August 6, 2000    
This Date's Issues: 4441•  4442   • 

Johnson's Russia List
#4442
6 August 2000
davidjohnson@erols.com


[Note from David Johnson:
DJ: I'm interested in whether recipients are paying attention
on a Sunday in August. Please drop me a brief note if you
see this.
1. Bloomberg: Russian Transport, Electricity Price Increases Hit 
the Poor.
2. New York Times editorial: Mr. Putin's Political Gyroscope.
3. The Sunday Times (UK): Mark Franchetti, Living hell of Russia's 
death row.
4. Los Angeles Times: Gregory Freidin, Putin's Dilemma: Can 
Bureaucrats Be Trusted?
5. Reuters: Russian general vows no replay of Chechen pullout.
6. Washington Post: Daniel Williams, Russian Troops Face 'Chechnya 
Syndrome'
7. Albert Weeks: missile defenses.
8. The Russia Journal: Vera Kuznetsova, Chubais sitting in 
the gunner’s sights.
9. Inter Press Service: Environment-Russia: Pipeline Could Ruin 
Siberian Plateau.
10. BBC MONITORING: TATARSTAN'S NATIONALISTS PREPARE TO FIGHT 
"RUSSIAN AGGRESSION" 
11. BBC MONITORING: NTV, RUSSIANS DEPART GEORGIA AS AMERICANS 
ARRIVE.]


******


#1
Russian Transport, Electricity Price Increases Hit the Poor

Moscow, Aug. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Every day, Olga Glazko, 30, travels by bus
and subway between her rented apartment on Moscow's outskirts and the
downtown stall where she peddles socks. 


This month, the price of her subway ticket jumped 25 percent and the bus
fare rose 50 percent -- almost doubling her monthly transport costs to a
fifth of her 3,000-ruble ($107.90) income. 


``Life is becoming more and more expensive,'' Glazko said. ``I really feel
these increases.'' 


As President Vladimir Putin's government tries to make industry more
competitive and reduce state support, regulated prices for power, water,
rail, housing and other services are soaring. Moscow water charges climbed
an average 20 percent as of June, while electricity fees climbed by 20
percent in July. Railway fares will increase by 25 percent in September. 


The price increases won't be reflected in national inflation statistics for
several months, but will in the meantime have a huge impact on the poorest
Russians. Already protests have started in Vladivostok in the Far East,
where bread and power price rises brought angry residents onto the streets
in the past two weeks. 


``It hits disproportionately certain categories of consumers at the very
bottom of the income distribution,'' said Yaroslav Lissovolik, an economist
at Renaissance Capital brokerage. ``Certainly you're going to have people
very much disgruntled with that, especially given that money income is very
low in Russia.'' 


The elderly will be hit hardest. 


Pensioners, who currently represent about 40 percent of Russia's estimated
145 million population, saw their incomes rise this month after Putin
ordered an increase in monthly pensions by 125 rubles to an average 900
rubles. However, the increase isn't enough to offset price rises, and some
pensioners have trouble proving to social security agencies that they're
eligible for more money because of various bureaucratic procedures. 


Can't Buy Anything 


``They increased my pension but they also increased my flat rent,'' said
Mariya Shavrina, 59, who sells bread rolls in Moscow. Her pension rose 93
rubles in June while her rent alone climbed 76 rubles. 


``What did I gain?'' Shavrina said. ``Nothing. They are making fun of us. I
cannot buy anything now.'' 


Russian inflation is slowing even as the economy grows at its fastest pace
since the collapse of communism. The government estimates consumer prices
rose an estimated 1.8 percent in July from June, compared with a 2.6
percent monthly increase in June. 


Russian exports of oil and other commodities bring in dollars, keeping the
ruble strong and helping to restrain inflation. About 24 percent of
Russia's gross domestic product in 1999 came from exports. 


At the same time, though, the central bank is printing more rubles to buy
those dollars, boosting the money supply and raising concern inflation
could accelerate. 


The state budget estimates the annual inflation rate this year will total
18 percent; Rennaissance's Lissovolik says the annual inflation rate
probably will reach 20 percent by yearend, about the same level it's at now. 


Higher Prices 


Money supply expanded every week since early April before contracting by
4.1 billion rubles to 417.3 billion rubles in the week ending July 31. At
the end of last year, money supply totaled 306 billion rubles. 


``The greatest concern for inflation right now is with respect to the
rising money supply,'' Lissovolik said. 


Higher prices are essential for helping unprofitable companies such as RAO
Unified Energy Systems, the monopoly power utility, become stronger and
prepare for future competition. Still, prices of most services in Moscow
are far below prices in the West. 


A 25 percent rise the price of a single subway ticket in Moscow pushes the
fare up to 5 rubles (20 cents), compared with $1.50 in New York. 


In the port of Vladivostok, residents have protested power and bread price
increases, as well as disruptions in electricity and water supplies. 


Larisa Pushkina, a 65-year-old pensioner, receives 782 rubles a month for
her pension. About half of her monthly income would go to rent and monthly
phone charges if didn't earn an additional 500 rubles teaching Russian. 


``Life has become almost impossible,'' said Pushkina. ``I do not know how
it will be tomorrow.'' 


******


#2
New York Times
August 6, 2000
Editorial
Mr. Putin's Political Gyroscope

Vladimir Putin, the new Russian president, has been a man in motion since
his inauguration in May. He has curbed the power of Russia's regional
governors, confronted the business moguls who control large pieces of the
economy, proposed a flat tax and fired a gaggle of generals. But just where
Mr. Putin is headed remains uncertain. So far much of the action seems more
clearly aimed at rebuilding a strong central government than at advancing
democracy and reform. 


Given the powerful centrifugal forces that have long tugged against Russian
statehood, and the chaotic and corrupt administration of many regions in
recent years, there is reason to construct an effective federal government.
But as Mr. Putin draws power back to the Kremlin, the temptation to fashion
a new autocracy will be great, especially for a man steeped in the ethic of
the K.G.B, where he worked for many years. It was encouraging to hear him
renounce a return to authoritarian rule earlier this summer, and to commit
himself to the protection of political and economic freedoms. Yet nearly
every step he has taken has been ambiguous on precisely that point. 


By curtailing the power of Russia's 89 governors, Mr. Putin may be acting
to clean up years of misrule by local potentates. Many of the governors
enriched themselves through illegal schemes and prevented Moscow from
collecting taxes in their regions. But in other regions, the devolution of
authority after the collapse of Communism gave enlightened leaders the
opportunity to create democratic institutions and thriving market
economies. An indiscriminate effort to rein in all governors is bound to
trample the good work along with the bad. 


The same concern applies to Mr. Putin's dealings with Russia's tycoons.
Their economic and political power should be diminished, but not by
unlawful or unconstitutional means and not in a way that inhibits the media
enterprises that many of them own. The government's dubious criminal case
against one of the oligarchs, Vladimir Gusinsky, was wisely dropped after
Mr. Putin made known his unhappiness with the crude attack. But an economic
vise is now being tightened around Mr. Gusinsky's company, Media-Most,
probably with the assent of the Kremlin. The goal seems to be to wrest
control of Russia's main independent television station from Mr. Gusinsky. 


Mr. Putin's economic program embraces free-market principles, and calls for
a long overdue simplification of the tax system. But Mr. Putin seems to
think that the government can re-engineer the economy from the top down,
another example of his tendency to centralize power in the Kremlin. 


For now, Mr. Putin's authority is partly checked. He had to settle for less
control than he wanted with both the governors and the businessmen. His
dismissal last week of six generals allied with Defense Minister Igor
Sergeyev suggested he could not fire Mr. Sergeyev himself in a dispute over
military policy. But as he learns to wield the nearly dictatorial powers
that the Yeltsin-era Constitution gives him, Mr. Putin will have to decide
whether he intends to build a durable democracy or just rebuild the
machinery of state. 


*******


#3
The Sunday Times (UK)
August 6, 2000
[for personal use only]
Living hell of Russia's death row 
Mark Franchetti, Lozva 


AT FIRST, penal colony number 56 in Lozva, more than 1,500 miles northeast
of Moscow, looks like any other Russian prison. Its perimeter is encircled
by two walls and four fences lined with hundreds of yards of barbed wire.
Armed guards look down from rickety wooden watchtowers. Soldiers patrol
with Kalashnikovs and snarling dogs. 


But behind the high metal gate is a nightmarish world. All 277 inmates are
convicted murderers. Most are serving sentences of up to 25 years.
Sixty-eight will never leave ward five in a decaying two-storey building
deep inside the compound. 


These men were all sentenced to death. For years they waited for the moment
when a special unit would drag them outside in shackles to execute them
with a single shot to the back of the neck. Then some had their sentences
commuted to life imprisonment by Boris Yeltsin, the former president; and
last year the Kremlin banned executions. 


At first, most inmates welcomed life instead of death. But the conditions
in ward five are so bad that many now want to be executed. 


Last week, when The Sunday Times became the first western newspaper to be
granted access to colony 56, several inmates said they would rather be shot
than face the rest of their days there. 


The colony is one of two special prisons to which former death row inmates
have been transferred. The other, on an island in Vologda, 300 miles north
of Moscow, houses 196 men, some of whom are reported to have written to the
Russian state prosecutor formally requesting execution. 


Prisoners in Lozva share the view that they would be better off dead. "At
first I was relieved when I was spared," said Vitaly Zazonov, 52, who was
sentenced to death in 1990 after killing three people with a knife in a
drunken argument. 


"Death row was very stressful. I spent years waiting to be killed. I never
slept at night - that's when they came for people without warning. They
would take a prisoner out of his cell and execute him. 


"But then I was moved here. It's been six years and now I have no doubt
that it would have been better if they had put a bullet in my head. Better
to get it over and done with. We are left to waste away like animals.
What's the point?" 


To enter ward five in Lozva is to step back into the 19th century. Fourteen
cells line a long, eerie corridor. Faded black and white photographs of the
inmates and a short description of their crimes hang from each cell door,
confirming that these are among the most dangerous men in Russia. 


There are six prisoners to a cell measuring four yards by four and built
for two. 


They spend their days in grey and black striped uniforms, sitting on metal
bunk beds, staring into space. The air is a sickening pall of sweat and
faeces. Inmates are supplied with a communal bucket or wooden box that is
slopped out every 24 hours. 


No natural light penetrates the cells. A naked light bulb is kept on day
and night. There is no running water. Drinking water is brought by truck
from the closest village one hour away down a dirt road. Inmates are
allowed to wash in a decaying sauna once every 10 days. The budget allows
14p a day to feed each man. 


The meals consist of two ladles of buckwheat and one of tea three times a
day, plus a loaf of bread per cell. Prisoners are rarely fed meat but
sometimes receive a tin bowl of fish entrails mixed with water. 


While other prisoners serving lesser sentences are allowed to roam the
compound freely most of the time, those held in ward five are let out of
their cells for only 90 minutes a day. 


They are handcuffed through an opening in their cell's metal bars and then
searched by prison guards. They emerge carrying their makeshift toilet,
ghostly figures with sunken eyes and grey faces. Many are sick with
tuberculosis. 


Once outside, they pace up and down in tiny open-air cells that are covered
with metal netting, like animals in a zoo cage. 


Some have to think before remembering how old they are. Others have lost
all sense of time. 


Prisoners who break the rules are held in solitary confinement for up to
six months in a cell barely large enough for a bed. A 22-year-old convicted
murderer hanged himself there last year during his first week in the colony. 


"They say that hope dies last. Well, my hope died a long time ago," said
Alexander Gerasimov, 30, who murdered two people and was placed in solitary
confinement last week. 


"I turned down my life sentence when it came but they still didn't execute
me," he says. "Why? I'll never be let out, never. So why not kill me now?" 


Lozva's remoteness compounds the deprivation. Built on the site of a Soviet
gulag colony used for logging, it is a 40-hour train journey from Moscow.
Winters amid the hundreds of miles of thick pine forests last for nine
months, with temperatures dropping to -45F. In the summer, cells are
infested with mosquitoes. 


Prisoners are allowed two four-hour visits a year, but the length and cost
of the journey deter most relatives. Zazonov, for example, has not received
one visit in six years. 


Seeking to improve conditions, the prison administration recently used
public donations to add a black and white television set to most cells. But
tension on ward five is expected to rise this winter as long power cuts
loom: the colony cannot afford to pay its electricity bills. 


Russia's ban on executions has worsened overcrowding in prisons. Interior
ministry officials expect that in the next five years they will need 4,000
new places for "lifers". 


"I don't see much point in keeping someone in these conditions for the rest
of his life," said Supkhan Dadashev, the director of Lozva's colony. 


"Either execute them or give them a real chance to come out after a long
sentence. This way we are hardly going to improve them. We do our best to
provide better conditions, but there is no money. 


"The first year is always the hardest for inmates. That's when they have to
try to come to terms with the fact that they will be here for the rest of
their lives. That's when they start losing it." 


******


#4
Los Angeles Times
August 6, 2000
[for personal use only]
Putin's Dilemma: Can Bureaucrats Be Trusted? 
By GREGORY FREIDIN
Gregory Freidin, Chairman of the Slavic Languages and Literature Department
at Stanford University, Is Co-author of "Russia at the Barricades:
Eyewitness Accounts of the August 1991 Coup."


STANFORD--In 1953, after an anti-Stalinist uprising was brutally put
down in East Berlin, Bertolt Brecht reportedly remarked that since the East
German government was dissatisfied with the nation, it should dissolve the
German people and call in a new nation. A joke making the rounds in Moscow
these days echoes Brecht's humor. It goes like this: 
"What went wrong with Russia's last democratic election?" 
"Everything. It's not the people who should have been electing a new
president, but the president electing a different people." 
President Vladimir V. Putin knows this sentiment well as he watches
how government officials charged with strengthening the rule of law and
creating a positive climate for foreign investment are instead reviving the
specter of arbitrary repression, Soviet style. In the eyes of the country's
opinion makers, the "dictatorship of law" that Putin promised to establish
in place of former President Boris N. Yeltsin's era of permissiveness,
influence-peddling and corruption seems to be succumbing to the law of
dictatorship: questionable charges against the independent media empire of
Vladimir A. Gusinsky and similar, if less spectacular, proceedings against
other representatives of Russia's big business. 
What does Putin actually stand for: maximizing the power of the state
or safeguarding the freedom of Russian society? In an Izvestia interview
last month, when asked if he was worried that the heavy-handed tactics of
government prosecutors squash what little Russia has of a civil society,
Putin said: "We have the people that we have, we have the economy that we
have and we have the state officials that we have." In other words, because
reforms are implemented by officials burdened with the habits and the
institutional memory of the old regime, the risk of failure of the entire
reform effort is clear. It is here--in Putin's recognition of the
inadequacies of the state and society for the radical reform agenda--that
we should look for the key to the president's ambiguous political persona. 
Putin sees change toward a modern civil society and market economy as
inevitable. He is convinced that reforms must be carried out if the Russian
Federation is to stem confederate tendencies, if it is to create a positive
climate for business and economic growth and if it is to replace the
crooked bureaucracy with one that "defends the citizens' dignity, freedom,
security, making it possible for people to earn a living." His legislative
agenda for the Duma, some of it already enacted, shows that he means what
he says. But his hesitation in criticizing overzealous prosecutors suggests
he is reluctant to take sides for fear of alienating state officials
without whom the reform process would surely grind to a halt. 
In this regard, Putin is radically different from his predecessor.
Yeltsin treated the bureaucracy he inherited from communism with suspicion
and disdain. Tolerating it as a necessary evil, he sought legitimacy by
fomenting a "cold" civil war between holdovers from the past, who held the
government strings, and reform forces, which had not yet had the
opportunity to learn governance but were more than adequately represented
in the new Russian press. To maintain his position as final arbiter,
Yeltsin habitually transferred state assets into the hands of quick-witted
and powerful businessmen while diminishing the federal power by ceding it
to increasingly independent political elites in the regions. The newly
empowered businessmen were then allowed to cut deals with the weakened
bureaucracy. 
Putin's own game becomes less opaque when juxtaposed with the policies
of Mikhail S. Gorbachev. Unlike Yeltsin, Gorbachev tried to use the levers
of the Communist Party state both to bring about radical change and to hold
together the Soviet empire. While diminishing the party's grip on power and
loosening imperial bonds, Gorbachev's method created opportunities for more
flexible and intelligent servants of the party-state to be the first to
profit from change. With a few notable exceptions, the apparatchiks proved
incapable of adapting to the new environment. In August 1991, as they
realized they were digging their own graves under Gorbachev's stewardship,
their leaders staged a putsch. The rebellion quickly fizzled, but it lasted
long enough to demonstrate that Gorbachev's party-based mandate, based
solely on his position in the party, had expired. 
Putin suffers from neither of Gorbachev's fatal flaws: He enjoys a
popular mandate of a people no longer beholden to the communist past and
understands modern economics enough to be committed to radical reform and
to support it with all the authority of his office. But a popular mandate
matters less now than it did in the heady days of 1991-92. After almost a
decade of stop-and-go economics, a diminishing standard of living,
continuing bloodshed in Chechnya and ceaseless fisticuffs between Yeltsin's
reformers in government and unreconstructed communists in parliament,
tacitly egged on by their cousins in the bureaucracy, reform fatigue has
set in. The regions, furthermore, have come to appreciate their
independence to an extent that threatens the integrity of the federal state. 
Under such circumstances, reformers need the cooperation of the
bureaucracy more than ever. This is why Putin has taken steps to strengthen
the presence of federal power in the regions, appointing seven presidential
representatives to oversee federal matters and removing regional governors
from the upper house of parliament. This is also why he has tacitly
encouraged prosecutors and the tax police to contain the power of Russia's
big business, even as he is pushing a simplified, super-liberal tax code (a
13% flat tax) that would diminish the role of the bureaucracy in the economy. 
Putin's message to officials of the new Russian state is that the
virtual civil war of the Yeltsin era is over, the 10 years since the
collapse of communism in Russia have made the return to the past impossible
and the country has moved beyond the ideological divisions that tore it
apart for more than a decade. There was no better symbolic gesture for
conveying this message than to invite both Gorbachev and the mastermind of
the '91 putsch, former KGB chief Vladimir A. Kryuchkov, to Putin's
inauguration. "Forgetting remembering," however, has its hidden costs. 
Russia's civil society may prove too fragile, if not for the surgery
Putin is prescribing, then for the surgeons wielding the state's knife.
Should this be the case, it may be too late for Putin to help the patient.
Worse still, a career bureaucrat and one who, in the words of one Moscow
pundit, has been "pollinated by the KGB," Putin may beget a regime with a
dominant KGB gene in its genetic code. The danger lies in some of Putin's
advisors. If his former KGB associates form a critical mass around him,
their worldview, shaped by the shadowy universe of the intelligence and
security apparatus, can fatefully color Putin's take on the world. 
Former Deputy Prime Minister Boris Y. Nemtsov, now the leader of the
reformist Union of the Right in the Duma, may have put it most succinctly.
Speaking after a recent meeting with Putin to discuss the government's
clumsy harassment of big business, Nemtsov sounded both encouraged ("Putin
knows what is going on"). and cautious ("He is not sufficiently informed").
The round-table meeting with business leaders that Putin held on July 28
was supposed to clear the air and clarify the rules of impartiality
governing the relationship between the tycoons and the state. Whether it
did remains to be seen. Even the dropping of charges against Gusinsky does
not mark the end of government pressure on his media empire and independent
press. Gusinsky is feverishly looking for foreign investors to secure that
independence. 
The struggle for Putin has now commenced in earnest. It is a struggle
in which the United States and U.S. business interests may have a role to
play. * 


******


#5
Russian general vows no replay of Chechen pullout
By Andrei Shukshin

MOSCOW, Aug 6 (Reuters) - A Russian general told Chechen leaders on Sunday
they would not see a replay of Russia's 1996 withdrawal from the region as
its troops prepared for a possible rebel attack on the anniversary of the
pullout. 


``The events of 1996 and the troop pullout will never happen again,''
Vladimir Bokovikov, the Kremlin's number two official in southern Russia,
was quoted as telling Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov in an appeal to lay
down arms. 


Bokovikov, who was Maskhadov's commander in the Soviet armed forces before
Chechnya declared independence, was speaking on the anniversary of a 1996
rebel attack on the Chechen capital Grozny which led to Moscow's
humiliating withdrawl from the territory. 


``The troops have entered Chechnya forever and one should hold no hope they
will leave it ever again,'' Interfax quoted Bokovikov as saying. 


Bokovikov and Maskhadov are known to respect one another. They often met
during peace talks during the previous Chechen war. 


Russian troops on the ground have been on high alert for three days in the
run-up to Sunday's anniversary of the lightning 1996 rebel raid which left
Grozny in rebel hands. 


NTV commercial television said the military had dispatched fresh units to
boost police checkpoints in the city and clamped down on traffic moving
into the capital, which is still lying in ruins after more than a month of
bombardment earlier this year. 


NTV said troops stationed in Grozny had received additional ammunition
rations. 


Fears of an attack were heightened by leaflets spread by the rebels among
Grozny residents, urging them to leave or at least stay clear of Russian
military sites in the city. 


NTV said Grozny looked deserted early on Sunday and there seemed to be more
uniformed men in the streets than civilians. 


Despite repeated claims by Moscow that it has all but won the war, Russia's
control over Chechnya remains weak. 


Most troops are confined to heavily fortified outposts which regularly come
under rebel fire. Hundreds of servicemen have been killed in ambushes and
bomb attacks long after major fighting ceased. 


The core of the rebel force is believed to be hiding in poorly accessible
highlands in the south, though many guerrillas have fanned out across the
region. Moscow estimates that several hundred rebels live in Grozny posing
as civilians. 


Interfax said eight Russian policemen patrolling in the capital were
injured when one of them walked over a mine. 


In other parts of Chechnya, Russian outposts came under fire twice during
the night, Itar-Tass news agency said. 


******


#6
Washington Post
August 6, 2000
[for personal use only]
Russian Troops Face 'Chechnya Syndrome'
By Daniel Williams


NIZHNY NOVGOROD, Russia ­­ In a rehabilitation center in this city on the
Volga River, 500 men have been treated during the past six months for
similar symptoms: restlessness, sleeplessness, hostility and unexplained
physical illnesses. Some hear voices; others are reluctant to speak. 


Psychologists call it the "Chechnya syndrome." Its sufferers are veterans
of the war against Chechen separatists in southwestern Russia, young men
wrestling with the aftershocks of combat during Russia's third
anti-guerrilla war in less than two decades.


Experts say the successive wars are creating consecutive generations of
psychologically wounded Russian men. During the first Chechen war, between
1994 and 1996, hundreds of men came home scarred by violence and forsaken
by an indifferent society. Only a few years before, Russians spoke of an
"Afghanistan syndrome." Veterans returned from a decade of combat that
ended there in 1989, brutalized and weakened by battlefield stress.


"Basically, the syndromes are the same," said Irina Panova, director of the
Rehabilitation Center for Veterans of Local Conflicts here. "We are facing
hundreds and perhaps thousands of men who cannot adapt to society. They
can't enter a normal cycle of life."


The Soldiers' Mothers Committee, a national anti-war organization that
advises soldiers and draftees of their legal rights, says that veterans
frequently turn to crime to make a living. Jobs are hard to come by and the
no-holds-barred war in Chechnya creates in the soldiers a moral vacuum. "It
seems every other soldier coming back from Chechnya has some law-and-order
problem," said Galina Lebedeva, director of the local mothers committee.


The current Chechen war was advertised to Russians as a low-cost campaign
designed to hold down casualties while "terrorists" in the breakaway region
were wiped out by airstrikes and artillery. But as Russian troops regained
control of Chechnya, they became targets for hit-and-run attacks. It soon
became clear that the war would neither be short nor clean, but instead a
long nightmare of ambushes, car bombings and sabotage.


At the same time, the military has been accused of widespread human-rights
violations in Chechnya, including at least three large-scale shootings of
civilians. The brutality visited by Russian troops also takes a
psychological toll on those who disapprove, Panova said. "It is not easy to
bear the sight of dead children," she said.


Much psychological rehabilitation is left to regional authorities; the
center in Nizhny Novgorod, about 250 miles east of Moscow, is funded by the
local government. There are some signs that Moscow has begun to consider
the strains created by the war that has killed more than 3,000 Russian
soldiers and untold numbers of civilians in months of artillery and aerial
bombardment. At the main military base at Khankala in Chechnya, the army
has set up a psychological support center where soldiers can talk out their
problems.


Here in Nizhny Novgorod, psychologists also try to get the veterans to
talk. "We are not here to judge; we are here to listen," said Panova.


One has only to look into the glassy eyes of Vladimir, an air force
mechanic, to see the strain. His stress seems to have originated through
witnessing the parade of wounded and dead. "I have nightmares; I don't
sleep well," he said. "I have trouble talking to regular people. I do
better with people who have been to Chechnya; I stay around them."


A comrade, Vasily, is a policeman who has fought in both Chechen wars.
Russian military police maintain checkpoints in Chechnya, searching cars
for arms and watching for guerrilla infiltration into towns, and Vasily
knows he will be called up again. In the first war, a member of his unit
was killed when rebels retook Grozny, the Chechen capital. In this war, he
lived in fear. "You feel guilty when a friend dies. I locked myself into a
depression. I don't want to talk with anyone. I come here to restore myself."


Civilians look at him coolly. "It used to be that girls admired men who
fought, thought they were real men. Now, they don't want to talk to you. I
wish I could be treated as if I was never in Chechnya."


Like Vladimir, Vasily prefers the company of men who have experienced
combat in Chechnya. "You feel at ease among your comrades," he said. Both
men declined to give their last names because they expect to return to
active duty.


Andrei Sadyshev, a veteran of the first war, never wants to return. He has
been depressed, almost suicidal, since 1996. He says he sometimes hears
voices and dreams of being in Chechnya, under fire, trapped and captured.
"Personally, it's difficult. I have trouble concentrating on daily
routines. I lost my spirit. I feel I have no future." His eyes were rimmed
with red and tears began to form.


A carpenter, Sadyshev has had trouble finding work. One of the shocks for
veterans of Russia's latest war has been the return to a standoffish
society that seems indifferent to their needs. "We don't fit," Sadyshev said.


"The veterans are looked at as people who can shoot and kill. The soldiers
are offended by society which sent them to war and then does not take care
of them," said Panova.


Andrei Kozhankov, a young draftee, returned a few months ago and tried to
join the police force. He took psychological tests and was rejected for
being a "risk." The examiners refused to elaborate on just what kind of
risk he was, or to show him the results of the test. "I was wounded. I was
a marine. We're the elite. And no one cared. They can go to hell," said
Kozhankov, who was drinking beer with fellow veterans at the Russian Cafe,
a pool hall on the outskirts of Nizhny Novgorod.


Kozhankov and his friends have formed an outfit called Brotherhood that
collects money for unemployed veterans and tries to find them work. They
also spend time in each other's company, reliving the war.


"After Chechnya, you forget what it's like in civilian life," said Pavel
Yudahin, who recently returned from duty there. "Routine, daily problems
seem unimportant. You have no patience. Family and friends seem to press
onto you from all sides."


They seethe at suggestions that their war was inferior to World War II,
whose veterans are idolized in Russia. "I talked with a World War II
soldier at the plant," said Yudahin, who worked for a time at an automobile
factory. "He said we weren't real soldiers, that we don't die like
soldiers, but only in stupid circumstances."


Kozhankov, Yudahin and their friends are also unhappy with the image of
Chechen veterans, or for that matter, Afghan veterans, as troublemakers. In
the popular mind, the model for the Chechen veteran was set by the movie
"Brother," in which a young soldier becomes a gunslinger in St. Petersburg.


"It's true that some veterans go into crime. But it's because there aren't
jobs, except maybe as security guards," said a veteran named Andrei. "It's
a myth that we're different."


They are aware that some of their comrades are afflicted with the Chechnya
syndrome. "They're locked into themselves. That's why we formed this
group--in case we have problems," said Yudahin. "Only we can really
understand each other."


They toasted each other, and then the war dead, by pouring a little drop of
vodka from a shot glass into an ashtray. The Brotherhood symbol is a red
and black five-pointed star. Black symbolizes the fallen.


They have begun a program of lecturing schoolchildren about Chechnya to
create a better image of themselves.


"Of course, coming back from any war can be a problem," said Yudahin. "But
you feel better if you come back a hero."


******


#7
Date: Sun, 6 Aug 2000 
From: Albert Weeks <AWeeks1@compuserve.com>
Subject: missile defenses


Joint Russian-Chinese statements (July 18) and subsequent
discussion in the press here and abroad, as reproduced
in JRL, are missing a crucial point about the bipartisan 
American plan to deploy anti-missile defenses (NMD). 
Namely, a number of columnists and arms-control enthusiasts 
maintain that deterrence will be damaged by dismantling the 
"MAD" (Mutual Assured Destruction) strategy in favor of 
limited NMD, especially defending our retaliatory missile batteries.
On the contrary. Deterrence is enhanced by such defenses, 
whatever nation-state adopts the principle. Why? 
As explained in a column in the current issue of Defense News (Aug. 7),
"American and allied strategy...would shift to one of deterrence
through the combined threats of punishment and denial."
That is precisely the point. It is difficult to see how any analyst
or Russian or Chinese, et al., minister of defense could argue 
convincingly otherwise.
The columnist, Robin Ranger, adds: "The strategy may make 
(an adversary's offensive missiles) too expensive for the limited
leverage they then will produce." The proposal for "an
American and allied shift toward a strategy of deterrence by 
punishment and denial," he continues, "clearly points the way ahead.
The United States should not be frightened from deploying 
NMD and TMD [Theater Missile Defense] by false claims 
of apocalypic consequences."


*****


#8
The Russia Journal
August 5-11, 2000
Chubais sitting in the gunner’s sights
By Vera Kuznetsova 
Head of Russian electricity grid operator RAO UES (Unified Energy Systems)
Anatoly Chubais looks to be safe for now from foreign shareholders who
would like to see him go. That is, so long as the state, which holds a 52.8
percent stake in UES, doesn’t turn against him. 


This doesn’t look likely, however, if a recent meeting of foreign
shareholders and Alexander Voloshin, chairman of the UES board of directors
and head of the Presidential Administration, is anything to go by. At the
meeting devoted to the theme "bad Chubais," Voloshin called on Chubais’
opponents to rein in their rebellious feelings. He proposed they give up
their demand for an extraordinary shareholders’ meeting and try instead to
sort out their differences with the Russian side within the framework of a
conciliatory committee.


Perhaps the state, in the person of Voloshin, really does appreciate
Chubais’ professionalism as a top-class manager. Chubais is one of a kind
in Russia, only Voloshin himself could compete with him, but Voloshin has
other worries on his plate ­ federal reform, equally distancing the
oligarchs, and restructuring the natural monopolies including UES and
Gazprom. 


Voloshin is rumored to be far more concerned with Gazprom than with UES.
The state has a weaker position in Gazprom and only minimal control of the
monopoly. So, Chubais is far from Voloshin’s mind at the moment, but the
UES foreign shareholders won’t get this through their heads. 


Even if the state were to unite forces with the foreign shareholders to try
and oust Chubais, this would be no easy task. Under an amendment introduced
a year ago to the UES charter, the company’s CEO is elected by a qualified
majority of 75 percent of the votes. Chubais was elected under these new
rules for a term of five years.


With an almost 53 percent stake, the state knows it has a strong position
in UES, but not strong enough to be able to painlessly remove Chubais. To
obtain a qualified majority, the state would have to win another 22 percent
of the shareholders over to its side. This is practically impossible, as
the shareholders and their interests are too different, and some of them
like Chubais. In publicly defending Chubais, then, Voloshin is simply
taking a pragmatic line. 


The opposition shareholders have, in any case, been too greedy in their
demands. They now oppose not only the reconstruction plan put forward by
Chubais, but want to radically change the company’s charter. Of the nine
demands put forward by the shareholders, six contradict Russian law. 


In particular, the shareholders want all UES operations, such as asset
sales or new share issues, to be approved not by company management or the
board of directors, as is currently the case, but by 75 percent of the
shareholders, who wouldn’t even have to be present at a meeting but just
included on a list. In the words of one highly placed UES official, such a
move would paralyze the company’s activities. 


The opposition shareholders also want to amend the charter to have the CEO
elected with 66 percent of the vote instead of 75 percent. This demand is
in line with the law but would nonetheless have a considerable impact, as
it would make it easier, depending on the political circumstances, for
shareholders and the state to join forces and remove the CEO. Even Chubais’
own entourage admits that the 75 percent rule was decided upon out of
political reasons when the country was going through a more unstable
period, and it was important to avoid chaos and scandals in personnel
decisions. Even if the rules were reviewed now, Chubais’ opponents would
still have to reconcile themselves to the fact that he was elected for five
years. 


Sources within UES say the opposition shareholders won’t get the required
number of votes (10 percent is needed) to put the issue of calling an
extraordinary shareholder’s meeting on the board of directors’ agenda. They
even asked for time-out for first a week, then a month, but Voloshin, as
chairman of the board of directors, declined their request. 


Whether or not an extraordinary shareholders’ meeting will take place will
soon become clear. But even if they lose this battle, the opposition
shareholders, it seems, won’t be deterred. They will continue chipping away
at Chubais, and should the state suddenly change tack with regard to
Chubais, the shareholders will be there to help topple him. 


(Vera Kutnetsova is a member of the governmental and presidential press
pools and a long-time observer of the Russian political scene.)


******


#9
Environment-Russia: Pipeline Could Ruin Siberian Plateau
Inter Press Service


KHABAROVSK, Russia, (Aug. 4) IPS - A proposed natural gas pipeline and
accompanying road from southern Siberia to China would destroy the ecology
of a plateau that is internationally recognized for its abundance of rare
and endangered species, warn environmentalists meeting here this week. 


Known as the Ukok Plateau, this area near the intersection of Mongolia,
China, Russia and Kazakhstan provides a critical habitat for one of the
least studied predators in the world, the snow leopard, and many other
endangered species including the argali mountain sheep, the black stork and
the steppe eagle. 


The plateau is one of several areas that make up the "Golden Mountains of
Altai" UNESCO World Heritage Site created in 1998. 


"Building a road and pipeline in this region will drastically change a
region held sacred by indigenous peoples and destroy critical habitat for
endangered and rare species," says Alexander Yumakaev, with the Fund for
21st Century Altai, an environmental advocacy group based in Barnaul. 


He says the road will open up large areas to mining, poaching and logging,
both legal and illegal. 


Yumakaev is here in the Russian Far East city of Khabarovsk, this week
along with about 30 other Russian and international environmentalists to
discuss the ecological impact of infrastructure projects, logging and
industrial development in Siberia and the Russian Far East. 


While by law the plateau is protected from industrial development as a
"Quiet Zone," Yumakaev says the elevated status of the region is being
completely ignored by Russian officials. 


In March 2000, an association of government leaders in Altai, known as the
"Siberian Accord," voted to approve the road and gas project. Russian
President Vladimir Putin enthusiastically supports the proposal which is
being put forward as critically important to the economic development of
Siberia. 


Russian scientists and the Fund for 21st Century Altai immediately
condemned the announcement. They say that the region is home to over 20
endangered animal species, like the snow leopard. 


Snow leopards are endangered throughout their entire range in the high
mountains of central Eurasia. Hunted for their bones and fur and encroached
upon by the expansion of human settlements and infrastructure, wild snow
leopards are estimated to number between 4,000 and 7,000. 


Central Asian researchers regard the snow leopard as an "indicator species"
or one that indicates the general health of a particular environment. Since
the large cat lives at the top of the food chain, if there are abundant and
healthy snow leopards in an area, the entire ecosystem is also probably
healthy, say scientists. 


Besides endangered wildlife, the plateau also contains one of the highest
concentrations of endemic plants in Russia -- at least 212 varieties,
according to Dave Martin, who coordinates the Siberia program of the
California-based Pacific Environment and Resources Center (PERC). 


The plateau is located in the republic of Altai which has a population of
200,000. Nearly half the population is made up of Altai and other
indigenous peoples, who consider the Ukok Plateau sacred. 


The area has been inhabited for more than 300,000 years, being the
crossroads for migrations of Turkic, Mongolian and Kazakh peoples. Burial
mounds, petroglyphs and stone carvings date back thousands of years.
Archaeological remains are being studied, especially since the discovery of
a mummified Scythian "princess" in 1996. 


The landscape is covered with sacred healing springs, and the Republic is
home to sacred Mt. Belukha, the highest peak in Siberia and headwaters of
the Katun River. 


Yumakaev argues that the road and pipeline project will incur enormous
costs in both construction and maintenance since it would go through
highland marshes, tundra, permafrost areas, mountain passes and elevations
of up to 2,600 meters. 


"This is hardly an economically sound project," he says. "It will forever
employ the road building companies." 


The Fund for 21st Century Altai and international environmental groups,
including PERC and the Massachusetts-based Sacred Earth Network, are urging
local authorities to instead build the pipeline along an existing road that
goes from the Altai capital of Gorno Altaisk to the village of Tashanta on
the Mongolian Border. 


The existing route continues into Mongolia and could be routed to go into
China, they argue. 


"Improving this road would be a much wiser choice economically and
ecologically," says Martin with PERC. 


But Yumakaev says that local authorities are shunning this proposal and
want to work only with China, not with Mongolia. 


Russian law requires that an environmental impact assessment (EIA) of the
project be completed by federal authorities before construction begins.
"But I doubt that the study will influence the project since the
politicians have already stated their support," says Yumakaev. 


Russian law also makes provisions for a public EIA that is conducted prior
to the federal process. This public review is organized by citizens groups
and gives them access to all project documents and feasibility studies. 


But Yumakaev says since May when President Putin abolished two key federal
environmental agencies, the State Committee on Ecology and the Forest
Service, the procedure for the public EIA has become unclear. 


"This used to be done in consultation with the State Committee on Ecology,
so now we don't know who we will be working with or how," he says. 


The Fund for 21st Century Altai is one of more than 50 Russian
environmental groups that are protesting Putin's decree which transferred
the responsibilities of these two environmental agencies to the Ministry of
Natural Resources that has a mandate to exploit, not protect, resources. 


Environmentalists throughout Russia are currently trying to obtain enough
signatures from Russian citizens to force a nationwide referendum so that
the whole country can vote on whether or not these agencies should be
re-established. 


*******


#10
BBC MONITORING
TATARSTAN'S NATIONALISTS PREPARE TO FIGHT "RUSSIAN AGGRESSION"
84% match; BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom ; 05-Aug-2000 12:00:00
am ; 372 words
Source: 'Kommersant', Moscow, in Russian 4 Aug 00 


Tatar nationalists have prepared for the inevitable, in their view,
collapse of the country provoked by Putin's reinforcement of the power
vertical. A special plenum of the All-Tatar Public Centre [ATPC] has
approved the concept of creating a confederation of Idel-Ural national
republics, which is to unite the Volga and Ural regions - for resistance to
"Russian aggression". 


The ATPC, in existence since the 1980s, is the only active national
organization in Tatarstan. The peak of its popularity came at the beginning
of the 1990s, when the ATPC represented the most radical wing of the
opposition. It was the ATPC that demanded the creation in Tatarstan of
attributes of a state, its own judicial authority and enforcement
departments. It convened rallies involving many thousands in front of the
building of parliament, which was considering questions of the republic's
independence. At that time the nationalists managed to frighten Moscow, and
the authorities in Tatarstan have been taking advantage of the fruits of
its struggle all these years. True, they have emphatically paid no
attention to the nationalists themselves. The more so since, having twice
lost parliamentary elections, the ATPC had been deprived of its former
influence. 


Now the All-Tatar Public Centre has decided to take revenge. Putin's
reform, thinks the ATPC, will have dismal consequences for all of Russia.
"The president's decrees and the decision of the colonial-imperial tribunal
called the Constitutional Court, which abolished state sovereignty of
peoples, is leading to the collapse of the Russian Federation into
confederations. And not only national ones but also those formed by the
Russian regions," stated the chairman of the ATPC political council, Goyal
Murtazin. 


The ATPC calls the methods used by the Russian leadership "aggression
against recalcitrant peoples", and in order to resist it, it intends to
create the Idel-Ural confederation. A confederative parliament is to be
formed by legislative bodies of the republics and regions of the area, each
of which is to elect an equal number of representatives to it. The
parliament, in turn, will form enforcement departments and special
organizations of the confederation... All regions and republics of the
Volga district are invited to join Idel-Ural. 


The regions have not responded to the call yet, but that does not bother
the ATPC. "We will create a coordination council of public associations of
Tatarstan to fight against Russian aggression and a united front of
resistance," says Murtazin. "But not in the literal sense. Tatarstan is a
civilized state, and the opposition here will behave in a civilized manner." 


******


#11
BBC MONITORING
RUSSIANS DEPART GEORGIA AS AMERICANS ARRIVE
Text of report by Russian NTV International television on 5th August 


[Presenter] The group of Russian forces in the Caucasus began loading up
its equipment at Batumi today. Tanks and armoured vehicles are being
removed from the bases at Vaziani and Gudauta and taken to Batumi, to be
taken on board two large landing ships and a tug of the Russian navy. At
the same time, the Georgian and US military have begun exercises in the
Black Sea. Sergey Morozov reports. 


[Correspondent] The first batch of Russian military equipment left Georgia
today. Tanks and armoured personnel carriers that were kept at the Russian
base at Vaziani were taken by rail to Batumi and then loaded onto ships of
the Black Sea Fleet and sent to Novorossiysk and Tuapse. 


By coincidence, on the day that Georgia bade farewell to Russia's tanks it
held its first joint exercise in the Black Sea with the American navy. The
one-day exercise was at Poti. Nine Georgian naval vessels, three of them
coastguards, worked with a single American frigate. The official version is
that they were practising search and rescue at sea. 


There was a degree of humour in the exercise. At one point, the Georgians
were saluting not only the US flag but the Jolly Roger as well. 


The exercise was initially planned to last for not one day but two,
according to AFP. But according to Interfax, Poti was hit by a severe
storm. The crew of the frigate came ashore and instead of practising search
and rescue at sea spent two days in a hotel. But the US frigate's master,
Captain (?House), was happy with the manoeuvres. 


[Uncaptioned American officer, in English overlaid by correspondent in
Russian] The Georgian navy and coastguards were very impressive. I was
pleased with the way that our crews worked together at sea. 


[Correspondent] Georgia intends to join the North Atlantic Alliance in by
2005. A Pentagon representative paid an official visit to Tbilisi two
months ago, and promised aid for Georgia to bring its equipment into line
with NATO standards. 


******