April 12, 1999    
This Date's Issues: 3235•3236  •

 
Johnson's Russia List
#3236
12 April 1999
davidjohnson@erols.com

[Note from David Johnson:
1. Reuters: Yeltsin rejects Duma impeachment vote delay.
2. Bloomberg: US-Russian Relations Sink to Low on Eve of Talks.
3. Itar-Tass: Patriarch Cautions Against Radical Changes in Russia.
4. Financial Times: John Lloyd, EAST-WEST: New cold war in the making.
New divide less than a decade after the fall of the Berlin Wall. 
5. AP: Leader Urges Not To Impeach Yeltsin.
6. AP: Angelea Charlton, Fetid Conditions at Russian Prisons.
7. The Sunday Times (UK): ENTER THE BEAR.
8. U.S. News and World Report: Christian Caryl, Veering right in Russia.
NATO's bombs stir smoldering nationalist sentiment.
9. Russia Reacts to War in Yugoslavia. (Quotations assembled by David
Johnson).
10. Chicago Sun-Times: Robert Novak, Is U.S. trying to buy off Russia?]

*******

#1
Yeltsin rejects Duma impeachment vote delay
By Oleg Shchedrov

MOSCOW, April 12 (Reuters) - Russian President Boris Yeltsin challenged the
State Duma lower house of parliament on Monday to go ahead with a vote this
week to formally launch impeachment proceedings against him. 

The Kremlin leader, apparently confident that the motion would fail to
muster the necessary support, said he did not want Thursday's planned vote
postponed. 

``In the course of his telephone conversation with the Duma speaker,
Gennady Seleznyov, earlier today the president reiterated his position that
the issue should either be considered now or dropped for good,'' a Kremlin
spokesman said. 

Yeltsin also met Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov in a clear bid to mend
relations with the powerful head of the government with whom he traded
verbal punches last week. 

In a further demonstration of confidence, Yeltsin also asked the government
to speed up work on the draft 2000 budget in order to have it passed before
a Duma election due in December. 

The Communist-led Duma seeks to impeach Yeltsin on a series of charges
including undermining the Soviet Union, dissolving the Soviet-era
parliament in 1993 and launching an ill-fated war in the rebel region of
Chechnya in 1994-96 

If any of these charges wins 300 votes in the 450-seat Duma, it will go for
examination to the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court. A final
decision on impeachment would be up to the Federation Council upper house
of parliament. 

Parliamentary experts say only the Chechen charge has a small chance of
getting the required 300 votes in the Duma. 

Some Duma leaders, headed by Seleznyov, have suggested that the vote be put
off because Yeltsin is spearheading Moscow's opposition to NATO air strikes
against Yugoslavia, an issue which has consolidated feuding Russian
political forces. 

The Duma decided to review plans for impeachment voting on Friday after
Seleznyov said Yeltsin had ordered nuclear missiles to be retargeted
against NATO countries and backed the idea of accepting Yugoslavia into a
union between Russia and Belarus. 

But the Kremlin later denied retargeting missiles and poured cold water on
the plans of expanding the two-way union. 

Duma leaders were expected to meet at 1200 GMT to decide on the future of
the impeachment vote. 

Despite Yeltsin's readiness to face the impeachment threat head on, some of
his aides suggest that the Kremlin is keen to head off the Duma vote, which
still has some risks for Yeltsin. 

In that respect, support from Primakov, who has good relations with the
Duma, could be crucial. But Primakov was upset by televised remarks by
Yeltsin on Friday in which the Kremlin leader indicated that his support
for the premier was limited and said he wanted the government to be
``reinforced.'' 

Primakov, who jealously guards his right to hire and fire his deputies,
struck back with an unusual television address on Saturday in which he
criticised Yeltsin's remarks without mentioning his name. 

After their Kremlin meeting on Monday, the Kremlin said that no new
government appointments were planned and that Yeltsin meant only that the
government should improve its performance. 

Yeltsin urged the government to focus among other things on preparing a
draft 2000 budget, which he wanted to be tough and realistic. 

******

#2
US-Russian Relations Sink to Low on Eve of Talks

Moscow, April 12 (Bloomberg) -- As Russians' anger at the U.S. over NATO's
bombing of Yugoslavia mounts, the two countries' top diplomats will meet
tomorrow in Oslo to try to mend relations, at their lowest point since the
Cold War's end. 

The talks between U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Russian
Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, will be the first between the two countries
since the North Atlantic Treaty Organization began air strikes in
Yugoslavia three weeks ago. The meeting comes after a warning by Russian
President Boris Yeltsin that the conflict could turn into a European or
world war. 

As the economy's collapse leaves many Russians disenchanted with
free-market reforms, the situation is ``very uncertain and potentially
dangerous,'' said Alan Rousso, director of the Carnegie Center in Moscow.
``Russia is in the deepest economic depression of any industrialized
country this century.'' 

NATO bombing sparked anti-American protests across the country, with
thousands gathering outside the U.S. embassy in Moscow and at rallies
elsewhere. Opposition politicians, including Krasnoyarsk Governor Alexander
Lebed and Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, likely presidential contenders in next
year's election, have advocated sending military assistance to Yugoslavia.
Efforts by Yeltsin and the government to broker a peace settlement have so
far been dismissed by NATO's member states. 

Slavic Union? 

Yugoslavia sought today to draw Russia into the conflict, when the Yugoslav
parliament voted to approve a proposal by President Slobodan Milosevic to
join with Russia and Belarus in a ``union.'' 

Yeltsin said last week that any consideration of such a proposal would have
to wait until the conflict with NATO is resolved. 

``Russia's role is growing,'' said Borislav Milosevic, the Yugoslavian
ambassador to Russia, at a press conference in Moscow. ``We don't want to
draw Russia into a war, but at the same time we would like Russia to help
in solving this situation.'' 

While Yeltsin and Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov have said Russia won't
allow itself to be drawn into the conflict, Yeltsin warned on Friday that
he may reconsider that position if NATO sends ground troops into
Yugoslavia. 

`Enough!' 

``Yeltsin is saying, `Enough of ignoring us, enough of treating our
statements as if they were just the sound of some door squeaking on its
hinges,' '' said Sergei Markov, director of the Institute of Political
studies in Moscow. 

NATO has said it will not send in ground troops. U.S. State Department
Spokesman James Rubin said today NATO has not changed its mind. He said air
strikes will continue. 

``The allies are determined to prevail and say the course,'' Rubin said on
ABC television. 

The benefits of continuing to pursue economic reforms and closer relations
with the West are difficult for many Russians to see. The economy
contracted by 4.6 percent last year, and the collapse of the ruble, which
has fallen more than 75 percent against the dollar since August, has wiped
out the savings of many. 

At the same time, Russian leaders are reduced to asking for debt
restructuring and for assistance from the International Monetary Fund,
which so far has promised but not delivered any new loans this year. 

`Population Demoralized' 

``The population is demoralized and Western economic principles have fallen
out of favor,'' said Rousso. The bombing, which started over Russian
objections, ``sent a very bad signal.'' 

The U.S. must try to involve Russia in international decision making, or
risk strengthening the opposition, including some, particularly in the
military, who still have not accepted the fact that the Cold War is over
and Russia lost. 

``The inability to reintegrate Russia into the global system . . . could
create dangers,'' said Rousso. The West ``has already done a significant
amount of damage.'' 

Since Russia broke off relations with NATO last month, and Primakov called
off a trip to the U.S., relations have rapidly deteriorated. Hungary, which
became a NATO member just last month, detained a Russian convoy of 30
trucks carrying humanitarian aid on the Ukrainian boarder, Russian
television NTV reported. 

About 100 Russian volunteers have gone to Belgrade to help the Yugoslavian
army, while the government has been sending humanitarian aid to Yugoslavia,
even as U.S. and European Union food aid is given to Russia. 

Silent Majority 

Rage over the bombing of Yugoslavia has exploded across Russia in part
because nothing has filled the ideological vacuum that was left after the
collapse of communism, said Maria Volkenstein, head of the Validata
Sociological Research Center in Moscow, which has conducted several focus
groups on attitudes toward NATO and Yugoslavia. 

``There's a feeling of unity, of, `We're against America!' '' Volkenstein
said. ``The feeling is actually taking the place of a national idea, which
society has been lacking for many years.'' 

The sentiment does not extend to Western European countries, she said.
NATO's actions are seen expressly as examples of U.S. aggression by those
in focus groups she conducted, she said. 

``Many say `That's all against us, against Russia -- the U.S. don't care
about ethnic cleansing, but just to establish their dominance and crush
everyone who is not willing to give up,' '' she said. 

Still, though sympathy is high for the Serbs, so far a majority of Russians
oppose direct confrontation with the West. 

A recent poll of 1,500 people conducted by the Russian Center for Public
Opinion found that just 24 percent favored sending weapons to Yugoslavia,
while 69 percent favored the government's continued efforts to broker a
diplomatic solution. 

`Peace and Friendship' 

``Food aid is enough,'' said Maria Gongart, a 76-year-old retiree whose
parents were killed under Joseph Stalin. ``Russia . . . should maintain
peace and friendship with the West, and talk with them and explain why they
are wrong.'' 

Another poll of 1,600 conducted at the end of March found that 48 percent
believed that NATO was responsible for the Yugoslav conflict. The poll
found that 63 percent felt threatened by NATO's actions, and 24 percent
said relations with the West would deteriorate as a result of the bombing. 

For many Russians, the bombing is a jarring reminder that there is one
superpower in the world, and its actions are largely unchecked. They fear
that Russia could also be threatened by NATO. 

``What many in the West don't understand is that Russia doesn't care that
much about solidarity with the Serbs,'' said Markov. ``It sees itself as
the future victim of this policy.'' 

Russia celebrated Eastern Orthodox Easter yesterday. At services across the
country, many priests said prayers for the Serbs. Pro-Serb graffiti can be
found on underpasses and walls around Moscow. 

Sabrina Tavernise in Moscow (7 502) 937 6770/ with reporting by Natalia
Raschevskaya, Marta Srnic, Vladimir Todres and Anna Zaynasheva in Moscow/ru 

******

#3
Patriarch Cautions Against Radical Changes in Russia.

MOSCOW, April 11 (Itar-Tass) - Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia Alexy II 
cautioned on Sunday against radical changes in the country at present. 
Earlier in the day, he met with President Boris Yeltsin on the occasion of 
Easter. 

The Patriarch said in an exclusive interview with Itar-Tass that "if such 
changes do occur, their consequence will be the disruption of the "existing 
fragile stability in our society." 

He emphasized a close link between the domestic situation in Russia and 
international situation. 

"On the Balkans, Russia is viewed as a guarantor, as the last hope for 
stability in the region," the Patriarch said, "and if we ourselves display 
instability in our country, we may fail to meet this expectation." 

Proceeding from these two factors, "it necessary to use all efforts and means 
to preserve peace and stability in our society," the Russian Patriarch said. 

Commenting on his meeting with President Boris Yeltsin, he noted that such 
meetings are always "helpful and mutually rewarding." 

"I regard the president's visit to my residents on the first Easter day as 
great attention on the part of Boris Yeltsin," the Patriarch said, adding 
that they had talked about international and domestic problems. 

******

#4
Financial Times
12 April 1999
[for personal use only]
EAST-WEST: New cold war in the making
New divide less than a decade after the fall of the Berlin Wall. By John 
Lloyd in Berlin

A conference in Berlin which brought a group of liberal Russians face-to-face 
with German and other western officials, politicians and analysts has shown 
that a wide gulf had again developed between east and west less than a decade 
after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The embattled Russian liberals, whose pro-western attitudes have increasingly 
pushed them on to the margin of politics in the last year, appear to be the 
largest losers in the country's political class from the intervention by Nato 
in Kosovo.

Speaking at the conference, organised by the East-West Institute, at the same 
time as President Boris Yeltsin warned of Russian military involvement if the 
conflict widened, Russian participants grimly registered shock that the 
post-communist world into which they had been wooed had turned out to be so 
dismissive of them.

Vladimir Averchev of the liberal Yabloko party and a leading member of the 
Russian parliament's foreign affairs committee, said: "We were told that when 
we joined the world institutions we were joining a world of rules. Now we see 
that the rules are what the Americans want to make of them. The post-cold war 
world of the past decade has ended. The UN Security Council is finished."

Professor Yevgenny Yasin, former economy minister, said: "Liberals now face a 
terrible defeat in the Duma elections later this year. The west has done 
something we thought impossible; it has united the country, in hostility to 
it." Yevgenny Kozhokin, director of the Russian Institute of Strategic 
Studies, said the humanitarian reasons given for intervention were hypocrisy.

"The US president is weak and needed to prove himself. In his weakness, he is 
a tool of the military-industrial complex."

Their mood was little improved by an unyielding speech from Wolfgang 
Ischinger, state secretary of the German foreign ministry. Stressing the 
Kosovo bombing had been taken for reasons of conscience, "our consciences as 
Europeans, as Germans, could not allow us to tolerate genocide", Mr Ischinger 
angrily rejected Russian claims European Nato members were doing US bidding. 
"Don't tell us that the Europeans are acting as we are because we can't stand 
up to the Americans. It is a cheap shot and it is wrong."

He said Russia must acknowledge its part in allowing Kosovo to damage the UN 
Security Council's authority. "When vital western interests, when common 
interests were at stake last summer and autumn in trying to come to terms 
with the situation in Kosovo, Russia gave us the cold shoulder. One could 
call that Russian unilateralism."

Mr Ischinger, with others, said Russia must be part of the "exit strategy" 
from Kosovo, but this met a stony silence from the Russians. 

*****

#5
Leader Urges Not To Impeach Yeltsin
April 11, 1999

MOSCOW (AP) -- Russian leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky said Sunday that his 
faction in parliament would demand that attempts to impeach President Boris 
Yeltsin be dropped.

The debate on impeachment has been tentatively scheduled for Thursday, but 
the lower house of parliament, the State Duma, still must vote on whether to 
postpone it.

``An ideal variant would be to strike the issue from the agenda,'' 
Zhirinovsky told the Ekho Moskvy radio station on Sunday, according to the 
ITAR-Tass news agency. He said his ultranationalist Liberal-Democratic Party 
would demand that the vote be postponed for at least three months.

Several political leaders, including Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov and 
Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, have called on the Duma to put off the debate, 
saying it could further destabilize Russia's political situation.

The impeachment motion is considered unlikely to succeed, but Yeltsin's 
frequent illnesses and the nation's economic crisis have weakened his power 
and made his ouster more likely than it once was.

A Duma panel has charged Yeltsin with instigating the 1991 Soviet collapse, 
improperly using force against hard-line lawmakers in 1993, launching the 
botched war in Chechnya, bringing the nation's military to ruin and waging 
genocide against the Russian people by pursuing economic policies that 
impoverished the country.

******

#6
Fetid Conditions at Russian Prisons
April 11, 1999
By ANGELA CHARLTON

TULA, Russia (AP) -- Rats scamper across gruel-encrusted bowls in a cell at 
Tula's jailhouse. The dishes molder in a sink two feet from a clogged, putrid 
hole in the floor that serves as a toilet.

Ten men share the cell and its six bunks. They sleep in shifts, wheezing into 
the same pillows.

Their crimes vary. But all 10 have been sentenced to a disease that is eating 
holes in their lungs and stalking prisons and jails across Russia: 
tuberculosis.

Even for this atrophying country, the state of Russia's penal system is 
horrendous. It's broke and bursting at the seams with more than 1 million 
inmates, and rampant tuberculosis is making things worse.

TB afflicts more than 100,000 prisoners, and thousands have contracted a 
drug-resistant strain that is likely to kill them. Up to 20,000 have died of 
the disease the past two years, officials say.

While an injection of money and medicine would be welcome, it might only mask 
the symptoms. The real remedy for Russia's prison problems is top-to-bottom 
reform of a system little changed from the Soviet era, wardens and human 
rights advocates say.

Russia has the world's highest incarceration rate, which means as many as 90 
people squeeze into cells meant for 30. Funding is scant -- less than a ruble 
(4 1/2 cents) is allocated daily for food for each prisoner, inviting 
malnourishment.

Goaded by the Russian public's fear of crime, police exercise sweeping 
powers. They can hold anyone, even suspected potato thieves, for months 
without charge, and have been accused of routinely employing torture to 
extract confessions.

``They put new signs on the buildings and gave us new titles'' after the 1991 
Soviet collapse, said Anatoly Polbennikov, corrections chief for the Tula 
region, 110 miles south of Moscow. ``But the world view is the same. The idea 
of prisoners' rights hasn't yet penetrated our system.''

Polbennikov oversees 10,000 prisoners, and more than 1,500 have tuberculosis. 
The 18th century jail outside his office window has a wing for TB-stricken 
detainees. About 10 miles away, a 1,000-bed prison has been converted to 
house just convicts with the disease.

Russia now has about 50 facilities for inmates with TB, an acknowledgment 
that the disease has become a way of life behind bars.

That doesn't mean many are being cured.

``It's not worth it to imagine life without tuberculosis. I only dream of 
life on the outside,'' said Igor Stepanov, serving a three-year term for 
theft in Tula's tuberculosis prison.

Stepanov, 27, has sunken, pocked cheeks and wears a mangy cotton shirt that 
hangs crookedly off his hunched shoulders. His coughs sometimes sound like 
his lungs are full of gravel; other times they are pure liquid.

He contracted TB in the Tula jail, where he spent nine months in a rancid 
cell before he was sentenced.

The TB prison is roomier, but the air reeks just as strongly of sickness and 
moisture. Three times a day, Stepanov shuffles in hole-ridden slippers to a 
mess hall whose concrete floor, walls and tables are slick from being 
constantly hosed down. He bathes about once a week.

One of Stepanov's cellmates says he no longer takes his medicine. Pavel 
Yazev, convicted for attempted rape, has drug-resistant tuberculosis.

The tuberculosis bacteria is airborne and must be treated with different 
antibiotics for as long as six months. If patients don't get all of the drugs 
or if they stop taking them, the bacteria can become impervious to the 
medicines.

This is common in Russian prisons, where medicines are often unavailable and 
treatment regimens are not always obeyed.

The New York-based Public Health Research Institute estimates 20 percent to 
25 percent of TB cases in Russian prisons are resistant to more than one 
drug. That's compared to 4 percent in Russia's population at large and 1.6 
percent in the United States.

Alternative drugs to treat resistant strains are rare and expensive.

``We know we're effectively incurable,'' Yazev shrugged.

As long as prisoners remain behind bars, the problem is acute yet contained. 
But 13,000 Russian prisoners with tuberculosis were freed last year, moving 
into a health care system for the general public that cannot pay its doctors 
or afford basic TB testing equipment.

Prison doctors try to track inmates' treatment after they are released. But 
the Health Ministry admits that thousands of TB-carrying ex-prisoners 
disappear.

``These people get out of prison, then come and ride buses with us and buy 
food in our markets,'' said Vera Borisova, an administrator in Tula. ``I tell 
my children to wash their hands all the time.''

Inside prisons and jails, tuberculosis has led to a new commodity: TB-tainted 
spit.

Some inmates actually want the disease, since prisoners with tuberculosis 
enjoy a bit more porridge and less crowded cells -- not to mention a greater 
chance of amnesty or early release.

Valery Sergeyev, director of the Moscow office of Prison Reform 
International, cited frequent cases of inmates selling vials of their 
diseased saliva.

The ones who buy it and drink it down, he said, ``are prisoners who have 
nothing left to lose.''

*******

#7
Excerpts
The Sunday Times (UK)
April 11 1999 
ENTER THE BEAR 
Nobody thought the war could get worse as thousands of refugees fled in 
terror from Kosovo and Nato struggled to stop the Serbs. Then the Russians 
raised the spectre of global war 

Boris Yeltsin has been a changed man since the first bombs fell in Yugoslavia 
19 days ago. Wearing an expensive new pair of glasses that shouted "I'm in 
charge", the previously ailing leader has been turning up for work early at 
the Kremlin and trying to make his presence felt in a crisis that has immense 
implications for Russia. 

As the bombing continued and Russian fury rose, Yeltsin exploded on Friday in 
a series of detonations that had the world quivering. He was playing largely 
to a domestic audience, but his message to America, Britain and the rest of 
Nato was clear: Russia is armed and angry and he is having difficulty in 
keeping it under control. 

Not content with saying it once, Yeltsin turned on an all-day performance, 
goaded by one of his political enemies, Gennady Seleznyov, the communist 
Speaker of the lower house of parliament - the state duma. Seleznyov was just 
back from a sympathetic mission to Belgrade, where he had met President 
Slobodan Milosevic. 

When Yeltsin stalked into a Kremlin salon at 10am, there was little 
indication of the pyrotechnics to come. The Speaker told him in front of 
television cameras that Milosevic had asked for Moscow's military aid, which 
Yeltsin ruled out. Milosevic had also asked to join the loose union that 
Russia is forming with its neighbour Belarus. 

Afterwards, Seleznyov told reporters that Yeltsin had asked the foreign 
ministry to prepare the necessary documents for union with Yugoslavia - and 
that this would result in military assistance to the Serbs. "I think that our 
army would be there . . . that our navy would be in the appropriate seas," 
said the Speaker. 

On lunchtime television, Yeltsin took up the theme: "They [Nato] want to 
bring in ground troops, they are preparing for that, they want simply to 
seize Yugoslavia to make it their protectorate . . . we cannot let that 
happen to Yugoslavia." 

Seleznyov now raised the stakes dramatically, saying Yeltsin had told him 
that Russian nuclear missiles had been retargeted "in the direction of those 
countries which today are fighting Yugoslavia". 

As the alarm bells sounded in Nato countries, Robin Cook was the first 
western statesman to respond. "I would emphasise here that there is nothing 
we are doing in Yugoslavia or Kosovo . . . that poses the remotest threat to 
Russia," the foreign secretary said. 

Western defence experts and a spokesman for the Russian strategic rocket 
forces hurriedly qualified Seleznyov's remarks. Under a long-standing 
arrangement with the United States, they said, Russia's missiles are not 
specifically targeted; but it takes only seconds to target a missile before 
it is launched, so "retargeting" is largely symbolic. 

Igor Ivanov, the Russian foreign minister, formally denied that the order had 
been issued, saying Russia would abide by its international accords; and 
Seleznyov also fell into line, getting his spokesman to announce that the 
retargeting order was purely "hypothetical". 

Few doubted, however, that Yeltsin had been correctly quoted - a view 
confirmed when the president appeared again on television at 5.30pm, saying 
apocalyptically: "I told Nato, the Americans, the Germans, don't push us 
towards military action. Otherwise there will be a European war for sure and 
possibly world war." 

Behind the scenes, Kremlin officials struggled to explain what was going on. 
The trigger for Yeltsin's outbursts had been an impeachment debate scheduled 
for next Thursday in the state duma. This has nothing directly to do with 
Yugoslavia but is part of the long war of attrition between the 
communist-dominated parliament and the president. 

Seleznyov is considering a request from Yeltsin for the debate to be 
postponed. According to Yeltsin, however, hotheads in parliament want a 
chillingly high price for postponement: war with the West. 

One Kremlin aide said that by saying he supported a union with Yugoslavia, 
Yeltsin was seeking to extend his own political life. "It's a purely 
political decision . . . But impeachment would be better . . . [union] would 
be a completely senseless decision, dragging Russia into war." 

The depth of Yeltsin's dilemma became clearer when a full version was issued 
of the remarks he had made to a group of regional leaders during the day: 
"Everybody is worried by Nato military action in Yugoslavia. There is a 
dangerous tendency in this question - to draw Russia into the conflict on the 
Balkans. 

"Some deputies and politicians demand that Russia should help Yugoslavia with 
military equipment and volunteers. Others start political wrangling, 
suggesting solving the question of new weapons deliveries to Yugoslavia by 
next Thursday [April 15] and put an ultimatum - either the president gives 
the go-ahead to military conflict with Nato or they will vote for the 
procedure of impeachment. 

"So an opposition tries to break the balance between powers, rattles the 
executive line and finally creates space for adventurers from the party of 
war. 

"I repeat again: Russia will not get involved if the Americans do not push 
us. They want to bring in ground troops, they are preparing for that, they 
want simply to seize Yugoslavia to make it their protectorate. 

"In such a place - the Mediterranean Sea, and Russia is close - we, of 
course, cannot give Yugoslavia away. That is why we undertake those political 
measures, every day; we have a plan and we are acting in accordance with it. 
We send humanitarian aid, render political support and do everything possible 
to stop the violence and stop the strikes on Belgrade - which are barbaric 
because they are bombing historical monuments, schools, kindergartens and 
hospitals . . ." 

It was more of a cry for help than a threat. The message got through. Over 
the next two hours, France said Nato should not push its military campaign in 
Yugoslavia beyond what was acceptable to Russia; Germany said there was no 
need to send Nato ground troops to Kosovo; and America announced that 
Madeleine Albright, the secretary of state, would meet the Russian foreign 
minister in Oslo on Tuesday to discuss Kosovo. 

General Wesley Clark, Nato's supreme commander, ruled out any halt in the 
bombing campaign, however. "We're going to continue with the mission exactly 
as planned regardless of political and diplomatic atmospherics," he said.....

CLINTON knows perfectly well that since the collapse of the Soviet Union, 
Russia's armed forces have steadily declined. Morale is at an all-time low. 
Recruits go unpaid for months. Corruption and violence are endemic. Following 
drastic cutbacks and serious financial difficulties there have been shortages 
of fuel and ammunition. For Russia, supplying its forces has become 
problematic. Much of its military hardware has become obsolete. 

However, the president also knows that despite its decline, Russia's military 
capability still poses a formidable threat according to western and Russian 
military experts. It would be a grave mistake to underestimate its power. In 
a clear indication that Russia is still a force to be reckoned with, the 
Russian air force last month carried out scheduled exercises involving more 
than 100 aircraft. 

Both the army and the navy, for all their recent difficulties, constitute 
sizeable forces which could be combat-ready within a short time, western 
analysts say. 

"Russia's ability to act militarily should never be discounted," said one 
senior western military expert yesterday. "It still has an extraordinary 
ability to regenerate itself very quickly. Its nuclear strategic weapons and 
forces are very competent. But even without nuclear weapons which really only 
act as a deterrent, Russia's army, air force and navy must be taken 
seriously. 

"Should Russia rally the flag and become militarily involved, the fact that 
its soldiers don't get paid properly would not be an issue. If it became 
involved it would find ways of overcoming its problems very quickly." 

At this stage, experts believe that if Russia were to become involved in the 
war in Yugoslavia it would do so only by supplying Belgrade with defence 
equipment such as surface-to-air missiles that would be taken from its 
stockpiles. Should the conflict escalate it could then decide to supply 
Milosevic with MiG 29s and with T-80 and T-90 tanks as well as with ground 
forces. 

"Stories about the death of Russia's military force are greatly exaggerated," 
warned Viktor Baranets, a retired military aide of Igor Rodionov, the former 
Russian defence minister. 

"If you have any doubts, you just have to look at how many arms Russia has 
sold to China and India over the past few years. We still have a lot of 
reserves. One third of them would be enough to help the whole of Europe, but 
we are talking only about tiny Yugoslavia. 

"Russia is a country of paradoxes. Even if we don't have money now we would 
find it if we were to take part in a war. We have our gold reserves. We have 
other resources." 

Ivanov spent about 45 minutes on the telephone to Cook reaffirming that 
Russia had no intention of retaliating against the Nato air strikes. 

His deputy, Georgy Mamedov, said after a meeting of the Group of Eight (G8) 
countries in Germany that he was feeling increasingly optimistic that 
Belgrade would allow international ground troops into Kosovo - provided the 
bombing stopped. However, there was little sign that Milosevic, who has 
refused even to discuss allowing Nato peacekeepers on his territory, was 
paying any attention. 

Tension was far more evident in Washington than it was in Milosevic's bunker. 
There was an almost audible sharpening of knives as the American foreign 
policy establishment sought to apportion blame for the unleashing of a 
humanitarian disaster by a military operation that had been originally 
designed to prevent one. 

The American press has singled out Albright for having "misjudged" Milosevic. 
However, she is clear about what was going on. "I have lived in this town a 
long time," she said last week. "There is a very strange activity that goes 
on here which is called 'cover your you-know-what'." 

On Tuesday the game will be back in her hands when she meets Ivanov to try to 
find a path out of the crisis. With Yeltsin's cries still ringing in their 
ears, both will no doubt be covering their you-know-whats. 

******

#8
Date: Sun, 11 Apr 1999 06:37:15 -0400
From: Christian Caryl <CCaryl@compuserve.com>
Subject: Russian outrage

U.S. News and World Report
Cover Story 4/19/99
Veering right in Russia
NATO's bombs stir smoldering nationalist sentiment
BY CHRISTIAN CARYL

MOSCOW–It was only a few weeks ago that anti-American sabre-rattling seemed
the exclusive province of Russian ultranationalists like Vladimir
Zhirinovsky and his Liberal Democratic Party. But events in Yugoslavia have
changed all that. Last Friday, Russia's Interfax news agency reported that
President Boris Yeltsin had ordered strategic nuclear missiles reprogrammed
to target NATO countries. The report was dismissed later in the day by
other officials, but the prospect of nuclear brinksmanship gave an
unsettling glimpse into the public mood. "I told NATO, the Americans, the
Germans: Don't push us toward military action," said Yeltsin in televised
comments. "Otherwise, there will be a European war for sure and possibly
world war."

The embers of anti-Western feeling have been smoldering in Russia for
years. The loss of empire, the failure of Western-inspired economic
reforms, and humiliating talk of NATO expansion have all helped to stoke
the flames. But now NATO's war on Yugoslavia has arrived as the equivalent
of several gallons of gasoline. And it's not just radical nationalists and
Communists buoyed by a new surge of popular support; Russians from every
walk of life have now unified in opposition to what Yeltsin called "naked
aggression" by NATO. Polls showed that 90 percent of Russians were opposed
to the airstrikes, and the sharp generational gap that usually
characterizes political opinion was notably absent. The groundswell of
concern in Russia "is pushing the center of political gravity in the
direction of the authoritarian nationalists," especially Zhirinovsky and
the xenophobic Communist Party of Gennady Zyuganov, asserts James
Billington, the U.S. librarian of Congress and a Russia scholar. Russian
intellectuals have proclaimed opposition to NATO airstrikes as the
long-sought "national idea."

And the national thinking is turning nasty. Violent protests against the
U.S. Embassy in Moscow culminated two weeks ago in a machine gun attack on
the building. Talk of the conflict as "a second Vietnam" is now
commonplace. Radical nationalists and Communists are rushing to sign up
volunteers to serve at the side of "our Orthodox Slav brothers" in
Yugoslavia, while centrists like Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, a leading
presidential contender, have shown their support by organizing shipments of
humanitarian aid to Serbia. Igor Ivanov, the Russian foreign minister,
spoke of bringing those who issued the orders for NATO strikes (presumably
including Bill Clinton) before the International War Crimes Tribunal at The
Hague.

Feet of clay. Perhaps most remarkable has been the sense of embitterment
among Russians who once saw the United States as a model of democracy. The
decision of Washington and its European allies to bypass the U.N. Security
Council, where Moscow still has pull, has left even Russian liberals
complaining of a double standard. The message, they say, is that the West
will follow the rules of international law only when that serves its
interest; otherwise the rule is that might makes right, and Russia be
damned. "Russia is being written off as a country that others no longer
have to take into account," says Alexei Polushkin, 37, a Moscow fashion
designer. "They ignored the opinion of Russia, so people feel that what
happened in Serbia could happen here next."

Even here, few genuinely expect Russia to intervene militarily in the
Balkans. Russia's armed forces are on the verge of collapse, and the
Kremlin is still sorely dependent on promised financial support from the
International Monetary Fund. The real danger may come from a different
quarter. President Yeltsin, whose popularity ratings are at a new low, is
heading for a showdown with a rebellious parliament that has challenged his
administration with explosive corruption allegations, and parliamentary
elections are looming later in the year. "Unless the situation can be
resolved reasonably soon or very decisively, this campaign could increase
the risk that someone like Milosevic might come to power in Russia,"
Billington observes. The irony of that would not be lost on the West.

With Alan Cooperman

*******

#9
Russia Reacts to War in Yugoslavia
Prepared by David Johnson for CDI's Weekly Defense Monitor

President Yeltsin: "Our fundamental position is not to get sucked into a
big war and not to deliver arms....I repeat again Russia will not get
involved if the Americans do not push us."

Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev: "The plans to strengthen the armed forces
are explained by the new strategic concept of NATO, under which the
alliance intends to use force without the UN Security Council's consent
-- in any part of the world."

General Viktor Chechevatov (Commander of ground forces in Far East
region): "The bombing of Yugoslavia could turn out in the very near future
to be just a rehearsal for similar strikes on Russia."


Aleksandr Lebed (governor of Krasnoyarsk Krai): "The Americans are used to
fighting television wars. For them war is like a Star Wars movie. It is
nothing of the kind. The Serbs have strong morale and centuries-old
traditions of partisan warfare. Their country will be demolished but not
defeated in bombing."

Mikhail Gorbachev: "The position of the U.N. Security Council has been
undermined, and now Europe has been shown who is the boss -- and I know
this because I hear it from the Europeans. Russia is being humiliated....

`This will push an arms race in every country in the world. There is a real
threat that in many countries there may be an effort to get...weapons of
mass destruction. I believe this will also give impetus to terrorism."

Alexander Solzhenitsyn: "Casting off the United Nations and its charter,
NATO is imposing on the whole world and the next century an ancient
law...whoever's strongest is right. In the eyes of humanity, a wonderful
European country is being destroyed, and civilized governments are
applauding."

Alexei Arbatov (moderate member of Parliament): "This is the most dangerous
crisis between Russia and the U.S. since the Cuban missile crisis."

Aman Tuleyev (governor of Kemerovo): "The war in Yugoslavia should unite
us. We have to change our attitude to the army and think that if the United
States changes its adversaries each time -- now it is Iraq and then
Yugoslavia -- then we can be the next."

Patriarch Aleksiy II (head of Russian Orthodox Church): "The Orthodox
Easter lies ahead. So, if they carry on bombing over the Orthodox Easter,
what kind of Christians are they? They are not Christians. They are
barbarians."

Moscow Times editorial: "From the start, NATO has bluffed and blundered its
way through the Balkans, and now it finds itself backing into a ground war
in Europe - slowly, inexorably and without any one real consensus as to
why."

Sergey Karaganov (head of the Council for Foreign and Defense Policy,
member of the Presidential Council): "If looking at the Serbs we have
realized how vulnerable we are and will start sorting out our problems,
this will be our salvation. But if we opt for sorting out other people's
problems to the detriment or at the expense of Russian problems, or for
saving the West or saving the Serbs at Russia's expense, then this will be
our undoing. We are quite close to a very dangerous threshold because we
are falling to pieces but if we get directly involved in this situation,
we will be finished off."

Yegor Gaidar (former reformist prime minister): "What is going on has a
very serious and negative influence on Russian-U.S. relations. I am afraid
this [outcome] can be a long-term one. If today's tendency continues,
[I think] it could inevitably bring the restoration of the Cold War -- in
a different form, not as in the '60s. Russia [now] is different. The world
is different. But the creation of relations like during the Cold War
[is possible,] with a Russia that is afraid of the world, of NATO, of
America, has missiles, a mobilized economy, is friendly with authoritarian
and rogue regimes, helps them with technologies, helps them create nuclear
weapons."

Sovetskaya Rossiya (leftwing newspaper): "The U.S. missiles exploding in
Yugoslavia had very loud and unexpected repercussions in Russia. The
tumultuous protest rallies around the U.S. Embassy in Moscow mark the entry
into the political arena of hitherto 'slumbering' social forces. The
bombing of Serbia has led to the radicalization of youth. The United States
has suffered a massive political defeat in Russia: The fruits of its
efforts over many years and the many billions spent on indoctrinating
Russian youth in the spirit of 'Western values' were destroyed in a trice."

Russian tax advisor to British Moscow-based journalist Helen Womack: "Tito
settled the Albanians in Kosovo, rather as Stalin moved populations in the
Soviet Union. The Albanians had bigger families than the Serbs, so that
they came to outnumber them in the historic heart of Serbia. There is a
Serb point of view here too. Why are you taking sides in a complicated
issue you know too little about? Why don't you listen to Russia? Do you
think because we are economically weak, our opinion does not count?"

Alexander Pikayev (analyst at Carnegie's Moscow Center): "I'm afraid that
now it is serious; we see some sort of consensus in society which we
haven't seen since 1991. Then, it was a broad anti-communist consensus.
Now, unfortunately, we face a strong anti-NATO consensus, which could have
a very dramatic impact on the overall U.S.-Russian relationship. In August,
we saw the collapse of Yeltsin's market-reform policy and in March, we saw
the collapse of Yeltsin's foreign and security policy."

Colonel-General Leonid Ivashov (head of the Defense Ministry's Main
Directorate for International Military Cooperation: "NATO has negated the
fundamental principles upon which Russia's relations with this bloc were
based....I feel ashamed when I look at the signatures in the Founding Act
put by the heads of state who have spat at them now....There is no
guarantee that the NATO countries will comply with the agreements to be
reached in the future....It is hard to say when a constructive period in
relations with NATO will be resumed."

******

#10
Chicago Sun-Times
12 April 1999
[for personal use only]
Is U.S. trying to buy off Russia? 
April 12, 1999
BY ROBERT NOVAK 

Secret negotiations in Moscow last week to funnel more International
Monetary Fund billions into the improvident Russian government were
encouraged by the Clinton administration's managers of the NATO strikes
against Yugoslavia. That connection suggests an elaborate scheme to buy the
Kremlin's neutrality in the Balkan war.

Nobody expects Russia to become a belligerent, but funds poured down the
Russian drain are not considered excessive by the Clinton administration in
paying for a softer voice from Moscow. Indeed, Prime Minister Yevgeny
Primakov, who is in the middle of the IMF deal, has moderated his own and
his government's rhetoric (though President Boris Yeltsin is blustering
about using force to help Belgrade, as he struggles to avoid impeachment by
the communist-dominated parliament).

The myth of the IMF's independence from the U.S. government has been
shattered by its funding of Russia to influence Balkan policy. However
misguided the policies of the IMF professionals, their anger is
understandable at becoming an instrument of U.S. foreign policy.

It was under American pressure last summer that the IMF released $4.8
billion to Russia, most of it for a futile defense of the ruble. That
momentary support for the country's currency allowed members of the Russian
power structure to convert personal holdings into dollars. In that way, a
substantial amount of the IMF funds ended up in numbered Swiss bank accounts.

Now, nearly a year later, the Russian government is asking for more:
preferably $8 billion, though it would settle for $4.6 billion, to pay back
earlier IMF loans. Whether or not a great deal of money once again would
adhere to sticky fingers in Moscow, the new loan is not designed to reach
ordinary Russians.

IMF bureaucrats were insistent that Russia would not get any money without
government austerity, measured by a budget surplus equal to 3.5 percent of
gross domestic product. Thus, the negotiations promised to drag on for months.

That was not quick enough for Primakov, who was flying to New York on March
25 to bargain with IMF Managing Director Michel Camdessus--the very day
NATO started bombing Yugoslavia. Informed by phone that the attack could
not be postponed, Primakov ordered the plane turned around and headed home.

But just two days later, Camdessus left for Moscow to see Primakov, an
unprecedented trip made after U.S. urgings originating in the State
Department. That was not taken in good grace inside the IMF, whose
officials don't enjoying becoming a foreign-aid vehicle to further U.S.
global policy.

Camdessus said yes, after scaling down the IMF demands to a budget surplus
equaling 2 percent, not 3.5 percent, of GDP. The details were being worked
out in Moscow last week, and the new loan is likely to get IMF Board
approval by the end of the month.

Does President Clinton want more from the prime minister than passivity?
Last Tuesday, the New York Times reported, Vice President Al Gore phoned
Primakov and asked his help as an intermediary to achieve a diplomatic
solution to the Kosovo crisis. But when that appeared in print Wednesday,
the White House made clear it does not want a Russian-brokered peace
agreement. What Clinton wants is for Primakov to go to Belgrade as an
American messenger boy to insist that Slobodan Milosevic submit to the
ultimatum.

The IMF deal seems insufficient to persuade Primakov to play so subservient
a role. Indeed, he cannot even control the message from Moscow. Gennady
Seleznyov, the communist speaker of the parliament, claimed last Friday
that Yeltsin had ordered Russian strategic missiles to be targeted at NATO
nations. A Primakov aide quickly called a contact in Washington to tell him
Yeltsin was merely trying to appease his communist tormentors.

Nevertheless, Primakov serves at Yeltsin's pleasure. The IMF has proved
only a limited success in trying to buy off Russia.

******