February 2, 2000    
This Date's Issues: 4085 4086 4087

Johnson's Russia List
#4086
3 February 2000
davidjohnson@erols.com

[Note from David Johnson:
1. Interfax: OVER TWO-THIRDS OF RUSSIANS NEGATIVE ABOUT WEST'S PRESSURE OVER CHECHNYA.
2. Boston Globe: Brian Whitmore, Russia's dirty money. Laundering case tests leader's pledge to attack nation's crippling corruption.
3. Laura Belin: electoral fraud.
4. Reuters: Gareth Jones, Putin, a confident figure on world stage.
5. Moscow Times: Oksana Yablokova, Skuratov Says Evidence Exists Against Whole Yeltsin Circle.
6. Voice of America: Andre de Nesnera reports further on Putin.
7. Moskovskie Novosti: There Are No Leaders.
8. Novaya Gazeta: The New President Will Be Chosen Not By The People, But By The Election Date.
9. smi.ru: YAVLINSKY GIVES A WARNING AGAIN.
10. Reuters: Chechnya future terror training ground - CIA chief.
11. Interfax: LUZHKOV WILL NOT COMPETE WITH PUTIN IN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS.
12. Newsweek International: Bill Powell, Mothers And Sons. As the Russian death count mounts in Chechnya, the parents of young conscripts are fighting their own battle: they want to avoid sending 
their boys off to die in a seemingly endless war.                                                                             13. Reuters: Camdessus defends IMF, criticizes G7 Russia role.]

*******

#1
OVER TWO-THIRDS OF RUSSIANS NEGATIVE ABOUT WEST'S PRESSURE OVER CHECHNYA

MOSCOW. Feb 2 (Interfax) - An great majority of Russians, 69%,
frown on the West's attempts to pressure Russia because of the situation
in Chechnya and do not accept its urgent recommendations that the
conflict in the republic be settled by means of negotiations, the
independent Agency of Regional Political Surveys (ARPI) told Interfax on
Wednesday. ARPI had conducted a survey of 1,600 respondents in 90 urban
and rural populated areas in all of Russia's economic and geographic
regions January 28-30.
Twelve percent of the poll respondents approve of the West's
actions and 19% declined to answer, ARPI reported.
Negative attitudes to the West's actions toward Russia are more
common among residents of the northern, northeastern, central black
earth, North Caucasus, Eastern Siberian, and Far Eastern regions of
Russia. Residents of cities with populations ranging from 300 thousand
to 1 million people, managers, blue-collar workers, men and the
followers of Liberal Democratic Party of Russia leader Vladimir
Zhirinovsky also expressed negative attitudes to the West's handling of
the Chechnya issue.
Residents of Moscow, St. Petersburg, metropolitan cities, followers
of the Union of Right Forces movement and Yabloko party leader Grigory
Yavlinsky approve of the West's attention to Russia's internal affairs
relatively more often than did other respondents.

*******

#2
Boston Globe
2 February 2000
[for personal use only]
Russia's dirty money 
Laundering case tests leader's pledge to attack nation's crippling corruption
By Brian Whitmore, Globe Correspondent

MOSCOW - Russia's acting president, Vladimir V. Putin, has declared that 
fighting corruption is one of his administration's top priorities. And law 
enforcement officials in Switzerland have decided to lend him a helping hand 
- whether he wants one or not.

Last week, Swiss prosecutors issued an arrest warrant for Pavel Borodin, once 
a top aide in the Kremlin who's suspected of money laundering.

Swiss authorities say they are simply enforcing their own laws. But the case 
- one of several recent investigations into high-level Russian corruption - 
is causing tremors among Russia's political elite.

Borodin, a central figure in the mushrooming scandals of the past year, is 
also a close ally of both Putin and former president Boris Yeltsin.

The Swiss case, analysts say, will severely test Putin's commitment to reform.

To turn around Russia's lethargic economy and to attract investment, Putin, 
who became acting president following Yeltsin's abrupt New Year's Eve 
resignation, must tackle the rampant corruption that has so damaged Russia's 
reputation as a promising emerging market.

''The Kremlin has shown little interest in pursuing this and other cases, and 
this has put a damper on investment,'' said Charles Blitzer, chief economist 
for the investment bank Donaldson Lufkin and Jenrette.

Russia is consistently ranked among the world's most corrupt countries.

Last year, the international watchdog Transparency International gave Russia 
a dismal clean-government score: 2.4 out of a possible 10.

In the survey, based on interviews with business people and academics, Russia 
ranked as the 17th most corrupt, out of 99 nations surveyed.

But since many believe that corruption goes to the very top of the Kremlin 
elite that put him in power, Putin must walk a fine line.

Borodin is part of a shadowy collection of Kremlin-connected tycoons and 
bureaucrats, known as ''The Family,'' which wielded enormous influence over 
the ailing and aging Yeltsin. By most accounts, this clique facilitated 
Putin's dramatic rise to power.

Under Yeltsin, Borodin managed the Kremlin's multibillion-dollar real-estate 
empire, which includes apartment buildings, hotels, and resorts, along with 
automobiles and airplanes. It was he who in 1996 brought Putin, previously 
vice mayor of St. Petersburg, Russia's second city, to the capital to work as 
his deputy. Thus began Putin's meteoric rise. 

The Borodin case involves a Swiss construction firm called Mabatex, which in 
1994 won contracts worth an estimated $640 million to renovate the Kremlin. 
Swiss investigators suspect that Mabatex may have paid as much as $15 million 
in bribes to bureaucrats in the Kremlin, including Borodin.

An investigating judge in the Geneva prosecutor's office, Daniel Devaud, was 
quoted as saying that the warrant accuses Borodin of using Swiss banks to 
launder the bribes.

Mabatex and its officers deny paying any bribes, and Borodin denies receiving 
any.

The Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera reported last year that Swiss 
prosecutors were also looking into allegations that Mabatex may have paid as 
much as $1 million in bribes to Yeltsin and his two daughters.

Putin has made some cautious moves to distance himself from Yeltsin's inner 
circle. He removed Borodin as the Kremlin's property manager and fired the 
former president's daughter, Tatyana Dyachenko, who had served as Yeltsin's 
image adviser.

But Putin faces snap presidential elections on March 26, and few expect him 
to push any serious anticorruption measures that may alienate the powerful 
industrial, bureaucratic, and media interests he needs to win that vote.

''Putin is in a very difficult position,'' said Roland Nash, chief economist 
for Renaissance Capital, a Moscow investment bank. ''He was allowed to become 
prime minister and later acting president because the Kremlin inner circle 
saw him as somebody who would protect their interests.

''He has made some moves to distance himself from Yeltsin's family, like 
removing Dyachenko and Borodin, but it would be naive to expect him to do 
much more before the election.''

At a news conference Friday, Borodin denied the charges against him and 
called them politically motivated.

''They want to discredit Russia and keep money taken out of Russia,'' Borodin 
said of the Swiss authorities.

Russia has no extradition treaty with Switzerland, and law-enforcement 
officials in Moscow have not yet confirmed receiving the warrant.

Putin has not commented publicly on the matter.

The Mabatex investigation has dragged on for two years, with some bizarre 
twists.

It began in early 1998, when a Swiss prosecutor, Carla del Ponte, told a 
Russian prosecutor, Yury Skuratov, that she had information about high-level 
corruption in Russia.

The investigation proceeded covertly until last February, when Skuratov made 
it public, drawing the Kremlin's wrath.

In March, Yeltsin accused Skuratov of misconduct and suspended him after 
Russian State Television broadcast a video of the prosecutor frolicking in 
bed with two prostitutes. On Monday, Skuratov was charged with abusing his 
office.

Borodin has lashed out at del Ponte, saying he would ''send her white 
carnations,'' as if for a funeral.

Del Ponte, who has since resigned to take a job at the International Court of 
Justice, told Russia's NTV television that law enforcement officials in her 
country will see the Mabatex case to the end.

''For investors, it will be very interesting to see what Mr. Putin does about 
corruption after the presidential elections. But it would be very naive to 
expect him to do much beforehand,'' said Nash.

*******

#3
Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2000
From: laurabelin@excite.com (Laura Belin)
Subject: electoral fraud

Dear David,

Without knowing where you and Andrei Liakhov got your figures regarding
electoral fraud, it is difficult for the rest of us JRL readers to
participate in an informed discussion about the matter. There is much
evidence of localized fraud in Russia, but falsification on the scale you
are talking about would require a very sophisticated operation. The
allegations raise a lot of questions in my mind and certainly deserve
further discussion. It would be helpful if you and/or Andrei Liakhov could
consult with your sources to see whether they have answers.

Since the "official" results were fairly close to the early returns reported
on 19 December, it seems that such massive adjustments to the real vote
totals could only have occurred in two ways: 

1. Theoretically, the Central Electoral Commission could have systematically
lied when reporting the early election returns. Then, in the ensuing days,
as the real protocols were sent to Moscow, the commission could have
fabricated thousands of official protocols to make them roughly add up to
the figures that were released on 19 December.
If such a method was applied, perhaps it could be exposed by comparing the
protocols TsIK now has to protocols produced when the votes were tallied on
19 and 20 December. The law gave election observers the right to obtain
copies of the official protocols from each polling station. I do not know to
what extent observers representing political parties were able to capitalize
on this right, but if they were, then some evidence of fraud might exist. 
The question then becomes why your/Andrei Liakhov's source has not
encouraged the victimized parties (KPRF, OVR, Yabloko) to demand an
investigation into the matter. Or, alternatively, why those parties have not
done so. 

2. The governors could have leaned on electoral commissions in most regions
to produce false vote totals from the very beginning. In that scenario, TsIK
would have been accurately releasing the data it had on the night of 19
December, but those data would have already been corrupted at the source. 
This type of scheme would require so many collaborators at so many levels
in so many regions that it is surprising news of it would not leak out
almost immediately, finding its way into some newspaper that is hostile to
the Kremlin. Liakhov seems to be suggesting that most governors, even those
who were not officially supporting Unity, were involved in the falsification
effort in order to curry favor with Putin. But would the leaders of almost
every region double or triple or quadruple the vote totals of the Union of
Right Forces? Chubais and Gaidar are famously unpopular among the regional
elite. According to your scenario, did the Kremlin just order the governors
to boost the Union of Right Forces? Did Chubais threaten to shut off their
electricity? 
If the protocols were fabricated from the very beginning, then the question
becomes, how were your sources able to acquire the "real" vote totals in all
regions and add them up to reach the precise figures you presented?
Presumably the governors and/or regional electoral commissions did not leave
papers lying around saying how many votes were added to and subtracted from
various parties. What is backing up those "actual" percentages (33.4 percent
for the KPRF, 15.7 or 14 percent for Unity, 3.4 or 2.2 percent for the Union
of Right Forces and so on)? Are those just guesses by your sources?

On the one hand, the "actual" vote totals you and Andrei Liakhov presented
are for the most part believable (they're closer to what I expected than the
official returns were). On the other hand, without having more detailed
information about how this alleged fraud took place, it is impossible to
evaluate how plausible those totals are. Whistle-blowers want to remain
anonymous for good reason, but so do manipulators who spread false rumors.
Remember the CIA document proving that the US Navy shot down TWA flight 800?
That document convinced an honest, prominent journalist but turned out to be
fabricated. 

Incidentally, the fact that the results differed from opinion polls raises
suspicions but does not itself prove there was fraud. Polls vastly
understated the LDPR's support in 1995, for instance. In any case, polls
published shortly before the election showed Yabloko and the OVR way down
from their August-October support levels, and not far off what the
"official" results were in the end. I'm not vouching for the accuracy of
those polls--just saying that they stopped showing Yabloko in double digits
sometime in November, and showed OVR well below the 20 percent level at
least a month before the election.

There is a very convincing case that there was fraud in the 1996
presidential election, especially in regions that showed Zyuganov way ahead
in the first round and then had Yeltsin miraculously beating him by a
significant margin in the runoff less than three weeks later. However, since
Yeltsin's margin of victory was 14 percentage points nationwide, it's not at
all clear that fraud made the difference.

*******

#4
ANALYSIS-Putin, a confident figure on world stage
By Gareth Jones

MOSCOW, Feb 3 (Reuters) - The door opens. A short, brisk man strides out 
purposefully with a bevy of aides in tow and ushers his waiting guest 
politely into a seat. 

Vladimir Putin oozes cool confidence after barely a month as Russia's acting 
president, and on Wednesday U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright became 
the latest Western official to feel the force of his charm. 

Putin's vigour and clear grasp of his brief mark him off sharply from his 
patron Boris Yeltsin who, at least in the latter years of his presidency, 
often appeared confused and sometimes even needed to be physically helped to 
his seat. 

Putin spoke without notes for nearly three hours with Albright -- far longer 
than planned -- on a range of thorny issues including Chechnya, arms control 
and nuclear non-proliferation. Albright clearly enjoyed the encounter. 

``I was impressed by his can-do approach to the issues we discussed, his 
problem-solving approach,'' she said. 

``I found him a very well-informed person and a good interlocutor, obviously 
a Russian patriot,'' she told reporters. 

Albright, often criticised in Moscow for her hawkish stance on issues like 
Kosovo, said they had both stood their ground on Chechnya, where Russian 
troops have been battling Islamic rebels in a campaign viewed in the West as 
excessively brutal. 

But she said Putin had shown himself open to proposals to help ease the 
effects of the war on civilians and had also been keen to find common ground 
on issues like arms control. 

PUTIN BARRED FROM FOREIGN TRAVEL BEFORE ELECTION 

His mixture of firmness and measured flexibility seems to be earning Putin 
the respect, if not affection, of Western visitors trooping through Moscow to 
size him up ahead of Russia's March 26 presidential election -- a contest he 
is tipped to win. 

Putin, who replaced Yeltsin on New Year's Eve, cannot leave Russia until 
after the poll because he remains prime minister and the premier ordinarily 
deputises for the president. 

But in the past month he has received the foreign ministers of Italy and 
Germany -- impressing the latter with his fluent German -- the leaders of the 
ex-Soviet Commonwealth of Independent States and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi 
Annan. 

Annan said he found Putin ``constructive'' and CIS leaders praised his 
decisiveness, electing him chairman of their body. 

French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine is due to meet Putin on Friday and 
British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook and NATO Secretary-General Lord 
Robertson are also expected this month. 

``This guy (Putin) is self-assured, but he has every reason to be, 
considering his popularity (in Russia),'' said one official in Albright's 
party, adding that ``steely'' was not an inappropriate adjective to apply to 
the former KGB spy. 

Another official said Putin had shown a firm grasp of market economics. ``He 
said the right things. The exact things that need to be done to improve the 
rule of law and tax codes,'' he said. 

PUTIN HAS TO MATCH WORDS WITH DEEDS 

Knowing what his Western guests want to hear, of course, does not mean Putin 
plans to follow words up with actions. And on Chechnya, Russia's main bone of 
contention with the West, Putin has remained deaf to his visitors' calls for 
peace talks. 

Putin has brushed aside Albright's warning that Chechnya threatens to leave 
Russia isolated on the international stage. 

But he has also avoided the sharp language used by some Russian officials, 
even conceding Moscow might deserve a portion of the blame for failing to 
explain its case better to the West. 

Chechnya aside, the West seems willing at least for now to give Putin the 
benefit of the doubt. Many are simply relieved that the Kremlin finally has 
an alert and healthy occupant after years of drift under the ailing and 
capricious Yeltsin. 

Political analysts said the 47-year-old Putin, for all his shadowy past in 
foreign intelligence, really did understand the need to mend fences with the 
West over the long term. 

``Putin and the people around him know the current blip given to Russia's 
economy by higher oil prices cannot last very long and that they have every 
interest in improving relations,'' said Sergei Mikhailov of the Russian 
Socio-Political Centre. 

*******

#5
Moscow Times
February 3, 2000 
Skuratov Says Evidence Exists Against Whole Yeltsin Circle 
By Oksana Yablokova
Staff Writer

Suspended Prosecutor General Yury Skuratov said Wednesday there was evidence 
of lawbreaking against just about all the members of former President Boris 
Yeltsin's inner circle. 

But Skuratov wouldn't say how he knew, or be more specific about exactly what 
the alleged miscreants had done. 

Skuratov, who was suspended by Yeltsin last February after pressing ahead 
with investigations into suspected Kremlin corruption, spoke at a news 
conference Wednesday. 

"The entire Kremlin inner circle has problems with the law," Skuratov said. 
He said that evidence of wrongdoing "has been lying unasked for without any 
checking." "I don't say they are criminals, but all this evidence must be 
thoroughly investigated," he said. 

Kremlin-connected media mogul Boris Berezovsky is under investigation in 
connection with alleged diversion of money from Aeroflot. Berezovsky denies 
it, saying he has no connection to the company. Other members of the Kremlin 
administration have been mentioned in news reports in connection with an 
investigation in Switzerland of alleged money laundering; but an arrest order 
has been issued for only one - former property chief Pavel Borodin, who says 
he's done nothing wrong. He can't be extradited. 

Skuratov did get more specific about the investigation sparked by the 
confiscation of over $500,000 being carried in a cardboard box out of the 
White House by two Yeltsin campaign officials in 1996. 

Skuratov said Yeltsin personally scolded him for looking into the case, while 
his daughter and image adviser Tatyana Dyachenko repeatedly asked him to 
close the case. 

"We failed to take the investigation to the end," said Skuratov, citing a 
lack of support from other law enforcement agencies and from the presidential 
administration as the reason. 

Skuratov was charged last week with abusing his office for accepting 14 
tailored suits. Skuratov says they were given to him by the Kremlin. He says 
the prosecution is an attempt to silence him. 

*******

#6
Voice of America
DATE=2/1/2000
TITLE=RUSSIA - PUTIN POLITICS
BYLINE=ANDRE DE NESNERA
DATELINE=WASHINGTON

// EDS: This is the second of two reports on Russia's 
acting president, Vladimir Putin. The first, Who Is 
Putin?, was issued 1/28/00 as 5-45337 // 

INTRO: Acting President Vladimir Putin is the heavy 
favorite to win Russia's presidential elections March 
26th. In this report from Washington, former Moscow 
correspondent Andre de Nesnera looks at why Mr. Putin 
is so popular and asks if his presidential bid can be 
derailed before the vote. 

TEXT: Vladimir Putin has been acting Russian President 
since December 31st, when Boris Yeltsin shocked the 
world and announced his resignation. Before that, Mr. 
Putin was prime minister, having been chosen for the 
job by Mr. Yeltsin last August.

The 47-year-old Putin is a newcomer to the high 
echelons of the Russian power structure. But many 
American experts on Russia say his 17 years in the K-
G-B -- the Soviet secret police - his work as a 
municipal leader in Saint Petersburg in the early `90s 
and his various positions in the Kremlin bureaucracy 
over the past few years, make him an ideal candidate 
for President. 

Bruce Johnson - from the (Indianapolis-based) "Hudson 
Institute" - says Mr. Putin is a very shrewd 
politician. 

/// JOHNSON ACT ///

He is astute far beyond anything Russia has seen 
since Stalin died and the difference is that 
Putin - besides having higher motives - also 
doesn't have the power of the state behind him 
to impose the sort of horrible programs that 
Stalin imposed. But in terms of political 
skills, he makes Khruschev and many of the other 
leaders since the 1950's look totally impotent.

/// END ACT ///

Analysts say a perfect example of Mr. Putin's 
political skills is the recent deal he struck with the 
Communist Party in Parliament's lower house, the Duma. 
Mr. Putin's centrist "Unity" bloc got key committee 
chairmanships in the Duma in exchange for naming a 
Communist deputy - Gennady Seleznev - as speaker. The 
move angered reform-minded politicians, who staged a 
brief boycott of the Duma. 

Ian Bremmer - head of the (New York based) "Eurasia 
Group" - says Mr. Putin will have to use many of his 
political skills in the months ahead if he is going to 
regain the support of his one-time allies.

/// BREMMER ACT ///

He is going to have to make compromises to bring 
those reformers back on board. He is going to 
have to make compromises and back away from the 
communists if he wants the reformers' support 
and participation in the government after his 
assumed election in March. And he is also going 
to have to step on a lot of communist toes if he 
wants the parliament to actually put forward a 
lot of this new (reform-minded)legislation which 
many in the Communist Party haven't supported. 

/// END ACT //

Recent public opinion surveys make Mr. Putin the clear 
favorite in the March 26th presidential elections. 

One of the reasons for such popularity is his strong 
military stance against separatists in Russia's 
Caucasus region of Chechnya. 

But Mike McFaul - from the (Washington-based) 
"Carnegie Institute" says the Chechen military 
campaign is not the only reason for his strong showing 
among Russians.

/// McFAUL ACT ///

That (the Chechen campaign) was most certainly 
important to launch his career. Think of it like a 
rocket sending a satellite into space. The first 
`booster rocket' was certainly the Chechen war. But 
after that - and opinion polls show that very clearly 
- he is just popular for the simple fact that he is a 
new, young leader who is doing things on a lot of 
fronts. For instance on the economy, people are much 
more optimistic about the economy under Putin than 
they were six months ago under Yeltsin. People claim 
that their wages have been paid in a more prompt 
fashion under Putin than under Yeltsin. So this 
suggests there has been a real sea change, with a new, 
young dynamic leader at the top. This is exactly what 
the Russian people have been waiting for for several 
years - and that is what accounts for his overwhelming 
popularity right now.

/// END ACT ///

Mr. Putin's overwhelming popularity prompts the 
question: Can he be stopped in his quest to become 
Russia's next president? 

Ariel Cohen - from the (Washington-based) "Heritage 
Foundation" - says one development could derail his 
presidential train.

/// COHEN ACT ///

And that's a disaster in the field in Chechnya. A 
military disaster that will demonstrate conclusively 
that the Russian strategy in Chechnya failed, will be 
a very serious blow to Putin and his popularity. But 
being the shrewd politician that he is, he may then 
find scapegoats in the military - as he already did, 
by the way, for some serious setbacks the Russians 
suffered in Grozny. /// OPT /// He fired a couple of 
Generals: General Troshov and General Shamanov. So 
Putin, being a shrewd guy he is, may walk away even 
from a disastrous development in Chechnya. /// END OPT 
///

/// END ACT /// 

Many long-time analysts of Russia say the country's 
history has taught them to expect the unexpected. But 
in the case of Mr. Putin - right now - they say he 
seems unstoppable. 

*******

#7
Russia Today press summaries
Moskovskie Novosti 
1 February 2000
There Are No Leaders
Summary
The problem is not that Vladimir Putin wants to become president. The problem 
is that nobody else wants the position.

For 100 out of the 101 people running in the elections, victory is not 
important – they only care about participation. Most of these “candidates” 
are not even worth talking about – unemployed and provincial businessmen, 
heads of foundations… each of them has his or her own goals, such as 
advertising or taking a rest from work. This is no sensation – in 1996, 77 
candidates attempted to take part in the Big Race. Only 12 out of them ended 
up on the election ballots. And this time we will probably have the same 
final number of candidates. The quantity will be the same, but the quality – 
much worse.

In 1996 Boris Yeltsin had real competitors in Zyuganov and Yavlinsky. Now, 
Putin has no real competitors – not one of our serious politicians wants to 
really compete with him, and not one is really able to.

Why? What has happened? Nothing. Really nothing. But there is a difference 
between 1996 and 2000. It can be measured by one thing – experience. Four 
years ago, the two real competitors each had his own electorate, his own 
support and resources. Zyuganov’s supporters dreamed of bringing back the 
past. Yavlinsky’s supporters dreamed of breaking through to the future. But 
in four years the number of dreamers in the country has decreased. The past 
has been erased; the future hasn’t been defined. Zyuganov’s voters no longer 
believe in sausage for 2 rubles a kilogram and the reanimation of Leonid 
Brezhnev. Those who voted for Yavlinsky no longer believe in the fast victory 
of the market economy and democracy.

The problem is not with names. If there were REAL reforms on the right flank, 
there may have emerged a new strong politician who had grown out of the 
middle class and who knew and protected its interests – democratic 
principles, institutes of civic society, market values.

Boris Yeltsin really did everything so that his “official” successor wouldn’t 
have any real competitors. He simply didn’t allow the voters to grow.

******

#8
Russia Today press summaries
Novaya Gazeta 
1 Februay 2000
The New President Will Be Chosen Not By The People, But By The Election Date
Summary
The victory of Vladimir Putin in the March 26 elections seems almost 
doubtless. The chain of well-timed events leads straight to it. But there is 
one little chink through which the seemingly 100% guaranteed success can leak 
out.

It is time that works against the rating of overblown political figures. 
Putin’s doubtful administrative achievements in St. Petersburg and Moscow 
allow us to say that his figure is secondary, if not overblown. And the 
voters haven’t had time to figure out that the king is naked. But by the 
summer of 2000, Putin’s rating might near the low level he reached in St. 
Petersburg.

In any case, by March 26 Putin’s rating will probably not fall enough to land 
him in third place. If he ends up in second place, there will be the second 
round and he will defeat Zyuganov.

The situation might change if on March 26 less than half of registered voters 
come to the booths. In that case, the elections will be considered invalid 
and new elections will take place no later than 4 months after March 26. But 
is this situation really possible?

In the past four years, voter attendance has been gradually declining. In 
1995 64% of registered voters came to the Duma polls, while in 1999, the 
number was 61%. If we subtract 3% from the 69% that came to vote in the ’96 
presidential elections, we can predict that participation on March 26 will be 
66%. And this would only be due to the “long-term fatigue” of Russian voters.

If we also take into account “short-term fatigue” and disappointment after 
the December elections, we can subtract 3% more and get 63%. The 
no-alternative and predetermined situation of these elections might also 
subtract 3% more. The most serious factor could be the lack of an ideological 
fight of “Communism versus anti-Communism”, which might lower the attendance 
percentage by 5%, too, especially taking into account the touching union of 
Unity and the Communists in the Duma. And in the end, we will have 55%. If by 
March the situation in Chechnya isn’t good, this might also lower the 
attendance a little more.

But everyone is sure that if the attendance in the end will be just slightly 
less than 50%, the Central Election Committee will try to raise it to the 
necessary 51%. Which means the possibility of repeated elections will only 
arise if Putin’s opponents are able to lower to attendance to 42-44%.

******

#9
smi.ru
18:31 31.01.00
Mass Media
YAVLINSKY GIVES A WARNING AGAIN 
Grigory Yavlinsky has given a large interview to the German paper Die Welt, 
commenting on the current situation in Russia and once again warning the 
readers against the danger of an "authoritarian police state" in this 
country. Speaking of the situation in the Duma, Yavlinsky emphasized that the 
goal of the "refuseniks" had been to demonstrate that the government uses the 
same forcible methods of pressure in the Duma as it does in Chechnya. The 
three factions had tried to draw the West's attention to the fact that the 
new Ku-Klux-Klan (the Koalition of the Kremlin and the Kommunists) has begun 
infringing upon the rights of the minority. Answering a question about 
Chechnya, the "Yabloko" ("Apple") leader called upon to cease "large-scale 
hostilities" and enter into negotiations with the legally elected President 
of Ichkeria, Aslan Maskhadov. Yavlinsky also voiced some doubts about the 
certainty of Vladimir Putin's victory in the March election, reminding the 
readers that Putin is the third "surefire winner", after Yuri Luzhkov and 
Yevgeny Primakov, during the last year. 

Comment: There are two things that are beyond any doubt. Whatever might 
happen in the country, but "Yabloko", one of the oldest parties on the 
Russian political scene, will always remain in the opposition, with 
absolutely clean hands and never taking the slightest bit of responsibility 
for anything. Then, if the Western media could have their way, Grigory 
Yavlinsky would long ago have been elected eternal President of Russia. In 
all the wild steppes of this country, Yavlinsky is the only model, showcase 
politically correct politician, unswervingly advocating the civil society, 
private property and human rights. What's more, he is probably the only 
Russian citizen left that still does not feel the recently increased pressure 
from the West. All in all, the Western reader ought to conclude after reading 
such articles, the one thing that escapes understanding is why the Russians 
have still not appreciated such a paragon of a person and are constantly 
trying to elect President somebody else. 
Die Welt: "Der russische Ku-Klux-Klan regiert mit Gewalt"

*******

#10
Chechnya future terror training ground - CIA chief
February 2, 2000

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Chechnya could become the terror training ground for 
the new millennium as its conflict with Russia may spawn a new generation of 
``terrorists,'' CIA Director George Tenet said Wednesday. 

``Afghanistan was the calling card in the '70s and '80s. Chechnya will become 
the calling card of this millennium in terms of where do terrorists go and 
train and act,'' Tenet said at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing. 

The types of conflicts that the Chechens and Russians are engaged in 
currently ``turn into spawning grounds of the next generation of people who 
try their skills,'' he said. 

``Terrorists'' were likely to take the opportunity to inject themselves into 
the situation for religious reasons or to help the Chechens, he said. 

That in turn ``will create a cascading effect of people proving their mettle 
on a battleground that they will then come back and test against us in other 
places,'' Tenet said. 

Russia's military action alone will not resolve its conflict with Chechnya, 
Vice Admiral Thomas Wilson, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said 
at the same hearing. 

The Chechen situation has ``been going on for centuries and it won't be 
solved by military action,'' he said. 

Russia was using some of the same ``brute force tactics'' that did not work 
well in 1996, ``of heavy bombardment of the city and then followed up with 
infantry and internal security forces which are ill-prepared to conduct urban 
warfare,'' Wilson said. 

``So the Russian military is not well-prepared for the situation that they 
were thrust into,'' he said. ``They're taking losses, as are the Chechens. 
And it will not solve the problem, which will be around for a long time at 
the current pace.'' 

******

#11
LUZHKOV WILL NOT COMPETE WITH PUTIN IN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS

MOSCOW. Feb 2 (Interfax-Moscow) - Leader of the Fatherland
movement, Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov has stated that he will not compete
with Vladimir Putin in the upcoming presidential elections. He said,
however, that he does care "what Russia will be like under Putin."
He said in an interview with the weekly Argumenty I Fakty,
published Wednesday that he could feel Putin's "well-meaning attitude to
Moscow" which "inspires return feelings."
"I'm not Putin's rival, as you see. Nor will I compete with him in
the presidential elections," Luzhkov said.
Regarding the possibility of becoming Putin's ally, he said that to
start with he must see whether Putin himself welcomes this idea. "I
personally am ready for any compromise," he said, noting that "what is
meant here is not the style or method of work, but his reaction to
various political problems."
Luzhkov said that he did not support the alliance between the
Communist and Unity factions in the Duma and disagreed with how the
posts were distributed in parliament. The three factions that are in the
minority, represent 30% of the Russian population, he said. "If the
authorities are disregarding the representatives of this section of the
population, that is their tragedy," Luzhkov said.
He also expressed concern about the situation in the media, which
included the TVC television channel, and about the limitations imposed
on the spreading of military information from Chechnya. He said he
cannot pass over these facts in silence.
"The elite close to the authorities has developed a large group of
people who are not interested in the country's steady development," the
Moscow mayor said.
Assessing Sergei Yastrzhebsky's work in the Moscow government,
Luzhkov said that "his initial work has been quite active." He "ran
contacts with foreign colleagues rather efficiently," Luzhkov said."
During the parliamentary election campaign, Yastrzhembsky gladly
accepted the role of key PR man, however, when a strong wave of
slanders crashed down on our ship, Yastrzhembsky's vigor faded away and
he "lost some of the intellectual battles," said Luzhkov.

*******

#12
Newsweek International
February 7, 2000
[for personal use only]
RUSSIA 
Mothers And Sons 
As the Russian death count mounts in Chechnya, the parents of young 
conscripts are fighting their own battle: they want to avoid sending their 
boys off to die in a seemingly endless war 
By Bill Powell

Yekaterina Zhadova sensed trouble late last summer when she didn't receive a 
letter from her 19-year-old son for more than a month. Nikolai had been 
conscripted into the Russian Army in June 1998 and had corresponded 
frequently from a base not far from his home in Arzamas, a city of more than 
100,000 about 400 kilometers east of Moscow. He had lived there with his 
parents in a large, bleak complex of apartment buildings called 
"Microdistrict Number 11.'' The fact that he had stopped writing "scared 
us,'' says his mother. By mid-September, Russia's latest Chechen war was 
gathering force. Troops were in neighboring Dagestan, and soon were rolling 
into Chechnya itself. That is what Yekaterina Zhadova was afraid of. On Sept. 
24, when she finally got a letter from Nikolai, concern turned to panic. The 
postmark was Voronezh, a southwestern town that lies along the route to the 
northern Caucuses. Nikolai wrote that he was participating in "military 
exercises.'' His mother didn't believe it. "That's when I realized," she 
says, "he was on his way to Chechnya.''

When Zhadova's neighbor in Microdistrict Number 11, Antonina Tsurkan, 
received a telegram on Jan. 4, she didn't think much of it. So little, in 
fact, that she, a widow with five children, didn't read it right away. Her 
youngest son, Andrei, 19, had been in the Army since November 1998, posted 
with an elite Spetsnaz unit outside Moscow. Antonina figured the telegram was 
from Andrei saying he was coming home for a vacation. In one of his more 
recent letters he said his unit had helped "pick and store vegetables" in the 
countryside—routine duty for Russian troops. Another letter, dated Nov. 19, 
arrived in early December. It said his duty "was going well—even great, if I 
may say it—so don't worry." Her son said she should continue writing letters 
to him addressed to his base outside Moscow, and they will be delivered "to 
where I am now." Then, writing that he had "no time" to produce a longer 
letter, Andrei said to his mother and the two of his four siblings still 
living at home: "I love you all. Goodbye. See you soon. Your son, Andrei." 
And then, just below: "Don't worry about me, Mother. Bye." They were the last 
words he would ever write to her. When Antonina finally opened the telegram 
on Jan. 4, she learned that Andrei had been killed in Chechnya on Dec. 29.

Chechnya is Vladimir Putin's war. And now, with Russian troops bogged down in 
a fierce fight over control of Grozny, it is coming home. Last week, for the 
first time, Russian media openly questioned the military's official casualty 
count. Acting President Putin's public support has, according to one 
reputable polling agency, begun to erode, falling from a 54 percent approval 
rating to 49 percent—the first ever dip for the man who hopes to be elected 
president in his own right on March 26. In Arzamas—home to three young men 
killed so far in the Chechen war—and others towns like it across Russia, 
parents with soldier sons are petrified that soon they will receive the kind 
of telegram Antonina Tsurkan did last month. Some, in desperate response, try 
to find ways to get their sons back. Most fail.

Most, but not all. When Yekaterina Zhadova figured out in September that 
Nikolai was in Chechnya, her first stop was the nearest branch of the 
Soldiers' Mothers' Committee, one of the few effective antiwar groups in 
Russia. During the last war the Mothers' Committee had effectively pressured 
the military to account for soldiers either missing in action or kidnapped in 
Chechnya. At the office in Nizhny Novgorod, about 110 kilometers north of 
Arzamas, the chairwoman told Zhadova to go to the committee's Moscow 
headquarters for advice. She borrowed some money from friends and did—even 
though her husband thought it was a fool's errand. In Moscow, another 
committee representative told her: go to Mozdok, the main Russian staging 
base for the Chechen campaign; talk to the officers in charge; do what you 
can.

In the early days of the war, a handful of mothers had successfully 
cajoled—or bribed—military officials to spring their sons from Mozdok. By the 
time Zhadova checked into a women's dormitory near the base in October, the 
military was cracking down. She says she was routinely harassed by "political 
officers'' at the base who "tried to get rid of me.'' She persisted. "You can 
get rid of me,'' she said to one official, "after I see my son. But I am not 
going to leave this place until I do.'' Every day for two weeks she appeared 
at the office of a commander at Mozdok, a man whom Zhadova does not want to 
name because, in the end, he broke under her relentless persistence. One day 
she showed up outside his office and asked again to see him. He wasn't in. 
Where was he, she asked. Gone, an assistant replied icily, "to get your son."

On the evening of Oct. 13, a bewildered Nikolai arrived in Mozdok and was 
taken to see his mother; both were told he would be returning to Chechnya on 
the 15th. That night, Yekaterina did not tell her son what she was up to. But 
in her bag she had his civilian clothes and his passport. The next day, she 
told him. "I've come not just to see you, but to take you back home with me."

The long train ride to Moscow was tense. Several times police asked 
passengers for identification documents; not knowing whether the military was 
already looking for Nikolai—now officially a deserter—"we were telling 
ourselves to stay calm," Zhadova says. "But we were really nervous." Once 
they got to Arzamas, the Mothers' Committee representative in Nizhny Novgorod 
advised Zhadova to explain the situation to the local military prosecutor—and 
to ask that Nikolai be assigned anywhere other than Chechnya. Zhadova agreed, 
albeit warily. "Thank God," she says, that when she and Nikolai met with the 
prosecutor, "he acted like a normal human being." He asked Nikolai what he 
wanted. His reply: "To serve somewhere else."

In Russia, desertion is punishable by up to seven years of prison. Not for 
lucky Nikolai. He was reassigned, to a base in Mulino, about 600 kilometers 
from Arzamas. He could, conceivably, be sent back again to Chechnya, but for 
now he sits at home, safe and warm, having broken his hand in late December.

About a month after Nikolai returned to Arzamas, his mother and Antonina 
Tsurkan met, for the first time, as they were walking to their apartments. 
Zhadova told Tsurkan her story. Antonina was unimpressed. She didn't realize 
then that her own son was in Chechnya, and besides, she says, "I have three 
sons, and all served in the military. I've always thought it was their duty 
to defend the motherland. Before, when we were young, we wouldn't even date 
guys who had not been to the Army."

Andrei Tsurkan had not known Nikolai, but he did know a young man named 
Aleksei Spirin; they had been in the same first-grade class in Arzamas. Like 
Tsurkan, Spirin had also been drafted in November 1998, and less than a year 
later was headed for Chechnya. In contrast to Andrei, who hid the truth from 
his mother, Spirin gave vent to his fears in a letter his parents received on 
Sept. 27. "Maybe this is the last time I will write to you. We will go to 
Dagestan to fight... just pray that I will be OK. I don't know what else to 
write, I have no words; I am really nervous... Maybe we will see each other 
again... Goodbye. Kisses. I love you with all my heart."

When Sergei Spirin, Aleksei's father, received that letter from his only 
child, he and his wife, Antonina, were stunned. Aleksei had a chronic blood 
problem, and had recently been hospitalized in Podolsk, a town outside Moscow 
near where his unit was stationed. He also had terrible eyesight. "He wanted 
to be a construction worker but his sight was so bad he wasn't accepted to 
any vocational school," his father says.

Nor, according to his father, had Aleksei received any combat training. 
Before going to Chechnya he was assigned to the "boiler crew" that supplies 
heat and hot water to the unit. "The only day he ever held a gun was the day 
[he was inducted]," his father says. Furious at his son's plight, Sergei took 
all of Aleksei's medical records to Podolsk and tried to convince officers 
there that they had made a big mistake. He did not have Yekaterina Zhadova's 
luck. A master sergeant "tore up the documents" he had brought and "threw 
them in the toilet." On Oct. 27, 1999, rebel fighters attacked the post in 
Chechnya that Aleksei Spirin was defending, and killed him.

Arzamas, says local journalist Nadezhda Atrova, is "in a state of shock." And 
not just because their sons have begun to die, but because the conscipts now 
in Chechnya seem so pathetically unfit for battle. Aleksei Viktorovich Karpov 
served as a warrant officer in the Army for seven years. Now an electrician, 
he says he always raised his son, Roman, to "be prepared to serve in the 
Army." Inducted, like Spirin and Tsurkan, on Nov. 19, 1998, Roman Karpov, the 
only child of Aleksei and his wife Galina, had taken target practice just 
twice. "And he missed the target both times," his father says. On Christmas 
Eve, Roman was shot three times in the chest while manning a checkpoint in 
the Chechen city of Gudermes.

"I don't understand these people who unleashed this massacre where our kids 
die," Aleksei says, weeping. "They are not human. There is a political motive 
for this. Nobody attacked us. And we sent our sons there... Now we are left 
alone. Our life has stopped." Until last week neither Aleksei nor his wife 
had heard of Yekaterina Zhadova's success in spiriting her son away from the 
war that has claimed their son. Choking with grief, he considers her tale, 
and then simply says, "Well done—I support her."

The three 19-year-old boys from Arzamas now lie next to each other in a 
cemetery across a shallow ravine from Microdistrict Number 11. All three 
graves are marked by polished black headstones bearing their likenesses. 
Early last Wednesday morning it was 19 below zero in Arzamas. The Spirins and 
Galina Karpova were tending their sons' graves; they brought orange slices 
and biscuits to lay on top of them. To Orthodox Christians, the spirits are 
alight in the morning and need to be fed. A wisp of frost had obscured part 
of Roman Karpov's image on his gravestone. His mother, Galina, bent over and 
rubbed at it and rubbed at it, sobbing all the while. "My son," she cried, 
"my son. You got so cold, oh, God, you got so cold."

Across the ravine from the cemetery, Nikolai Zhadov waits to report back for 
duty in Mulino. His mother says she will go there first to argue that he 
doesn't need to return; to argue that according to the law his two months in 
combat plus his service before that fulfills his commitment to the Army. Her 
powers of persuasion are obvious enough. "Maybe we'll know something after 
she goes," Nikolai says hopefully, as his grandmother prepares him a hot 
lunch. As she does so, over and over she says, "We just don't ever want him 
to go back." 

*******

#13
Camdessus defends IMF, criticizes G7 Russia role
February 2, 2000

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The International Monetary Fund took on a tough task 
when it tried to help Russia build a market economy, and rich countries were 
more generous with directives than with cash, the fund's outgoing managing 
director said Wednesday. 

In comments both defensive of IMF actions and critical of the rich countries 
which pay the IMF's bills, Michel Camdessus said none of the players involved 
in the early stages of Russian reform had recognized the scale of the 
problems. 

``What was missed in Russia was a good perception by all actors of the time 
it would take to change the culture of the country,'' Camdessus, who leaves 
the IMF later this month, said at Georgetown University. ``The economic 
culture, the enterprise culture were not there and these take time.'' 

The IMF, occasionally prodded into action by the Group of Seven 
industrialized countries, loaned Russia more than $20 billion in the seven 
years after the Soviet Union collapsed, despite a mixed Russian track record 
on economic reform. 

But Camdessus complained that the G7 -- Britain, Canada, France, Germany, 
Italy, Japan and the United States -- had not stepped in with bilateral loans 
as Russia struggled to remodel its communist-era economy. 

``Very soon we and our friends in the World Bank were left alone to help this 
country, when normally we should have only a catalytic role,'' he said. 

``The bilateral donors, particularly the G7 countries which were so adamant 
to (support) the Russians, have not done a lot -- to say the least -- in 
extending bilateral support.'' 

IMF deputy head Stanley Fischer, speaking earlier at a congressional 
commission, admitted member countries had put ''political pressure'' on 
Russia, although he said it had not gone so far as to force policy shifts. 
``The Russia case is very, very complicated,'' he said. 

The chain of IMF loans from 1992 to 1997 turned Russia into the IMF's largest 
single borrower, although payments from the latest credit have been delayed 
for months while the IMF waits for Russia to meet structural benchmarks 
centering on bankruptcy rules and payments for utilities. 

Camdessus said early efforts to reform the Russian economy had been 
complicated by the fact that the destruction of the Communist Party had 
destroyed the state that went with it. 

``We had to help this country rebuild itself with no proper statistics, no 
proper administration and with a central power which went not very far beyond 
the walls of the Kremlin,'' he said, referring to the power vacuum in 
Russia's early years. 

``Things have been slow and frustrating... But let's wait a minute before 
condemning what has been done there. We have free elections, a free press and 
a democracy which is not challenged by anyone.'' 

Camdessus, repeating previous IMF comments, said Russia was more than meeting 
macroeconomic targets agreed in its latest economic program with the 
international lender and he raised the prospect of a recovery -- within the 
next 10 years. 

``In spite of their crisis ... Russia has not questioned the orientation of a 
market economy, has not questioned the orientation of reform and continues to 
strive to maintain a proper macroeconomic framework,'' Camdessus said. 

``We are hopeful that a real, strong govermnent...will be in place and then 
reform will start again. I have no doubt that some time in the next decade we 
will see Russia doing well again -- and without the support of the IMF.'' 

*******

Web page for CDI Russia Weekly: 
http://www.cdi.org/russia