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Johnson's Russia List
 

 

May 9, 2000    
This Date's Issues: 4288  4289  4290

Johnson's Russia List
#4289
9 May 2000
davidjohnson@erols.com


[Note from David Johnson:
1. Reuters: Veterans, feted by Putin, bemoan post-Soviet life.
2. Financial Times (UK): Andrew Jack, Russia remembers past glory.
3. Interfax: Putin Favors Change in Russia's Electoral System.
4. ITAR-TASS Says Putin Bidding for 'Complete Control' 
5. Igor Astapov: Independent human rights weekly closed in Russia. (The Express Chronicle)
6. St. Petersburg Times: Catherine Belton, Savings Payback Is Little Recompense.
7. The Russia Journal: Otto Latsis, Learning to live together.
8. Arnold Beichman: New book: CNN'S Cold War Documentary: Issues and Controversy.
9. Andrei Liakhov: RE: 4285-Moore/ABM and Cold War.
10. gazeta.ru: Kremlin Plans to Silence Duma.
11. RFE/RL: Paul Goble, Spies Versus Oligarchs.
12. Newsweek: Brian Whitmore, Will Putin Take On the Mob? 
The new president was elected as a law-and-order man. But he looks 
like a pushover in his hometown of St. Petersburg. 
13. RIA: Zyuganov Hopes Putin Will Reinstate Roundtable Discussions.
14. BBC MONITORING: NTV, WEATHER CONTROL IN FULL SWING FOR 9TH MAY PARADE.
*******


#1
Veterans, feted by Putin, bemoan post-Soviet life
By Ron Popeski

KURSK, Russia, May 8 (Reuters) - War veterans feted in this southern Russian 
city on Monday by newly-inaugurated President Vladimir Putin recalled the 
role they played in a major 1943 tank battle which turned the tide against 
Nazi Germany. 


Hundreds of men and women, all in their 70s and 80s, paraded past a new 
monument to the Battle of Kursk, which pitted thousands of tanks aginst one 
another and stopped Hitler's drive to regain the advantage and smash the 
Soviet Union. 


Medals were displayed proudly on chests as the veterans poured into a 
reception with Putin and were then, somewhat incongruously, served dinner by 
mini-skirted waitresses at a jazzy local night club. 


But many veterans who lived through seven weeks of non-stop fighting in 
Russia's grain belt were also bitter about post-Soviet changes which have 
left many elderly destitute. 


``I was an intelligence office, chosen because I knew the area well,'' said 
Anastasiya Cherenkova, 83, who lost her husband and five brothers in the 
battle. 


``You had to (know the area) because you could see nothing in the smoke which 
covered the area. We passed information about German movements and I killed 
two snipers.'' 


But her many medals were litle solace for unsuccessful attempts to find an 
alternative to her Soviet-era communal apartment, where she shared a kitchen 
and bathroom with others. 


Ivan Konstantinov, an anti-tank commander, remembered the battle as 
week-on-week of grind in finding the weak spots in the back and sides of 
German tanks, including Panzers, Ferdinands and Tigers being tested for the 
first time. 


``There was no time to stop and very little time to sleep,'' he said. ``You 
slept standing up, sitting down, however and whenever you could. It was awful 
for both sides,'' he said. 


The battle, launched by Hitler as Operation Citadel on July 5, turned the 
region into an inferno as the Germans sought revenge for the defeat inflicted 
by the Red Army at Stalingrad. 


It lasted until August 23 when Soviet troops punched their way through to 
begin their long drive westward to Berlin. 


The Germans lost 2,900 tanks and the Russians 2,000. 


Valentin Petrashov, 82, was also an intelligence officer, detailed to 
determine the whereabouts of the middle lines of German defence, stretching 
into the smoky distance. 


WE LIVED LIKE KINGS...IN SOVIET DAYS 


``It was terribly tricky and the risks were high as we had to get so close,'' 
said the veteran, one of 11,500 people awarded the prestigious Hero of the 
Soviet Union medal. 


``I was wounded on June 15, three days into the counter offensive. But our 
intelligence allowed us to determine that our arms, equipment and strength of 
forces were good enough to launch the counter-attack,'' he said. 


He too accused post-Soviet leaders of reducing the elderly to humiliation. 


``In the Soviet era, I earned enough to live like a king,'' he said. ``I know 
we live 20 times worse now than in the West. Our leaders were liars and 
scoundrels.'' 


The battle even provided memories for those who were not there, such as 
Oksana Melnichuk, 79, who worked as a nurse during the Battle of Stalingrad 
and processed Kursk wounded. 


``There were so many wounded and I had to organise small train convoys to get 
them to hospitals in towns on the Volga under our control,'' she said. 


``I processed Germans and Russians alike. We had no time to pay any attention 
to details like that. I ended up working for the Red Cross -- you might say 
my campaign was on behalf of Switzerland rather than Stalin,'' she said. 


*******


#2
Financial Times (UK)
9 May 2000
[for personal use only]
Russia remembers past glory
By Andrew Jack in Moscow


The number of surviving Russian veterans from the second world war may be 
shrinking fast, but Vladimir Putin, the country's new president, is firmly 
imprinting his mark with a special effort on Tuesday to pander to those who 
remain. 


Across Moscow, red banners adorn the lamp-posts and huge posters remind 
passers-by that May 9 is Victory Day, celebrating the end of what Russians 
call the Great Patriotic War. 


The vigorous new state-sponsored efforts say much about the country's 
relationship with its own history, as well as Mr Putin's background and 
political agenda as he resuscitates and modifies elements of the Soviet past 
in his efforts to rebuild a strong Russia for the future. 


"Putin wants to restore some Soviet symbols that are lingering in people's 
memory," says Lilia Shevtsova from the Carnegie Moscow Centre. "He is much 
more Soviet than Yeltsin. May 9 is about the restoration of some symbols that 
will perhaps help restore national pride." 


There is no belittling the enormous sacrifice in human lives made by the 
Soviet Union in the fight against Nazism, which claimed more than 25m people. 
But successive Soviet propagandists have used the events to tweak Russian 
emotions and serve their own means. 


As Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the writer and war veteran, pointed out last week, 
while Russia continues to emphasise the celebration of its proclaimed 
victory, most other countries set aside a Remembrance Day for those who died. 


Stalin intensified the losses of the period with his secret pre-war pact with 
the Germans, his purges of top military staff, ruthless methods and the 
creation of gulags to which many returning Red Army soldiers were sent. 


"It was the last war that Russia won," says Pavel Felgenhauer, a defence 
analyst. "At the same time, it has a double message. Soviet troops helped 
free Europe from Nazism, but they brought another kind of tyranny in its 
place." 


Happy to make a break with the Communist past, former President Boris Yeltsin 
dispensed with much of the pomp that surrounded the annual May 9 marches, 
toning down the traditional display of military hardware. 


He spurned his place on top of Lenin's Mausoleum in the last Red Square 
parade in 1995 and even restored archways and a church that surround the site 
to make access by heavy vehicles more difficult. 


This year's 55th anniversary of the end of the war may seem a curiously 
un-round date on which to offer larger scale commemorations than at any time 
in the recent past. But Mr Putin has reinstated today's Red Square parade 
alongside a series of other associated events. Some suggest he may even stand 
on the mausoleum. 


During his inauguration speech on Sunday, Mr Putin stressed his commitment to 
democracy - but also the need for Russians not to forget their history. His 
emphasis was more on the positive than the negative aspects. 


While the new president's message has a clear resonance among those who 
retain a nostalgia for the Soviet era, it also taps a broader vein of 
frustration with the chaos that has accompanied the transitional period of 
the last decade, and a desire for a new-found sense of Russian dignity. 


"The question of continuity and change is the most important problem in our 
lives today," says Ms Shevtsova. "We have to choose between the uniqueness of 
Russia and its previous glory on one hand, or belonging to the west. The more 
we lose the connection with the past, the more the authorities will try to 
consolidate the nation." 


****** 


#3
Putin Favors Change in Russia's Electoral System 


May 6 (Interfax) - President elect 
Vladimir Putin has said he supports the idea of holding Russian elections 
by a majority vote, not vote by party ballot. 
At a Saturday conference with heads of regional electoral commissions 
in Moscow he admitted that the issue "is a subject for discussion by the 
whole nation." 
"I don't intend to impose my opinion and will not do so," he said. 
Putin said that "no matter what party a person may belong to, the 
main thing is that he should be a decent person." 


*******


#4
ITAR-TASS Says Putin Bidding for 'Complete Control' 
By Itar-Tass writer Ivan Ivanov 


MOSCOW, May 7 (Itar-Tass) - Appointing Mikhail 
Kasyanov acting prime minister on Sunday, President Vladimir Putin openly 
demonstrated his bid for complete control of the executive branch of 
power in this country. 
Although Putin did not say at the government meeting that Kasyanov 
will be offered for approval by the State Duma, there is little doubt 
about it. "The backbone of the government will be preserved. The 
overwhelming majority of government members will continue to work", Putin 
said. 
Kasyanov himself only smiled in answer to Tass whether he would be 
proposed as prime minister for Duma approval. "Wait until after Victory 
Day holidays and you will see for yourselves", he said. 
A source close to Putin earlier told Tass that until mid- April hot 
debate was underway in the Kremlin whether Putin would run everything 
himself or entrust economy to a "political heavyweight". The 
appointment of Kasyanov, who is viewed as a technocrat, but not as a 
self-made politician, showed that the first option had prevailed. The 
president is going to be the boss. Yet in April he said that he would 
visit the government building "very often." Kasyanov's role apparently is 
to boil down to that of the coordinator of the Cabinet's everyday activities. 
The main political virtue of Kasyanov, 42, is that he is 
ideologically unbiased and is equally distanced from all clans of Russian 
oligarchs, although some media associate him with business tycoons Boris 
Berezovsky and Roman Abramovich. 
Over the past few years, Kasyanov, who speaks fluent English, 
displayed good skills in negotiating Russian foreign debt rescheduling. 
However, he is by no means a self-made "political heavyweight" figure. 
Kasyanov graduated from the Moscow Motor Institute and finished 
postgraduate courses under the former Soviet Gosplan (State Planning 
Ministry) and in 1993 joined the Finance Ministry. After a series of 
quick promotions, in 1999 he was appointed finance minister and in 
January 2000, combined the post with that of first vice-premier who 
presided government meetings in Putin's absence. He thus became No2 man 
in the country. 
According to high-ranking government officials, Kasyanov learned fast 
and mastered various budget issues adding them to his finance diplomacy. 
One of vice premiers told Tass on conditions of anonymity that 
Putin's control of the government "would allow to prevent a new stand-off 
between the presidential administration and the Cabinet typical of the 
years of Boris Yeltsin's presidency. But an unpleasant side is that all 
achievements will be associated with Putin and all failures with the 
Cabinet. With a dependent premier one can hardly expect a clear 
economic policy or consistent economic steps". 
Putin however said in his inauguration speech on Sunday that the 
president is responsible for everything that happens in the country. 
Some political analysts predict that Kasyanov's Cabinet will be 
transitional and is doomed to go already this fall. With maximum luck 
it might survive next January or February, but not any longer. 
In other words, the government may be replaced as soon as a clear 
economic strategy for the next decade is worked out and Putin achieves 
the objective he has been seeking from the very first days in office - to 
free the government from the influence of oligarchs. Putin, who was 
brought to the Kremlin by Yeltsin's close entourage, which incorporates 
some oligarchs, works to free himself of the heritage. His statement 
that the oligarchs have to be equally distanced from authority is a proof. 
Kasyanov would hardly reveal excessive ambitions if his role boils 
down to coordination. He will be 100 percent loyal to Putin and fulfil 
all his commands thus providing the president with actual control of the 
executive branch. 
Dmitry Kozak, a close aide of Putin, told Tass that the government 
would most likely be formed by the end of May "after the Duma endorses 
prime minister's candidacy and Putin approves new structure of the Cabinet." 
Those who will keep their government posts apparently include Defense 
Minister Igor Sergeyev, Interior Minister Vladimir Rushailo and Federal 
Security Service chief Nikolai Patrushev. Deputy Prime Ministers 
Valentina Matviyenko and Ilya Klebanov are likely to remain in charge of 
social matters and the military-industrial complex respectively. 
Chances of another vice premier, Viktor Khristenko (finance, energy 
sector and budget relations with Russian regions) are also high. The 
chair of vice premier in charge of agriculture will either remain with 
Vladimir Shcherbak or pass to Agriculture Minister Alexey Gordeyev. 
Odds are 50-50. Emergencies Minister Sergei Shoigu and Cabinet's envoy 
to Chechnya Nikolai Koshman will stay, but hardly preserve their status 
of deputy prime ministers. 
However, it is still unclear who will take the key post of first 
deputy prime minister. Analysts name First Deputy Finance Minister 
Alexey Kudrin and Putin's close associate Communications Minister Leonid 
Reiman among possible candidates. But apparently the list is longer. 
"I cannot exclude a somewhat sensational appointment," government 
spokesman Andrei Korotkov told Tass adding that an unexpected appointment 
might warm up public interest in the new cabinet. 
There is little doubt that the State Duma will comfortably agree to 
approve Kasyanov if he is nominated. The question is by how many votes, 
just a few above the necessary 226 or somewhere close to two thirds of 
the 450-seat chamber. Apparently, the Duma will not be voting political 
confidence in the new premier, but will rather demonstrate support to Putin. 


*******


#5
Date: Mon, 08 May 2000
From: "Igor Astapov" <astapov-i@rmc.ca>
Subject: Independent human rights weekly closed in Russia


Dear Mr. Johnson:


As the editor of CDI Russia Weekly, you may be interested with the
following. The Express Chronicle, independent human rights oriented
weekly, terminated its circulation in Russia. That newspaper was at
times the only opportunity for human rights activists from distant parts
of the former USSR to be heard. Alexander Podrabinek, the Express
Chronicle's chief editor, started his struggle decades ago with his book
about punitive psychiatry under communist regime.


Can the closing of that newspaper be a sign showing that the beachhead
for Western values in the former USSR is shrinking?


The newspaper was bilingual (Russian/English), its archives are partly
stored here:
http://www.online.ru/sp/chronicle-eng/ .


*******


#6
St. Petersburg Times
May 5, 2000
Savings Payback Is Little Recompense
By Catherine Belton
STAFF WRITER


MOSCOW - For pensioner Oleg Losev, compensation of just 1,000 rubles ($36) 
from Sberbank on Wednesday was bitter recompense for the hoard of savings 
he'd once had before the ruble disintegrated in the hyperinflation of the 
early 1990s.


"What kind of compensation is this," he wailed as a Sberbank cashier filled 
in forms to supply him with this year's round of compensation for depositors 
who lost their life's savings. "It's a joke. This is just kopeks."


Other pensioners lining up for compensation at the Tverskaya branch of the 
state-run savings bank nodded in agreement.


The government's annual compensation payments on funds kept at Sberbank 
before June 20, 1991 - before price liberalization and hyperinflation ravaged 
accounts held at the only bank in the Soviet Union to take private deposits - 
began this year on May 1.


The tens of billions of rubles in those Sberbank accounts were then 
calculated at an official rate of 64 kopeks to the dollar. But as 
hyperinflation soared and prices rose 3,000 to 5,000 times in the first half 
of the decade, these accounts became worthless. By the end of 1997, before 
the currency was redemoninated and three zeros were chopped off the end of 
the ruble, an account of 10,000 rubles, once valued at $15,600, was worth 
just a few dollars.


The Finance Ministry has set aside 5 billion rubles in this year's budget to 
pay a maximum sum of 1,000 rubles only through Sberbank to citizens 76 or 
older, invalids who are unable to work and the relatives of account holders 
who died in the last two years, Sberbank spokeswoman Anna Sharashevskaya said 
Wednesday.


The government has been doling out compensation yearly ever since former 
president Boris Yeltsin ruled the government should hand out to the elderly 
in a campaign move just weeks before the 1996 presidential elections. Under 
Yeltsin's decree, people aged 80 or over were to be given a maximum of 1 
million rubles, worth about $165 then.


Since then, the ruble has not only had three zeros knocked off the end, it 
has devalued almost five-fold since the 1998 financial crisis. Today, 1,000 
rubles are worth considerably less than Yeltsin's 1 million.


Only 9.26 billion rubles were disbursed in compensation through 1999, 
according to the Russian Statistics Agency, Prime-Tass reported on Wednesday.


In fact, the government officially owes about 6 trillion rubles in 
compensation to all inflation-hit Sberbank depositors and is due to pay up on 
that sum under the law, said Oleg Utkin, chief aide in the Finance Ministry's 
banking and macroeconomic department.


But those debts to the nation's crisis-weary depositors seem bound to be 
relegated to the realm of the many obligations the government just can't 
afford to pay off.


Under the scheme forwarded in existing laws first passed by the Supreme 
Soviet in 1992, the government should have issued treasury bills in exchange 
for those deposits and paid off its debts to the population on the papers' 
maturity, Utkin said.


"No concrete date for meeting that condition has been set. Theoretically it 
should happen some time, but specialists agree that the sum is just too high. 
Implementing that law is impossible," he said.


He added that 6 trillion rubles was more than seven times the amount laid out 
as state spending in this year's budget, which is 849.4 billion rubles.


"What's happening now is part of the government's social policy to support 
those sectors of the population most in need. The elderly are getting paid 
early and in cash - and not according to procedures set in the original law," 
he said.


Utkin suggested that elderly depositors were lucky to get the paltry sums the 
government is doling out now.


"According to world practice, governments don't usually compensate the nation 
for money that's lost its value," he said. "This is a voluntary move on the 
part of the government."


But pensioners at the Tverskaya branch Wednesday were hardly rubbing their 
hands with glee.


"I've been keeping money at Sberbank ever since Stalin was in power. By 1962, 
I had 10,000 rubles in my account," said Lev Gryzlov, a sprightly but 
shabbily dressed pensioner waiting in line for compensation. "Now my health 
is failing and I don't have enough money to buy medicine."


"I lived through the war, but it seems life has just gotten harder every year 
over the last decade," he said.


Troika Dialog banking analyst Andrei Ivanov said the government was more 
responsible for the deposits than other countries might be because the only 
place to keep savings in the Soviet Union was in state-owned Sberbank.


"People could not be responsible for their losses because they had no choice 
over the risks involved," Ivanov said.


However, he questioned the real value of the money held in accounts over the 
Soviet period because there was little to buy with the funds. He said the 
government had frozen Sberbank accounts in the early 1990s because of fears 
that a flood of savings onto the market when prices were liberalized would 
crank up hyperinflation.


Hyperinflation occurred anyway, and by the time the accounts were unfrozen, 
they were worthless, he said.


But even though savings in Sberbank saw their value wiped out during the 
early years of reform, it is still the bank of choice for the majority of 
depositors.


According to data from the State Statistics Committee, 72.9 percent of 
private deposits are kept at Sberbank. Analysts say it is trusted because of 
the state's controlling stake in the bank and as the only bank that the state 
cannot afford to allow to fail.


Sberbank has also taken on the debts to private depositors of commercial 
banks that collapsed in the August 1998 crisis. So far, it has paid out 96.6 
percent of the accounts transferred to it in the wake of the crisis.


That percentage comes out as 8.68 billion rubles to depositors from Most 
Bank, Mosbiznesbank, Promstroibank, Inkombank, Menatep, SBS Agro, Rossiisky 
Kredit, Kuzbass prombank, Uraltransbank and Kuzbassotsbank, Prime-Tass 
reported Wednesday.


*******


#7
The Russia Journal
May 8-14, 2000
Learning to live together
By Otto Latsis


Three European countries ­ the former Soviet republics of Lithuania, Latvia 
and Estonia ­ will celebrate the victory over fascism in not quite the same 
way as others on May 9. Recent years have seen the few people there who say 
there is nothing to celebrate become more vocal. They say victory did not 
bring them freedom ­ one occupation simply replaced another.


Knowing that Nazism and the war it unleashed destroyed millions of lives, 
this could sound blasphemous. But some Baltic citizens would remind us that 
more of their countrymen died on Stalin’s orders than at Hitler’s hands. 


You could say that Hitler’s troops wiped out the Baltic Jewish populations 
and sent hundreds of thousands of Jews there from other occupied territories 
to die in concentration camps. But you could also say this was partly 
Stalin’s fault ­ the Jews didn’t leave with the Red Army because they had 
seen others deported by the Soviet forces only two weeks before the German 
invasion. They were afraid of Siberia and did not yet know about the Nazi gas 
chambers.


Logic suggests that if small countries are caught between two bloody 
dictatorships, the defeat of even one of those dictatorships is cause for 
some celebration. But it’s hard to appeal to logic when discussing issues 
steeped in emotion. 


Don’t forget the persecutions of Latvians in 1937, the post-war deportations, 
the policy of full-on industrialization that threatened to dissolve the small 
Baltic peoples in the mass of arriving Russians and others from around the 
U.S.S.R. 


Russians remind us that their 20th century history was just as dramatic; that 
every people has its victims and its executioners ­ the Baltic peoples, too. 
But the Russians weren’t facing the threat of total extinction as a people ­ 
a fate that fell upon the Prussians, for example, a small Baltic people long 
ago swallowed by the Germans.


Debate won’t lead to truth in this quarrel. The truth is that today’s world 
is different. The second, Eastern dictatorship has now collapsed, and the 
independent Baltic states are free to determine their own lives. But you 
can’t walk forward with your head turned backward. 


Good news for Russians on the eve of Victory Day was the release of Vasily 
Kononov from custody in Latvia. Kononov, whom the Russian media had 
christened the "Russian partisan," was shown pledging to keep a newly 
received Russian passport close to his heart. 


But he said nothing about giving up his Latvian citizenship or about leaving 
Latvia. Latvia does not allow dual citizenship. Kononov, the Russian 
partisan, was born in Latvia, his home and family are there, and he would 
have nowhere to go in Russia.


The Kononov affair was not about persecution of Russians in Latvia, nor about 
persecution for having fought fascism. The trial was clearly biased and did 
not examine all the evidence it should have ­ this is now being done by an 
appeals court. 


The court will have to decide whether a partisan ­ a civilian ­ can be tried 
for war crimes for having killed other civilians ­ people who supported the 
other side. It isn’t in Russia’s interests to shift the emphasis in its 
coverage of this affair. Russia needs more accurate information about its 
Baltic neighbors, but all we see is Kononov or elderly Latvian legionnaires 
who fought with the Nazis. While, in fact, Russians are given a better 
welcome these days in Latvia than during the Soviet years.


The problem is that former Soviet republics haven’t given much thought to 
what are their own long-term interests in a new world. This is true not just 
for economic interests, which create binding ties but are left to develop in 
anarchic fashion. 


Demographic issues ­ the root of many inter-ethnic conflicts ­ also require 
attention. Some "small peoples" continue to show an aggressive-defensive 
face, still not used to the fact that they are now the ruling majority in 
their countries. Russians, meanwhile, used to feeling themselves a large 
nation, are also having trouble coming to terms with the demographic issues 
facing their future.


Twenty-two million ethnic Russians now live in former Soviet republics. Those 
countries need them for their labor, knowledge and business contacts with 
Russia. But Russia also needs them to remedy its falling birthrate and settle 
regions in danger of depopulation. 


Russia and its neighbors could compete to create the best living conditions 
for these people so that they themselves could choose freely where they 
prefer to live. This would be more rational than the present policy of mutual 
accusations, suspicion and dwelling on past wrongs.


******


#8
Date: Mon, 08 May 2000
From: Arnold Beichman <beichman@hoover.stanford.edu> 
Subject: New book: CNN'S Cold War Documentary: Issues and Controversy 


Some of your readers may be interested in the just-published book, "CNN'S 
Cold War Documentary: Issues and Controversy" (Hoover Press, 
$17.95). The 24-part television series and a companion text-book intended 
by the Turner Organization for sale to schools and colleges has generated 
heated discussion among scholars and in the media. Was the CNN series an 
accurate depiction or revisionist history colored by the prevalent fallacy 
of "moral equivalence"? The book which I edited and to which I contributed 
has original essays by Robert Conquest, who analyzes the textbook and 
Richard Pipes, who analyzes the CNN film. A third essay by John Lewis 
Gaddis, one of three advisers to the CNN documentary, disagrees with his 
critics. Charles Krauthammer in the Washington Post called the series and 
textbook a moral affront to the West's resolve, dedicated to a "relentless 
attempt to find moral equivalence between the two sides." Sir Jeremy 
Isaacs, the film's executive producer says the documentary is "simply and 
directly, without gloss or spin...a guide you can trust to the story of our 
time." Among other contributors are Kenneth Auchincloss, Mark Falcoff, 
Lawrence Freedman, Jacob Heilbrunn, Ronald Radosh, Gabriel Schoenfeld, 
Raymond A. Schroth, Joseph Shattan and Mark Steyn.


*******


#9
Date: Mon, 08 May 2000 
From: "Andrei Liakhov" <liakhova@nortonrose.com> 
Subject: RE: 4285-Moore/ABM and Cold War


Let me start by taking one step back and elborating on what the nuclear arms
agreements are about. They are about not only numerical restrictions on the
deployment ready warheads (the DRWs) and operational delivery systems (the
ODSs), but also about the verification, control and ABM defence mechanisms
(ABMDS). The aim of all these hard negotiated and elaborate arrangements,
balances and measures is to ensure that while the assured mutual destruction
capabilities (AMDC) are preserved, each side has the minimum level of the
DRWs and ODSs required to achieve the AMDC. Limitation of ABMDS was required
to ensure that the other side could not prejudice AMDC of the other side.
This needed to ensure that no side could ever even contemplate the first
strike without risking total annihilation, thus maintaining the balance of
fear and the World peace by extension. 


I quite agree that times have changed, and US-Russian relations have changed
with them. But the big issue is how exactly have they changed? Is there the
real new trust which would allow for radical overhaul of the SALT system?
Intentions are usually inferred from deeds, not from words and while the US
has changed its vocabulary towards Russia, its actions are regarded in
Russia as not so obviously friendly. Examples which any Russian observer
will give you are numerous, the most striking are the revision of NATO non
expansion commitment to Gorbachev (1991) and Yeltsin (1992)(If NATO does not
consider Russia an enemy - why expand at all at huge cost, substantial
political risk and dubious advantages); Kosovo action which is an obvious
and staggering violation of every relevant rule of international law;
continuing support of Taliban militia (until '98); and declaration of the
Caspian Sea as area of strategic US interests. One may argue that the ISBMs
are not targeted at Russia anymore, however any half decent specialist will
tell you that re-targeting exercise takes a couple of hours at most. All
this makes Russia nervous and for a good reason. It is not simply sure that
US does not regard it as an enemy (at least a potential one). These and
other similar (but not so obvious) examples could be the basis for the
argument that US has used the post '91 reality to achieve maximum benefits
for itself as victor in the Cold War and still considers Russia as the
source of potential unfriendly acts which needs to be contained and isolated
to the maximum extent possible. The above considerations makes Russians
weary to change what they see as their last line of defence in what seems to
them as essentially more delicate balance of force with the US. 


I would also like to comment on Your statement about leaks of nuclear
material/technology from Russia to the West. Despite all the hype in the
press, there were 3 known attempts to sell weapons grade plutonium of
Russian origin in the West in the last 11 years despite a well documented
CIA operation directed to test safety of Russian nuclear material storage
system. The results were dismal as the quantities involved in these sales
were minuscule and the sellers were essentially rogue nuclear installation
employees. Leaving aside Hollywood exploits of the theme, there are so many
safety mechanisms built into the system that despite all the current
hardships I simply refuse to believe that any substantial leaks are
possible. 


At the moment you can find description of how to make an A bomb technology
on the Web without substantial difficulties, however Long Range MWDS (prime
NDS target) technology is more difficult to come by. Yes a couple of states
tested both N-devices and LRDSs, but having in mind the economic potential
of these states it is difficult to believe that they will be able to develop
enough ODSs (even single warhead ones) to present any real threat to the US
in the next 30 or so years by which time the NDS will become obsolete
anyway. Thus it may be argued that US does not need NDS in the currently
proposed form to contain a possible threat from these states. (This argument
may be supplemented by figures and examples, which are too long for the DJRL
format).


All the above is well known to the Russians and makes them even more
suspicious about the real objectives of the US NDS. 


Having the above in mind and completely sharing your comments about the need
to re-think US -Russian strategic military agreements in post Cold War
circumstances I do not think that the installation of the NDS is a good
starting point. It may be required at the end of the day (as I said in my
posting) but only as a part of the overall general overhaul of the nuclear
arms control mechanisms and in the context of genuine review of US attitude
towards Russia. Otherwise we will see Cold War MkII in a couple of years. 


*******


#10
Kremlin Plans to Silence Duma
gazeta.ru
May 6, 2000


On Friday the Russian daily Kommersant revealed a draught presidential 
degree drawn up by Kremlin officials which provides for the establishment of 
the Presidential Political Council with the aim of countering all political 
opposition to the president. If fully implemented the Council could bring an 
end to Russia’s parliamentary democracy as we now know it. 
The document commences by defining the president’s position in relation 
to political movements and society at large and subsequently justifies the 
formation of the Presidential Political Council. It states that the president 
requires reliable support but “this must be neither from a single party nor a 
movement.”….“Firstly the president of the Russian Federation should be 
politically neutral (this opinion has been firmly endorsed by Russian 
society). Secondly, such a major-scale state official as the President of 
Russia should thus not rely upon a single political party but upon a wide 
range of social organizations on all levels, representing various strata of 
society, united in one social and state organ ­ The Presidential Political 
Council. 
So what exactly is the Political Council? As always the ‘reformers’’ 
reply is overtly sincere: “The president needs a manageable political organ 
that could, in the eyes of the Russian public, enlist the genuine support of 
the electorate and could, without casting a shadow on the president, 
aggressively conduct the informational and political struggle against all 
opposition forces.” 
The authors have drafted the presidential decree on one page. It 
contains three main directives: The first is to establish the Political 
Council. The second is to invite all the political parties and movements 
registered with the Ministry of Justice to join the Council. Thirdly, the 
head of the presidential administration is to establish a working group to 
assist the Council’s work. 
The project is by no means just a bureaucratic game devised by Kremlin 
officials. The presidential administration intends to create an organ that 
will counterbalance the State Duma and insure itself against any surprises 
from the latter. In order to guarantee the ‘counter-Duma’s’ effectiveness, 
its designers propose that “the governing section of the Political Council” 
should be appointed strictly by the President. There should be 10 such 
appointees who will form the upper chamber of the Political Council. 
So it is absolutely clear that the Council’s designers intend to adapt 
and implement the methods employed by the ChK (The Emergency Commission, 
founded during the Civil War and transformed into the KGB after Stalin’s 
death) to suppress political opposition. What is more, nobody is attempting 
to conceal the fact. According to the document the main objective of the 
Political Council is “to gradually force the State Duma out of the Russian 
political scene as a ‘political tribune’ for forces in opposition to the 
President, and instead have it concentrate exclusively on lawmaking 
activities.” 
The wording is strong to the degree that it verges on subversion of 
the constitutional order. One could defend the authors of the document by 
suggesting that they nurtured their ideas prior to the December 1999 Duma 
elections and could simply not turn back. The current State Duma is loyal to 
the president and the project of establishing the Political Council could be 
postponed. But the idea is still alive. The recent initiative to relocate the 
State Duma from Moscow to St.Petersburg, irrespective of the goals of the 
move’s advocates, amounts to nothing short of forced exile to the political 
periphery for the representative branch of power. 
Evidently, in pursuing their ideas for the creation of the Political 
Council the ‘reformers’ have gone too far. A clash between the State Duma and 
the Presidential Administration is surely not far off. The arguments the 
administration will use are already clear: the mass media allegedly publish 
false reports that by no means reflect the real state of affairs at Staraya 
Plochshad (the presidential administration’s offices). The response is always 
such when light is shed upon the political epicenter. 
Should this project fail, the victory will be ours too. Nevertheless, 
there is still no doubt that the presidential administration’s arsenal will 
be further reinforced by the special services and their methods. 


*******


#11
Russia: Analysis From Washington -- Spies Versus Oligarchs
By Paul Goble


Washington, 8 May 2000 (RFE/RL) -- Newly inaugurated Russian President 
Vladimir Putin plans to use the country's intelligence services to break the 
power of the oligarchs as part of his drive to establish a stronger and more 
centralized state. 


Such an effort at the very least sets the stage for increased tensions both 
between the newly inaugurated president and the oligarchs as a group as well 
as between those oligarchs aligned with Putin and others linked to rival 
political groups. 


But more than that, Putin's plan to use the Russian intelligence agencies for 
domestic control recalls one of the worst features of the Soviet system and 
could undermine the chance that Russia will move in a more democratic 
direction anytime soon. 


A former KGB officer himself, Putin has made no secret of his readiness to 
rely on Russia's still powerful intelligence agencies. Indeed, he has even 
joked about their successful penetration of the Russian government during his 
watch. 


But the clearest indication of just how far he may be prepared to go in this 
direction and just what that might mean for the country as a whole came in a 
purported Kremlin planning document leaked to the Russian press last week. 


Because the document was described in "Kommersant," a newspaper owned by an 
oligarch -- Boris Berezovsky -- who has opposed Putin on many occasions, some 
commentators have questioned its genuineness or played down its significance. 


Nonetheless, the ideas presented in the document appear both consistent with 
or at most extensions of proposals Putin and his closest aides have made in 
the past. And as such, they merit scrutiny -- even if Putin ultimately backs 
away from them. 


As outlined by "Kommersant," the document calls for the fusion of the 
intelligence services and a new presidential political directorate and the 
use of this combination to build a power base for the presidency independent 
of the political process by undermining any opposition to his person or 
polices. 


Sometimes, the document is said to argue, this new agency will seek 
compromising information about these opponents; sometimes, it will plant 
unfavorable stories about them in the press; and sometimes, it is implied it 
will use other, unspecified methods. 


Such an arrangement, the document states, will give the president "real 
control over political processes in Russia," reducing the government to the 
executor of presidential policies and protecting his agents from the kind of 
criticism democracy requires. 


Even more disturbing, the document suggests that this new presidential 
security arrangement will allow Putin to "actually manage political and 
social processes in Russia and in nearby foreign countries," an apparent 
reference to the former Soviet republics. 


All of this, "Kommersant" concludes, will allow Putin to impose his preferred 
form of economic reforms regardless of what powerful economic interests and 
Russian society more broadly in fact say they want through the media and the 
ballot box. 


In sum, "Kommersant" suggests, the realization of the provisions of this 
document will transform Russia's current "self-regulating and self-managing" 
political system into one resembling "Chili under Pinochet." 


Such an arrangement is likely to prove popular with many in both Russia and 
the West. On the one hand, many in both places long for the restoration of 
stability in Moscow even at the cost of democratic procedures. 


And on the other hand, Putin appears ready to use the enhanced power that 
such an arrangement might give to promote economic reforms that would 
challenge the economic and political power of the oligarchs to dominate the 
political scene. But if Putin's plans may be greeted in some quarters, there 
are three reasons why they are likely to create more problems than they 
solve. 


First, the very fact that this document was leaked suggests that not everyone 
in the Kremlin is happy with increased reliance on the security services. 
Indeed, many people within the government may try to undermine it and thereby 
further weakening the regime. 


Second, the publication of commentary on this document highlights just one of 
the ways the oligarchs would fight the implementation of such a plan. Any 
effort to suppress that resistance would be long, costly and almost certainly 
counterproductive. 


And third, any effort by a newly expanded presidential security apparatus to 
suppress democracy even in the name of economic reform would generate 
resistance even among Putin's own supporters in the population at large. 


Those Russians who have welcomed Putin's toughness vis-a-vis the Chechens are 
unlikely to be so supportive if he visits a similar toughness against Russian 
society. His support has been broad, but it is not deep; and such efforts 
could erode it quickly. 


That in turn would set the stage either for his retreat from a 
security-service-based form of rule or its even more rigorous application, 
either of which would cast a shadow on his presidency even as it has just 
begun.


*******


#12
Newsweek
May 15, 2000
[for personal use only]
Will Putin Take On the Mob? 
The new president was elected as a law-and-order man. But he looks like a 
pushover in his hometown of St. Petersburg. 
By Brian Whitmore


An oil executive is gunned down with a rocket-propelled grenade in rush-hour 
traffic. A city-council member is indicted for running a murder-for-hire 
ring. Another gets his head blown off by a car bomb. Thugs beat an 
anti-corruption crusader with rubber truncheons. And organized crime is so 
pervasive that it gets its hooks into people even after they're dead: the 
local cemetery business is reputedly controlled by a ruthless gang led by a 
local "businessman" called "Kostya the Grave."


St. Petersburg, the elegant city of Pushkin and the Winter Palace, is today 
the capital of Kalashnikov Capitalism, a place where the "rule of law" gets 
trumped by an older principle: might makes right. It's also the birthplace of 
the just-inaugurated president of Russia, Vladimir V. Putin. Elected in part 
because of his promise to impose "a dictatorship of the rule of law," Putin 
could find no better place to start than the town where he first made his 
political reputation as deputy mayor. In Russia's most esthetically graceful 
city, the lines between commerce, politics and organized crime are about as 
thin as the cross hairs on a sniper's rifle. Since 1997 alone, according to 
law-enforcement statistics, there have been more than 200 contract murders 
carried out in St. Petersburg. Most of them remain unsolved.


Putin's initial moves against this culture of violence have not been 
promising. When he succeeded Boris Yeltsin at the end of last year, Putin 
seemed intent on ousting St. Petersburg's powerful governor, Vladimir 
Yakovlev. Yakovlev's critics—including a former local chief of police—claim 
he has ties to an organized-crime gang that is now the real power in town, 
having gained control of profitable local businesses like oil distribution on 
Yakovlev's watch. The governor has repeatedly denied the charge.


A couple of months ago Putin was talking tough about Yakovlev. At the 
February funeral for his old boss, the liberal St. Petersburg governor 
Anatoly Sobchak, a tearful Putin suggested that Sobchak died "as a result of 
persecution" from his political enemies. It was a clear reference to 
Yakovlev. Rumors flew that Putin would put the Kremlin's muscle behind 
popular former prime minister Sergei Stepashin to challenge Yakovlev in the 
governor's election next Sunday. Instead, for reasons that are not clear, 
Putin unexpectedly endorsed a political lightweight, a woman named Valentina 
Matviyenko.


Then, last month, Putin apparently decided that there would be no political 
war with Yakovlev at all. He forced Matviyenko to withdraw and clandestinely 
met with Yakovlev. Political sources in St. Petersburg assume Yakovlev 
offered a straightforward deal: loyalty to the Kremlin in exchange for a free 
ride when Yakovlev stands for re-election.


This week Putin will finally start to appoint his own people to positions of 
power. Many of them—his security-service chief, for one—will be from St. 
Petersburg. These are people who consider themselves graduates of the "good" 
St. Petersburg, the birthplace of the democracy movement in the late '80s 
that eventually brought down the Soviet Union. All, Putin included, worked 
for Sobchak.


In truth, Sobchak himself was no saint—he left the country in 1997 amid 
corruption charges, which he denied. But Yakovlev doesn't do a lot to counter 
the impression that forces loyal to him can play rough. One city-council 
member complained of corruption in Yakovlev's health-care bureaucracy. 
Assailants wielding rubber truncheons broke his nose, ribs and skull, but 
took no money or valuables. In October last year, Viktor Novosyolov, a 
powerful city-council member and onetime Yakovlev ally, was killed when a 
bomb placed on his car roof decapitated him. The victim was reputed to have 
organized-crime ties, but had broken with Yakovlev. According to several 
city-council members, Novosyolov had compromising material on Yakovlev that 
he was ready to make public.


It's far from clear what game Vladimir Putin is playing in St. Petersburg. 
Some suggest that, in return for withdrawing his opposition to Yakovlev's 
election, Putin asked him for help in getting the local "businessmen" to lay 
down their arms. Perhaps. But the only way to tell will be if the number of 
customers for Kostya the Grave finally begins to go down.


With Bill Powell in Moscow


*******


#13
Zyuganov Hopes Putin Will Reinstate Roundtable Discussions 
Moscow RIA 


Moscow, 7th May: Russian Communist Party and the State Duma Communist 
faction leader Gennadiy Zyuganov hopes that [Russian President] Vladimir 
Putin 
will revive the tradition of discussing topical issues of domestic and 
foreign policy that existed during Boris Yeltsin's presidency. 
Zyuganov has told RIA that he expects Putin to "gather most influential 
politicians and authoritative people to discuss the ways to consolidate the 
[Russian] society". "It is necessary to develop a mechanism to coordinate the 
interests of all political forces," he added. 
"The new president may create a political body to discuss topical issues 
of 
domestic and foreign policy like the Big Four [president, prime minister, and 
chairmen of the Sate Duma and the Federation Council] or the Round Table that 
existed under Yeltsin," he says. 
Zyuganov expects Putin to make public the main directions of his 
strategic policy soon after his inauguration. 
Among the first steps expected to be taken by Putin in his new capacity, 
Zyuganov named "measures aimed at reinstating citizens' deposits that were 
depreciated in the course of the reforms". He also believes that the state 
"should have controlling interest in all the raw material resources of the 
country and control the respective property, which unfortunately is not the 
case now". 


******


#14
BBC MONITORING
RUSSIA: WEATHER CONTROL IN FULL SWING FOR 9TH MAY PARADE
Text of report by Russian NTV on 8th May 


Tomorrow, we are marking one of the main bank holidays - the anniversary of 
our victory over Hitlerite fascism. Moscow is preparing for a parade and 
other street festivities. The meteorologists are also on the alert. The 
weather will be of some crucial relevance tomorrow. Here is a report by Ivan 
Volonikhin. 


[Correspondent] Today we are having such a sunny day. There is not a single 
cloud in the sky. So, many people are hoping for the same weather tomorrow, 
on the bank holiday. But the meteorologists are forecasting a bad weather on 
9th May: variable cloudiness and a high probability of rain. 


Nevertheless, during the parade tomorrow, there will probably be no rain in 
the Red Square. In order to guarantee this, this very aircraft will take off 
tomorrow at 0600 [0200 gmt] to disperse the clouds, as they would commonly 
say. The experts, however, describe the event differently. 


There is a certain Myachkov airfield 20 km away from Moscow. Previously, this 
was the base of a special-task air detachment. It was used for aircraft to 
carry out research in the North and South Poles and for machines to do 
filming and photography. At present, the airfield is used by small light 
aircraft and meteorological equipment. 


We arrived when the preparation of An-30 for a take-off was in full swing. 
This is a reconnaissance plane but the meteorological equipment aboard the 
plane is portable. It is usually removed when there are no weather inquiries 
and this machine makes ordinary commercial flights. But the crew can do with 
some extra money. Bright sun when nature orders differently is an expensive 
business. One-hour flight of this kind costs 600 dollars. But tomorrow, the 
day will be special, and the work of transmitters must be checked out 
thoroughly in the air. Here is a flight controller giving a go ahead to the 
plane. In a few minutes we are up above Moscow's orbital road. 


The height is 5,000 metres and we are beginning to encounter clouds. The task 
of the meteorologists is to determine how many ice crystals and how many 
drops of water are contained in each cloud. Depending on this, they will be 
discharging this or that reagent for the rain to fall on the outskirts of 
Moscow. [Addressing captain of the crew] As captain of the crew, do you have 
to move into thunder and lightening? Are you afraid? 


[Sergey Moroz, commander of a squadron of the Myachkov aircraft crew] 
Naturally, we do not move into the cloud area itself. We stay either outside 
or above it, depending on the kind of reagent we are using and what kind of 
work we have to carry out. It is quite all right. 


[Correspondent] In the meantime, we are flying over Sheremetyevo and then 
Dmitrov. Now our aircraft is over Dubna. It is possible that this will be the 
area from where they will begin to send out reagents tomorrow. The rain 
formed, despite the widely-held view to the contrary, is very rarely silver 
in colour. Silver iodide cartridges are used for seeding clouds only when 
they are very high. Nitrogen is used more frequently. 


[Viktor Petrov, deputy director of the agency for atmospheric equipment of 
the Russian Hydrometeorological Committee] As for the environment, the main 
reagents used are liquefied nitrogen or solid carbon dioxide. But 78 per cent 
of the atmosphere consists of nitrogen. The total weight of nitrogen used by 
all the seven aircraft is below two tonnes. This is just a drop in the ocean, 
given that the atmosphere consists of 78 per cent of nitrogen. As for solid 
carbon dioxide, it is the same substance which they use in ice-cream storage 
containers. 


[Correspondent] Is this dry ice? 


[Petrov] Yes, this is ordinary dry ice. Therefore there is no ecological 
danger whatsoever. 


[Correspondent] The most difficult thing is to eliminate thick strati and 
cumulous clouds. Such clouds can be worked over several times but it will 
still drizzle over the Kremlin. In that situation, the clouds cannot be 
seeded manually and help has to be summoned. 


We have not been told how much it will cost Moscow to have a cloudless sky on 
9th May. They said we must make our own calculations. We have calculated 
about 100,000 dollars. Whether it is little or a lot, it is up to the 
veterans or participants of the parade to decide. We have yet to hope that 
tomorrow they will not get soaked. The meteorological equipment has been 
working spot-on today. 


*******

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