July 10th, 2000    
This Date's Issues: 4393 • 4394  •

Johnson's Russia List
#4394
10 July 2000
davidjohnson@erols.com

[Note from David Johnson:
1. AP: Russia Releases New Foreign Policy.
2. Reuters: Russia's govt expected to shake up Gazprom.
3. Washington Post: Mark Hertsgaard, Russia Is an Eco-Disaster, 
and It Just Got Worse.
4. Los Angeles Times: A Russian Custom: Traffic Cops on the Take.
5. John Reppert: the fourth annual Harvard US-Russian Investment 
Symposium.
6. Baltimore Sun: Scott Shane, Russian press restrictions recall 
early America.
7. The Athens News (Greece): John Helmer, THE FAUCET AND THE BIG 
BANG.
8. Edward Lucas: weekly bulletin from Moscow.
9. Moscow Times: Sarah Karush, Judging the Country's 'One Judge' 
(Sergei Pashin)
10. Profil: SECURITY COUNCILS. (Interview with Security 
Council Secretary Sergei Ivanov)] 

*******

#1
Russia Releases New Foreign Policy
July 10, 2000
By ANDREW KRAMER

MOSCOW (AP) - Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov announced a new foreign 
policy doctrine Monday, stressing that the nation should pursue only those 
goals it can afford. 

``The point is to make our policy more rational, more profitable in the 
political and economic sense,'' Ivanov told a news conference. 

The doctrine calls for placing priority on foreign policy goals that are 
necessary to build a strong state. Russia's interests abroad will be trimmed 
to conserve scarce resources, while more emphasis will be placed on assisting 
the country's economic recovery, Ivanov said. 

The doctrine's introduction follows President Vladimir Putin's state of the 
nation address Saturday, which strummed some of the same themes of ending 
waffling in government policy. It fills out the Putin government's 
ideological program - focusing on the paramount importance of the central 
government in society, although allowing a free market. 

The Putin government's previous policy pronouncements have included a new 
security doctrine broadening the Kremlin's authority to use nuclear weapons 
and a so-called information security doctrine, which strengthens the 
government's role in monitoring information flows in Russia. 

The foreign policy doctrine says the government should ``insist on its lawful 
rights'' in the foreign policy field, and have a ``realistic'' approach to 
Russia's interests, Ivanov told reporters. 

The document reflects Russian bitterness over NATO's eastward expansion, 
which many in Russia consider a betrayal by the West. ``Certain plans related 
to establishing new, equitable and mutually advantageous partnership 
relations ... have not been justified,'' the document reads. 

The country will focus on building alliances with regional powers and working 
within the United Nations, Ivanov said. Yeltsin also pursued such goals, but 
intermittently. 

The doctrine identifies the struggle against international terrorism, ``which 
is capable of destabilizing the situation not only in individual states, but 
in entire regions,'' as the most important task of Russian foreign policy. 
Moscow contends that international terrorists are responsible for Russia's 
war in breakaway Chechnya. 

On wider themes, Ivanov said the country has no ambitions to revive its lost 
empire. But he said Russia deserves a special place in the world because of 
its vast natural resources, military power and rich intellectual and 
spiritual heritage. 

``Russia was, is and will always be a superpower,'' he said. 

The doctrine is the first announced since a post-Communist foreign policy 
reassessment in 1993. In that doctrine, Russia lowered its guard and focused 
on courting aid and advice from Western Europe and the United States. 

*******

#2
ANALYSIS-Russia's govt expected to shake up Gazprom
By Peter Henderson

MOSCOW, July 10 (Reuters) - Russia is set to demand more efficiency and 
transparency from Gazprom and seek more value from the firm with a quarter of 
the world's gas reserves and which is seen as a test case for the country's 
restructuring. 

Gazprom has negotiated for years the balancing act of powering the country 
with cheap gas while profiting from exports, and management has largely been 
left to its own devices, though the days of isolation appear numbered. 

Shareholders, including the largest, Russia's government, want the company to 
deliver value by becoming more transparent, efficient, and to enliven the 
moribund market for its stock, which is divided into separate markets for 
locals and foreigners, who pay a hefty premium. 

The government and outsiders scored handsomely at Gazprom's recent annual 
meeting when minority directors took two of the 11 board seats, reducing 
management to four and leaving the government five and the board 
chairmanship. 

Gazprom is easily the biggest contributor to the budget and its domestic 
operation is a mess of bills due from clients, making it a gauge for 
government commitment to reform. 

``If Russia is to be cleaned up, this would be a fantastic case,'' said James 
Fenkner, equity strategist at Troika Dialog brokerage in Moscow. 

DUAL MARKET AND ITERA 

An early sign of reform would be changes to the dual-market share structure, 
hinted at in some recent comments. 

Foreigners are legally limited to buying Gazprom equity through foreign 
trading American Depositary Shares (ADS), which cost about two and a half 
times as much as the local shares which back them and which trade for 
Russians alone at home. 

A senior government source acknowledged recently that the ``ring fence'' 
built to keep foreigners out of the local market is full of gaps -- some 
estimate foreigners control 13 percent of Gazprom in local shares -- and the 
government should mend the fence or tear it down, taking a decision in a 
month or two. 

``There is uncertainty, and that very strongly undermines the company,'' the 
source told journalists. 

``We want to realise the real value of Gazprom. How to do that will be the 
question. I think the real value of Gazprom can only occur by taking down the 
ring fence.'' 

All the analysts canvassed by Reuters were sure the ADS would quickly recover 
from a dip after the fence fell and said they expected the fence to fall 
eventually. 

Another reform would be to provide details of Itera, a company which sells 
Gazprom gas and is increasingly producing gas at fields that used to belong 
to Gazprom. Analysts fear Gazprom value is being transferred to Itera. 

The government source said he did not expect to force a change at Itera until 
Chief Executive Rem Vyakhirev steps down in the middle of next year, though 
he called it a problem. 

BOARD OUTSIDERS HAVE KEY ROLE 

Derek Weaving, Deutsche Bank's head of energy research for emerging Europe, 
saw shareholders pushing for change, reinforced by the momentum of the 
government's reform plan, which includes planks on reforming monopolies, and 
Gazprom's need for capital, which will be much easier to satisfy without a 
ring fence. 

He said the two outsiders on the board would play a key role. ``They are 
inside the tent,'' he said. 

The two outsiders on the board are Boris Fyodorov, founder of brokerage 
United Financial Group (UFG) and a representative of Germany's Ruhrgas, a 
strategic partner and shareholder seen first concerned with preserving its 
reputation. 

Fyodorov in particular has called for Gazprom to explain its relationship 
with Itera and dismantle the two-tier market. 

The uncertainty can be seen as a buying opportunity. Hit by uncertainty, the 
ADS has come down, following the domestic Russian stock market this year. The 
ADS at $7.35 on Monday was off 13 percent for the year, while local shares at 
8.29 roubles were up about the same amount -- in roubles. The RTS1-Interfax 
index of the Moscow market was up seven percent at 187.19. 

Stephen O'Sullivan, head of research at UFG, criticises Gazprom for Itera and 
the ring fence, and he cautions reform will be slow, but he targets domestic 
shares, now around $0.287, at $0.89 and the ADS, which covers 10 shares, at 
$8.90. 

On enterprise value to 2000 forecast earnings before interest, tax, 
depreciation and amortisation (EV/EBITDA), a favourite multiple for Russian 
analysts, local shares are 3.0, slightly more expensive than the Russian 
energy companies average of 2.7, while the ADS is 4.9. 

But that compares to an emerging market average of 7.1 and an international 
gas company average of 10.5. Or take enterprise value to reserves -- Gazprom 
is at $0.09 per barrel of oil equivalent against $33.79 for the international 
gas company average. 

*******

#3
Washington Post
9 July 2000
[for personal use only] 
Russia Is an Eco-Disaster, and It Just Got Worse
By Mark Hertsgaard (hertsgaard@msn.com)
Mark Hertsgaard is the author of "Earth Odyssey: Around the World in Search 
of Our Environmental Future" (Broadway Books).

A couple of months ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin abolished his 
country's environmental protection agency--a decision that bodes ill not only 
for the people and ecosystems of one of the world's most polluted nations, 
but also for the security and environmental health of the entire world. Yet 
Putin's action has attracted virtually no attention from Western politicians 
or news organizations. 

Acting by decree and without explanation, Putin shut down the State Committee 
for Environmental Protection on May 17 and transferred its responsibilities 
to the Natural Resources Agency, the government body that licenses the 
development of Russia's vast stores of petroleum and minerals. After 
eliminating the State Committee on Forestry, Putin completed his governmental 
reorganization by naming Alexander Gavrin, who has close ties to the 
country's biggest oil producer, Lukoil, as energy minister. In short, Putin 
has put industrial foxes in charge of the environmental henhouse.

The State Committee for Environmental Protection had neither the power nor 
the status of its American counterpart, the Environmental Protection Agency. 
Created as a cabinet-level body under Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991, the Ministry 
of the Environment was downgraded to a mere State Committee in 1996 by the 
newly reelected Boris Yeltsin. But many Russian environmentalists point out 
that the committee played a positive role in some cases--it helped the 
Russian environmental law firm Ecojuris stop Exxon from dumping toxic waste 
from oil drilling into the seas off the Sakhalin peninsula, for example. 
Despite their frequent criticisms of the committee's inadequacies, alarmed 
activists are now gathering signatures to force a national referendum on 
Putin's decree. "Even a shabby State Committee for the Environment is better 
than no environmental monitoring body whatsoever," argues Greenpeace Russia 
spokesman Alexander Shuvalov.

Victor Danilov-Danilyan, who headed the committee when it was abolished, 
notes that 61 million Russians already live under environmentally dangerous 
conditions. In 120 Russian cities, air pollution levels are five times higher 
than acceptable, according to Russia's own standards. One million tons of 
oil--the equivalent of 25 Exxon Valdez spills--leak out of pipelines and into 
Russia's soil and water every month. The Russian news agency Tass reports 
that 30 percent of Chechnya is an ecological disaster zone, thanks in part to 
the 26 oil wells that have been on fire nonstop for months.

Nevertheless, one day after Putin's announcement, the Natural Resources 
Agency declared it planned to "simplify" rules governing environmental 
behavior in Russia. Logging policy in particular is slated for overhaul. 
Russia contains 22 percent of the world's forests--more than any other 
nation. With help from a $60 million loan from the World Bank, the Putin 
government plans to improve the investment climate for logging in Russia. 
Leveling Russia's vast forests will speed the extinction of countless plant 
and animal species; it will also remove a major source of fresh air and water 
and a counter to global warming.

Nowhere are Putin's actions more frightening, though, than with respect to 
nuclear technology. The State Committee for Environmental Protection did not 
directly oversee Russia's nuclear industrial complex, but Putin's 
business-first attitude seems certain to carry over to nuclear policy. Not 
one of Russia's 29 nuclear power plants has a complete safety certificate; 
many have been cited for hundreds of violations. Yet Putin's minister for 
atomic energy, Yevgeny Adamov, wants to build 23 more nuclear power plants, 
plus another 40 advanced, "fast breeder" reactors. Breeders rely on 
plutonium, a key ingredient in nuclear weapons.

To have plutonium shipments crisscrossing Russia, where the rule of law is 
weak at best, is a recipe for catastrophe. One hijacking--or an inside job by 
workers vulnerable to temptation after months of unpaid wages--could give a 
terrorist group enough raw material to hold whole cities hostage. Adamov says 
fast breeder reactors will make Russia rich, which is the same reason he 
offers for changing Russia's laws to allow the import of tons of nuclear 
waste--as if Russia isn't already choking on the stuff.

Instead of abolishing the State Committee, Putin should have strengthened it 
to address the dangers posed by his country's nuclear pollution and security. 
The infamous Chernobyl accident of 1986 took place in the Ukraine, of course, 
not in Russia, but its radioactivity continues to increase the risk of cancer 
and endanger human health throughout the region. Many of Russia's nuclear 
plants rely on the same technology as the Chernobyl facility.

Less well-known is the still unfolding crisis near the western Siberian city 
of Chelyabinsk. The Mayak complex 50 miles north of Chelyabinsk was the heart 
of the Soviet nuclear weapons production system throughout the Cold War. 
Three disasters with Mayak's nuclear waste--in 1946, 1957 and 1967--have 
caused cumulative damages comparable to, and probably worse than, the 
Chernobyl meltdown. Even today, some 100 million curies of radioactivity, 
including six Chernobyls' worth of strontium 90 and cesium 137, remain in 
Mayak's Lake Karachay, which scientists from the U.S.-based Natural Resources 
Defense Council have called "the most polluted spot on Earth." The 
groundwater is already contaminated, and the area is subject to cyclones and 
earthquakes that could further spread the radioactivity.

Rivaling Chelyabinsk is the Kola Peninsula in northwestern Russia, near the 
border with Norway. During the Cold War, the harbors of Kola were home to the 
Soviet Union's Northern Fleet, which dumped used submarine reactors, spent 
fuel and other nuclear debris into the sea with abandon. The waters now 
contain two-thirds of all the nuclear waste dumped into the world's oceans.

The problems at Kola came to light through the work of Alexander Nikitin, a 
former naval captain who co-authored with the Bellona Foundation, a Norwegian 
environmental group, a report documenting the potential for trouble. Though 
Nikitin's report relied only on previously published information, the Federal 
Security Police (FSB) arrested him in 1996 and imprisoned him on charges of 
treason and divulging state secrets. He was acquitted last December.

Putin, who headed the FSB in 1998 and 1999, defended the FSB's aggressive 
stance toward Nikitin and other environmentalists, asserting last year that 
environmental groups provide convenient cover for foreign spies. But Putin's 
May 17 decree suggests that his real concern is not that environmentalists 
will compromise state security, but that their efforts will elevate 
ecological purity over the speedy resource development that the Russian 
leader believes his country needs.

There is still time for Putin to reverse his anti-environmental initiatives. 
When biologist Alexei Yablokov, a leading figure in Russia's environmental 
movement, gave Putin a letter from members of the Russian Academy of Sciences 
urging restoration of the State Committee, the Russian president responded 
that he would think about it. But he assigned the review of his decision to 
Boris Yatskevich, who, as minister of natural resources, is unlikely to 
reverse course without pressure.

Russian environmentalists, with their referendum drive, are doing their part. 
Outsiders, alas, are not. So far, the only official criticism of Putin's 
decree has been an "expression of concern" endorsed by the environmental 
ministers of the Nordic countries at a meeting last month. President Clinton 
declined to raise the subject in his speech to the Russian Duma in June. 
Surely the elimination of environmental oversight in one of the most 
polluted, militarily potent nations on earth deserves more attention than 
that.

******

#4
Los Angeles Times
July 9, 2000
[for personal use only]
A Russian Custom: Traffic Cops on the Take 
Law enforcement: Though it's the subject of many jokes, many motorists say 
the unofficial system of traffic 'fines' works more smoothly than official 
sanctions. 
>From Associated Press

MOSCOW--They can be seen pacing up and down the dividing line or 
standing in wait at tricky corners where motorists will sometimes bend the 
rules to save a few minutes on Russia's decrepit roads. 
They are the traffic police, known for their gray uniforms and the 
white-and-black batons that flash out to wave a driver to the curb. And they 
are also known for their love of bribes, large and small. 
It is one of the most notable displays of corruption pervading Russian 
life, and hundreds of jokes poke fun at the payoff-prone cop. There were 
plenty told this week, the 64th anniversary of the State Traffic Control 
Inspectorate. 
Even police acknowledge bribe-taking is a fact of life, but say traffic 
cops aren't the only ones to blame. 
"Bribes are accepted because they are offered," said traffic 
inspectorate spokeswoman Lyudmila Tosheva. "There's no such case where you 
can blame one side or the other." 
Though they lament the corruption, some drivers find relief in the 
institution. A bribe is often an easy way to avoid the bureaucratic hassles 
of paying for a formally issued ticket. 
"It's an old habit," said Sergei Pozhedayev, a sales manager at a Moscow 
auto shop. "If you break the law a little, just give them 50 rubles [$1.70] 
and you go on your way." 
Russian law allows police to confiscate motorists' licenses for even 
minor violations, meaning the driver usually has to spend half a day paying a 
fine at the bank and going to the police with a receipt to get the license 
back. 
"It's very convenient," said a Moscow driver who identified himself as 
Sergei. "Let's say that I haven't gotten my car inspected and I get stopped; 
it's a lot easier for me to slip a little money into his pocket on the spot." 
The lack of discipline has its dangers. Though the country has a 
zero-tolerance law for drunk drivers, policemen will look the other way for a 
price, though it could cost hundreds of dollars. 
The chief of Russia's traffic police, Lt. Gen. Vladimir Fyodorov, said 
Monday that 29,000 people died in traffic accidents in Russia last year. In 
the United States, the number was more than 41,000, but Russia has far fewer 
cars on the road because they are too expensive for most Russians. 
Bribes are also a crucial source of income for traffic cops, whose 
salaries are about $60 a month. Some drivers sympathize. 
"We all have to get by somehow," said 23-year-old Yuri Abramov, a truck 
driver. "That's how they do it--by taking from us." 

*******

#5
Date: Fri, 07 Jul 2000 
From: John_Reppert/FS/KSG%KSG@harvard.edu 
Subject: the fourth annual Harvard US-Russian Investment Symposium

I would like to draw JRL readers attention to the fourth annual
Harvard US-Russian Investment Symposium which will take place in Boston
October 5-7. This event brings together some 250 senior business and
government figures from each side for discussions on the business climate
in Russia and considerations for foreign investment. Because of President
Putin's personal interest in foreign investment, Prime Minister Kasyanov
has directed Deputy Prime Minister Khristenko to organize the Russian team.
Among those on the Russian side who have already agreed to make
presentations are Minister for Economics and Trade German Gref, former
Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin, and former Foreign Minister Andrei
Kozyrev. On the Western side Acting Managing Director of the IMF Stanley
Fischer, First VP of EBRD Charles Frank, and World Bank Vice President
Johannes Linn will be providing their assessment. We expect that World
Bank President James Wolfensohn and Secretary of the Treasury Larry Summers
will again be participating, along with Paul Volcker, former Chairman of
the Federal Reserve Bank of the US and many others. To obtain more
detailed information about the event, the program, and registration JRL
readers should log on www.ksg.harvard.edu/USRIS/ For program ideas and
questions contact john_reppert@harvard.edu.

*******

#6
Baltimore Sun
July 9, 2000
[for personal use only]
Russian press restrictions recall early America
By Scott Shane
Scott Shane, a reporter and former Moscow correspondent for The Sun, is the 
author of "Dismantling Utopia: How Information Ended the Soviet Union." 

THE RECENT news from Russia calls into question one of the momentous 
achievements of the past decade in that troubled nation: media that are free 
to criticize the government. Such freedom, imperfect but without precedent in 
Soviet or pre-Soviet Russia, was forged under Mikhail Gorbachev and sustained 
through the rocky rule of Boris Yeltsin. It is crucial if Russia is to be 
reborn as a prosperous and peaceful place. 

Yet for those already nervous about President Vladimir Putin's KGB 
background, the barely submerged war on the opposition press is ominous. 

Mr. Putin's denial of any role in the recent three-day jailing of media mogul 
Vladimir Gusinsky, whose feisty television network, radio station and 
newspaper have been important independent voices, was preposterous. Like the 
detention of Radio Liberty reporter Andrei Babitsky in Chechnya earlier this 
year and the police raid in May on the headquarters of Mr. Gusinsky's 
Media-Most Group, the episode carried a whiff of Stalinism. 

Such tactics seem to grow out of Russian soil. They are unimaginable in 
America today. But it is worth casting an eye back 200 years to a moment when 
this country was in a similar stage of self-invention, and press freedom hung 
in the balance. 

An invaluable guide is historian Richard N. Rosenfeld's 1997 book "American 
Aurora," a firsthand tour of a post-revolutionary America struggling to 
define the limits of political propriety. 

By building his 989-page tome almost exclusively from original documents -- 
articles from the violently partisan press, records of Congress, letters 
written by leading citizens -- Mr. Rosenfeld puts the reader in the middle of 
the fracas of 1798-1800. It is a sobering place to stand. 

In school and in much of pop culture, early America comes to us as a sunny 
pageant in which bewhigged wise men, defying the tyrannies of European 
monarchs, joyfully unite around the Bill of Rights. 

In fact, the United States was a country bitterly divided between the 
Federalists and the Democratic Republicans, a place where political passions 
often spilled into street violence. Newspapers were full of fierce advocacy, 
and several of the Founding Fathers thought an excellent place for an editor 
who attacked the government was jail. 

Under the Sedition Act, passed by Congress in 1798, and draconian state libel 
laws -- under New York's law, the truth of the alleged libel was not a 
defense -- aggrieved politicians could often act on their passions. Consider 
a few news items from those days: 

Dec. 4, 1799: David Frothingham of the New York Argus, convicted of damaging 
the reputation of former Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton, is imprisoned 
for four months. 

April 4, 1800: William Durell, editor of the Mount Pleasant Register in New 
York, is sentenced to four months in jail for "false, scandalous, malicious 
and defamatory" writings on President John Adams. 

April 11, 1800: Charles Holt, editor of the Bee in New London, Conn., is 
sentenced to three months in prison under the Sedition Act for the crime of 
calling Adams' "provisional" army a "standing" army. The newspaper closes. 

April 24, 1800: Pennsylvania lawyer Thomas Cooper gets six months in prison 
for writing a handbill blaming Adams for high interest rates and other 
complaints. 
Such actions were cheered, when they were not instigated, by the likes of 
Adams, Hamilton and George Washington. 

Of the paper the Federalists hated most, The Philadelphia Aurora, Adams wrote 
that if the district attorney "does not think this newspaper libelous, he is 
not fit for his office and if he does not prosecute it, he will not do his 
duty ... " Washington agreed. The editors of the Aurora were subjected to 
repeated prosecutions, not to mention mob attacks. 

There was nothing like the modern American consensus that a free press should 
be protected from the government; many felt it was the other way around. 
Hamilton wrote to a friend: "To preserve confidence in the officers of the 
general government by preserving their reputations from malicious and 
unfounded slanders is essential." 

In the partisan fray, even newspapers endorsed censorship. "That such a 
newspaper should be tolerated in the capital city of the United States," the 
Federalist Gazette of the United States wrote in 1800 of the Aurora, " ... is 
proof that our laws are incompetent to restrain or suppress its daring 
licentiousness ..." 

In the end, of course, daring licentiousness won the day. The Sedition Act 
expired in 1801, and Thomas Jefferson, its most prominent opponent, became 
president. 

In 1964, when the Supreme Court expanded protection for newspapers in the 
landmark libel case known as New York Times vs. Sullivan, the late Justice 
William J. Brennan Jr. traced the strength of press freedom in U.S. law and 
tradition exactly to that time when it was most threatened. The struggle over 
the Sedition Act, he wrote, "first crystallized a national awareness of the 
central meaning of the First Amendment." 

Perhaps someday Russians will look back at Mr. Putin's experiments in 
punishing the press and draw a similar conclusion. By trampling a right, a 
government sometimes teaches its lasting value. 

******

#7
Date: Fri, 07 Jul 2000 
From: "John Helmer" <helmer@atom.ru> 
Subject: THE FAUCET AND THE BIG BANG
 
This week in The Athens News (Greece)
THE FAUCET AND THE BIG BANG
>From John Helmer in Moscow

When Russia's leadership thinks seriously, strategically, about Greece,
not very much comes to mind, except a faucet. To the Russians, Greece is the 
tap at the Mediterranean end of a Russian oil pipeline. For President 
Vladimir Putin and his Security Council, it is far better for Russian 
economic and regional security, if that tap is turned by Greek hands, not 
Turkish ones.

This is the big difference between Putin and his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin; 
and between the current Russian prime minister, Mikhail Kasyanov, and former 
prime minister Victor Chernomyrdin. 

Yeltsin and Chernomyrdin were silently persuaded, and (according to some 
evidence) bribed, to support the Turkish oil pipeline, and drag their feet 
on implementing the Greek alternative. During President Constantinos 
Stephanopoulos's recent visit to Moscow, the Russians made clear they think 
differently. They are now impatient to make the technical decisions,
build the pipeline, and open the tap.

When Greek officials discuss the results of that visit, and of this week's 
trip to Moscow by Greek Defence Minister, Apostolos Tsokhatzopoulos, they 
exaggerate the importance Greece has in playing the faucet role in front of 
the Kremlin.

Tsohatzopoulos has been warmly welcomed by his Russian military counterparts 
before. But these days the Russians are deeply skeptical of him. They do not 
believe Greece would dare to risk the anger of the United States or Turkey 
by making a significant purchase of Russian-made arms. They know he cannot 
resist Washington's pressure.

Long gone is the perception in Moscow that the Greek governmment is closer to 
Russia's security concerns than other members of the NATO alliance. Indeed, 
when Greek Foreign Minister George Papandreou spoke in Moscow last March of 
his idea of finding a replacement for Yugoslavia's President Slobodan 
Milosevic, the Russian reaction was so negative, the idea wasn't revived 
when Papandreou returned to Moscow with Stephanopoulos a few days ago.

Instead, Papandreou was told that, whatever mistakes Milosevic may be guilty 
of, the Kremlin knows the internal situation in the Balkans well enough to 
judge there is no suitable alternative. Worse, the Russians told 
Papandreou, after Milosevic there is likely to be a political vacuum that
would
be far more unpredictable, and more dangerous than for Milosevic to 
stay on. The message was repeated for Stephanopoulos's benefit. Russian 
officials realize that Greece has no bright idea for filling 
that vacuum.

The big bang in the Balkans that Greece is afraid of is not, however, the
same bang that troubles the Russians.

According to Russian strategists, the two most serious security threats they 
face are war in the Caucasus, fueled by Islamic militants but covertly backed 
by the United States and its allies; and war in the Fareast, as China tries 
to reintegrate the province of Taiwan, defended by the US Pacific fleet. In 
Russian and Chinese minds, the two bangs are closely connected.

For Russia, the real significance today of last year's war against Yugoslavia 
is the readiness of the US and NATO, including the Greek government, to 
create new borders and destroy old adversaries. The Russians see the new 
enlarged Albania as an example of what the Chechen secessionists want to 
carve out of the Russian Caucasus. Although the Kremlin understands that
Greeks are also apprehensive of an Islamic rebellion in Greece's northern 
border provinces, and Greek officials are careful in their criticism of
Russia's Chechnya policy, the Russians regard the Greek government as far too 
weak to be useful.

In the Fareast, where Putin is planning to meet the Chinese, Korean, and 
Japanese leaders over the next several weeks, Russia will support and supply
President Jiang Zemin's plans for Taiwan. If the Americans react, as they are 
planning to do, to reinforce Taiwan's missile defences, block military
supplies for China, and erect a "national missile defence" in the US against 
Chinese attack, Russia will do everything possible to back China, and try to 
persuade the rest of Asia, and Europe, of the folly of the American stance.

The real significance of the debate over the American missile defence 
proposal, and of Russia's effort to build international opposition to it,
is the possibility of war in the Taiwan Strait within three years. 

Putin has asked every major European politician he has met recently what his 
attitude is to the big bangs, and to Washington's role in igniting them. He 
didn't ask Stephanopoulos or Papandreou. With them, Putin concentrated on 
getting the plumbing for the oil faucet fixed.

*******

#8
Date: Fri, 07 Jul 2000 
From: "edward lucas" <esl@economist.com> 
Subject: weekly bulletin from Moscow

The usual reminder: this is not an article from The Economist, just
my personal speculations (to subscribe to this weekly bulletin, 
e-mail edwardlucas@economist.com)

Supposing Putin declares a state of emergency? The conventional
wisdom is that full-blown authoritarian rule will never work in
Russia 
(no CPSU to give an organisational or ideological skeleton, FSB too
weak and demoralised, civil society too strong, economy too 
complicated, Kremlin too divided and risk-averse).

I wonder. Assume Putin and the gang continue to perform as
unimpressively as they have so far for the next few months. Regional 
reform going nowhere, oligarchs still there, laws bogged down in the
Duma, oil prices headed downwards, Chechnya unpacified--by 
autumn I can well imagine them casting round for a new gimmick, and
tipping over the constitution might seem the least risky option.

Under Yeltsin this seemed a lot less plausible, He was personally
committed to the constitution and there was nobody around (pace 
Korzhakov)close to power who was a plausible putschist. Under Putin
it looks very different. He has no personal ties to the 
constitution, and when he talks of diktatura zakona, I think he sees
it in terms of discipline (people doing what the government wants) 
rather than the law as a system of checks and balances which
maintains the rights of both state and society.

So the idea of shortcircuiting the "blockages" and running the
country directly from the Security Council and the Kremlin--as the
new 
soe law will allow, might seem quite tempting. Who will resist? There
are plenty of brave individuals, and thousands of NGOs, but civil 
society still lacks the trade unions, political parties, and big
strong pressure groups that give it real weight in a tussle with the
state. 
And the mechanisms currently used for resistance when the state
misuses power--chiefly the courts--don't look very impressive either.

So a mix of preventive detention, and confiscation of assets at
individuals (including people that most Russians hate), plus
censorship 
and a blizzard of propaganda for the masses, could well work. At
least for a few months.

The really interesting question is what happens when it fails.
Although the hurrah chorus of investment bankers, consumer-goods 
salesmen and diplomats will no doubt wriggle round to praising the
"badly-needed stability" that an authoritarian regime brings in the 
short term, it's hard to see it actually solving any of Russia's
problems (using illegal means to instil legality in a profoundly
lawless society sounds a pretty weak argument to me). 

Maybe it will all just fall apart. Or maybe the goons in the Kremlin
will decide that they need to be even tougher. Maybe with Putin, or 
maybe with someone else as the figurehead.

One final thought: maybe the crooks will never let the spooks get
this far. Putin represents an accommodation between the 
institutional shift towards the spooks that started two years ago,
and the Family (crooks) which wanted a safe transition to the 
post-Yeltsin era. But if the crooks reckon Putin's spookish habits
are bad for business, they might try and renegotiate.

On that intriguing note, have a nice weekend
Edward

The usual reminder. If you would like to:
--stop receiving these weekly mailings
--know somebody else who would like them
--make comments about the content, or pass on leaks or other
information
Just let me know at edwardlucas@economist.com

******

#9
Moscow Times
July 8, 2000 
Judging the Country's 'One Judge' 
By Sarah Karush
Staff Writer

Judge Sergei Pashin has given his colleagues plenty of reason to dislike him. 
So why exactly they're trying to kick him off the bench is subject to debate. 

Some say it's because he's too liberal, allowing defendents to retract 
confessions given under torture and letting sick ones out of jail while they 
await trial. Others contend he's being punished for speaking out against the 
actions of prosecutors in the Media-MOST case. He himself says it's because 
he participated in a ground-breaking television show that lets convicted 
criminals plead their case before a jury. 

The official reason? He criticized his colleagues. 

The Moscow Qualification Collegium of Judges has taken up the case against 
Pashin, 37, because of a paper he wrote on the case of conscientious objector 
Dmitry Neverovsky. In his analysis, Pashin asserted that the court that 
convicted Neverovsky of draft-dodging and sentenced him to two years in jail 
violated the Constitution and criminal-procedural laws. 

"They [those who filed the complaint] maintain that such activity is 
inconsistent with the status of a judge and that it diminishes the authority 
of the judiciary and sullies the honor and diginity of judges," Pashin said 
in a telephone interview Thursday. 

Pashin and his allies maintain there is no rule that says he cannot give his 
opinions as an expert. 

"He signed it as a scholar and not as a judge," said Mara Polyakova, 
chairwoman of the Independent Council of Legal Experts, which asked Pashin to 
write the paper on Neverovsky. 

Polyakova said Pashin, who in the early 1990s headed the president's 
department on judicial reform, was being targeted for his views. 

"He's a black sheep in the court, and they latch on to every little thing 
they can criticize him for. This isn't even a little thing f only the most 
ignorant person could come up with such a charge," she said. 

When Pashin's department was disbanded because of opposition from the police 
and prosecutors, then-President Boris Yeltsin appointed him to the Moscow 
City Court. There he has earned a reputation for fairness among human rights 
organizations and defense attorneys. Unlike most of his colleagues, for 
instance, Pashin takes into consideration defendants' claims that signed 
confessions were given under torture. 

"I like to joke that in Russia there is one judge. That's Pashin," said 
Rustem Maksudov, head of the Center for Legal and Judicial Reforms. "He is 
implementing judicial reform in one courtroom." 

But Pashin does not hesitate to comment on what takes place in other 
courtrooms, such as the one in Obninsk, in the Kaluga region, where 
Neverovsky was convicted. 

Neverovsky was found guilty of draft-dodging after he requested alternative 
civilian service, a right that is guaranteed by the Constitution but not 
implemented in practice. In February, the Kaluga Regional Court overturned 
the conviction but did not rule Neverovsky innocent, instead sending the case 
back to prosecutors for further investigation. 

During Neverovsky's appeal to the Kaluga court, his mother and attorney, 
Tatyana Kotlyar, presented Pashin's analysis to the judge. Despite his own 
acknowledgement that the case against Neverovsky was flimsy, the judge was 
not pleased by Pashin's meddling. 

"Let the qualification collegium take care of him," Kotlyar quoted him as 
saying. 

Last week, prosecutors charged Neverovsky a second time, Kotlyar said. The 
charge is the same, but the wording of the allegations is slightly different. 

"They corrected the mistakes that Pashin so kindly pointed out to them," 
Kotlyar said. 

Pashin said the chairman of the Kaluga court filed the complaint immediately 
after Neverovsky's appeal, but the collegium only set it into motion this 
week. The collegium was scheduled to consider it Tuesday, but the hearing was 
postponed at the request of Pashin, who was deliberating a case and could not 
attend. It was unclear when the new hearing would take place. 

Pashin said the move to oust him had been carefully timed to match the 
political mood in the country. 

"They were waiting for the command," he said. "Now the attack on glasnost has 
begun." 

Pashin said his main crime in the eyes of the judiciary was participating in 
"Sud Idyot," or "The Court Is in Session," a show on NTV in which juries 
consider real cases. The trials are conducted by the book and presided over 
by real judges but do not have legal force. In real life, the constitutional 
guarantee to a trial by jury is carried out in only nine of the country's 89 
regions. Pashin presided over the show's March premiere. 

Pashin said that other judges who have appeared on the show have received 
informal warnings from Supreme Court judges. He, on the other hand, has 
received no warning f only the qualification collegium's scrutiny. 

"I'm incorrigible, so they don't even bother talking to me," he said. 

Novaya Gazeta speculated in its Thursday issue that Pashin was being targeted 
because he publicly criticized the actions of the General Prosecutor's Office 
in relation to Media-MOST. 

"I said the prosecutors acted crudely and in blatant contradiction of the 
existing legislation. This was not a political opinion but a professional 
one," Pashin said, but he added that he was not sure whether this played a 
role in the move to oust him. 

The collegium previously suspended Pashin in 1998, but the Supreme Court 
reinstated him in the face of public outcry. 

At that time, he was accused of violating a procedural norm that requires 
judges and "people's representatives" f two lay people who hear cases along 
with judges in non-jury trials f to deliberate in seclusion. The collegium 
held that Pashin broke this rule when, after deliberating a case with the 
people's representatives, he left town before he had finished writing up the 
verdict. 

"This norm is an anchronism. Everybody violates it, but they file complaints 
only against those who are objectionable," said Vladimir Mironov, a former 
colleague of Pashin's who testified on his behalf during his Supreme Court 
appeal. 

After Mironov testified for Pashin, he was also kicked off the bench. The 
official reason was his health: Mironov had been on sick leave, but on the 
day he was suspended he brought the collegium documents that stated he was 
well again, he said in a telephone interview this week. 

Now his colleagues say they will only reinstate him if he goes through the 
accreditation process again, Mironov said. 

A former civil judge who lacks Pashin's prominence, Mironov has not succeeded 
in getting the collegium's decisions overturned. 

Pashin said his own prospects are not as bright this time either. In his 
view, the Supreme Court bended to public pressure in 1998 only because the 
court's chairman, Vyacheslav Lebedev, was nearing the end of his 10-year 
term. But last year Lebedev was reappointed and so has no reason to fear a 
public scandal, Pashin said. 

"My hopes lie with the European Court of Human Rights and not with these 
gentlemen," he said. 

*******

#10
Profil
No. 25 
[translation from RIA Novosti for personal use only]
SECURITY COUNCILS
Russia's Security Council Secretary Sergei Ivanov talks to 
Vladimir Kosarev and Yuri Gladkevich (Military News Agency, 
special for Profile)

Military News Agency (AVN): How can you explain that right 
after the information security doctrine made its appearance the 
first thing that occurred to journalists was that the new dogma 
was targeted at restricting press freedom?
Sergei Ivanov: Perhaps that was our omission. And although 
the President at the Security Council session spoke in the 
presence of newsmen quite at length about the doctrine, I 
should have met the journalists too to explain that the 
information security doctrine was no menace to information - to 
those working in this field and to press freedom in Russia in 
general.

AVN: Why didn't you meet them?
SI: I try to meet the press as often as I can, but that 
does not always happen so. Sometimes, whatever you do, you just 
have no time. I admit what was wanted was a detailed commentary 
on the doctrine. Then there would have been no speculation and 
far-fetched charges against its drafters. 

AVN: What speculation and unwarranted charges do you mean?
SI: This is what the media writes: as soon as Chekists 
came to power, there was immediate talk of information 
security. I generally disagree with the postulate that men from 
secret services have come to power. Who are they, where do you 
see a profusion of them? The President, yes, is from the secret 
services. Why, may he not elect and be elected? Yes, I am also 
a representative of the secret services, with a record of 
twenty years in intelligence. Now where else do you see a 
proliferation of Chekists? There is no reason to demonize 
current authorities in general and the Security Council in 
particular. We are not transforming, nor can be transformed, 
into a shadow cabinet or a Politburo. The Security Council has 
been a consultative body and has remained one. Neither the 
Security Council nor myself, its chairman, has neither clout 
nor financial levers. What we have is our vision of different 
problems and the right to make it known to the President. If 
our suggestions are accepted, it is only then and only through 
constitutional bodies that the delegatory chain of power begins 
to function. We merely prepare proposals for the President on 
different problems of strengthening national security and the 
country's defences. But that is what the Security Council has 
been set up for. We command neither prosecutors nor the 
judiciary. 

AVN: What, after all, is behind the adoption of the 
information security doctrine precisely now? The war in 
Chechnya when a general picture is drawn up by structures far 
from official ones? An exacerbation of political confrontation 
in the country, or something else?
SI: I officially state that the draft doctrine was 
discussed in accordance with the schedule of work of Russia's 
Security Council for the first half of 2000, approved by 
President Boris Yeltsin as early as December 1999. The document 
itself took several years to draft. In 1997, it was even aired 
in parliament. There are no fatal coincidences here. 
It is apparent that information technologies and 
informatics are a rapidly developing and dynamic branch of the 
world economy.
Its turnover is two trillion US dollars a year, making it 
comparable with the oil business and auto making. And one of 
the threats to Russia is that it may be frozen out of the 
market of information services and relevant equipment. If this 
occurs, our prospects are unenviable. 

AVN: Maybe this should, after all, be construed as an 
invitation to society to rein in its current thirst for freedom 
of speech and press for the sake of future satiety? 
SI: No, this is an offer to ensure equal rights both to 
freedom of speech and press and to inviolability of private 
life, to the information security of citizens and the state 
alike.

AVN: The security doctrine cannot be all made up of 
authorizations alone. What will be restricted?
SI: Not restricted but guaranteed legally: citizens' 
constitutional right to personal and family secrets, privacy of 
communications, telephone conversations, postal, telegraph and 
other messages, to the protection of their honour and good name.
A situation when information wars - both local and on a large 
scale - are a feature of life is intolerable.
No one - neither the President, the Security Council, nor 
the government - is going to clamp down on freedom of speech. 
But use of materials obtained illegally is regarded by the law 
and by the doctrine as a violation of citizens' rights and 
liberties and a threat to society.
Many security structures engage in the unlawful 
information business by poking into the personal lives of 
people. They eavesdrop and spy on others and whenever are 
caught out get off with a fine 80 times the minimum wage. That 
is like a pea against an elephant: a tape recorded for 
eavesdropping costs more. They cough up the fine and continue 
their "pursuit". 
As a matter of fact, in most western countries the laws to 
that effect are very strict. As soon as a paparazzi in America 
crosses the border of a private property, he is thrown out. And 
then faces a lawsuit for violating private property rights and 
the right to personal life.

AVN: And what about the way information is obtained by 
journalists and other interested persons?
SI: The doctrine has a provision on safeguarding state and 
military secrets, their information ingredients. Russian laws 
already now define what is a secret and what not. The Security 
Council's position, reflected in the draft doctrine, is very 
definite: information, even not secret, cannot be procured 
illegally, in the same way as it is unlawful to keep from 
society meaningful and non-secret information and to ignore 
citizens' rights to have it. 
The draft information security doctrine provides for a 
number of measures which, when implemented, will keep Russian 
secrets tight. And none of these measures, I stress, targets 
freedom of speech and press in Russia.
Nor is there in nature any black list of media which may 
be subjected to reprisals in the near future. And any review of 
that same law on the mass media, once the information security 
doctrine is approved, is out of the question 
AVN: What will be the functions of government structures 
designed to explain state policy and authorities' position? An 
intention to set up such a structure was mentioned as early as 
last winter by Vladimir Putin.
SI: I can tell you exactly that we have no plans to set up 
anything like the Ministry of Truth in Russia. Nor do we have 
as yet any clear recipes for the future shape of this 
structure. But there is an understanding that we often miss out 
in information terms. 
Incidentally, Russia still has whole regions where 
residents cannot exercise their right to free information 
because there is no television, no timely newspapers or 
magazines, etc. Chechnya is a glaring example. But there is 
also Dagestan where it is easier to tune in on the Turkish 
channel than on RTR or NTV. Or to get a video cassette with 
Wahhbite propaganda, a film about "heroic" Islamic militants. 
That is a matter of national security too. It is necessary 
to explain the position of authorities, and concrete economic 
and social solutions. And somebody must concern himself with 
that in a purposeful and concentrated way. 

*******