August 23, 2000    
This Date's Issues: 4470 4471

Johnson's Russia List
#4471
23 August 2000
davidjohnson@erols.com


[Note from David Johnson:
1. AFP: Women of Vidyayevo turn their back on Russia's day of mourning.
2. Reuters: Russian submarine salvage high risk and costly.
3. Wall Street Journal: Pavel Felgenhauer, Faith in Putin Sinks Along With the Submarine.
4. World Socialist Web Site: Vladimir Volkov and Julia Dänenbe, Putin's "Chernobyl": The tragedy of the Russian submarine disaster in the Barents Sea.
5. Segodnya: "SELECTION" IS INEVITABLE IN THE "POWER STRUCTURES." But There Will Be No Serious Fall in the President's Rating. (Interview with Gleb PAVLOVSKY)
6. Reuters: Experts say Kursk reactor safe, ecologists worry.
7. Washington Post editorial: Scandal Strikes Mr. Putin.
8. New York Times editorial: The Kursk and the Kremlin.
9. The Times (UK) editorial: RUSSIA OUTRAGED. Putin has difficult lessons to learn from the Kursk tragedy.
10. Boston Globe: Graham Allison, Russia's tragedy - and ours.
11. gazeta.ru: Optimists` Budget.] 


******


#1
Women of Vidyayevo turn their back on Russia's day of mourning


NEAR MURMANSK, Russia, Aug 23 (AFP) - 
Still hoping against hope for a miracle, the wives of the Kursk victims 
refused to play the part of grieving widows Wednesday as Russia observed a 
day of mourning for the 118-strong crew.


About 500 relatives have gathered at the closed naval village of Vidyayevo 
since disaster struck on August 12, and their refusal to abandon hope of 
finding survivors aboard the sunken submarine has shocked the Russian 
authorities.


President Vladimir Putin cut short a two-day trip to Severomorsk, the nearby 
headquarters of the Northern Fleet, late Tuesday after the wives, sisters and 
mothers of the doomed crew threatened to boycott a remembrance ceremony he 
was planning to attend.


Now the women are demanding the rescue operation be resumed, claiming there 
may be air pockets in several compartments of the vessel where their loved 
ones are still desperately clinging on to life.


"We will not dress in mourning clothes," said a tearful Irina Belozorova, 
whose husband Nikolai was an officer on the Kursk. "We will not even begin to 
think of ourselves as widows until they show us the bodies."


"We have every reason to believe that our menfolk are still alive, because 
not all the submarine's compartments have been searched," she added.


Belozorova voiced a widespread feeling of dismay at the speed with the which 
the Russian authorities moved from international rescue to national mourning 
after the Norwegian team of divers suspended operations on Monday.


"The Norwegians who inspected the submarine said that there was still air in 
the interior," she said.


Teams of psychologists have been working round the clock in Vidyayevo -- an 
area off-limits to journalists -- to help the families cope with their grief 
but now the women have decided to make forays out of the compound to speak 
directly to the world's media.


The authorities "are afraid to show how we are living, all this misery and 
grief," Belozorova said after Putin announced plans to pay the bereaved 
families a life pension as well as a lump sum of 10 times an officer's 
monthly salary.


"The salary of a Russian naval officer serving on a submarine is 100 dollars 
a month," she said. "It's just about enough to buy food."


"I speak on behalf of the all the women of Vidyayevo, we appeal to the 
international community, to the submariners of other countries, please help 
us!" Yekaterina Bagryantseva, wife of division commander Vladimir 
Bagryantsev, added in desperation.


But she warned that time was running out. "There is still a hope for a day or 
two," she said. "Not just to answer our prayers, not just to rescue if only 
one sailor, but to find out what really happened."


The official ceremony in Vidyayevo was cancelled Wednesday after many of the 
women refused to attend, protesting that a day of national mourning decreed 
by Putin was premature.


"Don't bury our menfolk too soon. Let's get them out of the submarine first. 
We pray for them every day," said Anna Murachyova, whose brother Dmitry was 
also an officer on the Kursk.


"It's very easy to announce a day of mourning, to kiss the flag one day and 
then go back to living normally the next as if nothing had happened. But who 
is going to replace the fathers of our children," she added.


Oksana Dudko, the 30-year-old wife of Captain Sergei Dudko, denounced the 
authorities for trying to mount a cover-up, hiding the real grief of the 
sailors' families as the day of mourning got underway.


"Only the state-owned RTR television channel has the right to come and film 
here at Vidyayevo," she explained.


"We've said all the same things in front of their camera, but the next day 
they came back and apologised for not being able to broadcast our interviews."


******


#2
Russian submarine salvage high risk and costly


MOSCOW, Aug 23 (Reuters) - Salvaging the wreckage of Russia's nuclear-powered 
submarine Kursk, which sank on August 12 to become an underwater grave for 
its 118-strong crew, will be a high risk and costly operation. 


The 505-feet-long (154 metres) monster, which weighs more than 20,000 tonnes 
after being flooded, has two nuclear reactors, which according to Russian 
officials were safely shut down after the accident. 


But the body of the submarine has been badly damaged by two blasts and a 
possible powerful collision with another vessel as well as slamming into the 
sea bed. The exact cause of the accident remains unknown. 


The Kursk is sitting on a sandy seabed 108 metres (354 feet) below the 
surface and 90 km (56 miles) from its home base. 


It is not clear if Russia will try to recover the bodies of the dead while 
the submarine remains in its current position. 


Russia does not have divers capable of working at depths of more than 60 
metres (197 feet). Russian officials said that the Norwegian firm Stolt 
Offshore, which helped in the rescue operation, had agreed to help take the 
bodies off as well. 


Officials said it would take up to four weeks to prepare for the job. 
However, company representatives in Oslo have said they have only agreed to 
study ways to recover the bodies. 


Making their way through the wreckage inside the sub would be highly risky 
for the divers and any damage to their diving suits might lead to their 
deaths. 


Another option considered by Russian officials is to lift the sub from the 
bottom using huge pontoons and move it to shallow waters. There, scuba divers 
could recover the bodies through escape hatches or by cutting the vessel in 
pieces. 


The Rubin company, which designed the Kursk, commissioned in 1994, said it 
had been contracted by the government to work on a project to bring the 
submarine to shallow waters. 


Chief designer Igor Baranov has said it would take up to three weeks to 
present the project and expected a cost of more than $100 million to bring 
the submarine up. 


The company also said Russia did not have enough equipment for the operation 
and that foreign assistance was essential. 


Baranov said powerful pumps would be needed to remove some of the sand from 
around the submarine, to make it easier to pluck it off the seabed and work 
wide straps under it. 


One set of smaller pontoons would be attached to the body of the submarine to 
minimise the risk of it breaking apart during the operation. Other, larger 
pontoons would be placed on the surface, to which the straps would be 
attached and which would provide the lift to wrench the sub from the seabed 
and raise it. 


The two nuclear reactors on the submarine are another issue. Officials have 
insisted they were safely shut down and present no danger of radiation leaks. 
However, some have noted the risk of the submarine breaking up during a move 
to the surface and say the reactors require particular attention. 


There is also an argument as to when the submarine should be moved. Some 
officials and many members of the sailors' families demand the operation be 
started as soon as possible. 


Others, including former Northern Fleet commander Admiral Eduard Baltin, say 
that in early September powerful storms start in the area and last until the 
spring. 


Baltin said such weather would make any work too risky and suggested the 
operation be delayed until spring. 


The Russian media has pointed out other potential headaches for Russia. It 
said a successful operation would require Moscow to disclose every detail 
about the submarine, a top-secret project, to any NATO members which help in 
its recovery. 


******


#3
Wall Street Journal
August 23, 2000
[for personal use only]
Faith in Putin Sinks Along With the Submarine
By Pavel Felgenhauer, an independent, Moscow based defense analyst.


MOSCOW -- Russia's response to the Kursk submarine tragedy has reminded the 
world more of the bad old Soviet days than of a country that has 
democratized. Indeed, if Russia truly had buried the hatchet with the West, 
there would be no sense in continuing to operate a navy that the country 
cannot afford and cannot really use effectively. But the Russian naval brass, 
still operating in the Cold War mode, is clearly ready to defy all logic and 
risk sailors' lives to keep up some semblance of an East-West confrontation.


Given their lies to date, one even wonders whether the Russian military plans 
any serious investigation of the disaster. Russian authorities first reported 
a "malfunction" aboard the Kursk on Monday, Aug. 14, adding that the sub had 
gone down the previous day, Sunday. But it was quickly learned that the Kursk 
had actually sunk on Saturday. Naval "sources" spun other yarns too: that the 
vessel did not sink, but "descended to the ocean floor"; that "contact with 
the crew was established"; that "air is being pumped from the surface into 
the ship"; that "everyone on board is alive"; that "the vessel's two nuclear 
reactors have been shut down," and so on.


Actually, no air or power was ever supplied to the sub from the surface. No 
true "contact" with the crew was established either. And the state of the 
reactors is still in question. No one has any reliable information about them 
since the ship went down. Norwegian divers report that the hull of the ship 
was smashed during the accident. It's possible the reactors also could have 
been damaged. If they are not leaking now, they may be soon.


Most experts, foreign and Russian, believe that the crew of the Kursk was 
virtually wiped out when conventional torpedo warheads in the bow of the ship 
exploded. Russian authorities agree that the Kursk went down like a rock with 
no distress signal. But at the same time the authorities insist that the 
detonation of the torpedoes was caused by a collision with some mysterious 
foreign submarine. Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev stated that the Russian 
navy observed parts of an "unidentified" sub on the sea floor near the dead 
Kursk, and sighted "foreign" green-and-white beacons on the surface of the 
sea. "But the unknown sub disappeared before we managed to get to it," 
lamented Mr. Sergeyev.


The chief of staff of Russia's Northern Fleet, Admiral Mikhail Motsak, was 
more specific and identified the foreign submarine as being "probably 
British." Some Russian naval officers have told reporters that the sinking of 
the Kursk was not an accident at all and that "the Kursk was attacked."


Those accusations were dismissed as "fantasy" by the British Defense 
Ministry, which says no British naval vessels were anywhere near the Barents 
Sea at the time. And, of course, the official Russian explanation of events 
is ridiculous: The Kursk is some 500 feet long, 60 feet wide and displaces 
24,000 tons of water when fully submerged. A collision with a U.S. or British 
attack sub could not possibly destroy the Kursk instantly. Modern torpedoes 
are well safeguarded against spontaneous detonation and a simple underwater 
collision that left the "unidentified" sub free to go could not have set the 
torpedoes off.


And it was also reported last week that the Russian navy had finally 
identified the green-and-white "beacons" Mr. Sergeyev had mentioned. They 
turned out to be heads of cabbage that fell overboard when provisions for 
sailors were loaded on to the deck of the Russian nuclear cruiser Peter the 
Great.


Russian authorities also delayed Western aid until it was too late to 
possibly find anyone alive, and then begrudged the aid they got. Special 
effort was put into keeping the British navy rescue team and its LR5 minisub 
as far away from the Kursk as possible. It was forced to arrive by sea from 
Norway instead of allowed to land at Murmansk, delaying its arrival by at 
least three days. Since the Russian admirals believed (or pretended to 
believe) that the Kursk came down as a result of a "British attack," the 
subsequent rescue team was assumed to be an intelligence unit in disguise 
that arrived to make an assessment of the damage.


Russian authorities are trying to tap anti-Western feelings that are never 
far beneath the surface in much of the Russian population, and to indict the 
North Atlantic Treaty Organization as the main perpetrator of the Kursk 
disaster. But they have been remarkably unsuccessful. The results of 
comprehensive public-opinion surveys are not available yet, but instant 
telephone polls organized by Russian television and radio stations show that 
between 75% to 90% of the public places the blame for the Kursk disaster 
where it belongs: on the doorstep of the Kremlin.


Millions of Russians who voted President Vladimir Putin into power and seemed 
to adore him only a week ago feel betrayed. They are angry that Mr. Putin 
continued a vacation at a Black Sea resort like some old-style communist 
dictator while seamen were dying in the cold waters of the North. The anger 
reaches the officer class of the Russian navy, which is plainly disgusted 
that Mr. Putin did not come to the scene of the disaster. Only a president, 
the officers feel, could have swiftly cut through the layers of red tape to 
speed up the deployment of foreign aid to save lives. Russians, finally, are 
embarrassed that Norwegian divers were able to penetrate the hull of the 
Kursk in several hours -- a feat that badly equipped and badly trained 
Russian rescuers did not manage in a week.


President Putin is not up for re-election anytime soon and the Kremlin firmly 
controls the country and a large part of the Russian media. Public anger will 
subside in time, so Mr. Putin can weather this storm. But it is obvious that 
Mr. Putin's honeymoon with the nation is over. The dead Kursk may continue to 
haunt him for years to come.


******


#4
World Socialist Web Site
wsws.org
Putin's "Chernobyl": The tragedy of the Russian submarine disaster in the
Barents Sea
By Vladimir Volkov and Julia Dänenberg
23 August 2000


The tragedy of the Russian nuclear-powered submarine Kursk in the Barents
Sea has lasted over a week. Millions of people all over the world have been
witness to an unbelievable display of incompetence, spinelessness,
arrogance and hypocrisy on the part of the Russian political elite and
military, with President Vladimir Putin at their head.


Their action—or rather their inaction—borders on a crime. Day after day
they allowed every possibility to elapse of saving the lives of the 113
sailors entombed in the Kursk, who died slowly and painfully on the seabed
at a depth of 100 meters.


As important as it is to establish the concrete causes of the disaster,
this is nevertheless a secondary issue. It would have been more important
to exhaust all possibilities for effecting the crew's rescue. That was not
done, however. Some possibilities were not even attempted. In this
situation, the most valuable commodity, time—when even minutes count—was
allowed to pass.


Why did this happen? Why was information about the tragedy not transmitted
immediately to Russian and international press agencies, but delayed for
days? Why did prominent representatives of the army and
government—Secretary of Defence Igor Sergeyev, naval boss Admiral Vladimir
Kuroyedov, Vice-Premier Ilya Klebanov and others—try for so long to hide
the extent of the tragedy from the Russian and international public?


Why did the rescue operation only begin after three days? Why was foreign
assistance only accepted at the last moment, when it was already clear that
all efforts had failed to save the sailors with Russian resources and no
other solution remained?


Why, finally, did President Putin keep quiet for five days and remain at
his holiday resort on the Black Sea, instead of going to the scene of the
accident?


The answers to these questions can be found in the course of the events
themselves. The ruling elite in Russia has demonstrated that as far as
their psychology and their morals go, nothing has changed since Brezhnev's
times. As then, the lives of ordinary people are their last consideration.


The tragedy on the Kursk has torn away the mask from the new generation of
Kremlin politicians. It has made clear that they are incapable of
evaluating problems independently and acting accordingly. They are not even
in a position to render an account of the significance of current events.


There are historical events which put political leaders to the test. The
accident on the Kursk is such an event. It requires more than routine
action or bureaucratic responses. Russia's leading politicians and
military—and above all the Commander-in-Chief and president—failed this test.


Innumerable generals, with or without fancy epaulettes, only concerned
themselves with their own pragmatic aims, and acted according to the
principle: “Behave as if nothing had happened”. They obey a bureaucratic
herd instinct, according to which success is only possible for those who
behave “moderately and correctly”, who do not rush their superiors and for
whom the prejudices inside the apparatus are more important than complex
reality, where there are firmly established instructions and state commands.


It has long been known that the Russian army is saturated with corruption,
theft and a lack of talent. But until recently it appeared as if at least
the force of inertia still operated and the army was, though sick,
nevertheless still a functioning organism.


Now it is obvious that this is not the case. Russia's military technical
abilities have become increasingly outdated, and are repaired only in a
most provisional way. Whole swathes of equipment, which exist on paper,
have already been either shut down for a long time or sold off by corrupt
officers for their personal enrichment. Thus it proved impossible to find
divers in the entire Russian fleet, or the whole country, who could have
dived down to the Kursk. While the army leadership steals and is corrupt,
the majority of ordinary soldiers and sailors see no sense in their service
and are completely demoralised.


The army is not separated from society by an impenetrable wall. Quite the
opposite. Many social problems can be found in the army in a particularly
exaggerated form. The lamentable incompetence that became visible in
connection with the accident on the Kursk not only testifies to the crisis
and decay of the Russian army; it expresses the political and social
bankruptcy of the entire regime that arose from the ruins of the Soviet Union.


A year ago it might have seemed that, in Putin, an energetic politician had
replaced the frail, limited and self-obsessed President Boris Yeltsin.
Putin acquired a carefully designed image as a lively and independent
figure, versed in the problems of the world, who could lead the country out
of the dead end in which it found itself.


This image never corresponded with the facts. Putin has no significant
political biography and is to the core an apparatchik and a policeman. He
is an accidental figure, who was unexpectedly carried to the heights of
power by lady luck. Although he at first doubted his good fortune, he
quickly made the new role his own. He tried to present himself as a
Napoleon Bonaparte, a Julius Caesar, a Peter the Great and even a “modern”
version of Stalin. His lack of comprehension was presented as wisdom, and
the absence of any clear ideas as a sign of deep thought.


At first he still enjoyed the sheen of effective public gestures. On the
frosty New Year's Eve just after Yeltsin's voluntary resignation, he
emerged unexpectedly on a military landing strip in Chechnya and delivered
a short speech to the soldiers. In February, after the sudden death of
Anatoly Sobtschak, considered one of the “fathers of Russian democracy”,
Putin appeared at his funeral in St. Petersburg and shed a few tears for
the television cameras.


The almost demonstrative emotional coldness with which Putin has reacted to
the disaster on the Kursk stands in stark contrast to this previous display
of compassion. While the families of the victims, millions of Russians and
the world public followed the tragedy with shock, Putin reacted with days
of delay, saying only that the situation was critical and that everything
possible was being done to rescue the sailors. He did not even travel to
the site of the accident and justified this with the words: “Everyone must
remain in their places.”


What is the reason for this behaviour? Could it be that in February, when
Putin was not yet president, he wanted to be “liked”, and now, when this is
no longer necessary, he can act as he really is? It cannot be explained
purely from Putin's personal motives. The problem goes deeper. There exists
a connection between the personal qualities, mental outlook and the
abilities of those who direct the Russian ship of state, and the social
basis on which they rest—the layers whose interests they represent.


The incompetence, arrogance and narrowness of Russia's rulers is, in the
end, a function of their objective socio-political and historical role.
They personify the inviability of the abortion that is Russian capitalism.
Ignorance, coarseness, pitilessness and disdain towards the ordinary people
are the characteristics of the “new Russian” capitalists, and these
qualities are brought to the surface of social life by Putin and those
around him.


In April 1986, the leadership of the Soviet bureaucracy under Mikhail
Gorbachev tried to hush up the disaster at the Chernobyl atomic power
plant. Only the impossibility of concealing the consequences forced them to
bring this event to public attention.


How did Putin react this time? In exactly the same manner. Or more
accurately, he reacted according to the same principle: first protect
national “prestige” and only then people. In the last 15 years nothing has
changed in the behaviour of the governing elite. From the standpoint of the
state, the lives of ordinary people do not have any real significance.


Those trapped on the Kursk would have expected rapid and effective help;
but this was absent. In a certain sense, the entire Russian population is
in a similar position to the submarine's crew: they are suffering; they
look for a way out of the dead end and hope for assistance. Instead the
government proposes to wait and is afraid of acting at all because it is in
a state of paralysis.


The tragedy of the Kursk is not simply a human disaster. It is a blow
against the myth that after 10 years of capitalist “reforms” Russia is
blossoming anew. The event will leave a deep impression in the
consciousness of the people. It must act as the most bitter lesson and
provide political insight, without which the country cannot move forward in
a progressive fashion.
******


#5
Segodnya
August 23, 2000
[translation from RIA Novosti for personal use only]
"SELECTION" IS INEVITABLE IN THE "POWER STRUCTURES"
But There Will Be No Serious Fall in the President's 
Rating 
Why didn't Vladimir Putin come to Severomorsk immediately?
How adequate to this tragic situation has the President's 
behavior been in general? Segodnya's correspondent Avtandil 
TSULADZE asked Gleb PAVLOVSKY, famous political technologist 
who consults the President's Administration, to answer these 
and other questions.

QUESTION: Why didn't Vladimir Putin interrupt his vacation 
when he received the news about the Kursk catastrophe?
ANSWER: Whether the President is holidaymaking or not, he 
has an uninterrupted channel of information on which he adopts 
his decisions. That is why it really does not matter where the 
President is at a concrete moment. The more appropriate 
question is whether he adopted correct decisions and assessed 
the situation correctly. I cannot judge this as I do not know 
which current decisions he made. I know only one of his 
decisions, which is a non-trivial one, indeed. I mean the 
decision to appeal for help to NATO countries, which cannot be 
regarded as our allies. What is more, he made that decision at 
the time when a clash with a foreign submarine was the main 
version of what had happened. As far as I know, in a situation 
like this, nowhere in the world request for help is made to the 
country which can be the owner of that sub. It is an 
unprecedented step on the part of Putin and it will provoke 
different interpretations. I suppose that the number of those 
supporting it will prevail.

QUESTION: But request for foreign assistance was made very 
late. Is it possible that Putin received inadequate information 
and was unable to adopt such a decision earlier?
ANSWER: This situation should be investigated. If there 
were instances when the President received knowingly false 
information, it is a crime. However, if he intervened, 
eliminated a certain hierarchy of decision-making and assumed 
leadership of the operations in which he is not a specialist, 
this would be tantamount to declaring the military leadership 
incompetent. I do not know the grounds on which he should have 
taken such a decision. Our society is in an abnormal state, 
when not the causes for the submarine catastrophe but whether 
the President arrived at the place of its death is regarded as 
the most important thing of all. This is evidence of an 
abnormal state of public mentality, at best, or that someone is 
interested in enhancing such a state, at worst.

QUESTION: Many are looking up to Putin as a hero capable 
of solving any problem. But the "hero" proved to be powerless 
in this particular case. Can this result in a landslide fall of 
his popularity rating?
ANSWER: This is possible. But Putin positions himself not 
as a "hero" but as a specialist who does not belong to any 
political party and whom the country hired to restore the 
viability of state, political and, in particular, military 
institutes.
Nonetheless, the myth about a hero exists. It is unquestionably 
very dangerous for the President in office. The sooner the 
country realizes and the authority explains to the country that 
it needs a specialist who is above all the parties, rather than 
a hero-savior, the better, because lying ahead is the adoption 
of numerous decisions, including rather unpopular ones. I am 
not sure that the President's rating will seriously fall. Putin 
has come for a long period of time, and only an idiot can think 
that he will beat the peak of his popularity all this time. He 
will act and his rating will be up and down. But a landslide 
fall is very unlikely.

QUESTION: The Kursk catastrophe is acquiring a clearly 
political shade. Can this lead to any serious changes in the 
line-up of political forces?
ANSWER: Each August a seasonal political phenomenon takes 
place in Russia - an information crisis during which the 
political "agenda of the day" is changed. Naturally, all the 
politicians are out to become part of the exposition. The real 
politics of the new era begins today. It means a new struggle, 
which will lay bare new warring groups. Thus far, the group of 
political hysteric personalities, both male and female, have 
been in the center stage trying to remind of themselves. But 
this is not the most important thing. It goes without saying 
that Putin has adversaries who will once again try to test 
whether he has grown weak enough to be ousted from the post. 
But I think that this assessment of the situation is not 
correct. The information services of the Defense Ministry and 
of the President have not worked the best way. This is an 
obvious fact. But this has hardly anything to do with Putin 
personally.

QUESTION: Do you think that the information policy of the 
executive branch is discoordinated?
ANSWER: There is unquestionably some degree of 
discoordination. Against the widely spread myth that nothing 
can happen in the country without being first secretly and 
coordinatedly decided at the top level, what we see is the 
result of the absence of elementary coordination. Different 
sufficiently high-ranking officials can talk any rubbish on 
their own. The regime has no mechanism of the usual information 
coordination of its own news making. It should talk in one 
voice and not jabber away to its own disadvantage. It is a 
serious problem, but I think it is a second-priority problem.

QUESTION: What was your role in the informational coverage 
of the events?
ANSWER: I was one of many who were jabbering away. I have 
more than once expressed my personal opinion on this subject, 
but I cannot say to what degree my opinion was taken into 
consideration. I think many made ill-considered and rather 
irresponsible statements. But I do not wish to kick my own team.

QUESTION: Will there be "a flight analysis" in connection 
with the Kursk catastrophe?
ANSWER: Putin should thoroughly analyze the situation and 
the role of his own team. A "flight analysis" is inevitable. 
But the PR aspect should not be the cardinal issue. Personnel 
revision is inevitable in the "power structures." Actually, we 
have a shortage of genuine specialists in this sphere today. 
The sooner we build a national, really working power apparatus, 
which will be safe for the world and for us, the better. And 
this means "selection" in the ranks of "power structures." 
After the Kursk tragedy the military reform will be gaining 
momentum.

******


#6
Experts say Kursk reactor safe, ecologists worry
By Patrick Lannin

MOSCOW, Aug 23 (Reuters) - A senior Russian naval officer said on Wednesday 
that the reactors on the sunken submarine Kursk were safe but ecologists 
continued to worry. 


The nuclear-powered Kursk plunged to the bottom of the sea 11 days ago, 
killing all the 118 crew, after a collision or explosions on board, or both. 
Officials have said there has been no increase in radiation. 


``I am sure that the reactor on the Kursk has cooled down fully and that it 
does not present any danger,'' Vice-Admiral Yevgeny Chernov told the 
Argumenty I Fakti weekly. 


``In an emergency situation, when the set parameters in the submarine 
changed, the Kursk's automatic accident defence system turned itself on,'' 
added Chernov, said by the newspaper to have worked with reactors on 
submarines for 30 years. 


Norwegian experts said they had found no evidence of radiation leaks from the 
wreck of the submarine. 


``None of our analyses show any sign of leaks,'' Per Strand, a director of 
the Norwegian Radiation Protection Authority, told NRK public radio. 


He said the authority had tested water samples taken inside and outside the 
vessel, opened on Monday by Norwegian and British divers, and in sediments on 
the seabed around the Kursk. 


Chernov said the accident defence system would automatically begin the 
cooling process and stop further reactions of the nuclear fuel in the 
submarine. 


Chernov recommended that the submarine be brought to the surface, which had 
to be done with care, rather than sealed with cement and left in a 
sarcophagus on the sea bed. 


Officials reiterated that there was no hazard. 


RADIATION NORMAL, NAVY SAYS 


``According to the latest information, the radiation levels in the Barents 
Sea remain normal,'' Itar-Tass news agency quoted the head of the press 
service of the Northern Fleet, to which the Kursk belonged, as saying. 


Environmentalists have made calls for the Kursk to be quickly lifted from the 
bed of the Barents Sea. 


Norwegian environmental group Bellona said on its website (bellona.no) that 
there were three possible scenarios for the reactors after their shutdown, 
when a passive cooling system would click in and reduce the heat of the 
reactors. 


It said the most dangerous would be if the passive cooling system failed, 
leading to the reactor going critical and its core melting. However, it could 
be considered unlikely. 


If the passive cooling system worked, a safe shutdown had been achieved, 
Bellona said. But in this case it saw a chance of a slight leak because the 
damage the submarine suffered could have caused broken pipes and other 
fractures. 


This could lead to contamination of the seawater which flooded into the 
submarine. 


``Most likely, the area around the wreck site can become contaminated. This 
may, in the worst case, lead to contamination of the fish caught in the 
area,'' Bellona said. 


It noted that the Barents Sea was one of the cleanest in the northern 
hemisphere, with radioactivity levels in fish caught there lower than in the 
Baltic Sea and the Irish Sea. 


******


#7
Washington Post
August 23, 2000
Editorial
Scandal Strikes Mr. Putin

LOOKING BACK on Vladimir Putin's rise to power in Russia, what's remarkable 
is the apparent ease with which this previously obscure ex-KGB officer 
maneuvered his way through the snake pit of post-Soviet politics. He was the 
right-hand man to St. Petersburg's mayor; then, an indispensable member of 
Boris Yeltsin's Kremlin staff. Mr. Yeltsin made him head of the Federal 
Security Service, the KGB's successor agency, before elevating him to prime 
minister--an appointment that made Mr. Putin Mr. Yeltsin's designated 
successor. Having ascended to acting president upon Mr. Yeltsin's resignation 
at New Year's, Mr. Putin won the top job himself earlier this year with 
barely a public campaign. Through it all, Mr. Putin has advanced by 
projecting seriousness and dynamism. Whether greasing the bureaucracy on 
behalf of foreign investors, implacably smashing "terrorism" in Chechnya or 
raising international pressure against U.S. missile defense plans, the 
youthful Mr. Putin may have seemed authoritarian, but never incompetent. 


Until now. The sinking of the nuclear submarine Kursk and the loss of all 118 
men on board has forced Mr. Putin to contend with the first serious blast of 
spontaneously generated public opposition he has faced, not just as president 
but in his entire career. All previous events in his political rise were, to 
some degree, scripted by Mr. Putin, or by others on his behalf. This tragedy 
was not. And so far, Mr. Putin is not coping well with the vicissitudes of 
life in a democracy--albeit a deeply flawed democracy. He callously remained 
on vacation while the Kursk foundered. He exercised no control over the 
errant pronouncements about the crisis by his military chiefs and his own 
spokespersons. And, more broadly, the businesslike demeanor that, in other 
contexts, inspired public confidence served him poorly in this emotionally 
charged moment. As the 1986 Challenger disaster unsettled Americans, the 
Kursk catastrophe has shaken an already demoralized Russian nation; yet there 
is no Great Communicator in the Kremlin to articulate the country's 
sentiments, and by doing so, soothe them.


A majority of Russians supported Mr. Putin for president. Many, aching for 
relief from chronic poverty and lawlessness, did so because he offered them 
an implicit deal: I will restore order, even at the price of some of the 
liberties you have recently come to enjoy; but my government will be 
effective, and it will put the needs and concerns of ordinary people first. 
Millions of Russians now see the Putin administration's bumbling in the Kursk 
tragedy as a violation of that desperate bargain. They see it, rightly, as a 
scandal.


The good news is that Russia is no longer a country where a KGB man can 
control all information and ignore shifts in public opinion. One question now 
is whether Mr. Putin will seek to adapt to that reality or to change reality 
back to something more to his personal liking.


*****


#8
New York Times
August 23, 2000
Editorial 
The Kursk and the Kremlin

For a week and a half, the tragic plight of the 118 officers and sailors 
trapped aboard the sunken Russian nuclear submarine Kursk drew expressions of 
compassion and offers of assistance from around the world. But for most of 
this period, Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, seemed aloof and distant. He 
declined, during the most critical days, to cut short his Black Sea vacation 
and go immediately to the site where his presence could have energized the 
navy's rescue operations and would, at any rate, have symbolized the 
government's concern at a moment of national tragedy. Only yesterday did he 
finally visit the submarine's home base to console grieving relatives. 


It is too soon to know if more active leadership on Mr. Putin's part could 
have saved lives. But his performance has been disheartening for those who 
hoped to see a more democratic Russia shedding the habits of secrecy and 
indifference to human suffering that marred so many centuries of czarist and 
Soviet rule. If Mr. Putin hopes to build the strong democratic state he often 
speaks of, he must learn some hard lessons from the Kursk affair. In a 
democracy, public appearances and ceremonies are a key part of leadership, 
and symbolic shows of concern can do much to heal a nation's grief. 


Mr. Putin's government was slow in informing its own people and the world of 
the desperate situation aboard the Kursk. The first official announcements 
came two days after the vessel plunged to the bottom of the Barents Sea, and 
British and Norwegian help was not accepted until four days after the 
sinking. Mr. Putin let two more days go by before breaking off his vacation. 


Such public callousness would be unthinkable in any Western democracy. But it 
is a long, sad tradition in Russia, dating back to czars like Ivan the 
Terrible, Alexander III and Nicholas II, and Soviet-era tyrants like Stalin. 
Mr. Putin is not in that league, but as a Soviet-era K.G.B. agent he was 
raised in the Russian autocratic tradition, which values state interests 
above human life. Democracy cannot be built on such foundations, nor in the 
long run can political stability. 


Another unfortunate legacy of Russian history is the heritage of government 
control and manipulation of vital information. Even a reformer like Mikhail 
Gorbachev initially tried to conceal the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear reactor 
accident. But Mr. Gorbachev came to understand that democratic reform in 
Russia required a more open and candid government and a free and independent 
press. 


There will be other lessons to draw from the Kursk disaster. Undoubtedly, 
Russia needs to spend more money on maintenance and safety for its submarine 
fleet. Plans for international coordination in future rescue attempts should 
be prepared in advance. NATO and Russia both should move away from close 
shadowing of each other's submarines that can lead to accidental bumpings, 
although an explosion and not a collision seems to have sunk the Kursk. But 
the most intriguing question is whether this tragedy can educate Mr. Putin in 
the arts of compassionate and accountable leadership. 
*****


#9
The Times (UK)
August 23, 2000
Editorial
RUSSIA OUTRAGED
Putin has difficult lessons to learn from the Kursk tragedy 


Today Russia officially mourns the 118 submariners killed after the Kursk 
went down on August 12. President Putin, who waited until yesterday to fly 
north to offer comfort to the bereaved families, is already aware that his 
passivity in this crisis (as well as his senior officials' bungling economy 
with the truth) has damaged him. Mr Putin needs to absorb some difficult 
lessons about the nature of the support he commands and the State he rules. 
Since Mr Putin took over the presidency, at first acting for the ailing Boris 
Yeltsin, he has won praise for putting the long-idle Kremlin back to work. 
Despite his achievements in improving the efficiency of government, however, 
international concerns are also repeatedly voiced about attempts to curtail 
the freedom of the press and civil liberties. His rise has sometimes been 
interpreted as a pause in Russia's decade-old experiment with a democracy 
that had often seemed all talk and no action. So enthusiastic was Russian 
endorsement for the new leader, whose tight-lipped KGB past and tough-guy 
patriotism was a major part of his electoral appeal, that doubts were raised 
as to whether modern Russians actually wanted to go any farther down that 
painful path. 


Dark though the tragedy of recent days is, it has nevertheless served the 
comforting function of highlighting the commitment of Russians to honest and 
accountable democratic government. The evasions and untruths that Russian 
officialdom tried to serve up to its public at every stage of this crisis - 
the reports of non-existent successes in establishing contact with Kursk 
crewmen, and in piping oxygen to the craft, and even in naming the date of 
the disaster - have been criticised mercilessly. The failure of Mr Putin to 
leave his holiday home on the Black Sea has attracted much unfavourable 
comment, as has his squeamish refusal to break the news that a Norwegian and 
British rescue effort was being called off and the entire crew were believed 
dead. Among the lacerating media criticism was the opinion, expressed 
yesterday in the weekly Vlast, that "the submarine sank hopes that this 
Government is competent". 


Mr Putin's autumn will be complicated in many ways by further fallout from 
the Kursk tragedy. A shake-up in the leadership of the Northern Fleet may be 
indicated. Liberals in parliament are already demanding a full inquiry into 
the accident. Environmentalists, who have been harshly targeted in the recent 
past by Russian security police, will have popular support for their demands 
to be told more about the nuclear policy of the Northern Fleet to which the 
Kursk belonged. 


But the main lesson for the President is that Russians of today are adept at 
sniffing out the official lies so often meted out in the past by contemptuous 
Soviet bosses, and fearless in exposing them. The searing press coverage of 
the crisis is a dramatic reminder that years of exposure to democracy have 
had their effect on the Russian attitude to authority. Mr Putin should learn 
that he needs to pay more attention to the wishes of his people, making clear 
that he remembers he is governing with their consent. The battle of opinions 
unleashed by official handling of the sinking of the Kursk is a battle 
between the old and the new Russia. Mr Putin must prove that he belongs with 
the new. 


******


#10
Boston Globe
August 23, 2000
Russia's tragedy - and ours 
By Graham T. Allison
Graham T. Allison is director of the Belfer Center for Science and 
International Affairs at Harvard University and is a foreign policy adviser 
to Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore.


Russian bureaucratic bungling, dissembling, delay, and delusion in effect 
condemned 118 sailors trapped aboard the sunken submarine Kursk to death. One 
is reminded of former prime minister Victor Chernomyrdin's comment on an 
earlier failure: ''We hoped for the best, but things turned out as usual.''


Had the Kursk 118 served on an American, British, or Norwegian sub, survivors 
of the initial explosion would most likely have been saved. Had Russia 
promptly requested ''all possible assistance,'' a sophisticated American 
minisub equipped with advanced technologies that allow the crew to operate in 
turbulent conditions and see through murky waters could have reached the sub 
within 24 hours.


This tragedy raises troubling questions about the Russian Navy and the 
military's competence to operate sophisticated weaponry. It raises profound 
questions about the future of Russia itself. Is the Kursk affair a blast of 
truth that exposes the real condition of Russia today: a former military 
superpower, now bankrupt, no longer repairing its vast arsenal of training 
personnel, at risk of failing as a modern state?


Putin's answer to this provocative question is: Yes, unless. Yes, unless 
trends of the past decade are arrested and reversed. Prior to this incident, 
he had demonstrated extreme realism and great courage in talking straight to 
his fellow citizens about the severe challenges he and they face.


After Yeltsin's surprise resignation last New Year's Eve and his appointment 
as acting president, Putin issued the traditional greeting. Instead of 
offering customary good cheer, he spoke of Russia in terms few Russians had 
ever imagined. He compared Russia not to the United States, not to the great 
nations of Europe, but to Portugal. As he stated bluntly, ''To reach the 
production level of Portugal and Spain, two countries that are not known as 
leaders of the world economy, it will take Russia approximately 15 years if 
the GDP grows by at least 8 percent a year.'' Have a Happy New Year?


Putin's recent state of the union address warned Russians that the country is 
not only in danger of falling to the rank of Third World countries but of 
disintegrating as a unified state. Even closer to home, he described Russia 
as a nation that is deeply sick, shrinking, and dying.


Consider the facts. Russia's GNP is $270 billion. Per capita purchasing power 
is equivalent to Guatemala or Algeria - well below South Korea and less than 
half that of Mexico. The total budget of Russia's national government is less 
than the budget of the City of New York: $27 billion. The Soviet Union was 
larger in population than the United States. With the collapse of the Soviet 
Union, Russia's population shrunk by half but, according to Putin, it 
continues to shrink at the rate of almost one million individuals per year 
and totals less than 150 million today. In addition to emigration, major 
causes of this decline include premature deaths, especially of men (whose 
life expectancy has fallen to 57 years) because of alcoholism, suicide, and 
infant mortality.


To win a bet with a friend at the club or classroom, one has only to ask to 
estimate Russia's total defense budget today. It amounts to less than $5 
billion - smaller than the defense budget of South Korea or even Israel. In 
comparison, the US annual defense budget is $290 billion.


The gap between Russia's defense spending on the one hand and its military's 
self-image, structure, and manning on the other is delusional. With a budget 
less than a quarter of Germany's, for example, Russia attempts to maintain 
three times as many men in arms, 10 times as many officers, 20 times as many 
generals, and five services rather than three. Moreover, with less than a 
quarter of the resources, Russia attempts to remain a major military power in 
space, in nuclear weaponry, in land-based missiles, in long-range bombers, 
with aircraft carriers on the sea and submarines under the sea - none of 
which is any part of Germany's military posture.


The result: a hollow Russian military shell. For absence of repairs, 
training, and exercise, Russia now finds itself with a force that is 
essentially unable to fight. As Putin said candidly last week: ''Are our own 
forces effective? Unfortunately, they are not. How can it be considered 
optimal if training is not conducted in many units, pilots rarely fly, and 
sailors rarely go to sea?''


The state of Russia's military establishment was reflected in its loss to 
Chechen fighters in the 1994-96 war. As one Russian wag opined, Russia's 
vaunted military was no longer able to invade itself.


Were Russia's military, and even the Russian state, sinking and dissolving on 
another planet, Americans could regard this as either tragedy or just deserts 
but nonetheless as a matter of distant interest. Sadly, however, they and we 
share on a shrinking globe. After four decades of extraordinary exertion in 
which America won a great victory in the Cold War, the supreme irony is that 
we find ourselves gravely threatened by the weakness and potential collapse 
of Russia.


Nowhere is there greater danger than in the possible failure of Russian 
military officers who control nuclear-tipped missiles aimed at the United 
States and thousands of nuclear weapons vulnerable to theft and sale to 
terrorists. 


******* 


#11
gazeta.ru
August 23, 2000
Optimists` Budget
Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin has said he is satisfied with the
next years’ federal budget law approved by the cabinet on Tuesday. The
budget is based on the revised and newly adopted tax policies and new tax
rates. The government is confident the new budget will be less dependent on
world oil prices. 
The Finance Minister said it would be “an honest budget”…. “We not only
regard it as realistic and feasible, even if world prices take a turn for
the worst in 2001. The main point is that revenues must not be inflated. We
believe that it resolves a whole number of outstanding problems that have
existed for many years,” Kudrin said on Russian television immediately
after the cabinet session. 


The draft budget law approved on Tuesday forecasts economic growth of about
4 percent in the next year and pins inflation at 12 percent. 


The government intends to raise over $40 billion in revenues to service
the state debt, to finance the regions and the defense industry in 2001.
The draft provides for $10.5-11.5 billion of the foreign debt to be repaid. 


Government officials insist they are not counting on IMF loans, for they
would lead to an increase of the debt burden in the future. On Tuesday the
ministers made it clear that the state reserves will be used to meet the
country’s obligations: the draft budget anticipates the sale of state
stakes in huge oil companies, and also the sale of state gold reserves. 


Admittedly, the government does not yet know the exact amount of foreign
debt it will have to pay off next year. If the Paris Club of Creditors
refuses to reschedule the debt inherited from the Soviet era, Russia will
have to pay a total of $14.5 billion instead of the forecasted $10.5-11.5
billion. 


The draft budget contains an uncertain clause, whereby the government plans
to attract $1.75 billion in IMF loans and $920 million from the World Bank.
Also it is hazardous to count solely on domestic revenues, especially if
oil prices drop. Russia is hugely dependent on the crude market, and it is
mostly owing to high world oil prices that Russia is able to pay off debt
without causing much damage to the budget. 


For the first time in post-Soviet history, the government plans to sell of
precious metals and gems to cover state debt. However, such sales do not
seem timely. The central banks of Switzerland, Great Britain and Austria
have launched sales of their national gold reserves lately, and
consequently the prices are set to fall. 


As for the year 2000, the government had planned to pay off state debt by
securing a $1 billion loan from the Central Bank. With the help of
additional revenues Russia managed to meet its obligations to foreign
creditors in 2000. Also 900 million rubles worth of uranium sales were
stipulated in the 2000 budget. 


This time the government decided against asking the Central Bank for a loan
in 2001, for that would mean another budget expenditure later. Right now
the government is paying off the CB loan with additional revenues. 


The Government intends to raise a total of 18 billion rubles through
selling state stakes in 11 major companies, including Slavneft (19.68%
stake), Rosneft (25%+1 share), Gazrom (3.373%), NPO Molniya (34.5%), the
Aeronautic company Samara (51%) and the Orlovsky steelworks (4.2%). 


The funds raised will also be used for debt servicing. 


Speaking at Tuesday’s cabinet meeting, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail
Kasyanov said that many of the principles of the new draft federal budget
are already being implemented this year. 


“The country realizes that the federal budget law is the basic document
determining the economic and financial policy of the state,” said the Prime
Minister. The government would continue to take steps to increase the
transparency of government finance thus allowing society “to better control
the authorities,” he said. 
*******

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