December 10, 1999    
This Date's Issues: 3672 • 3673  • 3673

Johnson's Russia List
#3673
10 December 1999
davidjohnson@erols.com


[Note from David Johnson:
1. Interfax: LUKIN REGARDS YELTSIN'S REMARKS TOWARD CLINTON 
INAPPROPRIATE.
2. AFP: Chechnya Campaign Risks Creating Khomeini-Type Messiah, 
Top Governor Warns. (Titov)
3. Interfax: RUSSIAN POLLS PREDICT COMMUNIST VICTORY IN DUMA POLL.
4. Nina Khrushcheva: RRR State Duma Predictions.
5. Ira Straus: Russia game on www.
6. AP: Expert Aids Russian Political Crisis. (Shoigu)
7. Moscow Times EDITORIAL: LDPR Farce Discredits Next Duma.
8. Reuters: Russia's Zhirinovsky boosted by party ban.
9. Itar-Tass: Russian Mafia Threat Exaggerated- General.
10. NTV: TV MOCKS RUSSIAN LEADER'S FOREIGN POLICY GAFFES.
11. Baltimore Sun: Will Englund, Disillusion strikes heart of an 
idealist. Deadlock: A loyal Communist and jilted Italian businessman 
hungers for justice from a powerful Moscow businessman who `always 
forgets to pay.' 
12. New York Times: William Safire, Great Game's Victims.
13. Foreign Policy: Michael McFaul, Getting Russia Right.
14. Wall Street Journal Europe: Julie Corwin, Russia widens its war
in the Caucasus...And cracks down on its press.]


******


#1
LUKIN REGARDS YELTSIN'S REMARKS TOWARD CLINTON INAPPROPRIATE


MOSCOW. Dec 9 (Interfax) - Head of the State Duma Foreign affairs
committee Vladimir Lukin of the Yabloko faction regards President
Yeltsin's utterances in Beijing towards his American counterpart Bill
Clinton as "lame."
"There is no need to out-Americanize the Americans," even when they
make tough statements towards Russia, the member of the parliament said.
The present-day multi-polar world has reached the point when
"neither we (Russia), nor China or America can dictate to anyone what to
do," Lukin said live on the "Ekho Moskvy" radio station on Thursday.
He supposed that "Yeltsin has not yet been informed" about another
Clinton statement that the U.S. would not apply sanctions against Russia
over events in Chechnya.
Lukin expressed his belief that Yeltsin's statements do not mean
Russia is deviating from West to East. "These are only exaggerated
gestures of our politicians," he said.


*****


#2
Chechnya Campaign Risks Creating Khomeini-Type Messiah, Top Governor Warns


MOSCOW, Dec 9, 1999 -- (Agence France Presse) Influential liberal governor 
Konstantin Titov warned Thursday that Russia's military crackdown in Chechnya 
risked creating a Chechen equivalent of Ayatollah Khomeini who could come 
back and haunt Russia.


The respected governor of the Samara region, a possible rightist candidate in 
presidential elections next June, urged Moscow to hold talks with a broad 
range of Chechen leaders, including the current President Aslan Maskhadov.


"I still believe that Maskhadov retains a certain authority, and we should 
not overlook this but use his authority to conduct peace negotiations," said 
Titov, one of the few high-profile Russian politicians to criticize the war, 
which has huge popular support.


Moscow's punishing ground invasion of the separatist republic, launched 
October 1 ostensibly to wipe out Islamic "terrorists," would only push the 
rebels into Chechnya's southern mountains and thence to overseas bases in 
states like Iran, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia, Titov said.


"Will we not then get from the Chechen people a new messiah like Iran once 
got (Ayatollah) Khomeini, a spiritual leader in exile," he asked.


Khomeini returned from exile in France following the overthrow of the Shah of 
Iran in 1979, and installed an Islamic republic in the Gulf state.


Titov stressed he had backed a drive to oust Islamic rebels who invaded 
Dagestan in August and September, attacks which preceded the current military 
operation, and approved the state's battle against terrorism.


"But I'm against conducting a war against our own people," Titov, a key 
figure in the Union of Rightist Forces (SPS) contesting this month's 
parliamentary elections, told Western reporters here.


"What is the political strategy? Take Grozny and then what! Take the 
mountains, and then what!" he said, adding that only specialist forces could 
hope to capture key guerrilla leaders that top Moscow's most wanted list.


"When we take Grozny, there will be corpses. But will (wanted Chechen field 
commander Shamil) Basayev, (Salman) Raduyev be among them. Or someone else 
like Khattab," he asked.


"We should have a political strategy. A political strategy means first of all 
sitting around the negotiating table, including with the countries of the 
Caucasus region," he said, notably Azerbaijani leader Heydar Aliyev and 
Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze.


Titov said Prime Minister Vladimir Putin should extend his contacts with 
opposition religious officials to include clan elders, who still play an 
important role in traditional Chechen society, and women who have helped 
negotiate cease-fires around villages under attack by federal troops.


The governor added that he had as yet seen no proof that Chechens were behind 
the September wave of apartment bomb attacks in Russia which killed 292 
people, blasts Moscow has also used to justify the current Chechnya 
operation.


*******


#3
RUSSIAN POLLS PREDICT COMMUNIST VICTORY IN DUMA POLL


MOSCOW. Dec 9 (Interfax) - If Russia's State Duma elections were
held this week, the communist party led by Gennady Zyuganov would
collect the greatest share of the vote.
According to poll results reported to Interfax on Thursday by the
All-Russian Public Opinion Center, 25% of Russians would cast their
ballots for the communists. The representative poll of 1,600 persons was
conducted on November 29. The center's election polls state figures only
on those persons who intend to take part in the elections.
Meanwhile, the Public Opinion Foundation on December 4 polled 2,000
persons and 21% of the total number of respondents, not just those
planning to vote, supported the communists.
Sociologists from the Russian Public Opinion and Market center also
predict success for the communists, but say that the communists might
garner 18% of the vote. On November 28, they surveyed 1,500 adults
throughout the country. This percentage reflects those who plan to vote.
The unity coalition led by Sergei Shoigu would place second,
collecting 18% according to the Public Opinion Center, 17% according to
the Public Opinion Foundation and 14% according to the Public Opinion
and Market center.
The Fatherland-All Russia coalition led by Yevgeny Primakov comes
third with 12%, 9% and 11%, respectively, and the liberal Yabloko party
of Grigory Yavlinsky fourth with 9%, 7% and 9%, respectively.
The Union of Right-wing Forces led by Sergei Kiriyenko could count
on 5%, 4% and 5%, respectively, and the new Zhirinovsky Bloc on 3%, 4%
and 6%, respectively.


******


#4
Date: Thu, 09 Dec 1999
From: Nina Khrushcheva <nkhrushcheva@iews.org> 
Subject: Duma Elections


This link might be very useful to those who follow Russia's elections.
EastWest Institute's Russian Regional Report predicts Total State Duma
Results and Single-Seat Results with names, numbers, percentage,
comparison to the current Duma body, etc.!!!!!!!


Please go to the RRR State Duma Predictions


http://www.iews.org/rrrabout.nsf


Nina L. Khrushcheva
Director of Communications and Special Projects
EastWest Institute
700 Broadway, 2nd Floor
New York, NY 10003


******


#5
Date: Thu, 09 Dec 1999 
From: IRASTRAUS@aol.com (Ira Straus)
Subject: Russia game on www


Here's one that must have been designed for us. 


Bleary eyed after going through his eleventh JRL of the day, Tom Chancie 
turns to the Russia Game to apply his newfound knowledge.
- - -
FREE Software - Tom Clancy's POLITIKA from Red Storm Entertainment


You're in Russia and President Boris Yeltsin has suddenly died with 
no obvious successor, leaving a power vacuum. You belong to one of 
eight major factions that have risen from the chaos and are 
competing to take control of the remnants of one of the most 
powerful nations in the world. Factions include: Russian Orthodox 
Church, Communists, KGB, Mafia, Military, Nationalists, Reformers 
and Separatists. Seize power! Lead Russia into the 21st Century.


Limited Quantities. For Windows or MAC. You pay only S&H. Order now!


ArcaMax Science News sponsored today by:


http://www.arcamax.com/freebies/ez1208tcp


******


#6
Expert Aids Russian Political Crisis
December 9, 1999
By ANNA DOLGOV

MOSCOW (AP) - When a natural disaster hits, Emergency Situations Minister 
Sergei Shoigu is the man Russia turns to. Now President Boris Yeltsin's team 
is counting on him to fix a small political emergency. 


Facing parliamentary elections Dec. 19 and with few allies in the Duma, the 
lower house of parliament, the Kremlin installed Shoigu as head of a new 
party, called Unity. And while politicians and commentators initially mocked 
the group, it has shot up in the popularity polls. 


The Kremlin and its allies formed Unity to ensure that they will have a voice 
in the next parliament. Yeltsin does not have a party of his own and his old 
ally, Our Home Is Russia, is expected to fare badly. 


Above all, the Kremlin wanted to counterbalance a powerful new centrist 
opposition movement, Fatherland-All Russia. The party led by Moscow Mayor 
Yuri Luzhkov and former Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov attracted huge 
support this summer with its anti-Yeltsin stance. 


To the Kremlin, it seemed like time for a crack rescue crew. 


``There are hardly two opinions about the authorship (of Unity),'' said 
Nikolai Petrov, a political analyst at the Carnegie Moscow Center. 


Shoigu's Emergency Situations Ministry is one of the few post-Soviet agencies 
that are respected, considered effective and are so far untainted by 
corruption allegations - unlike much of Yeltsin's government. 


The ministry sends rescue teams to deal with plane crashes, building 
collapses, gas explosions and fires. It helped after earthquakes in Turkey 
and Colombia and sent humanitarian aid to the former Yugoslavia. 


But while his ministry is a model, Shoigu's party is a motley crew of 
regional governors with harshly divergent views. Analysts say their one 
common interest is hanging on to power. 


``It is a coalition of absolutely different and ideologically unconnected 
regional leaders who are linked only by the fact that they are more than 
others dependent on the Kremlin,'' Petrov said. 


Shoigu is an unlikely politician. His campaign speeches are interspersed with 
torturous pauses. He looks offended when asked a hostile question. He 
struggles for words. 


``And he suffers and suffers. ... He would be better off if somebody gave him 
a blockage to rake away!'' the political magazine Vlast wrote this week. 


Still, Unity has been rising in opinion polls, its support growing from 4 
percent to more than 9 percent in the past month, the independent All-Russia 
Public Opinion Research Center said, noting a corresponding drop in 
Fatherland-All Russia's support. 


Most analysts expect Shoigu's bloc to get 8 percent to 11 percent of the Duma 
seats. That would give the Kremlin a strong voice in parliament and help 
block any moves to curb the president's powers. 


Unity's popularity seems to come partly from respect for the emergency 
ministry and partly from the extensive coverage Shoigu is getting in 
pro-Kremlin media, including the leading television networks. 


Another factor is support from Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, Russia's most 
popular politician because of his handling of the war in Chechnya. 


``Sergei Shoigu is one of my closest friends,'' Putin recently declared. ``As 
a citizen, I will vote for Unity.'' 


Unity leaders include Alexander Rutskoi, governor in the western region of 
Kursk, who had led an armed uprising against Yeltsin in 1993 and was jailed. 


``Shoigu relies on governors who are not famous for their love of democracy, 
to put it mildly,'' said Sergei Markov of the Institute of Political Studies, 
an independent think tank. 


And Shoigu has yet to offer any coherent political program. 


``I don't understand why voters want to turn a good emergency situations 
minister into a bad parliamentary deputy,'' Markov said. 


******


#7
Moscow Times
December 10, 1999 
EDITORIAL: LDPR Farce Discredits Next Duma 


Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the Kremlin court jester, has advocated postponing the 
Duma elections. 


Never mind that they are just nine days away, and that voting has already 
started among the reindeer herders of the Far North and other remote peoples; 
Zhirinovsky wants them held in June 2000, to save money, he says, and also 
because his party is being jerked around by Keystone Kops in the Supreme 
Court and the Central Election Commission. 


It's a mind-numbing saga: 


In a matter of weeks, Zhirinovsky's nationalist LDPR party was taken off the 
Dec. 19 ballot; then put back on under a different name, as Zhirinovsky's 
Bloc; then - in response to a Supreme Court ruling over a different party's 
ballot problems - the LDPR was put back on the ballot, alongside 
Zhirinovsky's Bloc, splitting the Zhirinovsky crowd into two. On Wednesday, 
Zhirinovsky's band was reduced by the Supreme Court presidium back to one 
party on the ballot, and Thursday the CEC followed suit, leaving just 
Zhirinovsky's Bloc. 


In other words, the CEC and the Supreme Court presidium reversed the Supreme 
Court's reversal of the CEC's refusal to register the LDPR. 


Get it? 


Now if this farce were happening to anyone else - the Communists, 
Fatherland-All Russia, Yabloko - it would be an international scandal, and 
rightly so. Even as it is, this is scandalous. 


And what's most upsetting about it is not that the LDPR has gotten lots of 
free airtime to restore its flagging "oppositionist" reputation - what's 
disturbing is that Zhirinovsky actually has a credible case to challenge the 
legitimacy of the 1999 Duma elections process. 


This is not to cast Zhirinovsky as the victim. All of his much-publicized 
difficulties could well be pre-scripted by a Kremlin seeking either to beef 
up a stealth ally - the LDPR's rhetoric aside, it votes pro-Kremlin on major 
issues - or scheming to delegitimize the new parliament. 


For that matter, of course, the fact that ORT television is so repugnantly 
partisan gives Fatherland-All Russia, the Communists and Yabloko equally 
powerful tools to argue that these parliamentary elections are emphatically 
not "free and fair." 


But this is dangerous for Russia. It is bad enough that an ill-considered and 
vague union treaty with Belarus - a treaty whose contents the Russian people 
still have not seen - provoked secessionist grumbling this week. 


In their will-to-power drive to victory, Kremlin forces are pulling at 
threads that make up the fabric of Russia itself. 


*******


#8
Russia's Zhirinovsky boosted by party ban

MOSCOW, Dec 8 (Reuters) - Ultra-nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky received a 
paradoxical boost on Thursday when Russia's Central Electoral Commission 
banned his Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR) from this month's parliamentary 
poll. 


The decision means that Zhirinovsky will now run as the leader of the 
Zhirinovsky bloc, putting an end to confusion over which party the flamboyant 
politician was behind. 


A spokesman for Russia's election commission said by telephone the body had 
revoked its decision to register LDPR for the second time because Zhirinovsky 
had registered twice. 


Zhirinovsky's election campaign had run into problems after a series of 
decisions prompted him to be on the lists of two parties, reducing his 
chances of securing a seat in Russia's State Duma lower house of parliament. 


Zhirinovsky's LDPR was first struck off the list in October, forcing him to 
form another party, named Zhirinovsky's bloc. LDPR was then reinstated, but 
Zhirinovsky was banned from running as its leader in the December 19 poll. 


The flamboyant politician, who burst onto the political scene on the eve of 
the collapse of the former Soviet Union and who once had the power to move 
Western markets with threats of nuclear attacks, has seen his popularity wane 
in recent years. 


In 1995 the LDPR came third in a parliamentary election and he won a shock 
third place in a presidential poll in 1991. 


Zhirinovsky is well known for his public brawls in the Duma, once tugging at 
a woman deputy's hair. On another occasion, he flung orange juice over 
liberal reformer Boris Nemtsov during a television debate. 


******


#9
Russian Mafia Threat Exaggerated- General.


GENEVA, December 10 (Itar-Tass) - A Russian police general said the West 
exaggerates the "Russian mafia" threat and regretted that the myth is used in 
making decisions in international relations. 


"It is a mistake to speak about Russia as a state which is lethally ill with 
crime", Alexnader Mikhailenko, the head of the Russian center for the fight 
against money laundering, told the international conference on economic crime 
on Thursday. 


He stressed that it was completely wrong to claim that Russian organised 
crime was so influential that the state could not cope with it. "It is also a 
myth to say that the Russian mafia is the leader in the criminal world", 
Mikhailenko said. 


He regretted that the myth is deeply rooted in public opinion and affects 
decisions regarding Russia. 


"Western experts overestimate the threat of the Russian crime and 
underestimate the potential of Russian law enforcers", he said. 


******


#10
BBC MONITORING INTERNATIONAL REPORTS: TV MOCKS RUSSIAN LEADER'S FOREIGN 
POLICY GAFFES


Text of report by Russian NTV on 9th December


[Correspondent] Boris Yeltsin is even less predictable abroad than he is in 
Russia. His political impromptus have more than once caused concern not only 
for the world but for his closest entourage, who have then had to somehow 
blend the president's words with actual Russian foreign policy.


True, the earlier surprises were to do with disarmament. In Paris, in the 
summer of 1997, the signing of an act on cooperation between Russia and NATO:


[Yeltsin] This is the decision I am taking after the signing today: all our 
warheads targeted at the countries led by those at this table are to be 
removed.


[Correspondent] In 1998, winter, his state visit to Sweden:


[Yeltsin] I am announcing here for the first time, the first time, that we 
are unilaterally removing another third of our nuclear warheads.


[Correspondent] Today, the world heard a completely different impromptu from 
Yeltsin. After firmly shaking Li Peng's hand - and the latter had a hard time 
extracting himself even after hinting that the Russian guest had a very firm 
handshake - the Russian president took the journalists aside for a special 
statement, and they were not disappointed. There has probably been no Kremlin 
leader since Krushchev who has threatened the West with nuclear weapons and 
this is probably the first time since the Cold War that we are hearing 
anti-American statements like these:


[Yeltsin in Beijing] I want to say to Clinton that he should not forget what 
kind of world he is living in. It has not been the case, and will not be the 
case, that he can dictate to people how to live and to rest. No and again no. 
A multi-polar world is the basis of everything. It will be as we agreed with 
Jiang Zemin.


[Correspondent] So, in Istanbul Yeltsin said to America - you do not have the 
right, and today he is in fact saying - but we do. That is the actual meaning 
of his Beijing tirade.


The most surprising thing is that the Russian president is refusing to 
understand even the successor he himself chose. [Prime Minister] Vladimir 
Putin commented on Yeltsin's statement giving a completely different picture 
of relations between Russia and America:


[Putin] I would first like to draw your attention to the fact that we have 
very good relations with the USA. We have very good relations with the US 
leadership. The US president's statement was prompted, I think, by his 
concern that Russia should not create any more problems for itself. I repeat 
I believe that this is connected with a lack of information about what is 
going on in the North Caucasus and events there. Therefore, I would regard it 
as absolutely wrong to present the information in such a way as to suggest 
that a period of cooling has begun in relations between the USA and Russia. I 
am sure that the US president's and the Russian president's statements have 
not been made with this aim in mind. As for the nuclear component in Russia's 
defence policy, it has always been there and so it will stay.


[Correspondent] The most upsetting thing is that President Clinton was not in 
any way worried by the tirade directed at him. He even demonstrated 
understanding:


[Clinton, correspondent translates] This should not be taken too seriously. 
Let's not talk about what the leaders say, let's see what the country does, 
whether it is right or not. I do not agree with what is happening there and 
believe I should say something [about Chechnya].


[Correspondent] The main result of this day of surprises in Beijing is that 
Russia's main internal political problem - of proper leadership and 
coordination within it - has again been demonstrated in the foreign policy 
arena.


******


#11
Baltimore Sun
8 December 1999
[for personal use only]
Disillusion strikes heart of an idealist
Deadlock: A loyal Communist and jilted Italian businessman hungers for 
justice from a powerful Moscow businessman who `always forgets to pay.' 
By Will Englund 
Sun Foreign Staff 


MOSCOW -- Something stirred in Nicola Teti's heart when he heard that one of 
the great military heroes of the Soviet Union had died.


It was 1992, and the Soviet Union was gone. But the 63-year-old publisher, 
who had spent almost his entire adult life in the Italian Communist Party, 
felt he needed to be there when they buried Col.-Gen. David A. Dragunsky.


He caught the next plane to Moscow -- little supposing what lay ahead.


At the graveside of the old general, Teti would meet a photographer who had a 
book proposal. Their dealings with a wealthy politician who backed the deal 
would teach him just how poisonous doing business in post-Soviet Russia can 
be, and how profoundly different the country was from his idealized image.


The funeral took place Oct. 16. The mourners reflected on past glory -- 
Dragunsky had been the commander of the 55th Guards Tank Brigade as it drove 
from Ukraine to Berlin in 1945, was twice named a Hero of the Soviet Union, 
and happened to be the only Jewish general in the wartime Soviet Army.


Teti, 16 when World War II war ended, had grown up among the wreckage that 
fascism and war had brought to Milan. He joined the party in 1951, and over 
the years he developed a small and not very lucrative business publishing 
Italian translations of Soviet books. He was familiar with Moscow, where he 
moved in intellectual circles and knew members of the Politburo.


He was, a friend says, one of those European idealists whose enthusiasm for 
Communism developed out of the war, and who was blind to the cynicism and 
cronyism that came to infect the entire system.


A mutual friend introduced Teti to another mourner, Samari Gurari. The 
photographer had recorded Dragunsky in Berlin, Stalin's meeting with 
Roosevelt and Churchill in Tehran and the founding of the United Nations.


Gurari had a proposal for Teti -- he wanted to see his life's best work 
published in a handsome edition. He thought he had a backer for the project, 
which would recall the stirring moments of decades past.


"[Gurari] seemed a very decent fellow," Teti recalls. "And he had a good 
sponsor" -- a wealthy businessman named Vladimir Bryntsalov. The deal 
appealed to Teti's commercial and sentimental instincts.


It nearly ruined him.


But where many might sadly chalk it up to experience, Teti, as a man of 
rectitude, refuses to let go. He was conned out of about $57,000, so little 
in the scale of Russian fraud that it seems laughable. It's less than the 
price tag for one mobster's black Mercedes.


Yet, ever the idealist, Teti is on a quest to see justice done, and it's no 
concern to him that the object of his quest is one of the richest men in 
Moscow -- who also happens to be a member of parliament, the leader of the 
decidedly quirky Russian Socialist Party, and an exemplar of how politics and 
business intersect in the new Russia.


Bryntsalov was a man on the make from the earliest days of perestroika. Born 
in southern Russia in 1946 -- a year after Dragunsky's arrival in Berlin -- 
he had studied mining engineering at the Novocherkassky Politechnic 
Institute, worked as a teacher and director of an enterprise, and then, in 
1987, opened a cooperative that produced honey and baby formula.


He swallowed up other newborn companies, grew wealthier, and, in 1990, became 
director of a pharmaceutical company, Ferein, that became Russia's largest.


Bryntsalov, dogged by controversy and debt collectors wherever he goes, seems 
to revel in it. In 1995 he ran for president -- arguing that he would promote 
capitalism for Russian companies and socialism for their workers -- and 
garnered 0.16 percent of the vote.


Undaunted, he led the Socialist Party into the new Duma later that year, amid 
widespread supposition that he had been put up to it by the Kremlin to siphon 
votes away from the Communists.


With new parliamentary elections coming up in a month's time, he's leading 
the Socialists again -- with four of his relatives joining him at the top of 
the ticket.


"This Socialist Party is nothing more than a family enterprise," said Vitaly 
Kuzmin, a member of the Moscow city council who knows one of the candidates: 
Bryntsalov's nephew Igor.


"This isn't a real party," said Andrei Zakharov, vice president of a 
foundation devoted to the development of a parliamentary system. "Bryntsalov 
has a lot of money and he wants to realize himself in politics. For him, 
politics is a good investment."


No one expects Bryntsalov's party to to seat any members in the Duma, but the 
pharmaceutical tycoon seems to be pursuing his campaign for the advertising 
it brings him and the fun of it.


Bryntsalov likes to boast about his beautiful 32-year-old wife, his big and 
overdecorated house, his sleek and powerful car, his money and how good a 
tennis player he is.


Admire me for my brazen success, he says -- and to make his point he posed 
for the cover photo of a biography entitled "The Riddle of a Billionaire" 
wearing a suit that could have come straight from a production of "Guys and 
Dolls."


Repeated requests for an interview for this article never elicited an actual 
refusal, but neither did they achieve any results.


His political and business philosophy may have been summed up best in a 
remark he made last time around: "We Russians," he said, "should live for 
ourselves, work only for ourselves."


If anyone has put that credo into action, he has.


If only Teti had known: Bryntsalov is not one to pay attention to the finer 
points when it doesn't suit him. Recently, for example, he was revealed as 
the architect of a complicated swap of pharmaceuticals for champagne with a 
firm in the city of Krasnodar. The deal was worth $2.8 million -- until city 
officials discovered that most of the drugs were past their expiration dates.


And before that he had entered into a deal with the Danish company Novo 
Nordisk to produce insulin under license. The Danes, who supplied him with 
millions of dollars worth of equipment, are now accusing him in a suit of 
breaking his contract, stealing the equipment and, moreover, continuing to 
produce insulin illegally with their trademark on it. Novo Nordisk is seeking 
to have him declared bankrupt and charged as a criminal.


And other debtors abound.


"Mr. Teti is just a small example of this whole situation," said Nikolai 
Sadovnikov, a Russian Foreign Ministry employee who knew Teti when he was 
stationed in Milan. "Bryntsalov just always forgets to pay. This is such a 
typical situation for Russia."


Sadovnikov says it is important to understand that Bryntsalov and other 
successful "new Russians" didn't simply spring out of thin air the day the 
Soviet Union collapsed. He, like many others, is from the middle layer of the 
"nomenklatura," the Communist party elite in Soviet days. He had the nerve 
and the means to grab for a fortune at a chaotic moment when that was 
possible.


Teti's problem, Sadovnikov says, is that his high-level Communist friends 
were simply unaware of the striving and grasping going on around them during 
the late 1980s, and now are unable to offer any help.


The deal to produce the book of Gurari's photographs was finally signed in 
the fall of 1994. Teti Editore was to produce 10,000 copies for $95,000, to 
be paid by Ferein, Bryntsalov's pharmaceutical company. A down payment of 
$38,000 was made -- and that was the last money Teti ever saw.


On Feb. 24, 1995, Teti's publishing house shipped the books -- loyal to the 
last, he sent them on Aeroflot, the Russian airline.


First there was a dispute over whether the load was 722 copies short. When 
Teti showed otherwise, a Bryntsalov assistant met him and told him the 
quality was unacceptable. Teti pointed out that Gurari himself had signed off 
on the production, but to no avail.


Bryntsalov wanted the book as a keepsake that he could distribute to business 
associates and political players in time for the celebrations marking the 
50th anniversary of the end of World War II. It was never intended for sale 
to the public, and copies today are impossible to find. Bryntsalov's 
intention was not to make money off it -- but he also may have never intended 
to spend much money on it, either.


"Bryntsalov is a deceiver. It is a plain deception," says Sandro Teti, the 
son of the publisher who, because he is a fluent speaker of Russian, has done 
most of the legwork here pursuing the case.


Nicola Teti persuaded Italian diplomats in Moscow and Communist members of 
the Duma to write letters on his behalf. He appealed to Russia's ambassador 
to Italy, who, he says, advised him to forget about it, on the theory that 
the world is full of thieves and some of them can be dangerous.


He filed a case in the Moscow Arbitration Court, which on June 13, 1996, 
awarded him a judgment of $49,799 plus about $1,000 in rubles to cover costs.


Bryntsalov, Teti says, remarked at this point that "those scoundrels won't 
get a penny." So far, he's been as good as his word.


Winning a case in a Russian court is hard enough, Teti has discovered. 
Collecting a judgment is another matter altogether. The bailiff has done 
nothing to try to enforce the order, according to a lawyer who worked for 
Teti named Alexander Murashkin.


So Teti won the court's approval to seize three of Bryntsalov's bank 
accounts. All turned out to be empty. He tried to move on the assets of 
Ferein, which is one of the wealthier companies in Russia.


But Bryntsalov was two steps ahead of him. First of all, Ferein had been 
re-registered in a small village in the Caucasus, near Bryntsalov's hometown, 
and to win anything it would be necessary to go to a local court and get a 
writ -- not the easiest or safest thing to do. But Bryntsalov has also 
arranged to consolidate all his many debts in Ferein, while moving his assets 
to another company called Bryntsalov-A.


It is Bryntsalov-A that now manufactures all the insulin that has the Danes 
so upset. It is Bryntsalov-A that, until earlier this month, placed Socialist 
Party emblems on all the medicines it produced. (The Ministry of Health told 
it to stop.) Ferein, the company that entered into Bryntsalov's various 
deals, is an empty shell.


"The situation seems to be deadlocked," says Sadovnikov. "It is impossible to 
do anything under the law. The usual thing would be for the debtor to hire 
some gangsters, who would collect the debt and keep half for themselves. But 
it's probably contrary to Mr. Teti's principles to employ gangsters. We still 
have a state. This is a question of the state's honor."


Sadovnikov muses for a moment. Of course, he says, you could try to buy one 
of Bryntsalov's lawyers and get him to betray his boss -- but that would be 
too expensive for a case like this.


Twice, Nicola Teti has made the trip to Moscow to try to see Bryntsalov, and 
both times he has been rebuffed. He says it's a matter of principle. But for 
a small company like Teti Editore, which doesn't have much of a market in 
Italy anymore for books out of Moscow, no longer a beacon or a threat to 
Western Europe, $50,000 is a lot of money.


He says he'll keep at it. If Bryntsalov loses his seat in parliament, and the 
immunity that goes with it, maybe the Teti family could try to launch a 
prosecution for contempt of court. Teti, who turns 71 soon, isn't sure.


He says he'll never do business with Russians again -- not unless they pay 
100 percent up front. He spits the words out over the phone.


Yet the experience hasn't dimmed some of the old feelings. Teti's planning a 
trip to Moscow again next year -- with a group of fellow Communists to 
celebrate May Day on Red Square.


*******


#12
New York Times
December 9, 1999
[for personal use only]
ESSAY / By WILLIAM SAFIRE
Great Game's Victims


The newly emboldened Russian military has now embarked on a modern version of 
what Rudyard Kipling in 1901 called "the Great Game" -- that struggle against 
the West for economic and political power in the Caucasus and Middle East. 


A war on terrorism out of Chechnya is its excuse. Next week's elections to 
the Russian Parliament are the immediate cause of the systematic massacre of 
the dark-skinned Muslim troublemakers. The blood-thirstiest of the Russian 
politicians are getting the most support, if we can believe the easily rigged 
polls. 


But there is another, longer-range game afoot. That is the old imperialist 
urge by Moscow to dominate the sources and lines of supply of Caspian Basin 
and Iranian oil and gas, and thereby to gain a stranglehold on the economic 
life of its adversaries. 


A map tells the story. Chechnya lies astride one of the key pipelines into 
Russia and out to a Black Sea port through Turkey's Bosporus to the 
Mediterranean. That's why Moscow says it must be denied independence, no 
matter how many die. 


The U.S., aware of Russia's ambitions, is encouraging an alternative to 
supply lines through Iran, Iraq and Russia. We support a proposed energy 
trail through Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey. Although it has not happened, 
President Clinton said yesterday it would be seen as "one of the most 
important things that happened this year." 


Russia is putting great pressure on Georgia, independent after the breakup of 
the Soviet Union. Adjacent to Chechnya, Georgia has been resisting occupation 
by Russian troops who want to take charge of its border; that would undermine 
the West's proposed pipeline. Georgia's reformist president, Eduard 
Shevardnadze, has survived three assassination attempts that many think were 
K.G.B.-inspired. 


Moscow recently entertained Tariq Aziz, Saddam Hussein's man. In return for 
Russia's support in resisting U.N. inspection of its nuclear weapon 
development, Iraq has cut its permitted production of oil. That has helped 
keep up the price of oil -- it has doubled this year -- and has given Russia 
the money it needs to support 100,000 troops in Chechnya. 


Those are the undercurrent events. On the surface, residents of besieged 
Grozny, the Chechen capital, have been ordered to get out of town lest they 
be pulverized by bombs -- but no cease-fire was offered to let them get out 
safely. Thousands will die along with relatively few terrorists. 


One Baltic leader said this was like answering the terrorist hijacking of an 
aircraft by shooting down the plane. Clinton sternly warned that such 
slaughter of civilians would mean "Russia will pay a heavy price for those 
actions." 


What price? Only that its threatened atrocity "will further alienate the 
global community from Russia." What a weak-kneed response. The time to list 
the consequences is before the massacre. Such as: 


1. Disinvite the Russians from next week's scheduled meeting of the Group of 
8 foreign ministers. 


2. Dispatch a trade-and-aid delegation to Georgia immediately. 


3. Describe the suspension of the next I.M.F. loan to Russia for what it is 
-- retaliation for atrocity, and not for economic inaction that saves 
Russia's face. 


4. Withdraw our scheduled Export-Import Bank guarantees. 


5. Point out how Arab oil producers, now paying lip service to their Muslim 
brethren in Chechnya, are financing Russia's attack with their OPEC-induced 
shortages and inflated oil prices. 


6. Begin drawing down oil from our brimming strategic reserve, replenishing 
the reserve when world prices drop. 


7. Move quickly to bring the Baltic states into NATO. Russian imperialism is 
still alive and growling. 


Russia has a way of responding to credible threats. What happened when John 
McCain and George W. Bush made plain they would withdraw from the ABM treaty 
if the Russians refused necessary modifications to allow limited missile 
defense? Russia's Duma, after four years, decided to take up ratification of 
Start II. 


Cluck-clucking and hand-wringing have no effect. Mass killing is no game, 
great or otherwise. Diplomatic and economic pressure can save lives. 


******


#13
Abstract
Foreign Policy
Winter 1999-2000
www.foreignpolicy.com
Getting Russia Right
by Michael McFaul
Michael McFaul is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for 
International Peace and an assistant professor of political science and 
Hoover fellow at Stanford University. 


Politicians and pundits have blasted the Clinton administration in recent 
months for mishandling a crucial strategic relationship and "losing" Russia. 
In focusing on recent corruption scandals or Russia's financial collapse, 
however, their criticism entirely overlooks the fundamental transformation 
that Russia has undergone during the last decade. 


Despite real setbacks to domestic reform and international integration, most 
Russians still aspire to build a democratic polity, consolidate a market 
economy, and join the Western community of states. Although some of 
Washington's policies did little to encourage Russian reform and much to 
exacerbate U.S.-Russian tensions, the instincts behind the U.S. strategy of 
engagement were sound and its overall impact positive. 


But what worked yesterday may not work today: Russia in 2000 is not the same 
as Russia in 1992. The prospect of new administrations in both countries 
offers a valuable chance to recast U.S. policy toward Russia in a way that 
avoids the mistakes of the past and capitalizes on the opportunities of the 
future. 


Only a decade ago, the Soviet Union was the free world's greatest enemy. 
Thousands of nuclear weapons, an army of more than 2 million, and a sizable 
military-industrial complex made Moscow a formidable rival. Today, Russia has 
almost lost its ability to project military power. Russia's army has 
struggled to subdue a rebel republic within its own borders; it is hardly a 
threat to invade Europe. Moscow's only real military asset is its nuclear 
arsenal, although even this symbol of superpower is eroding. 


Of course, it was not simply raw power that threatened the West. It was also 
communism—i.e., the motivation to use Soviet power against Western 
interests—that made the Soviet Union so threatening. Ultimately, it was the 
collapse of communism within the Soviet Union and then Russia that suspended 
the international rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union and 
reshaped the international system in a fundamental way. 


In place of communism, Russians might have erected a fascist, imperialist, or 
neocommunist regime-but they did not. Recent polls show most Russians 
continue to believe that their country must develop a market economy and 
adhere to the principles of electoral democracy. In addition, no serious 
political force in Russia today, including even the Communist Party of the 
Russian Federation, advocates restoration of the command economy or one-party 
dictatorship. The majority of Russian politicians, to their credit, have used 
the evidence of setback to boost demand for "genuine" and "better" reform. 
Most Russians, despite major obstacles along the way to economic and 
political transformation at home and integration abroad, still believe that 
integration with the West is in Russia's national interest. 


In an age of unrivalled U.S. hegemonic power, Americans can perhaps be 
forgiven for thinking they control (or are responsible for) the destinies of 
all countries around the world. Nevertheless, in the great drama of our 
day—the end of the communism—the United States played only a marginal role 
both for good and for ill. If and when the time comes to determine whether 
Russia has been won or lost, it will above all be Russians who must answer 
for their history, not Americans. 


Despite mistakes, Washington's basic strategy of engagement was on target. 
The U.S. Agency for International Development was right to try to fund 
technical assistance programs that provided knowledge to their Russian 
counterparts about the creation and operation of market-supporting 
institutions. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) was right to loan money 
to the Russian government to try to achieve macroeconomic stabilization, a 
prerequisite to real economic growth. 


As the conditions within Russia and the challenges facing it change, U.S. 
policy makers must rethink some basic assumptions and redesign their policies 
accordingly. Instead of mindless finger-pointing about failures real and 
imagined during the last decade, the debate on U.S. policy toward Russia must 
turn toward charting a course for the future. A good place to start might be 
with the following five steps: 


Depoliticize and Democratize the U.S.-IMF-Russia Relationship The new 
administration must refrain from using the IMF as a conduit for politically 
motivated aid to Russia. The U.S. Department of Defense, not the IMF, should 
fund programs to ensure the safety and control of Russia's nuclear arsenal. 
If this policy shift means no new IMF lending to Russia for a while, then so 
be it. 


Assist Russian Society, Not the Russian State Over the next decade, the 
alliance between financial oligarchs and authoritarian politicians at both 
the national and regional levels of government will constitute the greatest 
threat to Russian capitalism and democracy. The United States must support 
small businesses, political parties, civic organizations, business 
associations, and trade unions to develop liberal economic and political 
institutions that will keep oligarchs and authoritarian politicians in check. 


Shift the Focus from Arms Control to More Cooperative Arms Building The next 
U.S. president should announce that the United States plans to reduce its 
arsenal of strategic nuclear weapons to the lowest level that will still give 
the United States a deterrence capability. Given Russia's dire financial 
situation, the Russian government is likely to reciprocate. 


Manage Regional Security Supporting the autonomy of former Soviet states 
without threatening Russia's strategic interests in Eurasia will require a 
delicate balancing act—but it may be the most important issue on the 
U.S.-Russian agenda in the coming decade. 


Consider Individuals Instead of Policies Now that the period of revolutionary 
polarization within Russia is over, U.S. officials no longer have to gamble 
on the individuals they think might best drive Russian reform. The next U.S. 
president need not—and should not—choose sides. 


Ultimately, high expectations may well remain the greatest hurdle to the 
success of reform. After the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union, 
Western observers assumed that Russia would follow the path of Poland in 
jump-starting capitalism. Expectations in Russia were even grander. Leaders 
in both the United States and Russia fueled these expectations by making 
unrealistic promises.


Just because reality has fallen far short of expectations, however, does not 
mean that Russia has failed or been lost. Now is not the time to give up on 
Russia. Neither antiliberal nor anti-Western forces in Russia enjoy a 
monopoly over policy making in domestic or international affairs. 
Disagreements over Iraq, Iran, or Serbia; past failures regarding aid 
programs; and tensions between Russians and Americans are arguments not for 
abandoning engagement but for rethinking and reinvigorating it. 


******


#14
Date: Wed, 08 Dec 1999 
From: "Julie Corwin" <CorwinJ@rferl.org> 
Subject: Russia widens its war in the Caucasus...And cracks down on its press


David, Your readers might be interested in the following. Regards, Julie


Russia widens its war in the Caucasus...And cracks down on its press
This commentary appeared in the Wall Street Journal Europe, 12/7/99
Ms. Corwin is a regional specialist on Russia at Radio Free Europe/Radio
Liberty in Prague.


As Western governments consider how best to continue to "engage" Russia, they
may want to find out what is happening to such an elemental building-block for
democracy as freedom of the press. In the run-up to the Dec.19 parliamentary
elections, this has been one of the first liberties to suffer.


In a variety of regions from the Urals to the Russian Far East, regional
authorities are exercising their power to shape election coverage and
limit
some candidates' access to the media. They're doing this the old-
fashioned way-by closing down opposition newspapers and radio stations and
banning specific television programs.


They're going beyond that, too. For instance, in Sverdlovsk Oblast, the
site of Russian president Boris Yeltsin's early political career, the 
director of a private television station, Igor Mirnyuk, was murdered near 
his home, the fourth
member of the local media to be attacked within the last three months. To
protest the violence, local newspapers earlier ran front pages with a blank
square in the middle, radio stations began their broadcasts with a minute of
silence while television programs opened with a blank screen. Meanwhile,
journalists in Tula, Kaliningrad, Saratov and Khabarovsk have all been
beaten in attacks linked with their work critical of local governments in
the last two weeks.


In the Republic of Bashkortostan, a mostly Muslim republic also in the Urals
region, the local legislative assembly recently passed a decree cancelling
broadcasts of two television programs, one of which is hosted by the
controversial anchor Sergei Dorenko. Mr. Dorenko, reportedly a protege of
influential business magnate Boris Berezovski, has aired a number of programs
focusing on Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov's financial dealings. Mr. Luzhkov, a
possible contender for Russian presidential elections next year, remains
one of
the heads of the Fatherland-All Russia (OVR) alliance, a bloc which most
political analysts predict will do well in State Duma elections.


Perhaps, not coincidentally, Bashkortostan President Murtaza Rakhimov is a
prominent member of OVR.


On Nov. 28, Mr. Rakhimov declared that the broadcasts would resume. But that
concession occurred only after a series of reports on the repressive nature of
the local government in Bashkortostan were broadcast nationally on pro-Kremlin
television and radio stations, and following a personal meeting between Mr.
Rakhimov and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.


But perhaps the most concerted and comprehensive effort to restrict the press
has been taking place in the Far- Eastern region of Primorski Krai, home to
Russia's Pacific Fleet and the port city of Vladivostok. And unlike the effort
in Bashkortostan, this campaign against the local press has attracted no
censure
from the prime minister, the federal media minister, or state-controlled
broadcasters. There, the administration of Governor Yevgeni Nazdratenko has
succeeded in closing one independent radio station and has seized entire
print runs of an opposition newspaper, Arsenevski vesti.


Vladivostok city policemen ejected the staff of Radio Lemma from their
building
on Nov.19, where the journalists had been broadcasting using a
gasoline-powered
generator after the city cut electricity to their building. Most observers
believe that Vladivostok Mayor Yuri Kopylov, who was appointed by Gov.
Nazdratenko, has been acting on his patron's behalf. City officials said that
the police had been called in to clear the building because flammable liquids
had been stored there illegally. The same day that the police raid was
carried
out, the only candidate with enough voter appeal to challenge Gov.
Nazdratenko, former mayor of Vladivostok, Viktor Cherepkov, announced that he
was withdrawing from the Dec. 19 gubernatorial elections to protest the
closure of the radio station. Gov. Nazdratenko is a prominent member of the
pro-Kremlin election bloc, Unity, which may explain why his actions have 
attracted little comment from Moscow.


With regard to an editor of the local edition of the newspaper Moskovski
komsomolets, Gov. Nazdratenko's actions have been a bit more subtle. In
September, the newspaper was suddenly informed by the city administration that
it was losing its office space despite having invested in remodeling the
facilities. In November, during a trip to Moscow, Gov. Nazdratenko reportedly
met with the top editors of the newspaper, to complain about Andrei
Kalachinski,
the editor of the local edition of that newspaper. Soon afterward, the
owner of
the local version introduced a new layer of editorial control and as a result
the paper is cleansed of any comments critical of the Krai's government. Mr.
Kalachinski recently announced his resignation.


There has been little comment about these developments or their
implications in
the West, a pattern which suggests that many of those now debating "who lost
Russia" are in fact Interested only in who lost Moscow. Such lack of
interest in
particularly curious with respect to Primorski Krai. That region received the
largest proportion of U.S. foreign assistance outside of the cities of Moscow
and St. Petersburg, yet nobody in Wash- ington is asking, who lost
Vladivostok?


That Russia's so-called oligarchs are engaged in a still-continuing battle
over
the national media based In Moscow has been well-documented by the Western
press. Less well known is what is going on outside of that capital city's Ring
Road- where more than 80% of Russia's population lives. There, in the
run-up to
new national election, Russian citizens are facing restricted access to
information about the candidates and issues on which they cast their votes.


*******