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CDI Library > Johnson's Russia List

Johnson's Russia List
 

 

June 15, 1999    
This Date's Issues: 3341 • 3342 


Johnson's Russia List
#3342
15 June 1999
davidjohnson@erols.com

[Note from David Johnson:
1. Reuters: Russians upbeat about Kosovo force deal.
2. Reuters: Russian general in Kosovo served at NATO. (Zavarzin)
3. Financial Times: Philip Stephens, Taming the big bear. The time is now
right for Europe to bring Russia in from the cold or suffer the consequences.

4. Interfax: Yavlinskiy Urges New International Security Concept.
5. Reuters: Muscovites turn to coffee as temperatures soar.
6. Christian Science Monitor: Peter Grier and James N. Thurman, Reading 
Russia's motives.

7. Turin's La Stampa: Russia: Officer on Pristina Troop Dash.
8. Reuters: Russian lawmakers warn West of Kosovo strains.
9. Moscow Times: Euan Craik, Caspian Oil Has Future.
10. Boston Globe editorial: Russia's posturing in Pristina.
11. Los Angeles Times editorial: Russia Makes NATO Blink.
12. The Independent (UK): Rose Baring, From Russia with difficulty. 
Russian paintings were crucial to the birth of modern art. So why are they 
so hard to find?] 


*******

#1
Russians upbeat about Kosovo force deal
By Oleg Shchedrov

MOSCOW, June 15 (Reuters) - Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin, speaking ahead
of a series of meetings between Russian and U.S. officials, expressed
confidence on Tuesday that strains with NATO over Moscow's role in Kosovo
could soon be overcome. 

Stepashin also indicated that Russian diplomats and military had managed to
restore order in Moscow's Kosovo policy, which had been thrown into doubt
by the surprise entry of 200 Russian paratroopers into Kosovo last Friday. 
``I think that all frictions we had will be over before the end of the
week,'' Stepashin told reporters after a Kremlin meeting with President
Boris Yeltsin. 

Deputy paratroop commander Nikolai Staskov, whose troops moved to Kosovo
from Russia's peacekeeping contingent in Bosnia, echoed Stepashin's optimism. 

``The paratroop command believes the issue of deploying the Russian
contingent in Kosovo should be resolved in the next three or four days,''
Interfax news agency quoted him as saying. 

Yeltsin is due to meet U.S. President Bill Clinton at a summit of the seven
leading industrial nations (G7) in the German city of Cologne on Sunday. 

On Wednesday Russian and U.S. Defence and Foreign Ministers are due to meet
in Helsinki. 

The deployment of Russian paratroopers in the Kosovo capital Pristina has
raised questions about who is running Moscow's Balkans policy. 

Russian officials have said the decision to enter Kosovo ahead of NATO was
part of a plan authorised by President Boris Yeltsin. 

But Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, who was holding talks in Moscow with U.S.
Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott when the news broke, has said he
had not been informed in advance. 

``The first thing we agreed is that all work on the Kosovo problem should
be coordinated,'' said Stepashin after meeting Yeltsin. ``The Foreign
Ministry will spearhead the work on international agreements.'' 

``The synchronisation of actions by the Foreign Ministry, the military and
the government with a subsequent report to the president is a pattern we
have already introduced,'' he added. 

Stepashin did not mention Russia's key demand for a separate sector in
Kosovo outside NATO's control and focused on the need to disarm guerrillas
from the Kosovo Liberation Army. 

``There is one major issue outstanding,'' Stepashin said. ``The order of
the U.N. Security Council to disarm illegal armed formations must be
carried out,'' he said. 
In a sign that Russia might be watering down its demand for a separate
sector, RIA news agency quoted Serb sources in Kosovo as saying planned
Russian reinforcements would fan out across the province. 

Russian news agencies quoted U.S. sources as saying on Monday that the
Russians could formally report to the commander of a Finnish contingent in
Kosovo rather than directly to NATO. 

But Interfax news agency quoted Defence Ministry sources as ruling out such
an option. 

The Russian government's freedom for manoeuvre is limited by the tough
anti-NATO stance taken by the Communist-led lower house of parliament,
which later this week is due to consider draft laws needed to win fresh
foreign credits. 

The State Duma asked Ivanov and Defence Minister Igor Sergeyev to come to
the chamber on Thursday to brief deputies on their Kosovo policy. 

The head of the Federation Council upper house, which would have to
authorise the dispatch of more troops to Kosovo, also spelled out the
limits to a possible compromise. 

``We favour the peacekeepers reporting to Russia or to the United Nations,
but in no way to the unified NATO command,'' Yegor Stroyev said. 

As the politicians debated Kosovo policy, the Russian paratroopers,
stranded in the Kosovo capital Pristina with only a few days' supplies,
awaited a Russian column of 11 vehicles with food, fuel and cash which left
Bosnia early on Tuesday. 

*******

#2
NEWSMAKER-Russian general in Kosovo served at NATO
By Brian Killen

MOSCOW, June 14 (Reuters) - Russian Colonel-General Viktor Zavarzin, who 
stunned the West when he led a column of about 200 paratroops into the 
Yugoslav province of Kosovo, has been at the forefront of Moscow's tense 
relations with NATO. 

The 50-year-old was Moscow's first senior military representative at the 
Western military alliance's headquarters in Brussels until March, when he was 
recalled in protest after NATO launched air strikes against Yugoslavia. 

When his troops rolled into Kosovo on Saturday, before NATO forces had 
crossed into the province, Zavarzin was catapulted to the centre of 
controversy over Russia's role in an international peacekeeping force. 

His men, who now control the airfield at the capital Pristina, are waiting 
for other Russian forces to arrive and have so far refused to surrender the 
area to NATO forces which have since occupied surrounding areas. 

But Russia has said it will send in no more troops without a prior agreement 
with NATO. Talks broke up on Sunday yielding no clue as to how they would be 
integrated into the command structure of the peacekeepers or where they would 
be stationed. 

Zavarzin, named Russia's first military representative at NATO in 1997, has 
already held talks with NATO's senior Kosovo commander, Lieutenant-General 
Sir Mike Jackson, on concrete cooperation on the ground. 

NATO spokesman Jamie Shea said Zavarzin's experience in dealing with the 
alliance would help to ensure a ``harmonious working relationship.'' 

Yeltsin promoted to Zavarzin to three-star colonel-general from two-star 
lieutenant-general on the day of the deployment in Kosovo, indicating Kremlin 
support for the move, although it remains unclear who precisely ordered him 
to send in his men. 

The very presence of such a senior officer with the Russian troops suggested 
the manoeuvre was planned in advance. 

Zavarzin is now a hero in the eyes of Communists and nationalists at home who 
have called for a more aggressive Russian response to the NATO bombing raids 
and favour a more active role by Moscow in a peace settlement. 

A stocky, taciturn character with a background in the mechanised infantry, 
Zavarzin took part in Kosovo peace talks in Bonn and Belgrade, but his 
Russian army service history is dominated by peacekeeping operations closer 
to home. Before his appointment to NATO in October 1997, Zavarzin was deputy 
head of the Moscow headquarters for military cooperation with former Soviet 
states. 

He previously headed the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) 
peacekeeping force in Tajikistan, where a civil war raged for four years 
until 1997. The CIS groups 12 former Soviet republics, where Russia remains a 
dominant military presence. 

Zavarzin's role at NATO was part of a joint strategy aimed at improving ties 
between Russia and the alliance, strained by Kremlin concerns over NATO's 
eastward expansion. 

Western military sources say he did not stand out in Brussels as someone who 
put forward initiatives or was particularly active in promoting cooperation 
with NATO. 

*******

#3
Financial Times
June 11, 1999
[for personal use only]
KOSOVO: Taming the big bear 
The time is now right for Europe to bring Russia in from the cold or suffer 
the consequences
By Philip Stephens

Isn't it about time all you European social democrats did something for 
Russia? Madeleine Albright's gentle jibe during a conversation with a 
European colleague earlier this week touched a nerve. American firepower 
forced Slobodan Milosevic's retreat from Kosovo. US diplomacy kept Boris 
Yeltsin, albeit erratically, on side. The peace is supposed to mark Europe's 
hour. So the chatter in the chancelleries speaks of a new era of creative 
engagement with Moscow.

Tony Blair is said to be seized of the idea. The prime minister has had a 
good war. His willingness to take risks has given him an attentive 
international audience. I would be surprised if he did not exploit it at the 
summit of the Group of Eight Nations in Cologne next week.

Until the summit starts, we won't know for certain whether the unpredictable 
Mr Yeltsin will actually turn up. But Mr Blair thinks it is time to give 
Russia full membership of this elite group. Time too for Europe to add 
substance to all those dog-eared promises of economic and political 
partnership.

Nato's pressing task, of course, is to secure Kosovo. It is not just that the 
Serbs must be kept to their word on withdrawal, that the refugees must be 
convinced it is safe to return and the KLA persuaded to disarm. Or, for that 
matter, that the country's physical fabric lies in ruins. Civil society in 
Kosovo has to be recreated from scratch.

The aching complexity of the task is mirrored in a blizzard of acronyms. The 
European Union (EU) has been drafted in to oversee the reconstruction. That 
means picking up most of the bill to repair the damage of all those American 
bombs. The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), with 
a much broader membership, has the job of establishing new democratic 
institutions. And the United Nations (UN) will oversee matters such as 
domestic policing.

Above them stands the special representative, in effect the governor of a new 
international protectorate. And alongside him is Nato's General Sir Michael 
Jackson, directing the alliance's forces and overseeing, though not 
commanding, the promised Russian troops. That's what I call complex.

It's behind these, the military and humanitarian tasks, that lie the bigger 
questions of geo-politics. Nato's European members have not had a bad war. 
Sure, there were visible strains and tensions during the bombing campaign, 
and sharper exchanges behind the scenes. But few would have predicted, say, 
that Greece would stand firm for 78 days. Nor, when three weeks ago a ground 
invasion began to look a real possibility, that Italy would sign up alongside 
Britain and France.

Yet the peace demands a step change in strategic thinking. Europe must begin 
to take charge of its own security. For the past decade it has closed its 
eyes to Russia's descent into economic collapse and political chaos. That's 
no longer an option. A Europe committed to keeping the peace in Kosovo must 
look beyond the Balkans. As EU leaders admitted at their Cologne summit a 
week ago, "a stable, democratic and prosperous Russia firmly anchored in a 
united Europe . . . is essential to lasting "peace".

On one, rather crude, level it's payback time - the moment for the west to 
open its cheque book. Mr Milosevic conceded defeat only after being told by 
his friends in Moscow there was no escape route. Meanwhile, Mr Yeltsin's 
regime remains desperate for western financial aid. It needs $4.8bn (£3bn) 
from the International Monetary Fund to keep up the payments on previous 
loans. If they are honest, Nato governments will admit Kosovo leaves a debt 
to be repaid. Neither side could possibly acknowledge the linkage. It's there.

Russia's role is one of the paradoxes of the conflict. The wounded bear has 
appeared as both impotent and powerful. From the outset, Nato determined that 
Moscow would not exercise a veto over the military campaign. To have done 
otherwise would have been to play directly to Belgrade. Mr Milosevic 
calculated that if Nato didn't crack, he could rely on Moscow to constrain 
severely the alliance's military options.

He was wrong. And yet if Russia was unwilling or unable to protect its Slav 
cousins, its consent was vital to a settlement. For as long as Nato baulked 
at a ground invasion, it relied on the unpredictable Mr Yeltsin. The 
compromises made by the alliance in the framing of the eventual agreement 
were there to make it acceptable to Mr Yeltsin, rather than palatable to Mr 
Milosevic.

The course was hardly smooth. One European foreign minister recalls that a 
few weeks ago Igor Ivanov, Russia's foreign minister, drew lines on a map to 
show how peace might be restored to Kosovo. Russia would police a northern 
sector contiguous with Serbia. Lightly armed Greek and Swiss forces would be 
deployed further south. Nato's troops would remain pinned behind the 
Macedonian and Albanian borders. What followed was not an easy conversation.

Even later, when Mr Yeltsin seemed to have accepted the inevitability of a 
Nato victory, the constant jostling for power in Moscow meant that the 
alliance could never be sure that Victor Chernomyrdin, the president's envoy, 
spoke for the Kremlin. And we know that many in Russia's security and 
military establishment still regard the terms of the peace deal as a 
humiliation.

Implementation may inflict further wounds on Moscow's pride. For all Mr 
Ivanov's cartography, talk of the deployment of 10,000 or more Russian troops 
in Kosovo is greeted with some scepticism within Nato. Some alliance 
officials say Moscow has only two or three thousand suitable troops. Such a 
token force would greatly simplify, of course, Nato's task in guarding 
against any partition of Kosovo. It would not do much for Russian self-esteem.

Engagement, though, is about more than soothing Moscow's sensitivities. Those 
who doubt it need only to look at Russia's vast stockpile of nuclear weapons. 
Consider, too, those decaying nuclear energy plants, the flourishing arms 
trade with the world's least salubrious regimes, organised crime and the 
international traffic in drugs. These things matter to the rest of the 
Continent.

In December, Russia elects a new parliament. By the middle of next year it 
will have a new president. How comfortable will Europe feel about keeping the 
peace in the Balkans if power in Moscow returns to communists and hardline 
nationalists?

There are many, of course, who will tell you there is nothing to be done. 
Financial aid goes through a revolving door to numbered Swiss accounts. As 
long as Russian politics is a playground for crony capitalists and Mafia 
cliques, the country will never prosper. Russia must help itself before the 
west can lend a serious hand.

Like most counsels of despair, the case can be made convincingly. Of course, 
there are big obstacles and difficult limits. Helping Russia does not mean 
patronising it. There are also opportunities. Removing Moscow's second-class 
status in the G8 is an obvious starting point. On the economic front, only EU 
protectionism stands in the way of a free trade agreement. Technical 
assistance is important. So, too, is respect.

It's simple really. if Russia is not treated as a friend, it will act as an 
enemy. Mrs Albright is right. It's time Europe did something.

********

#4
Yavlinskiy Urges New International Security Concept 

MOSCOW, June 11 (Interfax) -- Yabloko party leader 
Grigory Yavlinsky has said that Russia must work out proposals for 
creating a new concept in world security. The Balkan crisis "showed that 
the world security system ceased to exist after 1991," Yavlinsky said at 
a press conference at Interfax's main office on Friday. The United 
Nations and its Security Council can no longer carry out its function in 
its current form after the dissolution of the USSR, the Warsaw Pact and 
the former standoff," he said. Therefore, "a new concept for the 
international security system should be drawn up. It must be done" to 
prevent a new war, he said. Events in Yugoslavia signified "a defeat of 
Russian diplomacy which had failed to overcome crisis in the past two 
years," he said. "However, its actions on the final stage can be 
supported," he said. Yabloko has opposed Russia's involvement in the war 
since it started, he said. "This objective was attained, as of today," he 
said. Russia must "learn its lesson" in the Balkan crisis, he said. 

"Pursuing nationalistic policy in a federation like Russia leads to 
full-scale state and national catastrophes," he said. Another lesson is 
that NATO's use of force showed its readiness "to use a double standard, 
which would never procure peace anywhere," he said. [Description 

*******

#5
Muscovites turn to coffee as temperatures soar
By Sebastian Alison

MOSCOW, June 14 (Reuters) - The world coffee trade, in an appeal to Russia's 
youth, served up 40,000 free cups of coffee daily over the weekend at a vast 
festival aimed at tapping one of the last undeveloped coffee markets. 

"Russia is still seen as potentially, apart from China, the only immense new 
market in the world," Alexei Mojarov, Economic Affairs Officer of the 
Commodities branch of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, 
told Reuters. 

"Of all coffee sold in Russia, 95 percent is soluble. For real coffee, 
there's tremendous opportunity. 

To maintain a toehold in this market, the International Coffee Organisation 
brought together several of Russia's most popular groups on Saturday and 
Sunday for a free concert. 

Fans who came to Moscow's Exhibition of National Economic Achievements, a 
vast Soviet-era fairground, in searing heat to hear their favourite groups, 
were bombarded with promotional literature, stickers, gimmicks and, of 
course, coffee. 

The ICO is facing an uphill struggle to get Russians to drink coffee. After 
several years of steady growth, the market took a setback last August as 
rouble devaluation cut disposable income and luxuries such as coffee were 
among the first victims. 

"We just want to sustain coffee at the top of people's minds," Michael Heath, 
promotions manager at the ICO, told Reuters at the festival site, festooned 
with Soviet-era statues and monuments and one of Moscow's many masterpieces 
of kitsch. 

"We want to bring a cup of coffee to the people at a time of crisis when 
there's little money and little joy. There are some big groups here, it's a 
nice day out and there's free coffee." 

Russia's hot drinks market has long been dominated by tea, drunk by children 
as young as two years old, and Heath said the festival was trying to create a 
separate niche for coffee. 

"We're not at war with tea. But coffee will always be more expensive, so we 
must make the experience more varied and enjoyable. We want to encourage a 
more leisurely, intellectual, Left Bank coffee culture." 

Alexander Malchik, president of Montana Coffee, a Moscow firm with a $2 
million annual turnover dealing in top-of-the-range coffees since 1992, said 
Russians were slowly developing a taste for real coffee. 

"When we started we were focused on expats," he said. "But by 1995 or 1996, 
90 percent of our market was Russian. Coffee is an affordable product to a 
lot of Russians, who spend a lot of income on alcohol and tobacco. 

"Not only are these not good for you, they are actually bad for you. So 
coffee is in this respect a healthy product." 

Malchik has worked in the United States, where he pointed out that as 
recently as 1980, 75 percent of coffee consumption was instant and 25 percent 
real. Now that position has been reversed, he said, and he hopes Russia will 
see a similar trend. 

The biggest companies in the Russian market, Heath said, are Nestle 
<NESZn.S>, Kraft Jacobs Suchard, part of Philip Morris <
<A HREF="aol://4785:MO">MO.N</A>>, and Brazil's Cacique. All were offering 
free samples to the estimated 75,000 daily visitors to the festival. 

But who wants to drink hot espresso coffee outdoors when the fairground 
thermometers showed 34 degrees Celsius (93.2 fahrenheit)? The ICO's Heath was 
undeterred: "I can drink it anytime...I've got coffee in my veins." 

*******

#6
Christian Science Monitor
June 15, 1999
Reading Russia's motives
Tiff over troops in Kosovo signals Yeltsin's determination not to be an 
ignored partner. 
By Peter Grier and James N. Thurman, Staff writers of The Christian Science 
Monitor 

Eight years after the breakup of the Soviet Union, the US and Russia remain a 
wary couple with a fragile relationship. 

Typically, just when Washington thinks things are going great, Russia - bam - 
does something to remind US officials that it isn't willing to be a demure 
partner. 

Thus the race of Russian peacekeeping troops into Kosovo is in keeping with 
the recent pattern of interaction between Moscow and the West. 

This cycle of hope and disappointment is likely to continue in coming months, 
with the emphasis on disappointment. The reason: Coming elections in both 
nations may set political limits on what either can offer in the way of 
reconciliation. 

"Confrontation is not entirely over," says Ruth Wedgewood, a 

senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. "Russia still 
has a kind of unpredictable streak when it feels cornered." 

The swirling end to the Kosovo crisis has been an accurate reflection of what 
one expert calls the "Clinton-Yeltsin bargain" over the US-Russia 
relationship. 

President Clinton's side of the bargain is that he goes out of his way to 
provide Russia a place at the table in big power discussions. That will be in 
evidence this weekend, when Mr. Clinton is scheduled to meet President 
Yeltsin at a Group of Eight summit in Cologne, Germany. 

Russia's military and economic weaknesses might have allowed Washington to 
ignore its wishes. Instead, Clinton "has actively sought to integrate Russia 
into Europe, to bolster Russia," said James Goldgeier, a Brookings 
Institution visiting fellow in foreign policy, at a press briefing last week. 

In return, Mr. Yeltsin has essentially gone along with the substance of what 
the West wants, on issue after issue. He grudgingly did not stand in the way 
of NATO expansion from 16 to 19 nations. His personal envoy played a key role 
in persuading Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic to give in and allow an 
international peacekeeping force to occupy Kosovo. 

The Yeltsin government appears to accept that it does not have a veto over 
Western strategic policies. But it also believes that it retains a voice in 
how those actions are implemented. Thus, the dash of 200 Russian troops to 
the airport in Pristina may be, in essence, Russia's way of saying it will be 
heard. 

"This is a shot across the bow to say they want to be involved," says Ivan 
Eland, director of defense policy studies at the Cato Institute here. "To 
some extent they have a point. We ignored them until the air campaign didn't 
look like it was going all that well." 

Moscow's point of view may be that the peacekeeper move follows years of 
frustration. Russian political elites took great affront at the expansion of 
NATO right up to their border. Now NATO has bombed Yugoslavia, with which 
Russia has long-standing ties, with impunity. Ordinary Russian citizens, not 
just Kremlin habitués, are upset. 

"This was the first issue that went beyond the political elite and filtered 
down into the population ... as something that was wrong for the West to do, 
and that Russia could not do much to stop," says Mr. Goldgeier of Brookings. 

That means the next leader of Russia may be markedly more anti-American, and 
anti-NATO, than Yeltsin is. Russian elections are next summer - only months 
before the US vote. 

Domestic political pressures may mean that neither side will want to appear 
to be giving in to the other. Kosovo, in the end, may turn out to be more 
important to the US as an influence on US-Russia relations than as a NATO 
humanitarian action. 

And Russia still has nuclear weapons, although not as many as it used to. 

"We have to be extremely careful," says John Curtis Perry, a professor of 
diplomacy at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in 
Medford, Mass. "What is Russia's role going to be in eastern Europe, 
particularly in the Slavic states?' 

Some experts, in fact, say the contingent of Russian troops in Pristina means 
that a large change has already occurred in the US-Russia relationship - and 
one that is for the worse. 

The Clinton goal of a strategic partnership between the former adversaries is 
now dead, says Daniel Goure, a military expert at the Center for Strategic 
and International Studies here. "What you are now seeing is the emergence of 
great powers competing over the Balkans," he says. "And by the way, that's 
what gotten us into a couple of world wars." 

The Clinton team has ignored Russian attitudes once too often, says Mr. 
Goure. "This needs to be treated far more seriously than the administration 
is taking it," he says. 

*******

#7
Russia: Officer on Pristina Troop Dash 

Turin's La Stampa in Italian 
13 June 1999
[translation for personal use only]
Report on interview with unnamed 'high-ranking officer in the Russian 
Armed Forces' by Giulietto Chiesa in Moscow on 12 June: "The Conspirators 
of Operation Kosovo" 

Moscow -- The meeting took place in a park not far 
from his office -- a bit like back in the days of the USSR -- but not 
because he was afraid that his phone might be tapped. No one checks up on 
anyone these days; or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that they 
-- the people in the corridors of power, in the luxury dacias, in the 
glass-fronted headquarters of the banks -- check up on each other, shadow 
each other, and film each other. But our reason was simply that it was a 
hot day, and it was easier to conduct the interview over a cool beer 
under a parasol by a park kiosk. The high-ranking officer in the Russian 
Armed Forces, dressed in civvies, was an elegant, educated man with a 
discreet sense of humor that he used sparingly, accompanying it with a 
ghost of a smile sketched on his lips. 

"Those guys in NATO are too nervous," he said, smiling. In his view, 
"nothing very much" happened. Forgive me, but how can you say something 
like that? The whole world is watching Moscow's every move; your troops 
are in Pristina airport and they got there before those of the winners, 
NATO. Do you call that "nothing very much"? He smiled, again. "Russia is 
unpredictable. I read that in Newsweek. They are nervous because they did 
not expect it, because they failed to predict it. But all we did was to 
put two and two together. Mr. Talbott, a charming gentleman, carried on 
telling us for two days in a row, last night and this morning, that we 
simply had to accept NATO's decisions regarding the areas assigned as 
final, and that we had to subscribe to them. We put forward several 
proposals, and on each occasion he gave us the same answer, with a smile. 

At that point it dawned on us that Strobe was only playing for time, or 
else that he was trying to get us to lose our patience. After 48 hours of 
those smiles we would have seen Kosovo occupied by NATO and we would have 
had no other choice than to accept their decisions. So, we decided..." 

That is the whole point: Who decided? At this juncture my interlocutor 
said that he preferred to speak off the record [previous three words in 
English in original], without inverted commas. He was not present in 
person, but he reported things that he has heard, and the sense of them 
was only too clear. As early as Friday afternoon [11 June], Chief of 
Staff Anatoliy Kvashnin reportedly held a meeting with his closest aides 
and, after a brief overview of the situation and a quick look at CNN, he 
is said to have called Lieutenant General Viktor Zavarzin, the Russian 
representative with NATO, giving the green light to the operation. Does 
"the green light" mean that the operation had already been planned in the 
days prior to the call? "Of course. Zavarzin was already in Bosnia, and 
that was no mere coincidence." But was the President [Boris Yeltsin] 
informed? Or Defense Minister Sergeyev? The officer could not swear that 
Yeltsin had been informed regarding the paratroopers' entry into 
Yugoslavia, but he was certain of one thing, namely that the people in 
the Presidential Administration to whom the affair "was communicated" 
were under the impression that they were going to stop at the border. The 
fact that Foreign Minister Ivanov was not informed is just as simple to 
explain: If he had known, he too would have gotten nervous, and "that 
would not have been appropriate since he was busy with Strobe 
Talbott."

In other words, are you saying that at a given moment there was a "team 
decision" after the Chief of Staff had reached his own decision? He 
smiled, again. "Anatoliy Kvashnin and Leonid Ivashov truly embody the 
predominant opinion in the upper echelons of the Russian Armed Forces. We 
all realized that either we had to go in by surprise or we would not get 
in at all. Or else we would have gotten in like poor pilgrims, cap in 
hand, asking for a place in the shade." At this point the smile 
disappeared, and his lips took on a bitter twist. "They should thank us, 
and they will thank us. Indeed, the fact that Yeltsin promoted Zavarzin 
is proof that they explained the situation to him. If we had discovered a 
week from now that all the Serbs had fled Kosovo, what could we have told 
the Russian people? That we did nothing to prevent a second round of 
ethnic cleansing?" 

That confirms the rumors that were circulating in Moscow yesterday, 
triggered by a report by Itar-Tass Belgrade correspondent Tamara 
Zamiatina on the NTV television channel claiming that General Zavarzin 
broke off communications, so to speak, once he put himself at the head of 
the Russian paratroopers heading for Pristina. The journalist claimed to 
know for certain that the Russian Embassy in Belgrade repeatedly sought 
to get in contact with the military column "to give it the order to 
halt." But without succeeding, which sounds very strange indeed in view 
of the importance of the mission. 

Is that all true? "It may not be totally true, but it is certainly 
highly likely," my officer said, and the smile returned to his lips. 
Yeltsin came out in support of your action, but you spoiled the party for 
him, for Chernomyrdin, and for Clinton. What if you are ordered to 
withdraw? "Chernomyrdin counts for nothing. And do you seriously believe 
that the President will now order us to withdraw? The past 48 hours have 
shown the measure of his relationship with the real country. It is a very 
fine thread. If he were to backtrack now, I think that it might just 
break." 

*******

#8
Russian lawmakers warn West of Kosovo strains
By John O'Callaghan

LONDON, June 14 (Reuters) - Members of the Russian parliament's international 
affairs committee said on Monday that Moscow wanted relations with the West 
to get back on track but warned that NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia had 
strained trust. 

``Having struck Kosovo, the West effectively struck Russia as well,'' Major 
General Nikolai Stolyarnov, a deputy chairman of the committee, told 
reporters. 

``There is only one way to get out of this situation and this is to go back. 
I hope we have sufficient will to return to that situation that existed two 
years ago when we signed the basic act governing relations between NATO and 
Russia.'' 

Beyond the human and material losses, another casualty of the Kosovo conflict 
was trust between Russia and the West, Stolyarnov told a briefing at London's 
Britain-Russia Centre. 

``You are compelling us to review our defence strategy,'' he said. ``The most 
important factor that we need to take account of from the current crisis is 
that NATO has morally lost the war.'' 

He noted that history can turn events backwards and ``suddenly we may find 
ourselves in a situation akin to the worst times of the Cold War.'' 

This was the clearly the worst case scenario, but the fact it was mentioned 
showed how vulnerable Russia felt to NATO encroachment since its former 
satellites Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic joined the Western alliance 
this year. 

The delegates from the Duma, the lower house of parliament, made no specific 
mention of the Russian troops that pipped NATO into Kosovo by racing through 
Serbia and occupying the airport at Pristina when the international 
peacekeeping force arrived. 

Although Russia carries a fair amount of influence with Yugoslav President 
Slobodan Milosevic, the delegates said Moscow does not support his policies 
or actions. 

But they said the same rules apply to the Serb leader and to NATO. 

``We can state that the actions of a military dictator, the actions of 
military violence, have no prospects in a situation as complex as the one in 
Yugolsavia,'' Stolyarnov said through an interpreter. 

``It is impossible to solve such a situation, such a complex situation, with 
the use of military violence.'' 

Other delegates warned that Russian relations with the West were at a 
crossroads. 

``The source, unfortunately, of this situation is the action of NATO,'' said 
Aleksandr Kozyrev, who is also a deputy chairman of the international affairs 
committee. 

Stolyarnov said the West had made a ``very serious strategic error'' and that 
the way forward was to respect the sovereignty of Yugoslavia, restore the 
destroyed economy and get the refugees home, and to formulate international 
law to allow legislative -- rather than military -- solutions to crises. 

*******

#9
Moscow Times
June 15, 1999 
Caspian Oil Has Future 
By Euan Craik
Euan Craik is Moscow bureau chief for Petroleum Argus. He contributed this
comment to The Moscow Times. 

Reports of the Caspian's death have been much exaggerated. The pendulum
has swung in recent months from an atmosphere of gold rush to one of
disappointment brought about by failed exploration projects and low oil
prices. But the truth lies somewhere in between. 

"We never believed reserves were as high as some expected, nor as low as
some now fear," says Gavin Graham, Shell's vice president for the Caspian
region. 

Just a year ago the U.S. Department of Energy was floating a figure of
over 200 billion barrels of proven and potential reserves in the Caspian
basin, placing the region second only to Saudi Arabia as a
hydrocarbon-bearing province. But some now believe these figures were
politically motivated. 

By hyping the potential of Caspian oil, Washington was better able to
justify its foreign policy goal of securing pipelines from the region that
bypass both Russia and Iran. This would achieve the dual objectives of
containing Tehran and ensuring that Moscow did not regain a stranglehold
over exports from Central Asia and the Caucasus. 

Such hype led to talk of a "New Middle East." As one Western oil executive
puts it, "the perception was that all you had to do was to stick a straw in
the ground and oil would come gushing out." Yet as one official at the
Azeri state oil company SOCAR said, "no one in Azerbaijan ever claimed we
were a second Kuwait" 

And suddenly this year, the Caspian bubble seemed to burst. The closure of
first one Azeri exploration consortium, Cipco, and then a second, Naoc,
caused much excitement in the media. Yet it left oil companies in Baku
unfazed. 

Over a dozen "dry holes" were drilled in the North Sea before oil and gas
was found. In the Caspian, it has so far been just six. Besides, geologists
had always argued that the blocks explored by Cipco and Naoc, on the outer
rim of the South Caspian basin, were unlikely to yield much in the way of
oil. "Their failure to find oil there has proved our understanding of the
South Caspian geological model rather than disproved it," said Tim Eggar,
CEO of Britain's Monument Oil and Gas. 

So the Caspian's reserves may not be as large as Washington was trying to
portray. But proven reserves of 15 billion to 30 billion barrels of oil are
already equal to those of the North Sea. And further exploration will by
conservative estimates at least double these over the next decade. "There's
every reason to believe that the Caspian will provide a further 'yet to
find' of 40 billion barrels, with an upside of perhaps 65 billion barrels,"
says Monument's Eggar. 

As a future oil province equivalent to perhaps two North Seas, the Caspian
should start to produce up to 5 million barrels per day over the next
decade, or slightly less than the output of Russia or the United States.
But unlike those populous countries, almost all of the Caspian's crude oil
will be exported, supplying around 5 percent of global demand. 

The recent recovery in prices has created a more favorable environment for
the development of Caspian oil. But continued volatility on the world oil
markets is exacting a heavy toll on upstream plans in the region. 

Most companies say the price of benchmark dated Brent Blend crude will
need to average around $15 per barrel this year for Caspian ventures to be
profitable. But many are also having to factor the present price volatility
into their equations and plan for the worst. "We think Brent will trade in
a range of $11 per barrel to $16 per barrel," Shell's Graham said. "That
means any Caspian project now has to be viable at $11 per barrel." 

Azerbaijan's AIOC says it can meet that test and has budgeted those
constraints into its next phase of expansion. But the $10 billion AIOC
consortium has economies of scale on its side that few others will be able
to enjoy. 

In a study of a dozen or so projects, Shell concluded that at a price of
$18 per barrel, almost all Caspian projects have positive economics. But at
$14 some become negative, and at $10 almost all become negative. 

Yet there is good reason to believe that costs will fall in the Caspian. 

Labor and facilities are already cheap. But drilling and transportation
remain sky high. Azerbaijan has only two rigs that can drill in deep water,
and competition for these has driven the cost of renting them to among the
highest in the world. But more rigs are on the way, promising to ease the
drilling drought. 

But it is transport that is the highest cost of all. Delivering a barrel
of Turkmen oil to market costs some $7 per barrel, compared with $1 per
barrel in the North Sea. Even here though, tariffs are being trimmed as the
range of transport options increases and routes compete with each other on
price. 

The Caspian has undoubtedly been the victim of being talked up too much.
And it is now clear that there will be failures as well as successes in the
bid to exploit its hydrocarbon wealth. Successful development will require
solutions to the unique challenges posed by the region's politics and
geography. But it would be an error to write-off the Caspian because of
this. And beneath the veneer of doom and despondency in recent months, it
is clear that world's major oil companies see every reason to stay. 

*******

#10
Boston Globe
15 June 1999
Editorial
Russia's posturing in Pristina 

For all the anxious commentary it caused, the Russian grab of an airfield
in Pristina, the capital of Kosovo, has more in common with light opera
than with serious geopolitics. 

Even though the 200 Russian soldiers were accompanied on the last leg of
their nighttime journey from Bosnia to Kosovo by a contingent of Serb
police, and even though their arrival before NATO peacekeepers caused a
sleepless night for many a diplomat, what they were doing was merely
staging an act of symbolic bravado.

It was a Russian way of saying: We may have lost Stalin's empire, but we
have our ways of creating leverage for ourselves. The leverage they sought
was for their talks with US officials about Russia's role in the
peacekeeping operations. 

The Russians care less about the practical operations of the peacekeepers
than about the political outcome of the war. Like the Serbs, the Russians
want Kosovo to remain a province of Serbia. If NATO establishes a
protectorate over Kosovo and eventually hands it over to Albanian Kosovars
as an independent state, the most paranoid prophecies of Russia's
nationalists and nationalistic Communists will seem to be fulfilled.

But Russia today is a bankrupt enterprise. The Russians are obliged to go
hat in hand, begging for credit, to the same NATO countries that do not
want Russian soldiers controlling an exclusive Russian sector in postwar
Kosovo. 

Which is why Secretary of State Madeleine Albright sagely observed of the
Russian posturing at the Pristina airport: ''I don't think we should get
overexcited about what is going on.'' The Russian gesture can have very
little lasting military effect. 

Russian peacekeepers in Kosovo can be given zones to manage within larger
sectors controlled by the major NATO countries. Their commander can report
to a neutral party rather than reporting directly to the NATO commander. 

The Russians should be allowed to save face and to have their peacekeeping
soldiers paid. But they need not be allowed to dictate the political future
of Kosovo or any other part of the Balkans.

******

#11
Los Angeles Times
June 15, 1999 
Editorial
Russia Makes NATO Blink 

NATO troops continue to spread out over Kosovo in an operation that is
likely to see the disputed Serbian province remain an international
protectorate for years to come. One place NATO troops haven't been able to
go is the airport at Pristina, the provincial capital, where the alliance
had intended to locate its expeditionary force headquarters. Over the
weekend Russia stole a march--literally--on NATO, rushing in a 200-man
contingent that seized the field to enforce its demand for a major say in
Kosovo's future. An embarrassed Lt. Gen. Mike Jackson, the British
commander of the peacekeeping forces, could only implausibly claim that he
really didn't care much about the airport anyway since it's too far out of
town to be a convenient headquarters. 

The dash to Pristina was made by Russian troops serving as part of the
peacekeeping forces in nearby Bosnia. NATO's initial response was confusion
at both the military and political levels. Russia's official explanation
for the action is that since the Kosovo occupation is a U.N.-sanctioned
undertaking it has the right to participate without putting its troops
under NATO's orders. Russia is demanding its own zone of responsibility in
northern Kosovo, where most of the province's Serbs live, claiming that as
its due because its diplomacy helped stop the war. The unofficial
explanation for the airport coup came from a Russian general: "By sending
its paratroopers to Yugoslavia . . . Russia has shown to everyone in the
world that its army is still alive and we are not as helpless as some may
think." 

President Clinton tried to minimize the significance of the Russian
challenge by saying that local military commanders could deal with it. The
quick and correct response from U.S. Gen. Wesley K. Clark, NATO's
commander, was that the problem is political and can be dealt with only at
the political level. On Monday, the White House had to agree. Secretary of
State Madeleine Albright and Defense Secretary William S. Cohen will meet
soon with their Russian counterparts to try to end the impasse, and Clinton
will talk with Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin in Cologne, Germany, over
the weekend at the G-8 summit. 

Moscow's readiness to pull such an in-your-face stunt just days before that
summit indicates how determined it remains to assert Russia's claim to be a
key player in European affairs. Russia goes to the G-8 meeting seeking
billions of dollars in fresh aid from the International Monetary Fund to
prop up its enfeebled economy. The United States and its allies could block
that help, though at the risk of strengthening Russia's anti-reform,
anti-Western forces. The chances are, then, that the allies won't try to
use their economic leverage to dictate a settlement of the dispute over who
does what in Kosovo. 

Russia's challenge to the West might well win it a bigger role in Kosovo
than NATO was prepared to grant. That would assure Yugoslavia's President
Slobodan Milosevic an advocate among the occupying forces. That is not
something NATO wanted. Worse, it is not something it had the vision to
anticipate. 

*******

#12
The Independent (UK)
15 June 1999
[for personal use only]
>From Russia with difficulty
Russian paintings were crucial to the birth of modern art. So why are they so 
hard to find? By Rose Baring 

It's either feast or famine. London is, at the moment, basking in the glow of 
two fabulous exhibitions of Russian avant-garde art. Kandinsky at the Royal 
Academy and New Art for a New Era at the Barbican together emphasise the 
primary role played by Russians in the birth of abstract art. But when these 
exhibitions close in a few weeks, those whose imaginations have been fired 
will be forced to travel hither and thither across the country to track down 
more Russian art. 

Is this important? It was Matisse, that apostle of Modernism, who declared 
that his contemporaries in France should visit Russia and not Italy to study 
medieval painting. He was overwhelmed by the early Russian icons he saw in 
Moscow, an influence that was readily acknowledged by Russian painters of the 
avant garde. 

Today, of the British Museum's collection of icons only a handful are on show 
in the medieval gallery - alongside all manner of Byzantine and Gothic 
objects. The offering makes a pathetic comparison with, for example, the 
rooms of west European medieval art in the National Gallery. After the 
Barbican exhibition you have only to visit the icons here, particularly the 
arresting 14th-century icon of St George, the so-called Black George, to see 
the influence those works had on painters such as Natalia Goncharova, Kuzma 
Petrov-Vodkin and Vladimir Tatlin. Tatlin's Sailor, painted in 1911, is a 
humanist icon, nothing more, nothing less. 

There are important works by artists of the Russian avant garde in the Tate 
and the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art. But the Tate does not 
display them - though it says the situation will improve when the Bankside 
gallery opens next year. 

And what of the period leading up to the avant garde? There seems to be no 
18th-century Russian art in the country, and precious little from the 19th 
century. 

It seems to be left to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford to wave the Russian 
flag with its collection of turn-of-the-century Russian paintings and 
drawings. They are mostly from the World of Art group, focused on Alexander 
Benois and Leon Bakst, but include a small but important collection of 
drawings by Leonid Pasternak (which will appear in an exhibition opening on 
22 June), and works by the master Valentin Serov. 

It seems ironic that Britain, whose auction houses experienced a boom in 
Russian art in the late Eighties and early Nineties, should remain so short 
of that country's works of art. As Ivan Samarin, of the Russian art 
consultancy Stuart and Samarin, points out: "Russian music is constantly 
being performed over here, and Russian literature is widely read, but Russian 
art still remains comparatively unknown." 

Though the free movement of Russian art was curtailed during the Communist 
period, there was by no means an iron curtain around it. Armand Hammer 
notoriously acted secretly as a dealer for the Soviet state, selling 
quantities of paintings on to the American market, while ambassadors to the 
Soviet Union frequently returned with enviable collections. 

Yet controversy has dogged the Russian art market. Russian emigres' claims to 
paintings from family collections nationalised after the Revolution have 
tended to focus on Western European works of art. The icon world has been 
plagued by stories of smuggling, notably after the publication of the book 
Hot Art - Cold Cash, in which the Amsterdam collector van Rijn recounted his 
illegal exploits. A number of last-minute withdrawals of avant-garde works 
have been made from sales at auction houses, because of uncertainty over 
attribution and the existence of some highly convincing fakes. 

Yet, regardless of this, excellent private collections have been amassed in 
the past 20 to 30 years. The same could presumably have been done by our 
national institutions. In St Petersburg, I have watched time and again 
Western visitors' amazement as they leave from a tour of the Russian Museum 
with its breath-taking collection of native painting. "How come I never knew 
about this?" they ask. 

The exhibition 'New Art for a New Era: Malevich's Vision of the Russian Avant 
Garde', is showing at the Barbican, east London, until 27 June (0171-638 
8891). Kandinsky, at the Royal Academy, London, runs until 4 July (0171-300 
5760) 

*******



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