January 24, 2000    
This Date's Issues: 4061 4062 4063

Johnson's Russia List
#4062
24 January 2000
davidjohnson@erols.com

[Note from David Johnson:
1. St. Petersburg Times: Pavel Felgenhauer, Terrorists Didn't Start the War.
2. The Times (UK): Alice Lagnado, Russia raises flag at rebel's birthplace.
3. The Russia Journal: Georgy Satarov, Were Duma elections fair and clean?
4. Laura Belin: John Chrystal.
5. Nezavisimaya Gazeta: Aleksandr Umnov, Russia's main problem: The Caucasian roots of the president's resignation. (RUSSIA'S CAUCASUS PULL-OUT SEEN AS THE ONLY VIABLE LONG-TERM OPTION)
6. Christian Science Monitor: Kenneth Weisbrode, Save the Caucasus from Balkan-like crisis.
7. Segodnya: Yelena Gosteva, Reasons for our poverty. (RUSSIAN NEWSPAPER CHALLENGES MINISTER'S COMMENTS ON ROUBLE)
8. AFP: CHECHEN WAR SHOWS DETERIORATED STATE OF THE RUSSIAN MILITARY:
ANALYSTS SAY.
9. Reuters: Russia's Putin set to host his first CIS meeting.                                                             10. The Russia Journal: Francesca Mereu, Television as a political 
tool.]

********

#1
St. Petersburg Times
January 21, 2000 
DEFENSE DOSSIER
Terrorists Didn't Start the War 
By Pavel Felgenhauer 
Pavel Felgenhauer is an independent defense analyst based in Moscow.

FOR many months Russian acting President Vladimir Putin and other leading
officials have insisted that they were forced to invade Chechnya because
Russia was attacked. However, last week former Russian prime minister
Sergei Stepashin exposed this claim as a nicely prepared official cover
story. 

The official line from authorities was that the war "to wipe out
terrorists" started after several provocations against Russia, including an
attack on Dagestan led by Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev and the bombings
of apartment buildings which resulted in the deaths of 300 people. 

Then last week Stepashin announced in an interview with Nezavisimaya Gazeta
that Russian authorities had actually decided to invade Chechnya many
months before Basayev's "unprovoked aggression" in March 1999. 

Stepashin says that a full-scale invasion of Chechnya by Russian troops was
planned for August-September 1999. Stepashin also says that after the
decision to invade Chechnya was made, he personally visited the Caucasian
region to oversee the preparations of troops for the attack. 

Stepashin insists that a major invasion of Chechnya would have taken place
no matter what - "even if there were no explosions in Moscow." Stepashin
also insists that Putin, as director of the FSB (the KGB successor security
agency), knew all along that an invasion of Chechnya was secretly planned
and prepared. Moreover, Putin probably also knew a lot about the apartment
bombings and was able to use this information to whip up public support for
a war in the Caucasus - already planned by the Kremlin. 

In Chechnya, Russia, and many other countries Basayev is still accused of
having provoked a terrible war for no good reason. However, Stepashin's
statements vindicate Basayev to some extent. If the Russian government was
already intent on invading Chechnya, Basayev's raid into Dagestan may be
seen not as unprovoked aggression, but as a clever preventive strike which
thwarted Russian military plans and postponed the inevitable invasion for
two critical months. It is also possible that Russian secret services
actually lured Basayev into Dagestan to create a pretext for the coming
Russian invasion. But if so, the Russian authorities got more than they
bargained for. 

The mountains of Dagestan in the Botlikh region, where Basayev's men
invaded last August, are totally barren. The invaders were thus vulnerable
to air attack, so the Russian command obviously hoped that Interior
Ministry troops, heavily supported by air power, would send them fleeing.
But the rebels efficiently dug themselves in and put up stiff resistance,
inflicting heavy casualties on the Russians. 

The Russian command was forced to send in reinforcements in a hurry. Troops
that had been set to invade Chechnya from the north were tied up for
several weeks in Dagestan and several units were decimated by the rebels.
Stepashin says that the initial plan was to reach the Terek River in August
or early September, but it took the Russians until October to achieve this
goal. 

Russian troops encountered heavy resistance from rebels in Dagestan, so
when the delayed invasion of Chechnya began, they advanced step by step, in
constant fear of ambushes. The end result: Grozny was surrounded only by
December and the Russian command managed to organize a serious assault on
the city only this week - in the middle of January - the worst possible
time of year to fight in Chechnya. 

The invasion of Chechnya has obviously gone wrong, but the Russians have
only themselves to blame. Stepashin insists that the original plan was to
occupy only the northern half of Chechnya. Russia had sufficient forces for
such an endeavor. Basayev's Dagestan diversion would have had no lasting
effect if the Russians had actually established full control in the north
and lured ordinary Chechens to live in a better Russian-controlled Chechnya
where pensions are paid and law prevails. But in October Putin decided to
march south with insufficient forces and the Russian military got bogged
down in a bloody quagmire. 

In Chechnya, Putin has acted as an irrational warmonger - a leader who is
ready to commit war crimes but cannot evaluate the consequences of his
actions. In many respects Putin resembles Saddam Hussein or Slobodan
Milosevic, leaders who have also incited wars they could not win. It is
possible that Putin - the political unknown - is in fact a Russian version
of Milosevic, an aggressive, irresponsible nationalist armed with thousands
of nuclear warheads. 

*******

#2
The Times (UK)
24 January 2000
[for personal use only]
Russia raises flag at rebel's birthplace 
FROM ALICE LAGNADO IN NAZRAN

RUSSIAN marines in white snowsuits planted a flag yesterday in Vedeno, a 
major town in southern Chechnya and birthplace of Shamil Vasayev, the 
notorious rebel leader. 

The symbolic triumph came as the Kremlin said that rescue teams had found the 
body of a Russian general killed in fighting in Grozny last week. The 
statement countered claims by Chechen rebels that Major-General Mikhail 
Malofeyev had been captured and interrogated after leading an attack in no 
man's land in Grozny. 

Despite the Kremlin's uncompromising statements, there was a note of unease 
about the Vedeno victory as soldiers checked passports among people living in 
the town to ensure that they were not rebels. Some observers claim that the 
Russians were able to take Vedeno, reached through the high mountain passes 
from Dagestan, only because the fighters had left, and that Chechen forces 
could return at any moment to reclaim it. The rebels still have bases in the 
Argun and Vedeno gorges but the Russian winter makes these bases almost 
impossible to reach. 

In Ingushetia yesterday a thick layer of smoke could be seen rising from 
burning oil wells in neighbouring Chechnya. Thousands of refugees still stuck 
here, living in tents and freezing railway carriages, are dreading the months 
ahead. 

A Russian general said on Saturday that Aslan Maskhadov, the Chechen 
President, had been wounded in the Argun gorge. His wife, Kusama, later said 
that the report was false. Reports of wounded commanders on both sides are a 
common and often false propaganda ruse. 

In Grozny Russian jets battered the capital in snowy but clear weather. 
Russian troops are still struggling after a month of effort to seize the 
centre of the city. 

Beslan Gantemirov, the pro-Moscow Chechen leader, said yesterday that 
territory changed hands between rebels and Russian forces several times a 
day. At the weekend Russian troops said that they had captured Minutka 
Square, the scene of major battles in the last Chechen campaign. But again 
they may not control it for long. 

In a sign of increased tension between the military and government officials 
on war tactics, a senior commander was replaced yesterday. Colonel-General 
Vyacheslav Ovchinnikov, who led Interior Ministry troops in efforts to take 
control of Grozny, lost his job to Colonel-General Vyacheslav Tikhomirov, who 
commanded troops at the end of the last war. 

Aleksei Gromov, the Kremlin press secretary, said that the change was 
designed to improve co-ordination between the Russian army and Interior 
Ministry forces, which consist of police and special paramilitary police 
units. A recent report in the Izvestia newspaper ran interviews with police 
units who complained that they were ill-suited to the battle for for Grozny. 
The replacement of General Ovchinnikov may be an attempt to improve tactics 
in the city where Chechen fighters, though they have less firepower and men, 
appear to be able to hold the Russians back. 

The razed city is an ideal theatre for snipers; rebels also travel through 
the sewers, unseen and safe from Russian bombs. Russian media reports, which 
have been increasingly critical of the war, are questioning the veracity of 
official casualty figures, which stand at about 700. 

Malik Saidullayev, a pro-Moscow Chechen businessman, was expected to head to 
Chechnya yesterday for peace talks with sympathetic rebel leaders. 

But relatively few rebel leaders are willing to negotiate with the Kremlin. 
Mr Maskhadov, who has repeatedly requested meetings with Russian leaders, has 
yet to sit down at the negotiating table with Vladimir Putin, the acting 
Russian President. 

*******

#3
The Russia Journal
January 24-30, 2000
Were Duma elections fair and clean?
Georgy Satarov is president of the Fair Elections Coordination Center. He 
contributed this piece to The Russia Journal. 
Gross violations of electoral laws were widespread in the last Duma contest. 
The consequences of continued neglect of these laws will be popular disrepect 
for the government and its decrees.

The Fair Elections Coordination Center's (FECC) main conclusion drawn from 
observations of the 1999 State Duma elections is that what will be important 
in the upcoming presidential elections is not just who is elected, but how 
they are elected. 

Democracy is the power of procedure, the procedure for coordinating the 
interests of the majority and the minority, the government and its 
opposition, the state and society. And even if there are forces in Russia who 
want to organize a one-candidate presidential election, the procedure by 
which this election takes place must not be violated. 

But judging by the results of the FECC's investigations, it is precisely this 
procedure that is being violated in Russian election campaigns. The primary 
consequence is to form a widespread vision of Russian elected authority as 
illegitimate.

The Fair Elections Coordination Center considers this a very dangerous trend. 
It could lead to social schizophrenia and ideas of using violence against 
state institutions, against the parliament, for example. It could also lead 
to the development of legal nihilism, disrespect for the laws passed by the 
parliament and decrees issued by the executive branch.

This is partly due to imperfect electoral laws. The law concerning election 
of State Duma deputies does not correspond with many other federal laws. In 
particular, the FECC has noted contradictions with the law on the press, the 
law on criminal investigations, the law on advertising and the law on public 
service. 

A lot of what is permitted under these various federal laws is forbidden by 
electoral law and vice-versa. As a result, the Central Electoral Commission 
(CEC) has fallen victim to legislative idiocy, authorizing a fascist party's 
activities, splitting Vladimir Zhirinovsky's LDPR party into two parties and 
getting caught up in an endless polemic with the Press Ministry. The CEC is 
in a feverish state, as no normally functioning state institution can meet 
all the conditions set by the ill-thought-out electoral law.

The main feature of the '99 campaign was the triumph of so-called "black PR." 
Over the course of the campaign, the FECC has put together a large collection 
of examples of dirty methods. These include ORT TV current affairs host 
Sergei Dorenko's notoriously absurd accusations against Moscow Mayor Yury 
Luzhkov. But also among them are leaflets with imaginary details of K. 
Solovyev's (a candidate from Moscow's Tushinsky district) drug mafia 
contacts and a leaflet entitled "we won't let Zadornov be arrested," 
supposedly in support of another Moscow candidate, Mikhail Zadornov.

Administrative pressure on voters was widely used during the 1999 campaign, 
especially in the military. Military personnel were recommended to vote for 
the pro-Kremlin Unity party (Yedinstvo). This is in clear violation of the 
electoral law. The FECC also considers Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's call 
to vote for Unity as a violation of the electoral law.

The FECC thinks that the majority of voters noted that every means the state 
had available, right up to military operations in Chechnya, was used to 
publicize and promote Unity. There is no calling such an election campaign 
"clean."

It's no coincidence that the FECC Website, which organized a public vote on 
the subject, called Unity's campaign the dirtiest. Close behind was the OVR 
(Fatherland-All Russia) bloc. Thus, the dirtiest parties were those 
identifying themselves as "parties of power," whether Kremlin or Moscow 
oriented.

The regions where the most violations were seen were Moscow, Irkutsk Oblast, 
Tver Oblast, Orlov Oblast and the Komi republic.

A vast number of violations concerned campaigning outside the dates fixed by 
the law. Often members of the electoral committees, state and local authority 
officials, representatives of charities and religious groups were involved in 
campaigning. Much campaign material incited racial, national, religious and 
social hatred. 

In the case of the illegally formed Taymyr autonomous district's electoral 
committee, the committee was composed of election candidates themselves, an 
unprecedented violation of the electoral law and worthy of the Guinness Book 
of Records.

It's clear today that while it's still not too late, civil society must 
mobilize all available resources to overcome the problem of perceived 
illegitimacy of the authorities, urgently change the electoral law and 
strengthen the only democratic instrument we have to combat electoral fraud, 
qualified observers.

******

#4
Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2000 
From: laurabelin@excite.com (Laura Belin)
Subject: John Chrystal

I wanted to thank Dan Clark for passing along the sad news that John
Chrystal has died. Outside Iowa few people have heard of Chrystal, but he
lived a fascinating life. I would like to share some thoughts about one
aspect of his life with JRL readers.

John Chrystal was the nephew of Roswell Garst, whose farm Nikita Khrushchev
visited in 1959. Garst's farm in Coon Rapids was not chosen at random. A
pioneer of corn hybridization techniques, Garst had been in contact with
Khrushchev and other high-level Soviet officials for several years. He made
his first trip to the USSR as part of an American agricultural delegation in
1995. He had entertained many Soviet visitors before Khrushchev (the first
delegation, which included the minister of agriculture, stopped at his farm
in 1955). He hosted a few visitors for several months in order to observe
work on his farm and in his company's seed corn factory. Incidentally, the
FBI was concerned about Garst's Soviet contacts and infiltrated his company,
and Garst had to fight to get the State Department to grant him an export
license. But Garst remained committed to transferring American agricultural
techniques (and selling his company's hybrid seed corn) to the USSR. 

The contacts with Garst had significant repercussions in the Soviet
scientific establishment. In particular, they helped weaken the position of
T.D. Lysenko, under whose influence Soviet research on hybrids (which began
in the 1930s) had been gutted and Mendelian geneticists had been purged.
Lysenko and his followers labelled Mendelian genetics a "bourgeois" science
and denounced the early hybridization research as "reactionary botanical
studies." Beginning in the mid-1950s, Soviet scientists who had covertly
continued research on hybrids were able to work openly on creating hybrid
strains. They could publish their work in a new scientific journal,
Kukuruza, which also carried translated articles from American agricultural
journals. 

For several years after Khrushchev was ousted, Soviet officials avoided
contact with Garst. However, Soviet delegations began to visit Coon Rapids
again in the early 1970s. Chrystal had been involved in the exchanges since
the 1950s, and although his primary career was in banking, he remained
interested in Soviet agriculture. After his uncle's death in the mid-1970s,
Chrystal continued to travel to the USSR on official visits roughly every
other year. After 1991 he occasionally visited Russia, Ukraine and Moldova.

Dan Clark described John Chrystal as "Gorbachev's first American friend."
While researching an undergraduate paper about the introduction of hybrid
corn in the USSR, I interviewed Chrystal in 1989. He told me he had
correspondence with Gorbachev going back to the 1970s and continuing during
Gorbachev's tenure as Soviet leader. I do not know whether the
correspondence began while Gorbachev was the KPSS first secretary for
Stavropol (a corn-growing region) or only after he became the Central
Committee's secretary responsible for agriculture. Chrystal refused to show
me that correspondence, but I believe that it could be revealing,
particularly the earlier letters from a period in Gorbachev's life about
which we know relatively little. All of Roswell Garst's papers were donated
to the Iowa State University library after his death, and I hope Chrystal's
papers will likewise become available to scholars. 

******

#5
BBC MONITORING
RUSSIA'S CAUCASUS PULL-OUT SEEN AS THE ONLY VIABLE LONG-TERM OPTION
Source: 'Nezavisimaya Gazeta' (electronic version), Moscow, in Russian 19 Jan 

An article in the Russian newspaper 'Nezavisimaya Gazeta' on 19th January 
argued for Russia's withdrawal not only from Chechnya but from the Caucasus 
as a whole, unlikely as it may be "for at least the next decade". Conscious 
of Russia's geostrategic interests, its elite will frown at the notion, as 
will many local leaders dependent on Russia for economic subsidies and 
political support, the newspaper warned. It suggested, however, that there 
existed no long-term alternative, with all other options exhausted and the 
military solution able to offer only a temporary reprieve from "catastrophe". 
Follows the text of Aleksandr Umnov's article, "Russia's main problem: The 
Caucasian roots of the president's resignation". The subheadings of the 
original have been retained. 

Yeltsin's unexpected departure sharply increases Prime Minister (now already 
acting President) Putin's chances of becoming Russia's next head. But his 
great popularity, which is directly linked with the successes in Chechnya, 
could be shaken if serious complications emerge in the insurgent republic. 
Such a turn of events is not ruled out in April-May when warmth will come to 
replace the cold, the snow will melt in the passes, and the gunmen will 
acquire the mobility they lost in the winter, especially in the mountains. 

Bringing the presidential election forward from June to March, leaving the 
dangerous months of April and May out of the picture, was undoubtedly a 
strong move by Yeltsin to his protege's benefit. Besides, in this case it is 
not only a question of Putin; alongside him, Moscow's tough stance in the 
North Caucasus is also delivered from a possible torrent of criticism. 

Is there no alternative? 

By strengthening the policy of making a military solution a prerequisite for 
a political settlement in Chechnya, the "presidential reshuffle" enjoys most 
Russians' unconditional support, as all efforts to appease the insurgent 
republic using only a "carrot" ended in complete failure. Chechnya, which 
found itself as if both inside and outside Russia as a result of Moscow's 
tolerant policy, has turned into a base for bandits and terrorists acting 
monstrously and endangering all and sundry. 

Would it not be more expedient to set up a "cordon sanitaire" or, even 
better, a well defended state border around Chechnya and to build relations 
with it on the principles of compensation and mutual benefit? In that case, 
some analysts believe, the paths used for former raids and subversive 
activities would be safely closed off and, having lost their freedom of 
action, the field commanders would either settle scores exclusively between 
themselves or else come to their senses and return to peaceful labour and to 
Russia's fold. 

This scheme for resolving the Chechen crisis, which would seem to be the 
best, quickly loses its persuasiveness under a closer analysis of the 
situation. It is practically impossible to set up either a defended border or 
even a serious "cordon sanitaire" with Chechnya. Even if the necessary funds 
were found, the mountainous topography and the ethnic and clan-based ties on 
both sides of the prospective boundary would be an insurmountable barrier on 
the way to setting it up. The belt of republics adjacent to the Caucasus 
mountain range in the north (Chechnya, Ingushetia, Dagestan and others) 
constitute a unified system of intercommunications and relationships from 
which it is practically impossible to isolate one part. 

True, although it is impossible to isolate Chechnya from the region, it is 
theoretically possible to isolate the whole region from Russia. After all, 
why after the collapse of the USSR should Ukraine, which is culturally and 
ethnically close to the majority of Russians, be further away from it than a 
culturally and ethnically distant part of the North Caucasus? 

There are indeed certain grounds for such reasoning. Unlike both the rest of 
Russia and almost the whole of Europe, the social structure of the North 
Caucasus republics' indigenous population is based on the clan (a strong 
association of numerous relatives). The experience of the Ottoman, Russian 
and Soviet empires shows that clan-based and nonclan-based civilizations can 
more or less successfully unite only under the sway of noncapitalist 
("traditional" or "socialist") relations. Then, the diverse civilizations 
repressed by authoritarian or totalitarian power coexist and, in fact, 
continue to "stew in their own juices". But when the noncapitalist system of 
ties begins to disintegrate, peaceful coexistence is replaced by enmity. The 
squeeze on the Russian population in the North Caucasus republics and the 
growing "anti-Caucasus" sentiments in Russia itself reflect just this 
pattern. 

For and against 

The creeping "divorce" of civilizations is perhaps undermining our country's 
internal integrity like nothing else. In their time, the most far-sighted 
monarchs and Communist leaders considered its preservation to be the top 
priority of both domestic and foreign policy. Thus, Aleksandr II renounced 
the distant overseas Alaska for the sake of conquering the closer and more 
accessible Central Asia. Lenin, understanding Finland's inability to fit into 
a totalitarian empire, preferred to recognize its independence. Perhaps in 
the anti-Communist revolution it would be expedient for Russia to withdraw 
not only from Chechnya, but also from the other North Caucasus republics? In 
this way, two different civilizations would get the opportunity to develop on 
their own base, without disturbing one another. 

This scenario, however, is unlikely to be plausible for at least the next 
decade. And it is not a question of the economy. With the best will in the 
world (which, it must be admitted, is not always present), the North Caucasus 
republics, which have long been subsidized, are able to give Russia a lot 
less than they receive (and especially than they want to receive) from it. 
Chechnya's once famous oil fields have almost completely run dry. Its oil 
refineries have long depended on imported crude. It is true that the belt of 
North Caucasus republics has a certain significance as a transit route for 
the transport of oil from Azerbaijan to the world market. But given the 
overall situation here, it will most likely prove to incur costs 
significantly in excess of the expected benefits. Aside from which, as a 
sovereign state, Azerbaijan has the right to transport its oil by other 
routes, through Turkey, for example. 

The strategic value of the Caucasus mountain range's foothills still remains, 
of course. Russia waged a war in the Caucasus over many years in order to 
consolidate itself there in the 19th century. But at that time it had already 
consolidated beyond the Caucasus range and was intending to break through 
into the Middle East. Now, in the light of the increasing independence of the 
formerly Soviet Transcaucasus republics (Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan), 
the strategic value of the North Caucasus belt of republics is already far 
from what it was. 

There also remains a reluctance among most local residents and their leaders 
to detach from Russia. Indeed, it was Moscow that originally initiated the 
collapse of the USSR, despite the almost complete absence of any serious 
separatist sentiments in any of the Soviet republics (with the exceptions of 
the Baltic states and Georgia). Why should it behave differently now, 
especially as the North Caucasians are (increasingly) striving to turn it 
into the executor of their sometimes contradictory and even mutually 
exclusive aspirations? 

There are different kinds of separatism 

On the one hand, the growing internal disintegration in the belt of North 
Caucasus republics, vividly exemplified by the collapse of the once united 
Chechnya-Ingushetia, is yet another argument in favour of Russia's 
withdrawal. After all, this minimizes the threat of a united Islamic state 
here (which for some reason many of our people are very afraid of). On the 
other hand, disintegration serves as the decisive argument against it. The 
more than likely transformation of the North Caucasus republics into an arena 
of bitter conflicts after Russia's withdrawal (which the experience of 
Chechen-Dagestani relations clearly demonstrates) would destabilize not only 
these republics, but also the entire Russian south. 

In the given situation, the military operation in Chechnya was the only way 
to avert catastrophe. True, it is unlikely that anyone would now risk 
upholding the thesis that the military factor is omnipotent in the North 
Caucasus. Even bolstered by generous funding, it can at best only temporarily 
neutralize or dampen down the most extreme and dangerous manifestations of 
the conflicts whose nature is significantly different from those in the rest 
of Russia. And so the only reliable road towards bringing peace to the region 
seems to be to combine the use of the army with the creation and activation 
of local stabilization mechanisms, however unusual and even exotic they may 
seem to most Russians. There the civilian population is armed, religion 
(above all Islam) has a fundamentally different role to the rest of Russia, 
and polygamy, which plays an important role in the traditional social 
structure and has virtually always existed here, is legal. 

Naturally, not all of the special measures that are extremely important for 
the North Caucasus republics fit into the framework of Russian legislation. 
This gives occasion for their supporters (Ingush President Aushev, for 
example) to be accused of separatism. But to complete the picture, we must 
clarify what kind of separatism we are dealing with in this case. As we know, 
the word "separatism" not only means an aspiration to create new states on 
part of the territory of old ones, but also to secure special status for 
individual regions. Nevertheless, people usually only take it to mean the 
first of these and ignore the second. Meanwhile, sometimes only the special 
status of special regions can keep them within the framework of a particular 
state. And it seems that this is exactly the situation that is developing in 
the belt of North Caucasus republics, which can only be kept within the 
structure of Russia in the future by recognizing their specificity in law. 

*******

#6
Christian Science Monitor
24 January 2000
Save the Caucasus from Balkan-like crisis
By Kenneth Weisbrode
Kenneth Weisbrode is a research associate at the International Institute for 
Strategic Studies, in London. 

PresidenT Suleyman Demirel of Turkey, the grand old man of goodwill and 
respectability in his part of the world, is on a new mission. He paid a visit 
to the Caucasus last week to promote an ambitious "stability pact" for the 
region, modeled on the effort to rebuild the Balkans after the Kosovo uproar 
last year. 

The reasons for it are easy to understand. Turkey is very concerned that its 
historic rival Russia is about to use whatever victory it claims in Chechnya 
to reassert dominance in the southern Caucasus. Already Russia has made 
forays into Georgia to restrict Chechen "sanctuaries." When Georgian 
President Eduard Shevardnadze cools toward Russian involvement on his 
territory, the Russians remind him he has little choice. The Abkhaz 
separatists, historically supported by Russia, have spread rumors they'll 
begin to make trouble again for the beleaguered Georgian government. 

This could be just the beginning of a post-Chechnya round of regional/ethnic 
flare-ups, which according to some experts may spread beyond the Caucasus to 
Central Asia, and perhaps beyond. 

Turkey and its Western allies, namely the US, have invested nearly a decade 
in carving out what they see to be a new sphere of influence in this region 
and in trying to mediate peace on their terms. They're worried it's about to 
be lost. The time has come to cut a deal with the other major powers that 
have ambitions in what they all consider to be their backyard. The effort 
should be strongly encouraged. 

Ambitious as it sounds, a stability pact - in truth a basic security 
arrangement - is precisely what the Caucasus needs. The Turkish, 
Azerbaijani,# and Georgian governments stand accused of promoting naked 
national interest - there is nothing wrong with that, and no real security 
framework can be based on anything less. Only now they are doing so within a 
broader concept of security - one that includes not only Armenia, but also 
Iran and Russia. The reaction by those governments has been lukewarm of 
course, but the offer strangely enough has come with a silver lining of good 
faith. For the first time, the key players in the Caucasus have openly 
declared that they will be unable to bring peace and prosperity to their 
region without the cooperation and gain of all the major powers across the 
borders. 

To impose stability on a fractious region before rather than after a conflict 
has torn it apart is a formidable challenge. President Demirel has set a tall 
order, and with so much else on his plate - Cyprus, the Kurdish problem - it 
may be difficult to pull off. 

The idea has to be taken more seriously, which means the West must offer 
something tangible to Russia and Iran. This most likely will be a relaxation 
of the even more ambitious effort to build an exclusive East-West energy 
corridor through the region that excludes Russians and Iranians. 

The Turks know how foolish this is and recently made progress in natural-gas 
pipeline projects with Russia and Iran. Azeri President Heydar Aliev is on 
his way to Tehran for talks with the Iranian government about his own set of 
deals on engery and regional security. With close to 20 million Azeris living 
across the border in Iran (there are only a third as many in Azerbaijan), it 
is not surprising that Mr. Aliev's foreign minister declared Iranian 
involvement to be essential to any workable security arrangement for the 
Caucasus. 

The West - namely the US - should not lose this opportunity. With its 
stubborn promotion of pet pipelines and bizarre sanctions against Azerbaijan 
and Iran, US policy in the region since the Soviet breakup has been confused 
and contradictory, reminiscent of a statement attributed to former Egyptian 
President Gamel Abdel Nasser: "The genius of you Americans is that you never 
make clear-cut stupid moves, only complicated stupid moves that make us 
wonder at the possibility that there may be something we are missing." 

It's time to remove both complexity and genius from US policy and follow the 
sensible lead of the people there who are forced to live with one another. 

*******

#7
BBC MONITORING
RUSSIAN NEWSPAPER CHALLENGES MINISTER'S COMMENTS ON ROUBLE
Source: 'Segodnya' (Electronic version), Moscow, in Russian 18 Jan 00 p5 

Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov's explanation that the 
rouble will fall further because of a weak economy does not hold water, 
according to the 'Segodnya' newspaper. The fundamentals of the economy differ 
little from 1997, except that then the economy was being sustained through 
T-bills and a currency peg. The real explanation is that the government wants 
to fund the forthcoming election campaign and the war in Chechnya and pay its 
foreign debts in the absence of IMF cash through inflation and a decline in 
the rouble rate. The following is the text of the article by Yelena Gosteva, 
published in the newspaper on 18th January under the headline "Reasons for 
our poverty": 

The other day First Deputy Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov found and, most 
importantly, announced the reasons for the decline in the exchange rate of 
the national currency. It turns out that the rouble exchange rate will 
"weaken" because "the economy itself is weak". If we are to believe Mikhail 
Kasyanov, according to medium-term macroeconomic forecasts three to four 
years will be needed to restore the economic level that we had in 1997. At 
the same time, judging by everything, Kasyanov completely forgets that the 
economy of the period "until 1997" was maintained largely with the proceeds 
from the sale of GKOs under conditions when the rouble exchange rate was 
firmly driven into the framework of the "currency corridor". The present 
state of the economy differs little from 1997: during this time they never 
learned how to collect taxes, did not lower the fiscal burden on enterprises 
and did not begin to bankrupt enterprises effectively. During this time the 
rouble exchange rate fell almost fourfold - from R7 plus a few kopecks to 
R28.5. 

Such a decline had a deadly effect only on the banking sector and on the 
enterprises that buy part of their raw materials or accessories abroad, that 
is, on those that attracted Western credits or owing to work technology were 
forced to take into account the rise in the dollar exchange rate. Somehow it 
is not customary to remember how the country's population suffered as a 
result of the devaluation of the national currency. Our people survived the 
war, hunger and ruin and somehow will also survive poverty. For some reason, 
however, it is not customary to remember how exporters and industries based 
on domestic raw materials alone gained from the decline in the rouble 
exchange rate. Under conditions of the rise in world oil prices and increase 
in the production of domestic goods (as market research shows, domestic goods 
occupy up to 90 per cent of such sectors of the consumer market as food, 
perfumes, alcohol and tobacco), up to now we have had a "weak" economy, which 
causes the rouble exchange rate to fall... [newspaper's ellipsis] 

At the same time, at the end of last year Kasyanov himself stated that the 
Ministry of Finance was inclined to connect the overfulfilment of the 1999 
budget plan for revenues with the revival in production, that the outgoing 
year would be the last year of economic decline and that, in general, the 
country was standing on the eve of industrial growth. Do you feel how in the 
words of the same Kasyanov both ends do not meet? Apparently, the reasons for 
the decline in the national currency should be sought elsewhere. In a year of 
presidential elections, a great deal of money will be needed for the election 
campaign and for ending the war in Chechnya, which is utterly unpopular among 
the population and extremely costly for the budget. Add payments on foreign 
debts in the absence of credits of the IMF to this. Where to get money for 
this if not from inflation and a decline in the rouble exchange rate? 

It should be taken into account that Kasyanov admits that the rouble exchange 
rate will decline exactly at the moment when the Central Bank has renewed its 
heroic efforts to support the rate. From this the conclusion suggests itself 
that the disagreements "which always take place" between the heads of the 
Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank [of Russia] have become aggravated 
recently. Or, from his new post, Kasyanov "suddenly can see better" the 
currency rate towards which the "economy should be steered" or he gently 
hints to Central Bank head Viktor Gerashchenko that no matter how he 
restrains the rise in the dollar, the government, nevertheless, can see 
better how much the "greenbacks" should cost. 

It is amusing that Kasyanov, having admitted that the dollar exchange rate 
will rise, recommended that the population keep its savings in roubles. It is 
interesting: by what will the people be guided in this situation - common 
sense or advice from the first deputy prime minister? 

*******

#8
AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE
CHECHEN WAR SHOWS DETERIORATED STATE OF THE RUSSIAN MILITARY: ANALYSTS SAY
January 22, 2000

The war in Chechnya has shown the depths to which the 
Russian military has deteriorated since the heyday of Soviet power in the 
Cold War, military analysts here said. 

"It strains belief that such a formidable force could have eroded so 
precipitously," says Andrew Krepinevich, of the Washington-based Center for 
Strategic and Budgetary Analysis. 

While NATO used precision bombing, stealth, and leap-ahead information 
technologies to defeat Yugoslavia in 11 weeks last year, Russia is using 
World War II-style bombardments in what promises to be a protracted war 
against "ragtag" Chechen forces, he notes. 

"So in a sense Americans have moved on to 21st century warfare, whereas the 
Russians seem to have regressed to mid-20th century warfare," he said. 

However, Russia has learned some lessons from its botched 1994-96 war against 
the Chechens, Krepinevich and other analysts say. 

"This time they have not underestimated the magnitude of the problem the 
Chechens pose to them," he said. "There is not the attitude they can win 
quickly or cheaply." 

Gennady Chufrin, a specialist with the Stockholm International Peace Research 
Institute, says the main lesson learned by the Russians has been to use their 
superior air power and firepower to keep their own casualties to a minimum. 

"This strategy is working quite well," he said. 

The Russians also advanced on Grozny more cautiously this time, taking 
territory a bit at a time and carefully securing their positions against 
Chechen raids before venturing forward, says William Odom, a retired three 
star US army general. 

"That operation has brought them to outskirts of Grozny," he said. "But what 
do you do when you get to Grozny? Will it still work?" 

Reports from the scene indicate the Russian military is meeting stiff 
resistance in the city, and is taking higher casualties in the cramped and 
dangerous urban terrain where Chechen guerrillas have the home field 
advantage. 

This new phase of the campaign will test the Russians severely because 
fighting in urban terrain requires detailed coordination and special 
techniques and tactics not taught in run-of-the-mill training for open 
country warfare, said Odom. 

Not that Russia lacks experience. It gained more expertise fighting in cities 
than any other country in World War II, notes the general, a former director 
of the supersecret National Security Agency. 

"But training is expensive and it takes time. I doubt very seriously they've 
done it," he said. "So they're trying to improvise tactics for fighting in 
cities. Meanwhile, the Chechens are proving no less skilled this time." 

"The way I see things, right now you have kind of a stalemate," he said. "It 
gets down to who has the staying power. Will the Chechens run out of water, 
ammunition, will they starve to death? Will the Russian army find itself 
trapped politically?" 

"The cost in lives in lives and resources are going to be pretty high. 
They've also proved to be higher than (President Vladimir) Putin or (Defense 
Minister) Marshall (Igor) Sergeyev imagined," he said. 

Chufrin says the Russians are under no illusions about the hard road ahead. 

"The Russian military is prepared to fight in Chechnya for another several 
months and maybe even a couple of years," he told AFP in Stockholm. 

So far, it has shown it can move from a distance to Chechnya, and keep them 
supplied with food, ammunition and fuel, Odom said. 

But to put together a capable force in Chechnya, units had to be drawn from 
across the Russian military, which means they had little time to develop the 
cohesiveness that enables soldiers to function under the extreme pressures of 
combat. 

"That is indicative of the high level of deterioration of the Russian 
military," he said. 

Reports of Russian soldiers selling weapons to Chechens also point to serious 
morale and control problems within tactical units, he said. 

Comparing the Chechen war to the Russian experience in Afghanistan, Odom 
said, "You've got the same thing in spades." 

"Corruption, people selling weapons, soldiers poorly trained, officers 
involved in careerism, a really hardened population that knows how to shoot 
and handle weapons and likes to fight," he said. 

As in Afghanistan, he said, the Russian government is "denying they're taking 
the casualties they're taking, lying to their public about it, which causes 
rumors to fly back home when bodies come back." 

********

#9
Russia's Putin set to host his first CIS meeting
By Oleg Shchedrov

MOSCOW, Jan 23 (Reuters) - Russia's Acting President Vladimir Putin hosts a 
summit of 12 ex-Soviet states this week to try to preserve Russia's dominant 
role in the loose grouping after Boris Yeltsin's resignation. 

The leaders of the Commonwealth of Independent States have to decide who will 
replace Yeltsin, a founding father of the grouping, along with the 
then-presidents of Ukraine and Belarus, and chairman throughout its eight 
years of existence. 

The Commonwealth, set up in late 1991 as a means of civilised divorce between 
Soviet republics after the collapse of communism, has failed to provide an 
effective forum for economic or political cooperation. 

Some leaders express doubt about the Commonwealth's very existence and have 
formed tighter regional groups to offset what they see as Moscow's 
imperialist goals. A merger pact between Russia and its Slav neighbour 
Belarus has fuelled those doubts. 

Yeltsin's unchallenged authority helped him to keep the grouping afloat and 
to bank on its support in post-Soviet political crises, including a 1993 
hardline rebellion in Moscow. 

Taking over Yeltsin's role in the Commonwealth would be of considerable use 
to Putin in his bid to win early presidential election in March. 

But it remains unclear whether other Commonwealth leaders will extend to him 
the exclusive role once played by Yeltsin. 

The summit meeting on Tuesday will be preceded by meetings of prime ministers 
and foreign ministers and Putin is expected to meet separately with several 
Commonwealth leaders. 

Terrorism is likely to be a prominent theme as Russia tries to consolidate 
the Commonwealth by addressing what many members see as security threats, 
particularly from Islamic insurgency. 

RUSSIA WARNS OF INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM 

Russia says its military campaign in Chechnya is aimed at tackling a wider 
plan by international terrorists to take control of other predominantly 
Moslem parts of the former Soviet Union. 

Russia has supported a secular government in the Central Asian state of 
Tajikistan during five years of civil war with the Islamic opposition in the 
early 1990s. Russia maintains a military base and helps to patrol the border 
with Afghanistan. 

Moscow has also helped nearby Kyrgyzstan to defeat a group of guerrillas 
which invaded the country last year. The guerrillas were believed to belong 
to the Islamic opposition in Uzbekistan, a third Central Asian state, whose 
leader Islam Karimov says insurgents tried to assassinate him. 

Support from Commonwealth leaders for the Chechnya war is crucial for Putin 
to face down Western pressure to end the conflict. 

Putin will also try to tackle a series of hot issues with other ex-Soviet 
republics, some recent, others longstanding. 

He will meet the leaders of Georgia and Azerbaijan, which border Chechnya. 
Russia is seeking guarantees from both not to allow Chechen rebels to set up 
bases on their territory or funnel arms, supplies and cash to the separatist 
region. 

The two countries have denied such a possibility, but want guarantees from 
Russia that the Chechen conflict will not spill onto their territories. 
Georgia has accused Russian warplanes of bombing its regions bordering 
Chechnya. 

Georgia is likely to raise again Russia's role in its conflict with the 
breakaway Black Sea province of Abkhazia and discuss closing down Russian 
military bases on its territory. 

Putin and other government officials will also meet Ukrainian President 
Leonid Kuchma to discuss how to improve relations soured by Ukraine's huge 
energy debt to Russia. 

********

#10
The Russia Journal
January 24-30, 2000
Television as a political tool
MEDIA WATCH - By Francesca Mereu
ORT, Russia's state television agency, and NTV, the largest private station, 
offer radically different views of the war in Chechnya.

In Russia, television has always been influenced by economic and political 
factors. In the past few months, federal forces gained public support largely 
by using television as a weapon of propaganda to support the Chechen war.

Russian state television, ORT, is the only channel that broadcasts just about 
everywhere across the country's vast expanse. While its news bulletins 
naturally favor government policy, even the biggest private television 
station, NTV, which does not have the reach of state broadcasters, took a 
line of muted criticism of the war until a few weeks ago. Until that time, 
most NTV reports gave straight news accounts of the war without analysis or 
comment. 

After President Boris Yeltsin's New Year's Eve resignation, a mood-shift 
occurred in NTV's war reporting, with the criticism flowing more freely. NTV 
has since broadcast interviews with refugees complaining of bad treatment by 
the military, while also probing them about civilian casualties. When showing 
the funeral of a soldier in St. Petersburg, the channel stated that Russia 
would start to see another side to the war. ORT has, so far, failed to 
mention that angle.

NTV prefers to let its interviewees outline disturbing aspects of the war, 
rather than having its journalists push a critical viewpoint. Vladimir 
Karamurza, anchorman of the station's 1 a.m. news program, has gone further 
than other news reporters in his criticism of the war, although sometimes his 
comments seem simply to be aimed at ruining acting President Vladimir Putin's 
reputation. 

One of Karamurza's recent interviews examined the idea that the war will 
continue in an effort to reinforce Putin's rating. Another time, he talked 
sarcastically about the military diktat that defined all Chechen males 
between the ages of 10 and 60 as rebels.

ORT broadcasts, on the other hand, stick to official cliches about the war: 
"We are liberating the poor population of Chechnya from bandits." The 
station's dispatches focus on the freeing of Russian hostages held by 
Chechens; reports of soldiers helping civilians to establish a normal life in 
Russian-controlled regions; and generals recounting their victories. 

The station always underlines Russia's intention to pay Chechens' outstanding 
wages and pensions, while managing to add as an unspoken postscript: "even if 
they don't deserve it."

ORT presenters never talk about civilian losses, nor do they criticize the 
military's method of waging war. They prefer to concentrate on describing 
acts of cruelty perpetrated by Chechens. Support for the war is even implied 
in the language used by the station. Chechen fighters are always defined as 
"terrorists," "criminals bands," and "bandits."

And while NTV quotes Western news agencies, ORT limits its reports to 
official sources, taking the line that Western reports are damaging to 
Russia's reputation. And of course, ORT's official version of the war is the 
only one available to viewers in many parts of the country, who are unable to 
pick up NTV's signal. 

-----

In an announcement late last week, NTV said Oleg Dobrodeyev had left his job 
as director of the station. He will be replaced by Yevgeny Kiselyov, who 
hosts the "Itogi" news magazine.

Dobrodeyev reportedly told his staff that he had decided to leave after 
speaking to station owner Vladimir Gusinsky, although he apparently gave no 
reason for his departure.

(Email the Media Watch column at media@russiajournal.com

*******

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