September 8, 2000    
This Date's Issues: 4498  4499  

Johnson's Russia List
#4499
8 September 2000
davidjohnson@erols.com


[Note from David Johnson:
1. AP: Russian Officials Deny Sub Report.
2. Interfax: RUSSIAN DEFENCE MINISTER CONFIRMS PLANNED ARMED FORCES CUTS.
3. Los Angeles Times: Maura Reynolds, Apartment Bombers Trained by 
Chechens, Russians Say.
4. Washington Post editorial: Mr. Putin's War.
5. Financial Times (UK): Charles Clover and Andrew Jack, Duma to demand 
more spending in budget.
6. From Edward Lucas--personal view from Moscow.
7. BBC MONITORING: RUSSIA'S PUTIN SUMS UP ACHIEVEMENTS OF UN MILLENNIUM 
SUMMIT.
8. Washington Post: Robert Kaiser, Kursk Crew Sent No Signals After 
Sinking, Putin Says.
9. Moscow Times EDITORIAL: No Safety For Moscow Prostitutes.
10. Vek: GEORGY SATAROV: "THE AUTHORITIES AND SOCIETY MUST BECOME 
PARTNERS" 
11. BBC MONITORING: HERO OF THE DAY INTERVIEWS UNION OF RIGHT 
FORCES HEAD NEMTSOV.
12. The Nation: Mark Hertsgaard, Russia's Environmental Crisis. 
OWING TO NEW DISASTERS AND PERSECUTIONS, ACTIVISM APPEARS TO BE 
RESURGENT.]


******


#1
Russian Officials Deny Sub Report 
Associated Press
Sept. 8, 2000


MOSCOW ­­ Russian officials on Friday hotly denied that a government
investigation had concluded that the Kursk nuclear submarine was sunk by a
missile fired by a Russian ship. 


The Federal Security Service would not comment on the report, published
Friday in Germany's Berliner Zeitung. But spokesmen for both the Russian
Navy and the special commission investigating the Kursk disaster adamantly
denied it. 


"This is nonsense. Cruisers never carry real warheads, only training
weapons, during military exercises," said Oksana Onishchenko, the
spokeswoman for the special commission head, Deputy Prime Minister Ilya
Klebanov. 


Naval spokesman Igor Dygalo also denied the possibility, the Interfax news
agency reported. 


According to the Berliner Zeitung report, Russia's Federal Security Service
concluded that the Kursk was hit by a new anti-submarine rocket fired by a
nuclear-powered cruiser, the Peter the Great. Both vessels were taking part
in naval exercises in the Barents Sea on Aug. 12 when the Kursk sank. All
118 men on board perished. 


The Berliner Zeitung said the Peter the Great had fired a Granit rocket
armed with a new target-seeking warhead and that the missile traveled 12
miles underwater. Then two underwater explosions were heard aboard the
cruiser, the report said. The Kursk was later determined to have been
within 1,312 feet of the rocket, the report said. 


The scenario was among about a half-dozen theories advanced in the Russian
media after the Kursk sank. But Onishchenko said Klebanov's commission had
never even considered it. 


Russian officials have speculated that the Kursk collided with another
vessel, although they have also admitted that the powerful explosions that
gashed the submarine's hull could have been caused by an internal problem.
American officials believe an internal torpedo misfire was responsible for
the tragedy. 


******


#2
RUSSIAN DEFENCE MINISTER CONFIRMS PLANNED ARMED FORCES CUTS
Interfax 


Kubinka test range (Moscow region), 8th September: Russian Defence Minister
Marshal Igor Sergeyev has confirmed reports of planned radical cuts in the
country's armed forces. 


Answering journalists' questions on Friday [8th September] on whether there
were indeed plans to cut back 350,000 servicemen between 2001 and 2003, the
marshal said: "Decisions on that have been taken, and proposals to be made
to the president on their implementation are now being drafted." 


According to Interfax sources, the plan is to reduce the numerical strength
of the Ground Troops by 180,000 servicemen, the navy by over 50,000 and the
air force by nearly 40,000. 


"There will be radical cuts in the Strategic Missile Troops, in the rear
services and auxiliary structures," the agency's sources also said. 


Furthermore, according to them, the numerical strength of military units of
other force structures in Russia [i.e. those outside the Defence Ministry]
is to be reduced by over 60,000 servicemen. In particular, the Internal
Troops of the Russian Interior Ministry are to be cut back by 20,000, the
Railway Troops by 10,000 and the Federal Border Guard Service by 5,000. 


Another 25,000 servicemen or so are to be cut back in other military
departments (the Federal Agency for Government Communications, the Federal
Security Service and others), Interfax sources noted. 


*******


#3
Los Angeles Times
September 8, 2000 
Apartment Bombers Trained by Chechens, Russians Say 
By MAURA REYNOLDS, Times Staff Writer


MOSCOW--A year after a series of four bombs decimated apartment 
buildings and killed more than 300 people in Moscow and southern Russia, 
security officials said Thursday that the attacks were organized by fighters 
from Chechnya but carried out by members of other ethnic groups. 
The Federal Security Service, or FSB, the main successor to the Soviet 
KGB, had previously blamed "Chechen terrorists" for the bombings, which set 
off a wave of panic that was a major impetus for Russia's current war on the 
separatist republic. 
But in a news conference closed to foreign journalists, FSB officials 
said the bombers, while acting on orders from Chechen rebels, were ethnic 
Karachais and Avars. 
The FSB has evidence that the terrorism was carried out by "a criminal 
gang of extremist Wahhabi Muslims trained in camps run by Chechen fighters," 
Vladimir Kozlov, deputy head of the agency's terrorism department, said in 
excerpts broadcast on the national ORT television network. 
The main culprits remain at large, Kozlov said. 
Karachais and Avars are two of dozens of ethnic groups in Russia's 
volatile Caucasus region. The former are from Karachayevo-Cherkessia and the 
latter from Dagestan, which borders Chechnya. All three republics are mostly 
Muslim. 
In a three-page press release, the FSB provided new details about how it 
believes the bomb attacks took place. But as in the past, the evidence 
presented to demonstrate a link to Chechen rebels was circumstantial: The 
methods used in the bombings matched plans found inside Chechnya at what the 
FSB described as a training camp run by a rebel known as Khattab, who goes by 
only one name. 
"We have reliable information showing that these crimes were connected 
and that they were organized and financed by field commanders of the illegal 
Chechen military formations," the press release states. 
Suspicions have surrounded the four bombings from the start since 
officials were quick to blame Chechens and slow to produce evidence 
supporting the link. 
The Interfax news agency quoted another FSB official, Maj. Gen. 
Alexander Shagako, as saying that 33 people are in custody in connection with 
the attacks and that 10 others are being sought. Six other suspects wanted in 
connection with the case are believed to have died in Chechnya during the 
fighting, Interfax said. 


******


#4
Washington Post
September 8, 2000
Editorial
Mr. Putin's War


IT DIDN'T GET much attention the other day when the United Nations high 
commissioner for refugees warned that about 170,000 Chechens are facing the 
prospect of a second grim winter in tents and other makeshift shelters 
outside their home province in Russia. The man most responsible for their 
plight, Russian President Vladimir Putin, happened to be in New York this 
week. But he wanted to talk about missile defense, not Chechnya, and 
Americans seemed more interested, if at all, in his handling of the sinking 
of the submarine Kursk. That tragic accident cost 118 sailors' lives. Mr. 
Putin's year-old war in Chechnya has claimed many more lives than that every 
week, and the war continues. 


Chechnya is a province of southern Russia, at the edge of the Caucasus 
Mountains, that in Soviet times was home to about 1 million people. After the 
Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, Chechnya sought to secede. Boris Yeltsin went 
to war to prevent this in 1994, killed many people and by 1996 essentially 
admitted defeat. Chechnya was allowed to go its own way.


Last summer, after Chechen guerrillas launched an attack on a neighboring 
province, then-Prime Minister Putin went to war again. At first the Russian 
people approved heartily, even as their troops essentially destroyed the 
capital city of Grozny and many of its civilian inhabitants. The war boosted 
Mr. Putin's popularity and propelled him into the presidency.


Now the war is less popular, but Mr. Putin does not seem to know how to end 
it. His occupying army is nominally in control of a mostly wrecked Chechnya, 
but snipers and guerrillas regularly kill his men. Russian soldiers routinely 
torture Chechen men and extort bribes from their relatives for their release. 
The elected Chechen government-in-hiding recently charged that its parliament 
speaker, Ruslan Alikhadjiev, has been tortured to death in a Moscow prison. 
Russian authorities acknowledge that they arrested the man four months ago, 
but claim they don't know where he is now. On Wednesday Russian troops 
detained, beat and extorted $600 from an Associated Press reporter who 
happened to be an ethnic Chechen.


For a time, Western leaders noisily insisted that Mr. Putin hold his generals 
accountable for war crimes, allow humanitarian workers to help Chechen 
refugees and initiate a dialogue with Chechen leaders. The Russian president 
has stiffed them on all counts, but no one makes much noise anymore. The war 
goes on, but outside of Chechnya most everyone has lost interest.


*******


#5
Financial Times (UK)
8 September 2000
[for personal use only]
Duma to demand more spending in budget
By Charles Clover and Andrew Jack


Russian legislators are gearing up to demand more political spending from
the government as a condition for approving the 2001 budget this autumn,
the Duma speaker warned this week. 


Before the opening of parliament today, Gennady Seleznyov, the speaker,
warned "The discussion will be very sharp on certain parts of the budget,
especially military reforms. The state of the military doesn't suit anyone
today, particularly in the aftermath of such tragic incidents" as the Kursk
accident. 


His statement - which reflects the views of the Communist party of which he
is deputy leader - highlights the new tensions between parliament,
government and the Kremlin. 


The remarks are particularly pointed given the previous several months of
close co-operation between the Duma and President Vladimir Putin - a
situation unprecedented during the era of Mr Putin's predecessor, Boris
Yeltsin. 


They also come after a warning late last month from the Fatherland-OVR
fraction that it would not vote for the 2001 budget unless military
spending was raised from 2.7 per cent to 3 per cent or more of GDP. 


Mr Seleznyov argued that the relatively low forecasts of revenues from oil
exports on which the 2001 budget is based gave enough margin to allow for
the creation of a reserve to be spent on the armed forces, public sector
pay rises and education and science. 


Mr Seleznyov was one of the architects of a contested deal to divide most
committee chairs in the parliament between the Communists and the
pro-Kremlin Unity party at the expense of minor parties after elections in
December last year. 


He described the relationship between the Communists and Unity as
"constructive" but added: "If Unity insists on liberal reforms such as
(Yegor) Gaidar (Russia's former deputy prime minister) implemented, then
the relationship will collapse." 


Mr Seleznyov stressed his support for Mr Putin's efforts to reign in the
excessive powers of Russia's 89 regional governors by weakening their
control over the Federation Council, the upper parliamentary chamber. But
he played down suggestions that any unresolved disagreements with the
Kremlin risked provoking similar attempts to dilute parliament's powers,
and said he had received assurances on the matter from Mr Putin. 


"I don't believe that the Duma's powers will be cut back," he said. "The
Duma does not possess such great powers as it is. But I am confident that
we will even achieve more powers." 


*******


#6
From: "edward lucas" <esl@economist.com>
Date: Fri, 08 Sep 2000 
Subject: From Edward Lucas--personal view from Moscow


I was quite wrong to describe the Russian advertising market as "one
of the most lucrative businesses in the country". Gas, oil, 
diamonds are lucrative, but the total TV advertising market is only
about $250m now--it was $500m in 1997-- reckons Gareth Brown, 
one of the readers of this list and an advertising man himself. 


It is all the more pleasurable to point out my mistake and get a
gratuitously favourable reference to you-know-where into the bargain. 
Gareth writes: "$250m is roughly the size of the combined Baltic
states' TV markets, half the size of Hungary, one quarter the size of 
Poland, one hundredth the size of Germany or the UK, or one
thousandth the size of the USA." So there. 


Fair point--what I really meant was, perhaps, that the Russian media
world is, if not lucrative compared to natural resources, at least a 
notorious source of easy money, determined by kick-backs and
intimidation rather than talent. The notorious companies that sell
the 
advertising funnel the revenues anywhere but into the broadcasting
infrastructure, as the Ostankino fire shows.


Someone else took me to task for saying that it was "odd" that the
Russians are more forgiving towards Putin over the Kursk fiasco 
than the West has been. Surely the Russians are the people best
equipped to judge their leaders. We may think that he is an 
incompetent, sinister, mediocre, compulsive liar, but if they like
him--hey, that's democracy. What I meant to say was that Putin's 
behaviour, viewed from the West, reported by Western journalists and
judged by Western standards, looks very bad. Seen from 
Russia, reported by RTR and with Russian expectations, or lack of
them, about how a leader should behave during a national tragedy, 
it looks a lot less bad. And that is odd. 


The point is, I think that Russians are very tolerant, by our
standards too tolerant, of their leaders' remoteness, greed,
arrogance, and 
general horribleness. Arguably, that's their business. But then we
shouldn't have illusions that they, their values, habits etc are 
basically like ``us''--meaning western countries with centuries of
democracy--which is a principal principle of Hurrah-ishm.


That prompted another response from the same chap, suggesting that "I
think the difference between us is that I like the Russians; I 
think they are at least as like us as Hitler's Germans were; and I
don't believe that any people are condemned by their history always 
to repeat the same mistakes. Fundamental things have already changed
in Russia, and given two or three generations and a good 
deal of luck, they ought to work their way through to what we would
regard as a more reasonable economic and political system."


No disrespect, but that sort of reply is classic Hurrah-ism, lightly
disguised as realism. 


I don't think that even Pipes and Brzezinski would argue against the
idea that within two or three generations, and with a lot of luck, 
Russia can become a well-functioning happy country. My problem with
this is that this happy prospect is, even by the boosterists' 
own admission a) distant and b) unlikely, (it is a bad idea in almost
any walk of life to base plans on a large dose of good luck having 
a benign effect, many years ahead). And what really puts acid in my
pen when I write about Russia is that the westerners are so 
unwilling to look at what is likely to happen in the short and medium
term. Authoritarianism, collapse, upheaval, stagnation, 
Africanisation--all these are just as much worth discussing, arguably
more so--than the pollyannaish view that "it'll be all right in the 
end".


We have a frightful tendency in the west to compress timescales. As
soon as something is agreed to be possible, we start expecting 
that it will happen tomorrow (the fact that this practically now does
happen in software and the internet probably increases the 
misperception as far as the real world is concerned). And secondly we
tend to hype good news: a few western hotels open in 
Moscow, and the whole tourism sector is--in principle--sorted out.
Recruits to western companies are fantastically bright, able, 
impressive people--so Russia is a limitlessly deep pool of human
talent.


I don't think personal likes or dislikes should come in to it. I'm
not actually sure what it means to "like Russians", or to "dislike 
Russians"--in almost any country there will be likeable and repellent
features and people, but they shouldn't affect our analysis of 
politics and economics. I also get shirty when people start ascribing
my views to my supposed "russophobia". It is possible to be a 
russophobe (whether that means fear, hatred, jealousy, or just
dislike of drunken sobornost) and still think that the country is
going to become rich and powerful. And one can be a russophile
(meaning lots
of Russian friends, loving the culture, even the food) and still 
believe that it cannot exist much longer as an advanced industrial
country.


It all goes to the heart of the Western misunderstanding about
Russia--the tendency to say that it is all so mysterious and nasty
that the best thing is to pretend that it is going to be all right,
and
the Russians know best what to do with their own country. Actually, 
Putin's sinister, mediocre nature, which is worrying enough, is
compounded by the fact that most Russians seems to like him, 
because it means that there are few limits to his power. Look at
Belarus. Lukashenko seems like a thuggish clown to us, but because 
Belarus doesn't really matter, we don't feel any compulsion to
sanitise him or it (the Germans, who are the softest touch in Europe
on Belarus, are a bit different). Imagine if Putin was the president
of
Belarus--we would say tht this was just further proof of the
country's hopelessness. But because Russia has oil (and therefore a
temporary
prosperity), plus nukes, and is big, we can't take the stance 
that we would about about a smaller country (contain the damage,
minimise the risk, encourage the next generation)


I am tempted to recast that well-worn line of Churchills on the lines
of Russia is a monstrosity wrapped in self-deception and 
surrounded by wishful thinking.


I can already hear someone bleating that Putin is actually not that
bad, and look at all the laws that are going through the Duma etc . 
Now that I am properly back from holiday, I feel a bit more able to
take the temperature. 


1) The cake is being resliced between out-of-favour oligarchs and the
inner circle. I am pretty sure that the attacks on Sibneft are for 
show, which shows that Abramovich is still "in". Berezovsky is hard
to read (even when he is dead, somebody will be saying that this 
is just a clever manoeuvre). But the open letter to Putin looks to me
like an obvious public breach. 


2) Putin is turning up the heat on the regions again, but more
selectively. They are investigating Moscow's murky property dealings, 
but, for the moment, leaving Tatarstan alone. Putin's problem is that
he simply doesn't have the people to deal with the rgions 
properly. He can try making dramatic examples, but cleaning up
regional government systematically, even if he wanted to do it, is
all 
but impossible at the moment. I am pretty sure that he will get
bogged down.


3) There are some stabs at pepping up public admnistration--or at
least being seen to do so. Sacking the bosses of the Odintsovo 
customs house looked quite dramatic. But I doubt that this is going
to work. I think the chinovniki have already rumbled Putin, and 
know that it is going to be basically business as usual. 


Putin's key shortcoming over the last few months, I think, has been
his failure to get the people on his side. For all his loathsome 
past, personal shortcomings, and muddled ideas, it is conceivable
that he really means some of the things he said in his 
state-of-thenation speech to parliament (a remarkable document, by
the way, and well worth reading at 
http://en.rian.ru/rian/poslanie.php). But I think he simply doesn't
have a clue how to make it happen. It's the old story of top-down 
reform, and contempt and for and ignorance about the Narod. The only
way in which a country can become properly administered is 
when the state and society are linked by lots of different feedback
channels--everything from the media which reports abuses, elected 
officials who want to win popularity by sorting them out, ombudsmen
and public auditors who control the state for a living, judges and 
public prosecutors who tackle criminal abuses of state power,
pressure groups and other bits of civil society that focus public
opinion, channel grievances and so forth. Almost all of this is
missing or
broken in Russia. Of course with the best will in the world it won't
be created over night, but Putin is not even really trying.


On that happy note, have a nice weekend.
Edward


The usual reminder: to subscribe to this weekly mailing, send an
e-mail to 
edwardlucas-subscribe@egroups.com


*******


#7
BBC MONITORING 
RUSSIA'S PUTIN SUMS UP ACHIEVEMENTS OF UN MILLENNIUM SUMMIT
Text of report by Russia TV on 8th September 


[Presenter] Today is the final day of the visit to New York of Russian
President Vladimir Putin. He is still to hold a number of bilateral
meetings. However, he has already summed up the results of his attendance
at the UN Millennium Summit. Yevgeniy Piskunov continues the subject. 


[Correspondent] At a final news conference, Vladimir Putin dwelt in detail
on the tasks of the United Nations. 


[Putin] We consider the confirmation of the authority of the United Nations
an important result of the summit. The expediency of preserving the UN's
supreme role in coordinating the activities of regional and subregional
organizations, creating an effective system of collective security and
controlling global processes was confirmed. Only the Security Council has
the right to sanction extreme measures in reaction to a crisis - the use of
force - and to do this on behalf of the whole international community. 


[Correspondent] A Japanese journalist asked the Russian President whether
the Security Council would be expanded: a lot had been said in the
corridors of the summit about the efforts on the part of Germany and Japan
to add two more members to the five-strong council. 


[Putin] In order to be an effective instrument in solving the tasks put to
it the United Nations must rely on the countries which have weight and
consequence and which exercise influence in international affairs. I can
tell you as a representative of the Japanese mass media that Russia
believes that Japan is undoubtedly one of such countries. 


[Correspondent] Participants in the news conference wanted to know not just
what Vladimir Putin thought on UN subjects and international issues but
also about the Russian economy. 


[Putin] We still have to do a lot. I think that one of the main tasks
facing us is to strengthen state institutions which would be capable of
controlling and ensuring the current legislation. 


[Correspondent] The subject was further developed by a question about the
shares of Russian Public TV which Boris Berezovskiy allegedly decided to
transfer to journalists. 


[Putin] He only deserves praise for this. However, it is important that
these should be independent people. If, on the other hand, we witness a
transfer of shares from one pocket to another, if these people are
controlled by Mr Berezovskiy, we are not likely to see a necessary effect. 


[Correspondent] The main events will be Putin's meetings with Fidel Castro
and the Russian president's interview with American CNN channel. Vladimir
Putin will also appear on the famous Larry King's show. 


******


#8
Washington Post
September 8, 2000
[for personal use only]
Kursk Crew Sent No Signals After Sinking, Putin Says
By Robert G. Kaiser


NEW YORK, Sept. 7-The 118 sailors aboard the submarine Kursk probably 
died quickly after it sank, and they never sent any signals from the 
distressed sub after it went down, according to Russian President Vladimir 
Putin. 


Speaking to media executives and journalists at a dinner here Wednesday, 
Putin made no attempt to blame Western submarines for the calamity--even 
though his minister of defense, Igor Sergeyev, has repeatedly claimed that 
the Kursk went down after colliding with a British or American sub in the 
Barents Sea.


Shortly after the sinking, Russian naval officials said that survivors 
trapped on board were tapping on the ship's hull. But Putin said flatly that 
this never happened. The signals that were picked up from the sunken sub came 
from "a mechanical device on board" that went off automatically, he said.


The United States this week gave Putin detailed information on the accident, 
including sonar data that U.S. listening devices picked up on two explosions 
that apparently doomed the ship. According to Pentagon officials, the United 
States timed the explosions precisely (at 7:28 and 7:30 a.m. GMT Aug. 12), 
and said the second was 45 to 50 times greater than the first. The second 
blast was equal to between one and five tons of TNT, the Pentagon said.


This information is consistent with the interpretation U.S. officials have 
offered for the accident--that a small explosion, probably of the propellant 
in a Russian torpedo, ignited a larger explosion of one or more warheads on 
torpedoes carried by the Kursk. If this is how the accident occurred, 
officials said, most or all of the crew probably perished with the second 
explosion.


At the dinner here Wednesday, Putin offered this as one of three plausible 
explanations for what happened. The others were that the Kursk collided with 
another submarine and hit the ocean floor so hard that a torpedo detonated; 
or that it struck a World War II mine still on the ocean floor. Putin 
declined to say on the record which of the three explanations he believed was 
most likely, but he gave no hint that he thought another submarine was 
involved.


The dinner with 20 media executives and journalists took place at New York's 
famous 21 Club. The gathering was hosted by Tom Brokaw, the NBC anchorman, 
who interviewed Putin in Moscow last June. Brokaw offered recently to host an 
event that would allow Putin to meet some American journalists, and the 
Russian president accepted. The group included Joseph Lelyveld and Leonard 
Downie Jr., editors of the New York Times and Washington Post, respectively; 
Peter Kann, publisher of the Wall Street Journal; Diane Sawyer of ABC; Katie 
Couric and Tim Russert of NBC; and top editors of Time, Newsweek and the New 
Yorker, Walter Isaacson, Richard Smith and David Remnick.


Putin was asked why he stayed on vacation at the Black Sea for days after the 
Kursk went down, a decision that caused political problems at home. He didn't 
answer directly but said his first instinct was to follow the example of 
medical doctors who respect the Hippocratic oath to first "do no harm."


He said he was told the submarine was designed with rescue mechanisms. And at 
first, he said, the Russian Navy was certain it "had everything they needed 
in their own hands to rescue this boat," which is why it didn't ask for 
foreign help.


According to Putin's account, within hours of discovering the Kursk on the 
sea floor, the Russian navy sent a "submersible vehicle" to examine it. When 
this vehicle was unable to attach to the sub, the first interpretation was 
that brisk currents were the problem. When a second attempt failed, navy 
officers realized there was something terribly wrong. Designers said that if 
the docking failed, that meant there was no air left in the sub, and no 
survivors on board, Putin explained.


This sequence of events differs substantially from accounts given earlier by 
Russian military officials, who for days after the accident said the crew 
might have remained alive. He didn't say so directly, but Putin's account 
suggested that he may have been told soon after the sinking that there would 
be no survivors.


Putin said his navy now believes that the big blast destroyed the bulkheads 
that separated the various compartments of the sub, allowing water to flood 
the entire vessel.


Putin also acknowledged that his government made mistakes in the way it 
disclosed information about the incident. "It could have been handled 
better--I agree with that," he said.


Correspondent Daniel Williams in Moscow and staff writer Robert Suro in 
Washington contributed to this report.


******


#9
Moscow Times
September 8, 2000 
EDITORIAL: No Safety For Moscow Prostitutes 


You've seen them. The hundreds of women that gather nightly on Moscow's 
busiest thoroughfares, in courtyards, alleyways and even the quietest nooks 
of the city's more peaceful neighborhoods. Cars skim past, headlights 
shining, and deals are quickly brokered. Like Chechen arrest quotas and 
random document checks, prostitution has become such an intrinsic element of 
the Moscow city tableau that it's easy to forget what a miserable business it 
is. 


Occasionally there are reminders. Take Thursday's early morning attack on a 
group of prostitutes gathered on the northern end of the Garden Ring Road. 
The grenade attack left 16 people injured, eight seriously enough to be 
hospitalized. Apart from one Muscovite, the victims were from the Tula and 
Ivanovo regions, Moldova and Ukraine. 


Bomb-tossing is an increasingly frequent gesture in this violent city; a 
quick fix for what irks you. The casual attitude is all the worse for being 
commercially driven. Moscow's bustling sex trade f 70,000 women reportedly 
work as prostitutes f has already reduced women to a dispensable commodity. 
Thursday's incident strips them of their humanity altogether. 


Police have not yet ruled out the latest motive du jour, Chechen-sponsored 
terrorism. But what seems far likelier is that the attack was a simple chess 
move in the city's ongoing turf warfare over the prostitution business. 


Moscow's sex trade is such a success that it has several spin-off enterprises 
as well f including roadside service for travelers heading in from 
Sheremetyevo Airport and a citywide network of old women who stand just down 
the road from the prostitutes, holding signs saying they will rent out their 
apartments for nightly trysts. It is a dirty business, like anywhere, that 
thrives on a steady supply of impoverished and desperate young women. And in 
Russia, it is given an extra boost by the country's absolute lack of 
protective legislation and a society that continues to put women low on the 
food chain. 


The majority of Moscow's prostitutes are reportedly from the regions and 
neighboring countries, driven to Russia's capital city out of aching poverty 
and then literally enslaved, earning next to nothing while being exposed 
every day to abuse and the very real dangers of life on the street. People 
can dismiss Thursday's attack as something that could never happen to them f 
as a less morally outrageous crime than last month's underpass bombing, for 
example f but that only skirts the terrible truth that Moscow's most 
miserable job just got worse. 


******


#10
Vek
No. 35
[translation from RIA Novosti for personal use only]
GEORGY SATAROV: "THE AUTHORITIES AND SOCIETY MUST BECOME 
PARTNERS"
Georgy SATAROV, President of the INDEM Foundation, 
interviewed by Larisa DMITRIYEVA

Question: Russia is suffering one catastrophe after 
another.
The society has been paralysed, not knowing how to react to 
them and whom to blame. What is it, fatal circumstances or a 
logical pattern?
Answer: Both. Circumstances have a pattern, too, and there 
have been periods in our history when more technogenic 
catastrophes happened than ordinarily. An industrial society is 
developing on the foundations created by man, and this is by 
far not the safest and most reliable structure. We invariably 
try to find a rational explanation for everything that happens 
around us, but this is not always possible. Some things follow 
a logical pattern, while others are simply a chance 
coincidence. 

Question: What is logical in our life?
Answer: One logical thing is the obsolescence of fixed 
assets (this does not concern the Kursk tragedy, however). The 
technogenic medium must be regularly renewed. Only in this case 
can we expect it to be reliable and "friendly." This is a 
colossal problem for a country that is in a dramatic economic 
situation, and this problem can become even more acute in three 
to four years. We must prepare for this, as catastrophes can 
happen anywhere.

Question: Politicians at all possible levels have already 
said that this is the result of a decade of not very wise 
reforms. 
Answer: We traditionally regard January 1992, when price 
liberalisation was announced, as the beginning of reforms. In 
fact, reforms began long before that, with the appearance of 
first cooperative enterprises, banks and stock exchanges. Price 
liberalisation was not a part of the reforms undertaken under a 
long-term plan of overhauling the economy, but an attempt to 
save a dying country. (In the summer of 1991, Vice-Premier 
Shcherbakov sent a letter on the economic situation to the 
Soviet Supreme Soviet, describing that situation in colours 
that even Zyuganov could not have dreamed about.) 
We saved the organism, tore it out of the clutches of 
clinical death, but faced its grave consequences. We have been 
actually dealing with them in the years since then. 
Regrettably, the painful transition period did not result in 
the creation of a streamlined system of reforms, where 
requisite compensation measures would be taken before negative 
consequences had their effect. 

Question: You mentioned the obsolescence of fixed assets. 
Do you think we should also speak about the wearing out of 
human material, which can be another reason for accidents and 
catastrophes?
Answer: No, I don't. Take the 1998 crisis. It was largely 
dealt with not owing to the efforts of the authorities, but 
thanks to that human material which was forged during the years 
of spontaneous reforms into a class of businessmen who can rely 
mainly on themselves. These are not fine words, as there are 
many examples to prove this. 
And yet, the transition period is not over yet; it will 
last for some 15 years and it would be easier to combat its 
consequences, including different tragic events, if society 
were not split. Boris Yeltsin undertook several attempts to 
rally the nation, as he was aware that this is vital in the 
difficult transition period. But all his attempts were doomed 
to failure because of the colossal but objective destructive 
and negative burden that weighed down on him. It was not by 
chance that when Yeltsin introduced Putin to us, he described 
him as a man who would consolidate society. By the way, the 
political elite felt the need for such leader, if only because 
he would not be weighed down by the burden that broke the back 
of the first Russian president. 
Putin is trying to consolidate society, although I don't 
think his efforts are very successful. If you want peace, don't 
look for enemies inside the country. There are ways of 
resolving problems other than by blaming all our misfortunes on 
oligarchs and the mass media. 

Question: What should the authorities do to win the trust 
of society?
Answer: First, they should be more open. Putin is facing 
extremely important tasks many of which Yeltsin planned but had 
no time to fulfil. For example, he should carry out the painful 
social reform. It seems to me that the authorities, although 
they know that this should be done, are afraid that society 
will not understand their actions. They are elaborating 
"cover-up operations," instead of honestly and openly speaking 
with society. 
If this is so, we can repeat the major strategic mistake 
made in 1992, when Yeltsin and Gaidar refused to speak with the 
people. The people can forgive hardships, but not lies. One 
must not be afraid of one's own people. 
Second, a well-informed person told me about a saying very 
popular in the Kremlin now. Here it is: "Life is much simpler 
than some smart asses say." This is an extremely dangerous 
delusion that buried quite a few wonderful plans. But I'm 
afraid the Kremlin is living by this saying now. The 
authorities must give up the idea of "the presumption of 
simplicity" of life and simplicity of methods with the help of 
which it can be improved. 
And third, it's time we dropped the illusion that the 
authorities alone must deal with all our problems. We need 
partnership in the broadest sense of the word. 


*******


#11
BBC MONITORING 
HERO OF THE DAY INTERVIEWS UNION OF RIGHT FORCES HEAD NEMTSOV
Source: NTV, Moscow, in Russian 1530 gmt 7 Sep 00 


NTV's "Hero of the Day" programme, presented by Andrey Norkin, interviewed
the chairman of the Union of Right Forces faction in the State Duma, the
lower house of the Russian parliament, Boris Nemtsov. Speaking about the
autumn session of the State Duma and the issues to be dealt with at the
sessions, Nemtsov explained that his faction, the Yabloko and Fatherland
All Russia factions have agreed on a proposal to set up a parliamentary
commission to investigate the disaster of the Kursk nuclear submarine and
to clarify the way in which the government and the military acted regarding
the rescue of the submariners. He stressed that the Union of Right Forces
regard such disasters as inevitable unless Russia goes over to having a
professional army. We believe that "if expenditure on the military is
simply increased, that is arithmetically, this will not lead to anything
positive either in the army or in the country as a whole. We cannot get by
without reforming the army, without adopting a law on alternative service,
without servicemen being employed to serve in Chechnya, for example, on a
contract basis." 


Asked about the position of the mass media and its the funding of them,
Nemtsov said that his faction was opposed to money allocated in the budget
for the media being used to fund a web site to fight terrorism. He said
that, if clauses in the budget pertaining to media-allocated money for such
purpose were not clarified before 26th September when the first reading of
the budget in parliament is scheduled to take place, it is unlikely that
his faction and others would vote for the budget. 


Speaking about the attempts by Russian business tycoon Boris Berezovskiy to
maintain control of the Russian Public Television channel by giving away a
package of the shares to journalists, Nemtsov said: "I think that
Berezovskiy's proposal is right. I think that Russian Public Television
should belong to the public. I thing that, if [Russian President Vladimir]
Putin agreed to give up his shares to journalists and simply to prestigious
and well-versed people, that he would be displaying strength and not
weakness. No one would reproach him for trying to introduce censorship into
the mass media. But I think the thinking in the Kremlin is quite different.
The mood in the Kremlin is to establish total control over the federal
electronic mass media." Nemtsov went on to say that "I don't think that
anyone has the right to have a monopoly over the truth, anyone, either
Putin, or Berezovskiy, or [Media-Most Holding chief Vladimir] Gusinskiy. In
this respect, if any of these three has control, then that will be a
catastrophe for the country. It is not important who. In this sense, Putin
does not differ in any way from Berezovskiy and Gusinskiy. No one has the
right to control." 


Nemtsov suggested that no-one should hold more than 22 per cent of the
shares of a public television company, but an attempt to take control of
the mass media would result in "brain-washing, the manipulation of public
opinion, and ultimately to an outburst of corruption and theft. The fact is
that as soon as the authorities take control of the mass media, the
officials feel that they cannot be punished and can act in an irresponsible
manner". 


Nemtsov concluded by saying that the position of the Union of Right Forces
regarding the president and the authorities will definitely be decided in
the next few months. "We shall never support the usurping of power by a
single person. We are categorically opposed to the president taking control
of the mass media and dictating his will to citizens," Nemtsov stated,
adding that the president is obliged by the constitution to act as a
guarantor of free speech. 


******


#12
The Nation
September 18/25, 2000
Russia's Environmental Crisis 
OWING TO NEW DISASTERS AND PERSECUTIONS, ACTIVISM APPEARS TO BE RESURGENT. 
by MARK HERTSGAARD (hertsgaard@email.msn.com)


Mark Hertsgaard is the author of Earth Odyssey: Around the World in Search of 
Our Environmental Future (Broadway) and a contributor to NPR's Living On 
Earth program, which broadcast a radio version of this story over the weekend 
of September 1-3. Research support provided by the Investigative Fund of the 
Nation Institute. 


The Russian nuclear submarine tragedy has shocked the world, but it has only 
reinforced what the country's most prominent environmentalist, Alexandr 
Nikitin, has been saying for years. A former submarine captain himself, 
Nikitin made international headlines in 1996 by blowing the whistle on the 
Russian Navy's ecologically disastrous mishandling of submarines. Now the 
government wants to re-prosecute Nikitin for his whistleblowing, on the 
bizarre grounds that it violated his civil rights the first time it tried to 
convict him. But the government's strategy may backfire: Its persecution of 
Nikitin and its dismantling of environmental laws appear to be sparking a 
resurgence of green activism in Russia.


When the Kursk sank on August 12, killing all 118 crew members, Russians were 
saddened and outraged--not just by the deaths and the government's ham-handed 
response but by the tragedy's deeper symbolism: Russia seemed to be falling 
apart. "There's no money to take care of anything...[so] the accidents just 
keep on happening," Sergei Titkov, a Moscow security guard, said after the 
Ostankino television tower caught fire August 27 in a further illustration of 
the nation's technological frailty. Just as an apparent lack of training and 
maintenance doomed the Kursk, so does inadequate repair and upkeep plague 
Russia's entire industrial infrastructure. Thus the Kursk tragedy may turn 
out to be but the tip of the proverbial iceberg. The cash-strapped military 
has abandoned some 110 additional mothballed nuclear submarines on land and 
sea without proper environmental or security safeguards, according to 
Nikitin. Likewise, countless factories, pipelines and other increasingly 
decrepit civilian facilities pose a growing risk to human life and natural 
ecosystems, both in Russia and beyond.


When Nikitin co-wrote a 1996 report revealing that the Northern Fleet had 
been dumping old reactors and spent fuel into the Barents Sea and on the Kola 
Peninsula for decades, he called the contamination "a Chernobyl in slow 
motion." The Federal Security Police (FSB), Russia's recast KGB, promptly 
threw him in jail. In the first of many irregularities, he was charged with 
espionage on the basis of a law written months after he was imprisoned. 
Nikitin spent the next four years fighting for his freedom. Finally, last 
December, the City Court of St. Petersburg acquitted him of all charges and 
made a point of criticizing the FSB for improprieties in the case. In April 
the Supreme Court upheld the lower court's ruling.


Nikitin soon left for California to accept the Goldman Environmental Prize, 
which he'd won in 1997 but hadn't been allowed to leave Russia to accept. As 
he strode across the stage in Berkeley, Nikitin still looked the career 
military man, with close-cropped graying hair and a clipped, serious manner. 
But he did know how to tell a joke. After a heavily accented "Thank you very 
much," Nikitin said, in Russian, "I would like to apologize that I was late 
for this ceremony exactly three years." But no one was laughing a few days 
later when Russia's Prosecutor General announced that the government of 
President Vladimir Putin wanted to retry Nikitin. Officials at the 
prosecutor's office were unavailable for comment. But it's clear that Russian 
media coverage has made Alexandr Nikitin a hero to many politically aware 
Russians--a successful symbol of dissent. His colleagues believe that the 
campaign against him is aimed at discouraging others from following his 
example.


"What we have shown through the Nikitin case is that, if you fight, you're 
able to get results, even if your enemy is the KGB," says Frederic Hauge, 
president of the Bellona Foundation, the environmental group, based in Russia 
and Norway, that published Nikitin's original exposé. Hauge says Nikitin's 
court victories have been particularly inspiring to young Russians, who are 
now flocking to join environmental groups. "This gives young people a hope 
and also a weapon--the legal system--which they have not been aware of 
before. After seventy years with Communism, where you have been shot if you 
have disagreed with the government, this has ended up to be a very, very 
important symbolic case."


Also helping to swell the movement's ranks is the government's blatant 
assault on environmental regulations. Acting by decree, Putin abolished the 
State Committee for Environmental Protection in May and transferred its 
responsibilities to the Ministry of Natural Resources, the pro-development 
agency that licenses development of Russia's minerals and petroleum. 
Environmentalists accused Putin of "putting the goat in charge of the cabbage 
patch." Svet Zabelin of the Socio-Ecological Union, one of Russia's leading 
environmentalists, charges that this marks a return to the Soviet era, when 
ministries rubber-stamped their own environmental behavior: "During the 
Soviet period, each ministry had an environmental department, but it was not 
outside control.... Now we are simply [returning to] the same situation--an 
absolutely Soviet solution."


But there are signs the government's actions are provoking a popular 
backlash. The Russian news agency Interfax reports that 87 percent of 
Russians oppose Putin's abolition of the environmental agency. And a 
coalition of fifty environmental groups is organizing a national referendum 
that would overturn Putin's decree. Activists claim they have collected 
400,000 signatures--a fifth of what's needed by the end of October to put the 
referendum on the ballot next year. "[Organizing] the referendum has truly, 
finally, united the environmental NGO movement in Russia," says David Gordon 
of the Oakland-based Pacific Environment and Resources Center. Traveling 
throughout Russia in August, Gordon reported that "NGOs have been actively 
discussing it at every meeting I have attended. It's their primary goal right 
now."


Activists want to restore the environmental committee even though they have 
criticized it as weak and too cozy with industry. "The committee was badly 
run," says Nikitin, "but it was doing an important job." Vera Mishenko, who 
founded Russia's first public-interest environmental law firm, Ecojuris, is 
suing to have Putin's decree declared illegal. She says documents generated 
by the environmental committee were helpful when Ecojuris stopped Exxon-Mobil 
and other transnational corporations from dumping toxic waste into the sea 
near Sakhalin Island. "Russian law requires that an environmental impact 
assessment be done before a permit is granted," Mishenko explains, "and when 
the State Committee told Exxon this, Exxon wrote back to complain, 'You 
promised us no inspections!'" Smiling, Mishenko adds, "We published this 
correspondence."


Mishenko believes the Putin government's anti-environmental initiatives 
reflect a simple goal: sell off Russia's remaining natural resources at 
maximum speed to attract the foreign investment Putin sees as vital to 
rejuvenating the moribund economy. (Of course, former President Boris Yeltsin 
tried this strategy and only ended up enriching the nation's infamous 
oligarchs.) Besides abolishing the environmental committee, Putin is 
overseeing a crackdown on green activists. Ecojuris and other groups have 
been accused of dodging taxes; when inspectors audit the groups, they gain 
access to membership lists and other confidential information. Putin, who 
headed the FSB in 1998 and 1999, has asserted that environmental groups 
provide cover for foreign spies.


Meanwhile, Russia's breathtaking environmental deterioration continues. One 
million tons of oil--the equivalent of twenty-five Exxon Valdez spills--leak 
out of pipelines into Russia's soil and water every month. Recent studies 
blame the disastrous state of the nation's air, soil and water for 30 percent 
of the precipitate decline in average Russian life spans. The impoverished 
economy makes matters worse, leaving little money for cleanup or repair. The 
nuclear submarine disaster illustrates the danger of operating military 
hardware without sufficient funding, but countless Russian industrial 
facilities are running the same risk. Says activist Zabelin, "The chances for 
a different accident are of course increasing, because we have the same 
equipment as twenty years ago. This is a kind of dangerous stability."


Nowhere are conditions more dire than near nuclear complexes. The most famous 
is Chernobyl, where the 1986 accident released 100 times as much radiation as 
the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs combined. Today, 3 million youngsters still 
need treatment for Chernobyl-related ailments. At the Mayak complex in 
Chelyabinsk, where the Soviet Union built nuclear weapons during the cold 
war, Lake Karachay ranks as perhaps the most polluted spot on earth; it 
contains 120 million curies of radioactive waste, including seven times the 
amount of strontium-90 and cesium-137 that was released at Chernobyl. By 
2020-30, half the children born in Chelyabinsk are expected to suffer "severe 
genetic deficiencies," British parliamentary aide David Lowry recently wrote 
in the Guardian.


Yet Mayak will receive tons of additional nuclear waste if Putin's minister 
of atomic energy, Yevgeny Adamov, gets his way. Adamov wants to change 
Russian law to allow the import of nuclear waste. Such imports, claims 
Adamov, could pay for scores of new nuclear power plants for Russia and help 
clean up sites like Lake Karachay. Nikitin opposes the plan, saying, "This is 
the source where Adamov will get funds to develop the nuclear industry, but 
it's like a snowball, always getting bigger. The more reactors he builds, the 
more waste there will be, and the more problems he will encounter."


Nikitin points out that Washington wields considerable influence on this 
matter. Under the old Atoms for Peace program, the United States regulates 
the nuclear waste that Russia wants to import from Japan, Taiwan and South 
Korea. "I think our job is to influence not only the Russian side but also 
the American side," Nikitin told me, "because without the consent of the 
Americans and the Europeans it's impossible to import nuclear fuel or 
radioactive waste."


The proposed environmental referendum would reassert Russia's existing ban on 
nuclear waste imports as well as reverse Putin's decree, but will it pass? 
Activists Mishenko and Zabelin fear not; they worry that the government will 
seize upon the involvement of Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund in 
drafting the referendum to discredit it as a foreign plot. But Frederic Hauge 
of Bellona believes such pessimism underestimates the environmental fervor of 
the Russian people. "I have seen the local fights around Russia," he says. 
"When they tried to move nuclear waste from the Kola Peninsula down to 
Chelyabinsk, there were 10,000 people in the streets.... I think we will see 
the referendum during the next year."


For his part, Alexandr Nikitin must first survive his Supreme Court 
appearance on September 13. The stakes are high. If the court does grant the 
government's request for a retrial, it would distract Nikitin from the 
referendum fight and probably discourage ordinary Russians from enlisting in 
the environmental cause. A ruling in favor of Nikitin, on the other hand, 
would reinforce the message of earlier verdicts: In today's Russia, maybe you 
can fight the system and win.


******