February 26, 2000    
This Date's Issues: 4133 4134

Johnson's Russia List
#4134
26 February 2000
davidjohnson@erols.com

[Note from David Johnson:
1. Reuters: Russian reporter held with false passport.
2. Moscow Times EDITORIAL: Kidnapped ... Or Just Camping? 
3. Los Angeles Times: Robyn Dixon, Putin Likely to Get Extremist's Votes.
4. Novaya Gazeta: Akram Murtazayev, Out of the Frying Pan Into the Ballot Box.
5. St. Petersburg Times: Fyodor Gavrilov, Where There Is Order, There Is Investment.
6. Rossiyskaya Gazeta: Tamara Shkel, The Anonymous on Demand.(Internet Influence on Elections)
7. Business Week: Paul Starobin, A New Home for Russian Capital--Russia. The flight of cash seems to be abating as faith builds in Putin.
8. AP: Russia: U.S. Missile System Strong.
9. Boston Globe: John Donnelly and David Beard, Reduction of Russian arsenal lags. Lack of US funding blamed for failure to destroy uranium.
10. Robert Bruce Ware: A few questions about Babitsky and other abuses in Chechnya.
11. Chicago Tribune: Georgie Anne Geyer, RUSSIAN BRUTALITY IN CHECHNYA BARELY NOTED IN U.S.]

******

#1
Russian reporter held with false passport
By Gareth Jones

MOSCOW, Feb 26 (Reuters) - A Russian reporter for a U.S.- funded radio, who 
sparked world concern when he went missing in Chechnya, was facing a possible 
jail sentence on Saturday after being detained by police in Dagestan with a 
false passport. 

Officials in Dagestan, which adjoins Chechnya, told Russian television in the 
regional capital Makhachkala that police had detained Andrei Babitsky pf 
Radio Liberty for carrying a passport issued in the name of Azerbaijani 
citizen Ali Musayev. 

His latest detention came a day after Babitsky surfaced in Dagestan and rang 
his wife Lyudmila to tell her he was alive and well. 

It was the first time Babitsky, 35, had been in direct touch with the outside 
world since Russian authorities announced earlier this month he had been 
handed over to the Chechens in exchange for several soldiers being held 
captive. 

Russia's main spokesman on Chechnya, Sergei Yastrzhembsky, told Interfax news 
agency Babitsky was now the focus of a criminal investigation. If found 
guilty of forging documents, Babitsky could face up to two years in jail, he 
said. 

Dagestani Deputy Interior Minister Magomed Omarov quoted Babitsky as telling 
investigators he did not know who took him from Chechnya to Makhachkala 
because they wore masks and prevented him seeing which route they were 
taking. 

Another Radio Liberty correspondent in the North Caucasus, Oleg Kusov, said 
he had been summoned as a witness in the case against Babitsky and had been 
questioned twice. 

BABITSKY SHOWS NO SIGN OF MALTREATMENT 

Kusov, who has seen Babitsky since his arrest for on passport forgery 
charges, said he was in good health and there were no obvious signs that he 
had been badly treated. 

Speaking to NTV commercial television, Kusov said Babitsky had confirmed to 
him that he had voluntarily agreed to the exchange with the Russian 
servicemen. 

However he had changed his mind at the last minute when he realised he was 
being handed to masked men, which stirred his doubts about the nature of the 
deal. The swap went ahead anyway. 

Tass quoted Russian prosecutors as saying Babitsky still faced investigation 
over his alleged support for the rebels fighting Moscow's rule in Chechnya. 
Radio Liberty has angrily denied the allegations. 

Interfax said Babitsky had been detained on Friday evening after being found 
with the false passport in the cafe of a local hotel in Makhachkala. 

Babitsky's reports from Chechnya, which were critical of the military 
campaign, angered Moscow. 

Russian forces captured him last month when he tried to escape the Chechen 
capital Grozny, held by the rebels at the time. Officials later said Babitsky 
had agreed to be swapped for the Russian soldiers, but Chechen commanders 
denied knowledge of the exchange. 

A video film of Babitsky apparently being swapped for the servicemen was 
shown on Russian television stations. Footage was later broadcast of a 
listless-looking Babitsky saying he was well and hoped to be home soon. 

A series of high-profile Western visitors to Moscow had demanded news of his 
whereabouts and his immediate release. 

Radio Liberty and its sister Radio Free Europe were founded in the Cold War 
era to provide news from a Western source to east Europeans living under 
communist rule. 

*******

#2
Moscow Times
February 26, 2000 
EDITORIAL: Kidnapped ... Or Just Camping? 

Russia is a major power, with 145 million people and nuclear weapons. And 
world powers are notoriously difficult to bully - even when they owe 
billions, and are seeking billions more. 

World governments recognize this. That's why it's hard to find a politician 
in the West who advocates, for example, forcibly freeing Tibet from Chinese 
rule. Or, for that matter, wading into the dispute between the 190 million 
people of Indonesia and East Timor. 

That is also probably why the U.S. and British governments in particular are 
scaling back their criticism of the war in Chechnya. It was not having much 
effect anyway, and the West knows it will be dealing with Vladimir Putin for 
a long time. 

So, fine. Give up. But spare us the cringing hypocrisy of people like Robin 
Cook, the British foreign minister, who reassured all this week that Radio 
Liberty journalist Andrei Babitsky was OK because he was "with civilians in 
the mountains." 

Babitsky, a Russian citizen, was detained in Chechnya, and then, because 
Moscow hates his reporting, he was "disappeared." Thirty of the nation's 
newspapers banded together last week into a special edition to demand the 
government come clean on his fate. 

The latest news about Babitsky is that he has surfaced, at least on the 
telephone. If so, it will be interesting to hear his story; and if so, it is 
no thanks to people like Cook, who betrayed Babitsky with startling ease. 
Babitsky was "with civilians in the mountains." To hear Cook tell it, they 
could have all been camping, cooking marshmallows over an open fire and 
counting the stars. 

Of course, these civilians apparently wouldn't let Babitsky go home. That is 
"kidnapping," which would seem to make Cook's "civilians" into "criminals." 
But placing Babitsky "with criminals in the mountains" would have meant 
sacrificing that feel-good Huckleberry Finn flavor - so civilians it is. 

There is a difference between shrugging with distaste at a crime (on the 
grounds that it seems nothing can be done), and actually apologizing for a 
crime and helping cover it up. Cook abetted the extrajudicial sentencing of a 
journalist to some sort of hellish prison run by "civilians in the 
mountains." No doubt Babitsky will be suitably grateful to the people of 
Britain for their support. 

Meanwhile, while everyone is so pragmatically doing business with each other, 
Russian forces are running "filtration camps" where rapes and tortures are 
rampant - and where rapists and torturers, by the way, are being bred, to be 
unleashed on postwar Russian society. So much for the West's "engagement" 
with Russia, or for the "strong Russian state" that is protecting our 
security. 

- Matt Bivens 

******

#3
Los Angeles Times
February 26, 2000
[for personal use only]
Putin Likely to Get Extremist's Votes 
Russia: With Zhirinovsky's formal ouster from election, acting president is 
expected to win the backing of the ultranationalists. 
By ROBYN DIXON, Times Staff Writer

MOSCOW--It was a shabby little apartment on Moscow's Koshtoyants Street 
that undid Russia's strutting ultranationalist, Vladimir V. Zhirinovsky. 
Zhirinovsky claims that he has never even seen the place, but he was 
formally ejected from the presidential race Friday after failing to declare 
the apartment as family property--leaving acting President Vladimir V. Putin 
the most likely beneficiary of his votes. 
Putin, already regarded a shoo-in for the March 26 presidential 
election, is expected to pick up a chunk of Zhirinovsky's support because of 
his hard line against separatist Chechnya, his tough and earthy language, and 
his rallying of nationalist sentiment--all of which appeal to Zhirinovsky 
supporters. 
Zhirinovsky lost a Supreme Court appeal Friday to overturn a Central 
Election Commission decision last week dropping him from the race. 
The flamboyant leader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia seemed 
uncharacteristically deflated after Friday's ruling--in contrast to his 
appearance at the commission session, when he screamed furiously at the chief 
commissioner, Alexander Veshnyakov. 
"We do not even know where this street is," Zhirinovsky said then, 
arguing that his income statement to the commission was 99% true and that an 
omission of only 1% was not grounds to throw him out of the race. "I would 
understand if it was a palace." 
The apartment in southwestern Moscow belongs to Zhirinovsky's son, Igor 
Lebedev. 
Zhirinovsky burst onto the scene in 1991, when he came in third in 
presidential elections, winning 6 million votes. Then he stormed forward in 
1993 when his party won nearly 25% of the vote in parliamentary elections. 
But his support waned, and in the 1996 presidential election he came in 
fifth, with 4 million votes. 
Liliya F. Shevtsova, an analyst with the Carnegie Moscow Center think 
tank, said Putin could count on an extra 3 million to 4 million votes because 
of Zhirinovsky's departure from the presidential race. 
"The fact that Zhirinovsky drops out of the race makes Putin's chances 
of victory even more solid," she said. "I am sure the ultranationalists and 
proponents of a strong state, who used to back Zhirinovsky, will choose Putin 
over [Communist leader Gennady A.] Zyuganov or any other candidate." 
Zhirinovsky has made a career of outrageous statements and deeds. He has 
penned books about reviving Russia's imperial ambitions and about sex. 
He often is dismissed as a buffoon and a boor. But he has always 
directed his rhetoric carefully, playing on the sense of alienation and 
impotence that many ordinary Russians feel. 
If the few million Zhirinovsky votes swing to Putin, it could make the 
difference between a first-round win for Putin and a second-round fight. 
Under Russia's presidential rules, the first-place candidate is immediately 
elected if he gains more than 50% of the vote; otherwise, a runoff between 
the first- and second-place candidates must be held. 
Analyst Igor M. Klyamkin said Zhirinovsky had achieved his main goal, 
recently being voted in as deputy speaker of the Duma, the lower house of 
parliament, and he had little to lose from being thrown out of the 
presidential race. 
"I wouldn't rule out the possibility of some kind of a behind-the-scenes 
deal between the Kremlin and Zhirinovsky," he said. 

*******

#4
Novaya Gazeta, No. 7
Akram Murtazayev
Out of the Frying Pan Into the Ballot Box
[translation for personal use only]

As we all know, presidential elections in Russia have already taken place -
on December 19. It was as a result of these elections - more accurately, as
a result of vote counting (we ought to avoid using "democratic" terms to
describe totalitarian procedures) that Boris Yeltsin transferred his nuclear
suitcase to Vladimir Putin.

The method of succession determines the nature of the new regime. Just as
means used to achieve a goal actually shape the goal itself (e.g., the means
used to combat terrorism reveal the true purpose of the Chechnya war - to
crush secessionists).

But if the presidential elections are already a fait accompli, what is the
point of our going to the polls on the 26th of March?

Some political experts, sensing the problematic nature of this trip, suggest
that one should not go there at all. Or to go and vote against all
candidates.

This makes no sense, because setting up another election date [as a result
of low turnout or "Against All" victory] will not change the name of the
anointed winner.

Putin will not leave the Kremlin. If he will, then only to make war: ORT [I
TV Channel] already announced that if the elections will not bring the
expected result, a civil war might begin.

I believe all of us must be realistic about the fact that on the 26th of
March we will have not an election but a referendum on war.

We will have to vote on whether one is or is not entitled to secede from
Russia. We will have to prohibit escape no matter how repulsive will "the
Center" be. Eventually, we will have to write into the constitution that the
Russian land belongs to ethnic Russians, while all other ethnicities of the
Federation are only temporary residents here.

And we will have to admit that these temporary people are suspicious,
especially Caucasians. We will have to vote for the primacy of ethnic origin
over citizenship, and to accept that our compatriots from the Caucasus are
nobody compared to our ethnic brethren - Belorussians and Serbs. We will
have to vote for the Russian Orthodox Church as the only orthodox one.
Comrade Putin was entirely right when he said that we need to restore moral
principles before taking on the restoration of the economy.

On the 26th of March, we will vote to restore the morals. Among registered
candidates for the job of national idea are German morals of the 1933
vintage, Soviet morals of the 1937, 1964 and 1978 vintages.

We will make our choice. And we are not to be blamed for experiencing
pleasure when our power-that-be satisfies its desire.

******

#5
St. Petersburg Times
February 25, 2000
NOTES OF AN IDLER
Where There Is Order, There Is Investment
Fyodor Gavrilov

AT first glance, it appears scandalous: the Union of Right Forces decided not 
to support anyone in the presidential elections. Say what you like, what it 
means is support for Vladimir Putin, and has a deep though perhaps 
unconscious basis. The young, pragmatic managers Chubais and Kiriyenko, 
together with Putin, are playing their historical role, moving Russia from 
the path of illusory hopes to the hard path of economic expediency. The goal 
of the pragmatists, in my view, is obvious - to transform the Russian bear 
into the Russian tiger. They are being pushed to this not at all by evil 
intention, but by the energy emanating from within the country and from the 
West.

In a recent article in the newspaper Moskovskie Novosti, the famous financier 
George Soros expresses the following thought: "Yeltsin ... and many others 
believed in the West but the West did not meet their obviously exaggerated 
expectations. ... With time, they [governmental figures in the West] were 
forced to acknowledge that the changes are of a vital nature, but during this 
time they lost all respect for Russia as a superstate. They began to behave 
toward Russians as though toward beggars. ...

Unfortunately, I have come to the conclusion that the concept of an open 
society for the whole world does not very much concern the West. Even so, the 
process of reforms would in any case be painful, but at least it would have 
moved in the right direction. Russia could become a genuinely democratic 
country and really another America, as this happened in Germany after World 
War II with the implementation of the Marshall Plan. Now, we have come up 
against a different outlook.

What problems did the Russian political elite face at the end of the 1990s, 
in the absence of a Marshall Plan? There is a crisis in the country, 
especially an economic crisis. Russians essentially are not against 
progressive reforms (which they showed in elections), but they will not agree 
to die of hunger and cold. Thus the task of the administrators is to see to 
it that the people stay alive, and that the country develops somehow. For 
this, it is necessary to increase production - a country where 70 per cent of 
the population is urban dwellers, workers, and engineers can't be fed by 
tourism and kitchen gardens.

But money is needed in order to develop production. Quick cash, which was 
borrowed in the mid-1990s, showed its nature during the crisis of 1998 - it 
went away as swiftly as it had come. It is clear to everyone: long-term 
investments are necessary. But serious investments are not being made in 
Russia - the country is in a irritable state, the laws are imperfect. The 
laws can be rewritten (it's true that for this, a consensus must be reached 
with those who were democratically elected to parliament by the public), and 
it is difficult to eliminate the edginess. But there are examples of such 
countries, where the state of human rights is not very positive, but then the 
investment situation isn't all bad - for example, China, Turkey, the Asian 
tigers. There is order there. And there is also investment.

Willing or not, Russian politicians have been led to the following axiom: 
where there is order there is investment. As to what kind of order it will be 
- we'll see about that later. In the meantime, people must be fed - the 
natural task for the administrator.

By coincidence, in these last few days, democratic Russia has said farewell 
to the former mayor of St. Petersburg, Anatoly Sobchak. Many observers 
connect this sad event with their thoughts about the change of generations 
and accordingly the change of the political climate in the country. I notice 
that the farewell to Sobchak, attended by many people, took place in a 
luxurious palace which Empress Catherine II built at one time for her 
favourite, Prince Grigorii Potyomkin (remember the Potyomkin villages?) 
Potyomkin himself stayed in this palace a few times, died a sudden death in 
the steppe, on barren ground. And after the death of Catherine, her son, the 
Emperor Paul, installed military barracks in the palace, and a stable in the 
main hall. Thus this is not Russia's first sharp shift of moods. But I really 
do feel sorry about Sobchak. I miss the beautiful, optimistic impulse that 
guided him and his political contemporaries at the beginning of the 1990s.

Fyodor Gavrilov is the editor of Kariera-Kapital.

******

#6
Internet Influence on Elections

Rossiyskaya Gazeta
February 18, 2000
[translation for personal use only]
Article by Tamara Shkel: "The Anonymous on Demand" 

The internet may be dangerous -- this was the 
conclusion, at first glance unexpected, reached by the participants in 
the "round table" of the regional mass information media. And they 
confirmed it with examples. 

The campaign for election of the head of the state is moving swiftly to 
its finale. The roles have been assigned, and the rules of the game 
determined for all the participants except, perhaps, one. This 
participant goes by the name, so far an unaccustomed one for most 
Russians, of Internet. No law has as yet been written for it. 

The true influence of the internet network on elections, however, 
appeared in the last campaign for parliament. While lawyers debated as 
to whether to regard the Internet as a mass information media and whether 
to extend to it the laws common to the traditional mass information 
media, the largest newspaper in the Maritime regions, Vladivostok, 
offered the aspirants to power a space on its electronic version, which 
is not restricted by the instructions of the TsIK [Central Electoral 
Commission]. The candidates could mix with the voters on the internet 
network, elucidate on their programs and make a campaign for them. Up 
to 5,000 people visited the newspaper server. And their reaction helped 
the candidates to work on their mistakes in good time. 

And at the other end of the country, in Moscow, but in the same system of 
internet coordinates, the foundation, "Informatika dlya Demokratii" 
[Information Science for Democracy] called for recording the errors and 
violations in the electoral campaign and communicating on a special site, 
therefore putting into effect a unique project, "Internet-monitoring." 
Dispatches started flying onto the network: a candidate was giving out 
free tickets for a concert, a crossword puzzle offering material 
remuneration was published in a campaign sheet, the director of a 
pre-election staff was arrested.... Any election observer who was not 
afraid of exposure and prosecution could send the Internet anything he 
liked, and along any signal he liked. To put it simply, could attack a 
candidate with impunity, satisfying either the striving for justice 
implanted in the Russian person, or some sort of interests of his own. 
True, he had no guarantee that, as in former times, the measures would be 
taken at the signal. 

All the same, Internet-monitoring has entered the pre-election campaign, 
as announced, on the side of the electors and with a good purpose -- in 
behalf of "honest elections." Obviously, however, those who launched 
the forged Luzhkov site, filled with scandalous and, to put it mildly, 
incorrect facts, had quite a different mission. Or let us remember the 
sensational story of the Kogot site, which revealed the secrets of the 
private lives and provided the deciphering of telephone conversations of 
many famous officials, businessmen and politicians. There one could 
find "records" of the results of the secret service tailing of Yuriy 
Skuratov, excerpts from the diary of outside monitoring -- when he went 
out, where he would go, when the then still Procurator-General of Russia 
would come back, his address in detail and the occupations of his family 
members. Overly credulous visitors of the site would clutch their heads 
in despair from the internet revelations. After the sensational scandal 
explaining who was ultimately behind Kogot, sorry traces of the former 
sensational items were left on this site. 

But it can be assumed with a great deal of probability that compromising 
materials on the election campaign will be distributed through the 
network. Who will be able to prevent this? 

No one, judging by the allegations of Mikhail Salnikov, editor-in-chief 
of the all-Russian journal on website monitoring, Kompyulog, who recently 
spoke at the pre-election conference of the regional mass information 
media. In the end, anonymous information may go beyond the boundaries 
of Russia on a free-of-charge server which the search systems are 
granting. 

The Internet has also simplified the tasks of those who from time to time 
have a need to "merge" information. There is no need to hire a special 
journalist for this or to incur expenditures. It is enough to throw the 
necessary "staggering" piece of news onto any site visited on the 
Worldwide Web, and politicians will begin to comment on it and state 
officials to allude to it, taking some sort of actions. For example, 
everyone is now actively discussing who fell heir to the $1.5 billion 
which was allegedly directed to Russia to bribe journalists. Where this 
information comes from and who the author of the information is -- is 
unclear. Commentators allude to the Internet. 

According to various data, from 1 to 3 million people in Russia have 
access to the net. In reality, the audience that scoops up information 
from it is much larger -- it can grow to the circulation of a popular 
publication which is not averse to grubbing around in virtual mud. 

But specialists in electoral technology think that the Internet may 
influence the pleasure of the voters by other methods as well. For 
example, the results of sociological polls and predictions, the 
publication of which is forbidden in the three days up to the voting, can 
be revealed on the network on the very day of the elections. No one has 
yet forgotten the scandal linked to the publishing, on 19 December, of 
the preliminary results of the voting long before it was over for Russia 
as a whole. At that time the Central Electoral Commission broke off 
this abnormal glasnost. But the law-enforcement agencies are now trying 
to hold political scientist Gleb Pavlovskiy responsible for it. True, 
the legal grounds for this are not quite clear. 

As for the Internet publications -- the sites which, under the same sort 
of name, are regularly filled up with updated information of the 
Gazeta.ru type, and others, there is still some conviction here. Yuriy 
Akinshin, acting director of the press service of the Ministry of Press, 
Television and Radio Broadcasting and Mass Communications [MPTR], said 
that they could, of course, be placed on the same footing as the mass 
information media with all the ensuing consequences, and above all, the 
need for registration which is, strictly speaking, being done. That is, 
these sites are not anonymous and the demand for the information 
appearing on them can be made in full accordance with the Law on the Mass 
Information Media. The MPTR considers the problem of the spread of 
information over the Internet to be very serious. 

According to Yuriy Akinshin, however, there is still no draft of a law 
with which he can go to the State Duma. The State Duma deputies of the 
last convocation also turned their attention to the problem, and held 
hearings in parliament. No one knows so far, however, what continuance 
the matter will obtain in the new Duma. 

And meanwhile, anonymity reigns on the Internet. 

******

#7
Business Week
March 6, 2000
[for personal use only]
A New Home for Russian Capital--Russia
The flight of cash seems to be abating as faith builds in Putin
By Paul Starobin, with Sabrina Tavernise, in Moscow 

It sounds like the last chapter of a legal potboiler. Lucy Edwards, a former 
Bank of New York Co. executive, pleads guilty to a scheme to help spirit $7 
billion out of Russia through accounts set up at the bank. Her husband, a 
Russian businessman, admits to participating in the scam, which U.S. 
prosecutors say included the laundering of a $300,000 kidnapper's ransom. In 
post-Soviet Russia, it's an all-too-common story. Everyone from grandmothers 
selling knit hats on the street to moguls use any means available, from 
suitcases to wire transfers, to whisk their dough to safe havens.
But behind the news is a trend at odds with this picture: Less money is 
fleeing Russia. A growing number of investors, both foreign and Russian, see 
more reasons to keep their money inside the country now that the 
unpredictable Boris N. Yeltsin is out and acting President Vladimir V. Putin, 
47, is virtually certain to win his own four-year term in presidential 
elections on Mar. 26. ``There is more stability'' these days, says Peter 
Boone, chief of research at the Moscow-based investment bank Brunswick 
Warburg. It's all relative, of course: Boone estimates that capital flight 
from Russia will slow from $20 billion in 1999 to $15 billion this year. Far 
from ideal. But if $5 billion stays put, it can do plenty of good for this 
capital-starved economy.
Whether capital flight continues to slow depends on Putin. He is vowing to 
crack down on corruption, strengthen Russia's legal system, and cut taxes. In 
a step welcomed by entrepreneurs, Putin's tax minister recently proposed to 
slash the top rate for personal income taxes from 30% to 20%. Foreign 
investors are cheered by Putin's pledges to protect property rights and make 
Russian companies adopt international accounting standards.
Such signals are spurring investment in Russia. Money that might otherwise 
leave the country is staying home. Surgutneftegaz, Russia's second-largest 
oil producer, expects to more than double capital investment in 2000 over the 
1999 level of $500 million. Even Russia's infamous tycoons, well-known for 
their preferences for Swiss bank accounts and Riviera real estate, seem to be 
bringing their money--some of it, anyway--home. An investment group linked to 
Boris A. Berezovsky recently plunked down some $500 million on Russian 
aluminum factories. ``Berezovsky has exposed a lot of that [offshore] money 
to Russian risk again, and I think that's a reasonably good sign,'' says 
Roland Nash, an economist at Moscow-based Renaissance Capital. Siberian giant 
Norilsk Nickel, controlled by tycoon Vladimir O. Potanin, also plans to boost 
capital investment.
BOOMERANG CASH. Taking their cue from the locals and refocusing on the 
long-term allure of the huge Russian market, foreigners are giving the 
country a second look, too. Total foreign investment grew from $411 million 
in the third quarter of 1998 to $613 million in the third quarter of 1999. 
The St. Petersburg region is especially hot, expecting to snag $500 million 
in foreign investment this year, more than twice 1999's level. Telia, the 
Swedish national phone operator, recently put $81 million into a 15% stake in 
St. Petersburg-based Telecom Invest.
Some new ``foreign investors'' are not actually foreigners. ``There is a 
significant inflow of money of Russian origin under the umbrella of foreign 
investment,'' says Troika Dialog Asset Management President Pavel Teplukhin. 
Resident Russians who've stashed their money in foreign banks are creating 
offshore companies expressly for the purpose of reinvesting funds into 
Russia. The goal is to avoid taxes that apply to domestic, not foreign, 
investors. If Putin lightens the tax load, Russians won't need to resort to 
such shenanigans.
Make no mistake. The Russian economy continues to have structural 
ailments, such as inadequate shareholder protections, that will keep capital 
flight a problem for years. Still, the Bank of New York scandal shouldn't 
obscure the larger picture. For a growing number of investors, today's Russia 
looks to be a good gamble.

*******

#8
Russia: U.S. Missile System Strong 
The Associated Press
Feb. 25, 2000

MOSCOW. A top Russian security official said Friday that the 
anti-ballistic missile system the United States is considering deploying 
could be capable of intercepting Russian warheads, not just missiles from 
rogue states. 

Previously, Russian officials had strongly objected to the system but claimed 
their missiles could easily penetrate the proposed shield. 

The Clinton Administration has said it will decide in July whether to 
withdraw from a 1972 treaty banning national anti-ballistic missile shields 
and begin work on a system designed to prevent attacks from so-called rogue 
states such as North Korea or Iran. 

The United States has said the shield – still not fully tested which is
based 
on high-tech interceptors launched into the incoming missiles' paths –
could 
not shoot down a full nuclear attack from Russia. 

But on Friday, Sergei Ivanov, Secretary of Russia's powerful Security 
Council, said the system can be expanded and "is capable of intercepting a 
majority of our rockets. This of course doesn't suit us," he said. 

Ivanov said the proposed anti-missile system will undermine the idea of 
deterrence on which subsequent arms-reduction treaties are based, including 
the START 2 treaty which the Russian parliament is considering for 
ratification. 

The ABM treaty puts tight limits on each country's missile-defense systems, 
theoretically ensuring that neither country would launch a missile attack 
because it could not defend itself against retailiation. 

Ivanov said plans to deploy the system in Alaska would put the interceptors 
in a prime location to fire at incoming Russian missiles, which would fly 
over the Arctic Ocean. 

"It's aimed in the first place to intercepting our ballistic rockets," he 
said. 

******

#9
Boston Globe
26 February 2000
[for personal use only]
Reduction of Russian arsenal lags 
Lack of US funding blamed for failure to destroy uranium
By John Donnelly and David Beard, Globe Staff

WASHINGTON - Despite seven years and hundreds of millions of dollars, the 
United States has helped reduce only a tenth of Russia's stockpiles of highly 
enriched, weapons-grade uranium, according to a Harvard University report to 
be released next month.

The report, written by former White House nonproliferation specialist Matthew 
Bunn, raises deep concerns because of the extent of the problem, the lack of 
security surrounding Russia's nuclear stockpiles, and the Clinton 
administration's lack of funding toward resolving the issue.

Outlining the report, Bunn said the United States risked calamity if it did 
not act swiftly by sharply increasing funding to render plutonium and 
weapons-grade uranium harmless. Both are used to build nuclear bombs.

''If plutonium or highly enriched uranium became available on the black 
market, virtually any state, or well-organized terrorist group, might be able 
to make a nuclear bomb, and they could do so with virtually no warning to the 
international community,'' he said this week. ''It could come out of 
nowhere.''

Considering the former Soviet Union's aging facilities, the region's ailing 
economy, and the number of nations and terrorist groups interested in 
acquiring nuclear materials, ''the problem is probably worse today than when 
we started working on it,'' said Graham Allison, a Russian specialist at 
Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.

''This is the biggest single threat to American lives today,'' Allison said.

After the breakup of the Soviet Union, there were hopes of substantial 
reductions in Russian and US nuclear arsenals - and vast outlays of aid to 
encourage a stable transition in Moscow. The report focuses on how slowly 
Russia's nuclear arsenal has been reduced and attributes it to a lack of 
funding from the United States and its allies.

The report, which will be published jointly by Harvard and the Carnegie 
Endowment for International Peace in Washington, makes several 
recommendations. Chief among them is to double or triple the US annual budget 
of $500 million for safeguarding nuclear warheads and materials in Russia.

According to the report, the additional money should be used to:

Accelerate a program to tighten security at Russian civilian and military 
installations holding the radioactive material.

Reduce the stockpiles of highly enriched uranium by blending it with other 
forms of uranium, making it unusable for weapons, and then storing it in 
Russia.

Shrink Russia's nuclear weapons complex, including its 10 closed cities -now 
home to 750,000 people.

Find new sources of money, such as debt-for-nuclear-security swaps, to hasten 
disarmament.

Promote verifiable dismantling of nuclear warheads.

Finance the transformation of Russia's excess plutonium, about 88 tons, into 
forms that cannot be used for weapons.

Bunn said the cost would be $5 billion to $8 billion over five years. On an 
annual basis, that would be less than 1 percent of the US defense budget.

Earlier this month, the Clinton administration recommended spending about 
$600 million in the next fiscal year toward nuclear safeguards in Russia, a 
$100 million increase. The money would mostly go toward increasing security 
of spent reactor fuel and building a dry-cask storage facility for the fuel.

In addition, US officials said, the United States and Russia are close to an 
agreement to dispose of plutonium at military facilities. If the deal is 
reached for converting and disposing of 34 tons of plutonium, the cost would 
be $1 billion to $3 billion. The administration would seek $200 million 
toward the plutonium project this year, the officials said.

Russia is believed to have as much as 160 tons of plutonium and more than 
1,000 tons of highly enriched uranium, or HEU, which are stockpiled in more 
than 300 buildings on more than 40 sites.

So far, the HEU-reduction program, started in 1993, has eliminated 75 tons of 
the more than 1,000-ton stockpile.

''We are operating in an environment in Washington where we can't fund 
everything,'' said Gary S. Samore, special assistant to the president on 
nonproliferation at the National Security Council. ''We are seeking funds 
from Congress in the hundreds of millions of dollars range, and our focus 
next will be on the plutonium question. In our HEU agreement with Russia, we 
are currently disposing 30 metric tons a year from Russian weapons. We don't 
have a comparable program on the plutonium side.''

Told of the Harvard report's recommendations, Samore said he agreed with the 
goals. He added that it could be expanded but noted the fiscal constraints. 

A senior US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, advocated more 
funding for safeguarding Russia's nuclear materials.

''This is an immense problem. We are spending billions and billions of 
dollars and still just scratching the surface,'' the official said.

John B. Wolfsthal, a former offical at the Department of Energy on 
nonproliferation and now an associate at the Carnegie Endowment, is more 
blunt about the risk posed by Russia's nuclear stockpile.

''If you ask me, `What's the main reason New York City hasn't gone up in a 
mushroom cloud?' I'd say the main reason is we've been lucky,'' Wolfsthal 
said.

As an example of the vulnerability of nuclear materials, Bunn, a nuclear 
specialist at the Kennedy School, cited the terror plans by the Japanese sect 
AUM Supreme Truth, which was responsible for the 1995 attack using sarin, a 
nerve gas, that killed 11 people. AUM established chemical, biological, and 
nuclear weapons programs, including purchasing an Australian sheep farm rich 
in uranium deposits. The group mined uranium and then failed at the 
enormously complex task of turning the material into highly enriched uranium, 
the heart of a nuclear bomb, said Bunn, citing previously published materials.

In the meantime, AUM members set up base in Russia, ''recruited thousands of 
people,'' and met with senior government officials as well as nuclear 
scientists at Kurchatov Institute in Moscow and at Moscow State University, 
he said. Several reports have said that sect members bribed senior Russian 
officials with hundreds of thousands of dollars.

But their plans failed. ''Even though they had highly trained technical 
people in the cult, they also were fanatical cult members and weren't 
thinking as well as they might have been,'' Bunn said.

Even if the US government suddenly puts more resources toward nuclear 
safeguards, Bunn said, Russian cooperation is no longer as assured as it was 
in the days after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

With Russian elections scheduled for next month, uncertainty swirls around 
the policies of the likely next president, Vladimir V. Putin. US-Russia 
tensions also could escalate over a number of issues, including the Chechnya 
war and a bill passed this week in the US Senate that would suspend some 
payments to Russia because of its suspected sales of technology for nuclear 
and biological weapons to Iran.

''The window of opportunity is not looking as wide open as it was in 1993 and 
1994,'' Bunn said. ''We lost some major opportunity to take faster action.''

He emphasized that these programs can only work as ''real partnerships with 
Russia, serving Russia's security interests as well.''

For now, he said, considerable credit should go to Russian scientists and 
technicians who have watched over the nuclear stockpile. ''Given their 
intermittent pay, given their desperation, the fact we haven't seen a worse 
problem says a lot about the patriotism and devotion to duty in the Russian 
nuclear complex,'' he said.

Donnelly reported from Washington and Beard from Boston.

*******

#10
From: "Robert Bruce Ware" <rware@stlnet.com>
Subject: A few questions about Babitsky and other abuses in Chechnya
Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2000

Robert Bruce Ware
Department of Philosophical Studies
Southern Illinois University Edwardsville

A Few Questions about Babitsky and Other Abuses in Chechnya 

The freedom of information has a spiritual significance that transcends
even its role at the foundation of democracy and human self-determination.
And torture, under any circumstances, is unacceptable. 

Those things being said, there are two sides to recent events in Chechnya. 

Reports of human rights abuses are deeply disturbing. President Clinton has
rightly called upon the Kremlin to permit international relief
organizations, such as the Red Cross, to monitor events in the war-torn
republic. The United States must further demand that Moscow respect the
rights of Chechen civilians and guarantee them full benefits of Russian
citizenship, if that indeed is what they are presently supposed to be. 

Yet, on the other hand, it seems oddly to have been forgotten that the
reason that there are no international relief organizations in Chechnya is
that they had all been driven away by Chechen criminality before the end
of 1997. The Red Cross pulled out of Chechnya in 1996 after six Red Cross
workers were murdered in their beds in Grozny. By June 1997 the last
non-local UNHCR worker in Dagestan was drawing combat pay largely because
of the Chechen hostage industry. Before the end of that year the UNHCR
abandoned Dagestan to the Chechen kidnappers without a word of protest,
with zero media fan fare, and without the indignation of any Western
government. The UNHCR abandoned the entire North Caucasus when the head of
its regional operation was kidnapped in Vladikavkas in early 1998. After
several months of brutal captivity he was freed on Christmas Eve 1998,
when a French organization paid his Chechen captors 5 million dollars in
ransom. In response to kidnappings and murders, organizations such as
Doctors without Borders and the World Food Program had abandoned the
region long before that time. 

The withdrawal of these organizations from the North Caucasus was, in
itself, a violation of the human rights of the people in this desperately
needy region because many of their rights could be guaranteed only through
the presence of relief organizations. Why is it forgotten that it was
Chechen murderers and kidnappers who drove those organizations out, and
that it is they who are guilty of those violations? 

In any case, these violations were the least of the problem. Why does it
seem to have been forgotten that between 1996 and 1999 more than 1300
civilians were kidnapped and (mostly) held in Chechnya for exorbitant
ransoms that exhausted the resources of entire Caucasian clans when they
saw their relatives being tortured on Chechen-produced videotapes? What
about the 898 hostages that still have not been released from Chechnya,
even while Chechens decry Russian human rights abuses and plead for
international support? If the people of Chechnya believe that human rights
must be respected then why dont they respect the rights of their current
victims? 

All of the sudden Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have been
active and diligent in their efforts to "document" Russian abuses, as
indeed they should be. For the moment, lets forget that this
"documentation" has consisted almost entirely of interviews with Chechens,
who might otherwise be forgiven for a somewhat less than objective view of
the situation. Instead, lets ask where Human Rights Watch and Amnesty
International have been during the last three years when people in the
neighboring republic of Dagestan (for example) were kidnapped and tortured
on such a scale that it now requires some effort to find a Dagestani who
has not had a relative, friend or neighbor in Chechen captivity? In the
first Chechen war Dagestanis took 130,000 Chechen refugees into their
homes. Today they accept zero Chechen refugees. Doesnt anyone want to know
why? When was the last time you read a report by Human Rights Watch about
the hostages who have been liberated from Chechen captivity by advancing
Russian troops? I know some, and they are thus far undisturbed by the
diligent research of Amnesty International. When was the last time you saw
a report about the Dagestani refugees who were forced from their homes by
Basayevs invasions last summer? 

The irony is that Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International could not
even operate in the North Caucasus before Russian troops invaded Chechnya
last October, because Chechen kidnappers made it far too dangerous for
them to work there. But if these organizations were afraid to go there
before the invasion of the Russian military, then what do they think that
conditions were like for those people with families in the region? Why
have such organizations shown so little concern for those families? 

Reports about the torture that may be occurring in Russian filtration camps
are absolutely horrifying, but they are no worse than the tortures that
certainly have been occurring in Chechen cellars since 1996, and still
occurring there today. 

This is not to mention the specialized industries devoted to auto theft,
drug smuggling, petroleum pilfering, etc., that supplemented the hostage
industry as the mainstay of Chechnyas criminal economy for the past three
years. Nor is it to mention the multifaceted instabilities that Chechen
lawlessness had spelled for the incipient democracies of the region. 

If Russian troops have engaged in summary executions of Chechen prisoners,
then that may well be a war crime. But Andrei Babitsky is on record as
apologizing for execution of Russian prisoners of war by Chechen fighters.
When the Chechen fighters slit the throats of their Russian prisoners of
war, Babitsky said that it should be understood as the peculiar way that
the Chechens made their point. Shouldnt Babitsky have said that this was a
war crime too? 

Of course the Russians should not, under any circumstances, have traded
Babitsky to the Chechens for Russian prisoners of war. But, that being
said, is it not also possible that Babitsky wished to be traded, as the
Russians claim? The Russians also claim that Babitskys reporting was so
biased that he effectively was working for Chechnya. If that claim is
entirely false then why were the Chechens willing to trade two (two?)
Russian prisoners for him? And what is Babitsky now doing in Dagestan?
More than 800 civilians are currently being held for ransom in Chechnya.
Indeed many of these hostages are impoverished Dagestanis, for whom,
realistically, no one can afford to pay. The US-funded Radio Liberty, for
whom Babitsky works, presumably might have paid a considerable sum for
Babitsky. So why is he suddenly phoning his wife from the safety of a
Dagestani cafe with no ransom demand at all? Maybe the Chechens think hes
more valuable to them when hes reporting for Radio Liberty than he might
be were he held hostage for a Radio Liberty ransom. Whereas the Russians
were wrong to detain and then to trade Babitsky, their claims about his
bias may not have been so far wrong after all. 

But if Babitsky is biased, he is certainly not alone. Why is no Western
journalist asking the above questions? How many Western media outlets
noticed when Chechnyas supreme Islamic leader, Mufti Akhmed Khadzhi
Kadyrov, said, on 7 February, that the occupation of Chechnya by Russian
troops is necessary to protect the people from violent civil strife at the
hands of Chechnyas warlords? The answer is zero. Nothing justifies
government repression of the media. But the Western media long ago
abandoned their responsibility to report the full story of the war in
Chechnya. 

*******

#11
Chicago Tribune
February 25, 2000
[for personal use only]
RUSSIAN BRUTALITY IN CHECHNYA BARELY NOTED IN U.S. 
By Georgie Anne Geyer 
Universal Press Syndicate 

WASHINGTON -- First came the terrible, plaintive questions from the mouths of 
the Chechens bombed and burned out of their cities by the proud Russian army.

"Why does the world sit with its arms folded?" one grizzled old Chechen man 
asks in despair. He then answers in a dull voice, "I don't know."

"If the people in the West can choose freely how to live, why cannot we?" 
asks a woman, from the rubble of what was the capital city of Grozny.

"If the Russians consider us to be part of Russia, why do they bomb us?" 
another Chechen questions, his eyes lifeless.

Finally, a Chechen leader ruminates for a moment on the tactics they chose, 
which were obviously the wrong ones. "It would have been advantageous for us 
to wage a guerrilla war," he says, "but so far, we haven't. We have taken 
positions and tried to hold the base. Why? Because we wanted to fight as a 
state."

Those are some of the voices, some filled with the self-defeating hubris of 
revolution and some only tragic, that emerge from a dramatic documentary 
about the war in Chechnya by Czech journalists Jaromir Stetina and Petra 
Prochazkova, who got a unique chance to travel inside the small republic. It 
is called "Dark Side of the World," a fitting title, and it was premiered 
here by Radio Free Europe.

At the same time, in Russia proper and in Grozny as well, the Russian 
military was, with theatrical ostentation, celebrating its vast "victory" by 
marching about in glorious parades that would have seemed more fitting for a 
defeat of Nazi Germany than the defeat of a tiny Caucasus mountain people. 
Acting President Vladimir Putin, who will now almost assuredly be elected 
president in March on the basis of this "liberation" of Chechnya, was 
dramatically promoting the generals who had given him such a prize, visiting 
the Stalingrad battlefields of World War II.

Chechnya, he said, was a "turning point for the armed forces and security 
services, and for the Russian authorities as a whole."

In Washington, judgments about the Russian leadership were being expressed as 
if the devastation of Chechnya didn't exist at all. Interviewed on CNN, 
President Bill Clinton found Putin to be "highly intelligent and highly 
motivated . . . a man of strong views . . . capable of being very strong and 
effective and straightforward ..." He went on to say that he and the Russian 
leader are clearly on the edge of a "close personal relationship." A 
presidential summit couldn't be far off, maybe April or May--as soon as Putin 
could get "acting" removed from his title.

So much for any moral leadership coming from either the Russian or the 
American administration!

Now, what will happen next is not hard to predict. Chechnya, or what is left 
of it, will be put under some quisling Chechen regime, and most Chechens will 
remain in their new bitter diaspora. (Interestingly enough, this week also 
marked 56 years since Stalin, dubbing them "Nazi collaborators," deported the 
Chechen people to Central Asia.) The West will do nothing, except business as 
usual with the new president. But the Chechens who are left will now do what 
they should have done in the beginning--wage a guerrilla war, and then 
prepare the next generation for the next war 15 years from now.

As Radio Free Europe's senior analyst Paul Goble predicted this week: 
"Whatever triumphs the Russian authorities now claim, they are likely to find 
them at best to be an extremely costly Pyrrhic victory, one in which the much 
advertised fruits of triumph may prove to be even more bitter than compromise 
or even defeat might have been.

"Once again, as was true 56 years ago, Chechnya lies in ruins and the 
Chechens have been dispersed. But this repetition of the punishment of an 
entire people seems certain to further alienate those who remain, possibly 
setting the stage for even more violence in the future."

Two other seasoned analysts, professor Rajan Menon of Lehigh University, and 
Graham E. Fuller, a resident consultant at the Rand Corp., predict in Foreign 
Affairs magazine that Moscow has now made sure that "Islam will be the 
natural vocabulary of the dissatisfied South." They look at the innumerable, 
disparate and largely Muslim peoples of the Caucasus and see that "the 
Chechen war will intensify the dynamic of separation [from Russia] by leading 
more groups--especially Muslims--to consider independence."

Had Russia, when the Soviet Union officially dissolved in 1991, seriously 
attempted to create a "new, prosperous and voluntary commonwealth," even 
under its Commonwealth of Independent States, it might well have been able to 
integrate these peoples, with independence or at least substantial autonomy, 
into some new form of collegial entity. Instead, Menon and Fuller write, 
Russia is at least half a century away from forging such a commonwealth.

This is because historically "Russia seeks control but shirks responsibility 
for fundamental problems." Thus, "whoever wins the Russian presidential 
elections will face a nearly insurmountable task in the North Caucasus. ... 
It can never create a stable pro-Moscow government in Grozny."

The drama, then, is only beginning. Just as the Chechens have paid for their 
hubris in insisting upon fighting as a "state," Moscow will in the long run 
pay a terrible price for its overweening hubris and for its inattention to 
Caucasus history. And America will be forever shamed by this administration's 
abject ministrations to anything and everything these cynical and brutal 
Russian leaders do.

******

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