April 24, 1999    
This Date's Issues: 3255• 3256  • 

Johnson's Russia List
#3256
24 April 1999
davidjohnson@erols.com

[Note from David Johnson:
1. AP: US-Russia Ties Face Kosovo Challenge.
2. New York Times editorial: Russia, Captive of History.
3. Boston Globe: Kimberly Blanton, IMF moves to free $4.5b for Russia. 
NATO allies hope aid would reduce tensions.
4. AFP: Russia's political blocs gear up for election season
5. Galina Ackerman: civil nuclear facilities.
6. Andrew Miller: SIMES SAYS.
7. Laura Belin: COPING WITH KREMLIN SPIN AND OTHER HAZARDS OF REPORTING 
ON RUSSIA.]

******

#1
US-Russia Ties Face Kosovo Challenge
April 24, 1999
By KIM GAMEL

HARRIMAN, New York (AP) -- Two senior Russian officials bend to political 
pressure and cancel trips to the United States for a conference. 

A Russian professor refuses to participate in a joint Russia-U.S. education 
commission. 

A U.S. businessman suspends plans to travel to Russia. 

The Yeltsin government's fierce opposition to NATO airstrikes in Kosovo is 
echoing on Russia's streets as anti-Americanism, and it's causing people from 
both countries to rethink their relations with each other in a way not seen 
since the end of the Cold War. 

No violence against Westerners has been reported, and the U.S. State 
Department has not issued any warnings or updated its Jan. 19 information 
sheet that warns travelers of the possibility of demonstrations and skinhead 
violence. 

But the effect of souring relations between the two countries was in stark 
view at last weekend's annual Arden House conference on U.S.-Russian 
relations, which is co-sponsored by Harvard and Columbia universities. 

Duma member Vladimir Lukin of the market reform-oriented Yabloko party and 
Federal Securities Commission chairman Dmitry Vasiliev both canceled their 
appearances because of the airstrikes. 

Lukin and Vasiliev each sent apologetic letters indicating their decisions 
were made under political pressure, said Marshall Goldman, associate director 
of the Davis Center for Russian studies at Harvard. 

``The surprising thing is it's not just (Russian nationalist leader Vladimir) 
Zhirinovsky,'' said Robert Legvold, a political science professor at Columbia 
who specializes in Russian affairs. ``Liberals and reformers are feeling like 
everything has been pulled out from under them.'' 

A former Duma member said the similar tone of the letters from Lukin and 
Vasiliev showed that NATO's air campaign against Yugoslavia was galvanizing 
the opposition. 

``It's a kind of political consolidation against airstrikes,'' said Andrei 
Zakharov, vice president of the Foundation for Development of Parliamentarism 
in Russia. 

The most high-profile example of Moscow's opposition to NATO policy in the 
Balkans came a day before the air campaign began. Bound for Washington for 
much-anticipated negotiations with the International Monetary Fund, Prime 
Minister Yevgeny Primakov ordered his plane to turn around over the Atlantic 
after Vice President Al Gore warned him by telephone that airstrikes were 
likely. 

There are other, less publicized examples of Russian antagonism, as well. A 
Russian professor from an agricultural institute decided not to participate 
in a U.S.-funded program under the auspices of the Washington-based American 
Council of Teachers of Russian. 

The professor ``returned a set of folders to us unread saying he could not in 
good conscious be a part of a U.S.-Russian binational commission while the 
U.S. was bombing Kosovo,'' Dan Davidson, head of the Washington-based 
nongovernmental organization, said in a telephone interview. ``He seemed like 
an earnest concerned citizen who was upset by the events and needed somehow 
to express his feelings.'' 

Davidson, whose organization handles student exchanges, said no American 
participants have complained of problems, although some U.S. teachers in St. 
Petersburg, Russia, were temporarily dismissed by a business school soon 
after the airstrikes started on March 24. 

But scattered reports of verbal harassment of Americans, as well as an attack 
on the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, have prompted his organization to warn 
American participants to avoid speaking loudly in English or drawing 
unnecessary attention to themselves. 

The tension is also creating new concerns for Western business people, 
already weary from more than eight months of economic crisis and uncertainty. 

``We're in a holding pattern right now,'' a sales manager at a major U.S. 
corporation who canceled an upcoming trip to Moscow said on condition of 
anonymity. ``We have contacts who felt it was not that safe at the moment due 
to the anti-American factor.'' 

A spokesman for the U.S.-Russia Business Council said tension over Kosovo, 
while causing some companies to reconsider entering the market, was not 
scaring away companies already there. 

``It's best to characterize it as a distraction but not a disruption,'' said 
Blake Marshall, executive vice president of the nonprofit trade organization. 

Many Russians see Yugoslavia as a fellow Slav nation with close historic and 
cultural ties and do not understand the reasons for NATO's actions. 

``Anti-American feeling is a fact,'' said Alexander Livshits, a former 
economic adviser to Russian President Boris Yeltsin. ``But investors aren't 
getting worried about Russia because of Kosovo. It's just antagonizing a 
problem that has been there.'' 

Livshits said he did not consider refusing the invitation to speak at the 
Arden House conference and he would gladly accept any others. 

``I came here for the reason my colleagues refused to come,'' he said, 
referring to Lukin and Vasiliev. ``It's in this exact situation that we 
should meet more often.'' 

******

#2
New York Times
April 24, 1999
Editorial
Russia, Captive of History

If Russia is ever to break free of the heritage that stunts its development, 
it must overcome its reflexive allegiance to bloody-minded tyrants like 
Slobodan Milosevic and Saddam Hussein. As hard as it may be for Boris 
Yeltsin, he should use this critical moment in Europe to push Russia toward 
an enduring partnership with the West. Only then can Russia hope to build the 
modern economy and democracy that its people want and deserve. 

There are many reasons that Moscow is still dancing with Mr. Milosevic as his 
forces brutally assault the people of Kosovo, but none promise to benefit 
Russia as it struggles to rebuild its dysfunctional economy. Slavic 
solidarity, a common antipathy to NATO and fervent nationalism may play well 
in Moscow and Belgrade, but they are dead-end policies for Russia. Making 
common cause with Serbia and Belarus is not going to revive the Russian 
economy. The preservation of Slavic culture, language and identity is an 
honorable aim, but it is not a productive foreign policy. 

The Kremlin's embrace of dictators had a certain ruthless logic during the 
cold war, when Russia was prepared to use whatever repression was required at 
home and abroad to protect and export its ideology. The United States, in the 
name of advancing democracy, closed ranks with anti-Communist tyrants in Asia 
and Latin America. But seven years after the disintegration of the Soviet 
Union, at a time when democracy and economic integration are reshaping the 
world, Mr. Milosevic and Mr. Hussein are political anachronisms. Alliance 
with them brings estrangement from the rest of the world, the last thing 
Russia needs. 

In the case of Kosovo, Moscow no doubt fears that NATO intervention in 
Yugoslavia could lead someday to outside interference in Russia's own ethnic 
conflicts. Mr. Yeltsin's brutish attack on Chechnya comes to mind. But that 
is a false fear. NATO well knows that it cannot intervene in Russia without 
igniting a new Continental war in Europe. Russia, for all the cruelty of its 
assault on Chechnya, did not conduct a genocidal campaign in the breakaway 
territory. 

With anti-American sentiment rising in Russia, and parliamentary and 
presidential elections scheduled over the next 14 months, Mr. Yeltsin may 
feel he cannot afford to lean away from Mr. Milosevic, even though the 
Russian leader is not seeking re-election himself. But the paramount domestic 
issue in Russia is the ailing economy, not Kosovo. There is little need for 
Moscow to align itself so ardently with Belgrade. 

Indeed, Russia's role as a potential peacemaker would be enhanced if Viktor 
Chernomyrdin, Mr. Yeltsin's special envoy for the Balkans, were free to tell 
Mr. Milosevic that the Serbian offensive in Kosovo is intolerable. Mr. 
Milosevic might listen more closely to diplomatic proposals if Moscow 
declared that he must allow ethnic Albanians to return home under the 
protection of an international force of armed peacekeepers. Mr. Chernomyrdin 
said yesterday that Mr. Milosevic had agreed to such a force when they talked 
in Belgrade this week, but the Yugoslav Government insisted that only unarmed 
peacekeepers had been discussed. 

Russia's future development has little to do with Kosovo and a great deal to 
do with how Moscow manages relations with the United States and Europe. In 
the near term, Russia desperately needs $4.5 billion in loans from the 
International Monetary Fund, assistance that is likely to be approved soon if 
the fund is satisfied that the Government budget is responsible. But that is 
just a fraction of the foreign capital and commerce that Russia will need to 
attract over the next decade if it is to build a new and prosperous economy. 
Slobodan Milosevic is not going to be a big contributor. 

*******

#3
Boston Globe
24 April 1999
[for personal use only]
IMF moves to free $4.5b for Russia 
NATO allies hope aid would reduce tensions
By Kimberly Blanton, Globe Staff

Pressured by NATO allies to help relieve tensions with Russia over war in 
Yugoslavia, the International Monetary Fund is negotiating to lift an aid 
moratorium and extend $4.5 billion in funds to the country's battered 
economy, a Russian official said yesterday.

In IMF meetings to begin tomorrow in Washington, Russia's first deputy prime 
minister, Yuri Maslyukov, the IMF's managing director, Michel Camdessus, and 
World Bank officials have scheduled talks about an aid package that would 
address Russia's financial woes, which Camdessus earlier this week described 
as ''the most difficult problem we must tackle.''

Although Russia has not reached economic targets set by the IMF, the specter 
of future debt defaults by Russia at a time the North Atlantic Treaty 
Organization is bombing Yugoslavia - over Russia's objections - has created a 
mix of international finance and politics that make agreement likely, 
analysts said.

''The whole IMF package is far more political than economic now,'' said Peter 
Westin, an economist at the Russian-European Center for Economic Policy in 
Moscow.

Russia's finance minister, Mikhail Zadornov, confirmed yesterday that the 
government's economic blueprint has ''virtually been approved by the IMF,'' 
but the amount of new loans has not been worked out.

The head of the World Bank's Moscow office, Michael Carter, said the sides 
were nearing agreement, the Russian news agency, Interfax, reported.

While IMF spokesmen continue to deny an aid package is inevitable, the agency 
still hopes to pressure Russia to agree on badly needed budget reforms as 
well as a restructuring of the country's unstable banking system.

But, political pressure to agree quickly is being brought to bear by NATO 
allies.

US Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin said Thursday there are ''enormous 
national security issues'' involving Russia. Getting Russia back on track is 
''very difficult, but we cannot afford not to do it.'' Chiming in during a 
trip to Chicago, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said the world cannot 
stand back and watch Russia ''slide into an abyss. It will affect us.''

Camdessus, in a press conference Wednesday to kick off this weekend's IMF 
meetings, said NATO politics ''don't determine at all our course of action in 
Russia.''

Russia, under the government of Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov, has made 
limited progress in fiscal reforms. But with the economy still deep in 
depression and debt continuing to mount, the country's ability to repay 
outstanding IMF loans due this year is in question.

''Some people believe this is a way to buy Russian acquiesence to the NATO 
campaign in Kosovo, which I think is a false hypothesis,'' said Michael 
McFaul, a Russia specialist at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace 
in Washington. ''It grossly exaggerates the influence'' of Russia's debt 
problems.

But, he added: ''That is not to say it's not a politicized decision.'' 
Although Russia has not made reforms the IMF would like, IMF officials are 
''worried about default. That's their primary concern. They don't want to 
make the situation worse in Russia, which could happen if they default.''

A new IMF aid package would be the first funds extended to Russia since last 
July when the international lender was seeking to stem a currency crisis 
circling the globe and threatening US financial markets and emerging 
economies from Russia to Brazil.

In August, the IMF suspended its $22 billion package to Moscow, because 
Primakov's government failed to come up with a plan to lift the country out 
of a financial and economic morass.

Fresh funds would open the door for Russia to negotiate with other creditors 
breathing down its neck, including the Paris Club of countries that have lent 
to Russia - Germany is the largest holder of debt - and the London Club of 
commercial creditors.

Russian officials yesterday ordered a money transfer to pay some of the 
country's Eurobond obligations. The Finance Ministry said it has ordered the 
transfer of $37 million to Citibank in London on April 29 to meet a Eurobond 
payment.

Weekend meetings in Washington continue a two-week mission by the IMF in 
Moscow to design a framework for reforms and an aid package. IMF officials 
will leave Moscow today, and the Russian delegation leaves tomorrow for 
Washington.

******

#4
Russia's political blocs gear up for election season

MOSCOW, April 24 (AFP) - Leading Russian political blocs geared up Saturday 
for election season, plotting strategy and alliances that could bring success 
in December parliamentary elections -- and a presidential vote next summer.
Two foremost centrist blocs led respectively by powerful Moscow mayor Yury 
Luzhkov and former premier Viktor Chernomyrdin held congresses to kick off 
election preparations, while a third grouping of liberals flexed its muscles 
with a Moscow rally.

While neither of the congresses formally elected candidates for the 2000 
presidential elections, Chernomyrdin said his Our Home is Russia bloc would 
nominate him as its candidate.

Luzhkov was more modest, saying merely that his Otechestvo, or Fatherland, 
bloc "wants to take part in the presidential elections," but that his 
candidacy was not a foregone conclusion, Interfax reported.

"I do not have ambitions or wishes to move upwards," Luzhkov told the 
gathering in the northern town of Yaroslavl. "I like my work in Moscow and 
for the time being Muscovites are thankfully supporting me."

Russia is due to elect a successor to President Boris Yeltsin in July 2000. 
Political leaders jockeying for position know however that the earlier 
legislative vote due to take place this December could serve as a 
make-or-break for Kremlin hopefuls.

As such, Russia's fragmented political world is gradually consolidating as 
centrists and liberals try to create blocs that could challenge the dominance 
of the Communists, currently the largest party in the State Duma lower house 
of parliament.

Luzhkov's party last week concluded an alliance with a grouping of powerful 
regional governors called All Russia.

"I am happy that we have come to agreement on the formation of a single 
electoral bloc," the Moscow mayor told Saturday's congress, according to 
ITAR-TASS.

"The coordinating council of the two political organisations is already 
working out a single pre-election platform," he said, adding that talks were 
also being held with two other formations -- Yabloko and the newly-formed 
Russia's Voice.

Chernomyrdin for his part called for an even grander pre-election coalition 
between his party, the Luzhkov bloc and Russia's Voice.

"If we don't start uniting, then a third person will win," he was quoted by 
Interfax as saying.

In previous State Duma elections, centrist and liberal forces have been 
hopelessly divided, primarily due to clashes of personalities rather than 
policies. With the centre and right votes split, the Communists and their 
leftists allies won almost half the seats in parliament in December 1995 
elections.

The liberal right tried to put on a show of unity in Moscow on Saturday with 
a rally which organisers said brought up to 5,000 people on to the streets to 
hear pro-market former cabinet ministers such as Yegor Gaidar and Boris 
Nemtsov lambast the current left-leaning government.

"We have three slogans for our demonstration: don't drag us into the 
(Balkans) war, let's unite ahead of the elections, and an end to this 
Communist stupidity," Nemtsov told NTV television.

Luzhkov also had harsh words for the government of Prime Minister Yevgeny 
Primakov, noting continuing economic decline and serious social problems that 
need attention.

"Health care, education and science are in ruins," he told his followers 
according to Interfax. "The country lost 10 years that will have to be made 
up for at an accelerated tempo. The situation must be rectified right now 
without delay."

His platform included a "sensible, fair tax system," massive debt 
restructuring, "cheap loans" for industry and a reform of the pension system.

"We did it in Moscow and will do it in Russia," he said. 

******

#5
From: "Galina Ackerman" <galina@cybercable.fr>
Date: Sat, 24 Apr 1999 
Subject: civil nuclear facilities

Dear Mr. Johnson, Thank you very much for your wonderful work on Russia
which I find very useful and instructive. May I ask you for a favor: if
you have structured archives, could you possibly mail me some update
information about ex-soviet civil nuclear facilities, such as nuclear
power plants, etc. I have to give a short conference about the potential
threat of the so called "peaceful atom" on the territory of the ex-USSR,
with a short survey of past accidents, except Tchernobyl. Or may be,
people on your list could brief me on Internet sites where I could find
such an information. Thank you in advance. 

******

#6
Date: Fri, 23 Apr 1999 18:03:17 +0300
From: Andrew Miller <lingua@fem.ru>
Subject: Submission

SIMES SAYS

In his magnificent epic "There and Back Again, A Hobbit's Holiday,"
the British arch-fantasist J.R.R. Tolkein wrote, describing a certain
staid family of Hobbiton, "You could tell what a Baggins would say on
any question without the bother of asking him."

The same, it might be observed, could possibly be said of The Russians these
days (indeed, working as a teacher in Russia I can opine that if one judged
only
by the handwritten expression of answers to any question,handwriting which the
now-defunct Soviet regime managed to homogenize iron-fist-in-burlap-glove
along
with the actual substantive response itself to a truly remarkable and
impressive
degree, one might well have difficulty telling Russians apart), and neo-Cold
Warrior Russians all the more so.

Veteran Russian-American Cold Warrior and novice fantasist Dmitri Simes
of the Nixon Center is a recent case in point. During the swan song of the
Evil Empire, the thickly-accented voice of Simes was a welcome
neo-Kissengerian
respite from the omnipresent Carteresque pollyannaisms (Carter once kissed
Brezhnev
full on the lips) and Reaganesque onomatomyopias (Reagan sought to bring
Russia
to its knees without actually realizing that it could be done, and without
ever
considering what he would do with it once he got it into that position). One
was always left to wonder why it was always the thickly accented who
championed
a foreign policy based not on ideological blather but on actual American
interests. It was also a charming slice of Russian TV-verite. Now, however,
as the former U.S.S.R. marginalizes and obviates and extremifies itself
into the
obscurity of oblivion and the obliviousness of obscurity, the voice of
Simes begins to seem like only so much superattenuated psycho-political
self-preservational doubletalk - neosovietspeak if you will - surrounded by
an enigma, wrapped in a riddle.

Simes recently published a column in, of all places, the New York
tabloid daily Newsday ("all the news that's fit for LonGisland"), in
which he declared that "Russia may in fact recover on its own" from
its current economic plight via a mere application of "pragmatic
economic policy, strong government and a modest increase in oil
prices." May I be forced to kiss Vladimir Zhirinovsky on the lips if
I'm taking that out of context. Therefore, he said, Russia should be
taken much more seriously.

As a three year resident of Russia, I can't help but find this
assertion to be so woefully A.W.O.L. from reality as to push the envelope
of ludicrousness into the realm of the Felliniesque. It cannot but seem
to me that Simes' Russian pride (notwithstanding his defection)
and professional ego were too much in evidence. I need only look around
me to see that Russia is every day fading away into obsolescence, and
while this may make Simes' expertise less marketable and his self-view
less comfortable, this is not reason to deny basic facts. Russia may
have nuclear weapons, but saying "I'll blow you to kingdom come if you
don't keep imagining I matter" just isn't going to rattle the world's cage
- especially when the world realizes that, all things considered, most
of those weapons probably don't even work - like the grenade launcher that
failed to launch recently outside the U.S. Embassy in Moscow.
Simes might simply take comfort from the fact that the acropolis of Russia
will be just as interesting and useful to study as the metropolis was, just
not so glamorous or public.

Specifically who, I would dearly love to ask Mr. Simes, in
Russia today is capable of making "pragmatic" economic policy - or, in
point of fact, of even knowing what that means? Name someone, I would
wish to exclaim, I dare you (his column was noticeably Soviet-era barren in
the
name department). How, were he/she to be found, would he/she get
power? Who, were he/she capable of wielding power responsibly, would
live long enough to carry out such policy as would involve massive
roll-backs of the old pork barrel? As for "strong" government, Does
Simes consider the current government of former KGB spymaster Eugene
Primakov to be weak? As for oil prices, Does he imagine that several
years ago, when oil prices were higher, the Russian economy was
vibrant and able to satisfy the basic needs of the population, and
doing so?

No, Mr. Simes, there is no Ded Maroz. That Russian
population is, and has been, violently contracting, adult life span is
shortening, Russians smoke like chimneys, pollute like chimneys and
provide medical care no better than a chimney receives. And they don't
care. There is no popular or grass-roots political activity or
mobilization of any kind, not even in the "leading" universities, not
even to raise the salaries of teachers who are paid nominal wages and
therefore are, much of the time, just pretending to teach (as who
wouldn't be when you've got more important things, like eating, to
worry about). Russians don't view any of these issues as serious
problems, nor take any constructive steps to correct them. Russians
prefer to believe that their economic problems are due to the "theft"
of their "great" national wealth by unscrupulous businessmen and
politicians.

Russia's GDP, long before the oil slump, classified it on
a per capita basis as a third world nation, one which was mortgaging
its soul to buy nuclear weapons for some unknown reason. GDP shrank
every year after the breakup of the U.S.S.R., as it probably had been
doing long before that, and as measured by the declining value of the
Russian currency (declining in large part because, after nearly a
decade, Russians have learned nothing about the manufacture and
marketing of consumer products for world use and therefore there is no
reason to have the ruble because there is nothing to buy with it once
you do) the Russian GDP will soon disappear entirely. Oil money simply
allows Russia to buy new wallpaper to cover over cracks in the
foundation that, sooner or even sooner, will bring the building down.

Russia's politics (in St. Petersburg's recent city council elections,
only 30% of the population voted; in Moscow, the mayor operates a
political party called "Fatherland" and the federal legislature is
carrying on a pogrom of words against Jews and other minorities)
qualify it for the moniker "banana republic." Though even Brazilian
bananas may soon be beyond the Russian purse. University professors
are paid a salary of between $10 and $100 per month, no increase has
been made either before or after the oil slump, and the salaries often
stand in arrears for months. Just what quality of education does Mr.
Simes imagine the average Russian youngster is receiving these days? And
even if the
teachers were highly paid, what teachers of business, for example, can
there be in a country which until recently hasn't had any. In
classrooms pertaining to market economics, a new meaning is given to
the technical adjective "theoretical."

Russia, one would like to inform Mr. Simes, is dying.
Miracles, of course, do happen, but not very often in Russia and
hardly ever in the form of "strong government" and "pragmatic" policy
changing the course of people's lives for the better. Been there, done that.
Everyone, but everyone, who lives here knows that, Russians as well as
foreigners.
The question is not if it will happen, but when and how.

And, as well, how many Russians and how much money will scurry across the
borders before it happens (as, for example, the son of murdered "hero"
Galina Starovoitova did long ago). The recent explosions throughout Russia
of anti-Western and especially anti-American hatred (paramilitary attacks
on the U.S. embassy, firing of American teachers, attempts by Luzhkov to
institute new visa restrictions, and so on ad nauseam) are lucid testimony
to the fact that Russians have no intention of making any substantial change
in their way of life, of calling their government to account for its failed
policies - any more than they, as a people, actively brought down the
institution
of the Tsar at the opening of this century. Russians were not only ready, but
eager, to reassert the ridiculous lies perpetrated by the Soviet
regime, if only because of their comfort factor. The fall of the Tsar
was occasioned by nothing more than a daring power grab by a committed
nucleus of radicals, most trained abroad and following the tutelage of
foreign intellectuals. I feel I would like to urge Simes to wake up
and smell the spoilt akroshka. Russia is a hospice, not a hospital,
case, and the sooner people like him come to grips with that fact the
sooner they can start turning their clever attention toward efforts that
might make Russia as comfortable as possible.

Until then, we can tell what you're going to say on any question -
without the bother of asking you.

Andrew Miller
St. Petersburg, Russia

*******

#7
Date: Sat, 24 Apr 1999
From: Laura Belin <laura.belin@st-antonys.oxford.ac.uk>
Subject: re: western press coverage

COPING WITH KREMLIN SPIN AND OTHER HAZARDS OF REPORTING ON RUSSIA
by Laura Belin

Criticism of foreign news coverage of Russia tends to focus on flaws in
Moscow-based correspondents. They are said to be lazy, over-reliant on
convenient cliches, reluctant to tackle certain subjects, liable to
oversimplify complex stories, and biased in favor of politicians who are
admired abroad but reviled by the majority of Russian citizens. (1)

While such assessments are in many cases justified, they do not always
take into account the constraints mainstream journalism imposes on its
practitioners. Critics of the way Russia is covered in foreign media
generally come either from the world of "advocacy journalism," in which
authors openly express opinions about their subjects, or from academia, in
which authors are accustomed to advancing a particular viewpoint or
approach, whether in publications for specialists or in newspaper
editorials.

Mainstream media require their employees to observe a different set of
standards, particularly at the highbrow outlets that keep Moscow bureaus.
Those standards call on correspondents to intrude into the story as little
as possible and keep their own opinions hidden. Journalists are tasked
with providing an accurate impression of current events and interpreting
those events for an audience at home that knows little about Russia.
Stories are not meant to argue in favor of particular individuals or
policies, but are supposed to illustrate major problems and trends,
present different points of view, and above all illuminate how the country
is governed and how its citizens live.

It is extremely difficult for even a diligent correspondent to provide an
accurate, balanced picture of contemporary Russian events while adhering
to the norms of mainstream journalism. Rather than analyzing foreign press
coverage in detail, this paper will concentrate on pitfalls for western
journalists arising from the flawed supply of information available in
Russia. It draws on the author's experience writing for two
English-language daily electronic bulletins (the OMRI Daily Digest from
February 1995 through March 1997 and RFE/RL Newsline from April 1997
through July 1998). Those publications sought to employ dispassionate
prose and not to reveal the writers' opinions about their subjects. But
efforts to compensate for biases in the information supply created an
almost daily tension between the goals of objectivity and accuracy.
Putting events in context involves a certain degree of "framing" or
editorializing. Not providing sufficient background information makes the
journalist the tool of Kremlin "spin doctors" or other political
interests.

Moscow-based correspondents face equally daunting obstacles from the
"demand" side of their occupation. In the U.S., media are devoting less
space to foreign affairs generally and to news about Russia in particular.
Budget cuts prevent correspondents from venturing outside Moscow
frequently. In order to make the news reader-friendly, journalists are
urged not to clutter stories with unfamiliar Russian names. For similar
reasons, editors often insist on the use of short-hand labels ("liberal,"
"hard-line," "reformist," "technocrat"), which are loaded and ill-suited
for describing Russian realities. Although such factors strongly influence
reporting on Russia, they fall outside the scope of this paper, because
both the OMRI Daily Digest and RFE/RL Newsline were conceived as bulletins
for specialists. They were consequently not affected by the slack demand
for detailed coverage of Russia in mainstream media.

THE NEED TO USE RUSSIAN MEDIA

Like foreign journalists everywhere, foreign correspondents in Moscow must
to some extent take their lead from the local media. Most foreign news
operations have only a single correspondent in the Russian capital. Even
the largest newspaper bureaus, such as those run by The New York Times,
the Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times, employ just a handful of
correspondents and a small research staff. News agencies like Reuters and
the Associated Press have larger bureaus but still lack the human
resources to attend every newsworthy press conference or event. Even if
they tried, they would be denied access to certain briefings. Foreign
journalists occasionally travel with President Boris Yeltsin or other
senior officials, but only on the most important trips within the Russian
Federation or abroad. Aside from occasional interviews with "news makers,"
they have less access to influential figures than do Russian journalists.

This is by no means to suggest that foreign correspondents are entirely
dependent on secondhand sources. Many news reports on contemporary life in
Russia contain firsthand reporting, especially in features that focus on
individuals, groups or places to illustrate broad trends. For instance,
interviews with impoverished pensioners show the effects of pension
arrears, a feature on a center to assist refugees sheds light on enduring
residency restrictions in Moscow, a profile of a minority religious sect
shows the consequences of the 1997 religion law, and an article about a
town polluted by chemical enterprises shows the enduring horrific
environmental consequences of Soviet industrial policies.

Less often, foreign correspondents conduct their own investigative
reporting on public figures in Russia. Examples include Chrystia
Freeland's article for the 30 September 1997 edition of the Financial
Times, which explored the connections between Oneksimbank and an obscure
Swiss company that paid then-State Property Committee Chairman Alfred Kokh
$100,000--ostensibly for the right to publish his book. Similarly, David
Filipov and Matt Taibbi published a report in The Boston Globe on 23
October 1997 about U.S. citizen and investment banker Boris Jordan's
possible involvement in the same "book fee" scheme.

Such exceptions notwithstanding, limited resources and access force
foreign journalists to rely in large part on Russian media to keep abreast
of political and economic developments. The most important sources are the
following:

-News agencies. Breaking news usually appears first in one of the
major Russian news agencies. ITAR-TASS and RIA-Novosti are state-owned,
and Interfax is the country's leading private agency. All cover a broad
range of topics, even if their bulletins are lacking in depth. ITAR-TASS
and Interfax in particular carry many exclusive comments by politicians
and business leaders. Their correspondents sometimes attend cabinet
sessions, which are almost always off limits to foreign journalists. On a
busy day in the Russian parliament, each Russian agency will have several
correspondents working in the State Duma or Federation Council, covering
more stories and publishing more comments from various politicians than
foreign correspondents could hope to gather on their own. In addition,
dispatches from the scores of correspondents scattered across the country
may be an important source of story ideas for foreign journalists who have
the time and funds to make only occasional forays outside Moscow.

-Electronic media. The top television networks--51 percent
state-owned Russian Public Television (ORT), fully state-owned Russian
Television (RTR), and the leading private channel NTV--have far more
access to Russian politicians than do foreign journalists. In addition to
covering major stories, they have bureaus in many Russian regions. The
networks also frequently carry exclusive interviews, some of which contain
newsworthy pronouncements (although hard-hitting interviewers are a rare
commodity, especially at the networks with full or partial state
ownership). The private radio station Ekho Moskvy is an important source
for breaking news as well, although its reports occasionally turn out to
be based on unfounded rumors.

-Print media. Although newspapers appear too late for foreign
correspondents rushing to meet a deadline for a breaking story, they still
sometimes contain valuable features or newsworthy interviews. Newspapers
and a few politically-oriented magazines can give foreign journalists
story ideas or background information on long-running stories, such as
coal miners' protests or battles over budget and tax laws. In addition,
some of the top Russian newspapers carry more detailed economic and
business news than do Russian news agencies or electronic media.

In sum, the big news in Russia is usually filtered at least once before it
reaches foreign journalists, who then synthesize and interpret the facts,
adding bits of their own reporting (usually reaction comments from
politicians or analysts). This does not represent a failure of foreign
journalists; it is an inevitable feature of their jobs. But since the raw
material provided by Russian media is often deeply flawed, foreign
coverage can easily because slanted if no attempt is made to compensate
for the biases in the Russian reports.

[...]

COMPENSATING FOR FLAWS IN THE NEWS SUPPLY: WHEN DOES BACKGROUND BECOME
BIAS?

Coping with biased or misleading sources is not a unique challenge for
journalists covering Russia. Governments all over the world try to
influence the way news is reported; every Washington correspondent must
deal with sophisticated White House efforts to "spin" information.
Corporate-owned media exist in many countries and slant the news to
varying degrees. The challenge is to remain as objective as possible while
putting events in their proper context, which is especially important when
writing for foreign readers who are unfamiliar with the country in
question.

Unfortunately, sometimes little can be done to prevent selective reporting
from creeping into foreign coverage, given the limited resources available
to foreign correspondents. One such case was illustrated by coverage of
the June 1998 murder of the mayor of Nefteyugansk, an oil producing city
in Tyumen Oblast. ITAR-TASS reported that the murdered man's bodyguard
identified the attacker as a "person of Caucasian nationality." The news
agency said investigators were considering as a possible motive a
controversy with people from the Caucasus over the operation of a city
market. Few, if any, foreign media operations had stringers anywhere close
to Nefteyugansk, so those that reported the story relied largely on
ITAR-TASS dispatches. The next day, several Russian newspapers reported
that police were also investigating whether the mayor was killed because
of a long-running conflict with the Rosprom-Yukos group. (A subsidiary of
the Yukos oil company is the major employer in Nefteyugansk.) That
possible connection was not mentioned by ITAR-TASS--perhaps because the
agency's deputy director, Leonid Nevzlin, worked for Rosprom-Yukos before
joining the news agency in September 1997. By the time the Russian
newspapers reported on the possible connection, though, the murder was
day-old news, and the ITAR-TASS spin had already found its way to readers
abroad.

In other cases, foreign journalists could approach Russian sources with
more caution. A report issued by the Associated Press during the October
1997 showdown over the 1998 budget conformed remarkably to the way the
Kremlin was trying to package the story. The AP correspondent summarized
the budget debate as a conflict between the president and Duma
"hard-liners":

Yeltsin wants to put the government on austerity, cutting the budget
deficit and ending subsidies to money-losing state enterprises. His
proposal is vehemently opposed by communists and others who have vowed to
restore Soviet-style subsidies to the military and agriculture. (26)

Framing the story as "pro-market Yeltsin versus pro-Soviet Communists"
predisposes readers to side with Yeltsin, even though the controversy over
the budget was far from simple. Here are just a few other ways the same
story could be presented, giving as much weight to the views of different
political actors as the above report did to the pro-Yeltsin line:

-Yeltsin wants to blackmail the parliament into rubber-stamping the
government's most important initiatives. His strategy is vehemently
opposed by Duma deputies who note that the government failed to keep
promises it made during last year's budget debate and has slashed spending
this year without securing parliamentary approval, as is required by law.

-Yeltsin wants the parliament to endorse yet another budget based on rosy
predictions about key factors like economic growth and tax collection. His
proposal is vehemently opposed by Yabloko leader Grigorii Yavlinskii and
others who say enacting unrealistic budgets fosters corruption and
arbitrary rule.

-Yeltsin's austerity budget would further slash military spending, even
though the Russian armed forces already have trouble feeding and clothing
their soldiers properly. The draft budget is vehemently opposed by those
who say resentment in military ranks is growing and that spending cuts
undermine Yeltsin's promise to transform the army into an all-volunteer
force.

-Yeltsin wants to reduce the budget deficit in part by increasing the
federal government's take of easy-to-collect taxes. His proposal is
vehemently opposed by governors who say the revenue losses would devastate
regional governments, which are simultaneously being asked to foot more of
the bill for some social expenditures.

Each of the above options would likely lead readers to draw different
conclusions about the budget debate and Yeltsin's economic policy as a
whole. When encapsulating a complex issue, journalists should question the
assumptions implicit in Russian reports.

It is easy to reproduce biased coverage unintentionally when the slant in
Russian media conforms to one's own opinions about the subject matter. A
classic example of this problem arose in connection with the confusing
events of 19-20 June 1996, which culminated with the dismissal of
Yeltsin's chief bodyguard, Aleksandr Korzhakov. On the evening of 19 June,
two Yeltsin campaign aides were detained leaving government headquarters
with more than $500,000 in cash. Within hours, Russian Public Television
(ORT) and NTV swung into action. In late night and early morning
broadcasts, the networks portrayed the arrests as a provocation staged by
Korzhakov's men, rather than as one small glimpse of the Yeltsin team's
massive violations of campaign finance rules. Many western correspondents
followed the led set by ORT and NTV, portraying Korzhakov's ouster as a
signal that Yeltsin had embraced democracy and would quash attempts to
subvert the electoral process. (27) The way Russian networks framed the
story, which was echoed by Anatolii Chubais during a 20 June press
conference, found a receptive audience among foreign journalists because
Korzhakov was an unsympathetic character and known to be no friend of
democracy. Six weeks before the first round of the presidential election,
the British newspaper The Observer had quoted him calling for the vote to
be postponed. He reportedly discussed the scenario of delaying the
presidential election in private conversations as well. (28)

Assuming journalists want to offset bias expressed by one source for a
story, how best to do so? One favorite method for balancing a story is to
quote commentators or opposition politicians expressing an alternative
point of view. But it is not always possible or practical to find an
appropriate comment, especially when a journalist wants to provide
straight background information rather than an opinion and is operating
under tight word limits.

Here we come to perhaps the most difficult problem of reporting on Russia
and a challenge for any journalist anywhere: drawing a distinction between
legitimate background information and editorializing. When I reflect on
this problem, one story frequently comes to mind. It happened in November
1996, when Yeltsin gave the November 7 holiday (which traditionally had
marked the anniversary of the October Revolution) a new name: the Day of
Unity and Accord. His spokesman commented that Yeltsin was extending the
message of his re-election campaign, in which (according to the spokesman)
the president called for an end to dividing Russians into groups of "reds"
and "whites." That statement was an outrageous misrepresentation of
Yeltsin's re-election strategy, which involved orchestrating a relentless
anti-Communist drumbeat in campaign commercials, news coverage, and even
entertainment programming. Here is how I ended my short summary of the
news:

Presidential spokesman Sergei Yastrzhembskii told Radio Rossii that in
calling for Russians not to be divided into reds and whites, Yeltsin was
continuing the message of unity he expressed during his presidential
campaign. In fact, Yeltsin's re-election campaign was almost entirely
built on anti-communist rhetoric that suggested that a Gennadii Zyuganov
presidency would return Russia to mass repression, famine and civil war.
(29)

What I did probably crossed the line and might have been killed by an
editor at a major newspaper. In trying to put a misleading statement in
context, I put my own spin on the story. But I would try to do the same
thing again, on the grounds that foreign readers who did not experience
the Russian presidential campaign need a reminder about how Yeltsin ran
for re-election.

Similar dilemmas arise nearly every day when one is trying to synthesize
and interpret the news--especially when the news makers may be
hypocritical or untrustworthy. Here are some examples:

-When quoting a Kremlin official who denies rumors that Yeltsin is
seriously ill, is it appropriate or alarmist to remind readers that the
Kremlin has in the past issued countless false statements about the
president's health?

-When covering a Communist rally at which party leaders vow to take all
possible steps to force changes in economic policy, is it helpful or
prejudicial to mention that a significant number of Communist Duma
deputies voted for the government's 1997 and 1998 budgets?

-When quoting Anatolii Chubais denouncing the oligarchs and promising to
hold only fair privatization auctions, how much need be said about
Chubais's role in creating the oligarchs' immense wealth and presiding
over undeniably corrupt privatization auctions?

-When reporting on Yeltsin's remarks at the funeral for Nicholas II, is it
useful to mention that as Sverdlovsk obkom secretary in the 1970s, Yeltsin
authorized the destruction of the house in which the last tsar's family
was killed? Or is calling attention to that event gratuitous
Yeltsin-bashing?

-When presidential aides hail regional elections, saying Russians have
been able to choose their own local leaders for the first time, how much
background is needed to give readers and accurate picture of democratic
development in Russia? Should journalists mention that Yeltsin fought for
years to delay the elections in order to maintain his power to hire and
fire governors? Should it also be noted that the Kremlin has repeatedly
failed to condemn electoral abuses perpetrated by Yeltsin allies in order
to stay in office? (30) Or is it sufficient to say that only some
elections at the regional level are genuinely hard-fought battles?

None of those questions can be answered definitively, but reflecting on
them may help readers appreciate the tough calls that go into producing
accurate and balanced coverage of Russia.

NOTES
(1) Some of the most cogent (and certainly the most merciless) assessments
of foreign reporting on Russia are published regularly in the
English-language Moscow-based newspaper eXile under the pseudonym Abram
Kalashnikov. Less frequently, critiques of western press coverage appear
in the same newspaper under the name of eXile editor Matt Taibbi.
[...]
(26) Maura Reynolds, "Russian President Raises the Stakes in Showdown with
Parliament," Associated Press, 14 October 1997.
(27) David Remnick's "The War for the Kremlin," published in The New
Yorker's 22 July 1996 issue, gave credence to the allegation that
Korzhakov's men ("the party of war") planted money on the campaign aides
in order to subvert the election. The early television reports, which
Remnick says he watched the night of 19-20 June, put forward the "frameup"
version of the story. So did then-NTV president Igor Malashenko and other
sources connected to the Yeltsin campaign, whom Remnick interviewed for
his article. By the time that the piece appeared in The New Yorker,
officials had admitted that the detained men were taking money out of
government headquarters, although they (unpersuasively) denied that any
laws were broken. In November 1996, a transcript of a June 1996
conversation among Anatolii Chubais and two other Yeltsin campaign
officials was published in Moskovskii komsomolets. That transcript (the
authenticity of which was never challenged in court) made clear that
Chubais and others sent the two campaign aides to fetch the money and then
lied in public while working intensely behind the scenes to obstruct a
criminal investigation of how the men came to be carrying the cash away
from the White House. However, the paperback version of Remnick's 1997
book Resurrection still leads readers to believe the false "frameup"
version of the story. Resurrection, New York, Vintage Books, June 1998,
pp. 346-348.
(28) For example, a Korzhakov aide discussed such a scenario with Stanford
University Profession Michael McFaul a few months before the election.
(29) OMRI Daily Digest, 8 November 1996.
(30) Mintimer Shaimiev ran unopposed for re-election as the president of
Tatarstan, although Russian federal law explicitly prohibits
single-candidate elections. Federation Council Speaker and Orel Oblast
Governor Yegor Stroev, Mordovian President Nikolai Merkushkin, and Bashkir
President Murtaza Rakhimov won re-election by lopsided majorities after
all serious would-be challengers had been excluded from the race.

*******