced to dump his nominee for prime
minister, Viktor Chernomrydin, for compromise candidate Yevgeny Primakov. 

Since then, Yeltsin has retired to lick his wounds at his suburban residences,
saying little publicly. The prospect of a forced resignation under worsening
political circumstances is still a possibility. 

Luzhkov, who once had a strong working relationship with Yeltsin, has begun
making statements that appear aimed at undermining him. On Friday, he repeated
his suggestion Thursday that Yeltsin should resign now because he's too sick
to govern: "The situation with his health is turning out such that he can
hardly run the country effectively in the time that is left," said Luzkhov. 

He added, however: "That's only the way it appears. The doctors should say. If
it's a temporarily illness, then that is one thing, but if it's something
long-lasting, then he should find the will and courage and correspondingly say
so." 

******

#10
Maslyukov Unhappy With Volume of Arms Exports 

Moscow, Oct 14 (Interfax) -- On Wednesday [14 October] First Deputy
Prime Minister Yuriy Maslyukov told Interfax that the current state of
Russia's weapons export is "worse than average."
He also said that no Cabinet member had yet been appointed to run armstrade. 
"Personnel matters are the president's prerogative and it appears it's
the government that bears the responsibility. The situation is
considerably below average," he said but added that "there do exist
reserves, of course."
Arms trade statistics are classified but recent statements by the
chief of Rosvooruzheniye, a state company handling the bulk of Russia's
weapons exports, gave a general idea.
"In 1998 Rosvooruzheniye's incomes will be higher than last year,"
Yevgeniy Ananyev told Interfax. In 1997, he said, the company's foreign
exchange income reached about $2.6 billion.
Contracts Rosvooruzheniye signed this year were worth $1.2 billion
more than those it clinched last year and $1.7 billion more than those it
made in 1996, Ananyev said. Some sources put the company's 1997 deals at
about $8 billion.

******

#11
BBC
October 13, 1998 
Rouble slide hits holiday trade 
Tsar Nicholas II spent his last summers in Yalta 
Nick Haslam reports from the Ukrainian seaside town of Yalta 
I came into Yalta at dusk, on the longest trolleybus ride in the world. 

For 70km, the battered old vehicle connected to gleaming copper cables slung
above the road, climbed laboriously up through the high mountains of the
Crimea, passing vineyards where workers were busy getting in the crop of
grapes. 
At sunset, we crested the col, and there below lay the dark misty mass of the
Black Sea. 
As the bus, with brakes squealing, wound down the mountain side the lights of
Yalta came on twinkling like a string of pearls along the coast. 

Yalta's place in history 

For more than 100 years, the Crimea has been the summer resort of all the
Russias. 
Tsar Nicholas II, spent his last summers here with his family in the ornate
Livadia palace where nearly 40 years later, Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt
would convene the Yalta conference to decide the fate of post-war Europe. 
More recently, hotels in Yalta catered for the budget Soviet holidaymaker from
the sun-starved northern cities of Moscow and St Petersburg, while their
leaders and high-ranking politburo members stayed in plush state-owned dachas
and sanatoria on the wooded slopes above the Black Sea. 
I had first visited Yalta two years ago, when I stayed with Larissa
Denisyenko, a 70-year-old widow, who rented out a room in her small flat near
the sea front. 
Once again I knocked on her door and Larissa was happy to see me, immediately,
despite the late hour insisting on heating water for a bath. 
Her flat, like so many in the city, relied on a centralised heating system,
which, as on my last visit, only functioned two days a week. 

The velvet season 

Late September in Yalta is known as the velvet season and as I strolled along
the promenade next morning the Black Sea lay mirror smooth in the warm morning
sunshine. 
But the wide corniche under the high mountains was practically deserted and
the few tourists were outnumbered it seemed by pavement artists and souvenir
sellers. 
All became clear when I talked later in the day to Yuri Lapshin, President of
the Crimean association of tourist guides and interpreters. 
Yuri is in his mid fifties and has a dry sense of humour. "We had a bumper
season until late August", he told me, "but when the rouble started to slide
it was chaotic". 
Russian visitors account for 90% of the tourists who come to the Crimea, and
many were stranded as their holiday money devalued by half more or less
overnight. 
"The post office was besieged with tourists wiring for more cash to buy their
train tickets home," he said. 
Yuri estimated that nearly all the Russian visitors had left, and none had
come in September. 

'Summer feeds the winter' 

"This exodus will hit us hard" he said, "for in Yalta summer feeds the
winter". 
That evening, I sat in a café on the promenade, watching the evening
passeggiata where groups of young men from Kiev, with cropped heads, black
shirts and the gold chains that are de rigeur with the new rich in Ukraine,
trailed girlfriends in the shortest of miniskirts who teetered on high
platform shoes. 
In the light of a golden half moon reflecting off the Black Sea, the
impression, at first glance, was of affluence and ease. 
Yet the litter bin in the shadows opposite was visited three times in 10
minutes by a frenetic small boy collecting empty bottles. 
And dotted along the promenade - headscarves knotted over wrinkled faces -
stood old babushkas, heads bowed with age, hands outstretched, begging for
small change. 

Musicians unpaid 

A hundred metres further on a group of musicians played Bach and they had told
me they were members of the Crimean State Orchestra, busking for their living
as their salaries had been unpaid for five months. 
I arranged next day to meet a friend, who had acted as an interpreter the last
time I was in Yalta. 
Raisa Shevchenka teaches English at a primary school in Yalta's suburbs. 
An elegant woman in her mid fifties, Raisa was concerned that in the wake of
the rouble collapse, the Ukrainian hryvnia had lost 30% of its value in three
weeks. 
"My salary is now worth only $30 a month," she said with some anger. 
She lived with her invalid mother and told me that they hadn't tasted cheese
for more than a year. 
"Yalta is a tourist town and everything here is more expensive than elsewhere
in the Ukraine - I am really worried that this winter will be lean and hungry
for us." 

Hardship for pensioners 

She came with me to as I went back to Larissa's flat to pick up my bags, for I
would be leaving that afternoon on the trolleybus. 
Sipping tea, the two women compared notes, and Larissa said that many
pensioners now could only afford to buy bread and potatoes. 
But, with the resilience which I had come to admire in the people of Ukraine
she said that she had survived crises before, and God willing she would
survive this one too. 
"I share what I have," she said with a smile, " and others help me. By
supporting each other we will get through." 
True to form, as I shouldered my bag to catch the trolleybus, she gave a
parcel of food to Raisa, and then kissed me goodbye. 
"Come again," she said. "Whatever happens you know we will be here." 

******