Johnson's Russia List #5593 12 December 2001 A CDI Project www.cdi.org [Note from David Johnson: 1. Reuters: U.S. nearing ABM Treaty withdrawal. 2. Reuters: Moscow opposes NATO expansion despite better ties. 3. San Francisco Chronicle: Bill Wallace, Terrorists shop in Russia for nuclear 'dirty bombs' 4. Luba Schwartzman: ORT Review. 5. Wall Street Journal: S. Frederick Starr, Russia’s Ominous Afghan Gambit. 6. Peter Lavelle: Untimely Thoughts - How much of Putin is a good thing for Russia? (re Constitution Day and presidential terms) 7. Izvestia: PRIMAKOV TO HEAD CHAMBER OF COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY. 8. RFE/RL RUSSIAN POLITICAL WEEKLY: Laura Belin, WILL TV-6 GO OUT WITH A BANG OR A WHIMPER? 9. Novaya gazeta: THE FOX IS BEST GUARDIAN OF THE HENHOUSE. (re securities market) 10. Izvestia: RUSSIANS DO NOT KNOW THEIR CONSTITUTION. (poll) 11. Moscow Times editorial: Constitution's Strength Is in Immutability. 12. Moscow Times: Oksana Yablokova, Constitution Turns 8, Public Still Ambivalent. 13. Nezavisimaya Gazeta: Lidiya Andrusenko, A PERSONALIZED CONSTITUTION. The Constitution may be amended in eight years. Time to change the Constitution - to suit a new president. 14. Time Europe: Yuri Zarakhovich, Russians Happy to Follow the Leader. Putin’s foreign and domestic policies are worlds apart.] ****** #1 U.S. nearing ABM Treaty withdrawal By Carol Giacomo, Diplomatic Correspondent WASHINGTON, Dec 11 (Reuters) - The White House on Tuesday said the "time is near" to move beyond the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty and there were signs President George W. Bush would soon formally announce U.S. withdrawal plans. "We will need to move beyond the ABM treaty. That time is near and the president will let you know when that time has arrived," National Security Council spokesman Sean McCormack told Reuters in Charleston, South Carolina, where Bush was speaking at The Citadel military school. During the speech, Bush reiterated that the United States "must move beyond the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty," which prohibits the kind of national missile defense system the president is determined to develop. He stopped short of announcing a formal U.S. intent to withdraw -- a move vehemently opposed by Russia, European allies and opposition Democrats who consider the ABM pact a cornerstone of the international arms control regime. But administration officials privately have told Republican Senate staff members that Bush expects to give formal notice in January of a required six-month withdrawal period from the treaty, Senate sources told Reuters. "That's what our people have been hearing" -- that the administration plans to formally withdraw from the treaty, one Republican source said. An announcement could come any time. The Russian news agency Itar-Tass and CNN reported separately on Tuesday that the Bush administration would soon officially announce it was leaving the treaty. CRITICS ALARMED Critics reacted with alarm. Democratic Senate Leader Tom Daschle, asked about the withdrawal reports, said: "That is not a good idea. It would be a real setback for U.S. defense and foreign policy." Abandoning the ABM pact would be a "slap in the face" to the many people who have worked for years on reducing nuclear weapons, Daschle told CNN. "I would hope they would reconsider." John Issacs of the Council for a Liveable World said that if Bush does formally withdraw from the pact, it means another victory for administration "ideologues" who last week helped scuttle a conference in Geneva on strengthening the Biological Weapons Convention. The goal of this faction is "to destroy arms control and permit the United States to act unilaterally abroad against the views of the rest of the world," Issacs said. "Withdrawing from the ABM Treaty now is both unnecessary and unwise. "Unnecessary because virtually all scientific experts believe that the U.S. can continue to test a missile defense system without breaking the ABM Treaty for many years to come. Unwise because it could start a chain reaction that jeopardizes the three decades of progress the United States has made in reducing the threat from nuclear weapons." Even before he took office last January, Bush made clear his determination to scuttle the ABM treaty. He believes the United States must vigorously develop a multibillion-dollar land, sea, air and possibly space-based system to protect the country and its allies from incoming missiles from "rogue" states like North Korea and Iraq. OPPOSITION FROM RUSSIA Russia, the other major nuclear power, has opposed such a system and argued in favor of retaining the ABM. In recent months -- especially since the Sept. 11 attacks -- Moscow has shown more willingness to work with Washington on the issue, including discussing a possible compromise to keep the treaty in force while giving the United States wide scope to test and develop missile defenses. After talks in Moscow this week, Secretary of State Colin Powell told reporters the two sides "still have disagreements" on ABM but would continue working on the issue. Some administration officials have believed for months that the United States would come to a point when it would need to invoke its right to withdraw from the ABM treaty as a way to pressure Russia to reach a compromise agreement. Under the treaty, a country can signal its intention to withdraw for national security reasons. Once formal notice is given, the actual withdrawal does not happen for six months. Some U.S. officials believe the Russians are resigned to Bush's determination to build a missile defense system and withdrawal from the ABM Treaty. During a news conference on Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said that based on what it heard from U.S. officials, his government was "not excluding the possibility that the U.S. may be withdrawing from the ABM Treaty." As a result, Russia is "forecasting such an option" in its national security programs, he said. ****** #2 Moscow opposes NATO expansion despite better ties December 11, 2001 MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said Tuesday that Moscow remained opposed to NATO's expansion eastward, despite plans to boost the alliance's security ties with the Kremlin to match their common fight against terrorism. "Russia has opposed plans for the enlargement of NATO and continues to do so now," Interfax news agency quoted Ivanov as saying in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don. "Even if relations between Russia and NATO expand in terms of the (new) format, this will hardly contribute to settling these contradictions." Moscow wanted improved cooperation on "political security" rather than in the military field, he said, citing terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Neither issue could be resolved without Russia. Moscow complained bitterly in 1999 when its former Warsaw Pact allies Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic joined NATO. It bristles at the prospect of the three Baltic states -- once Soviet republics -- joining the alliance and bringing NATO up to Russia's borders. President Vladimir Putin insists expansion will not boost European security, but last month said "NATO enlargement will cease to be an issue" if the former Cold War foes changed the quality and format of their relationship. Ties have blossomed since Russia became a stalwart member of the global anti-terrorism coalition forged in response to the Sept. 11 attacks on U.S. cities. Last month Britain proposed a new Russia/North Atlantic Council, which would discuss terrorism and "soft" security areas such as peacekeeping and weapons nonproliferation In remarks to Reuters, NATO Secretary-General George Robertson said it was implied that Russia would have the right of veto in this body like any of the 19 Western allies, something it does not enjoy in existing consultations. Russia welcomed the suggested 20-strong format, though NATO officials were quick to deny Moscow would be given any veto over defense matters involving only the Atlantic alliance. U.S. misgivings, and resistance from NATO newcomers Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, have slowed the move to create a new forum. A meeting of foreign ministers last Friday agreed to draft a workable plan by next May. Ivanov Tuesday dismissed suggestions that the new body could be seen as an antechamber to membership of NATO or its integrated military command structure. Putin said last Friday in Greece that "Russia is not desperately knocking on NATO's door." ****** #3 San Francisco Chronicle December 10, 2001 Terrorists shop in Russia for nuclear 'dirty bombs' By Bill Wallace, Chronicle Staff Writer Washington -- One November morning six years ago, Shamil Basayev, a Chechen rebel, tipped a Russian television reporter that a radioactive weapon had been buried in Izmailovo Park in downtown Moscow. It was a warning of the horror Russia could face if it continued military operations in Chechnya. In fact, a lead container with a quantity of radioactive cesium inside -- enough to irradiate a wide area if detonated properly -- was later recovered at the park. Such a weapon, known as a "dirty bomb," is "the most accessible nuclear device for any terrorist," said Bruce Blair, the director of the Center for Defense Information, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington, D.C. Indeed, it's the terrorist weapon most feared in the wake of the September attacks on New York and the Pentagon. There is ample evidence that Osama bin Laden has tried to obtain nuclear devices, and the Washington Post reported last week that there was a deepening fear in the Bush administration that there could be such an attack. "It is something that the president is concerned about and takes seriously," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said at a press briefing last Wednesday, "and every precaution is being put in place." It's a reasonable fear, Blair told The Chronicle. "There is no question that there is plenty of radioactive waste around that could be acquired and turned into a dirty bomb just by wrapping it around dynamite," he said. "I am quite fatalistic about this threat." SHOPPING MALL FOR TERRORISTS Since the collapse of communism, the lax security and poor controls at Soviet nuclear warfare facilities have made Russia and its former satellites a key marketplace -- a virtual "Sharper Image" -- for terrorists. The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that there are 603 tons of weapons- grade nuclear material inside the former Soviet republics, enough to build 41, 000 nuclear weapons. So far, only about 200 tons of this material have been properly secured with fences, alarm systems, detection sensors and gates, according to a recent study by the U.S. General Accounting Office. The Department of Energy estimates that security measures will not be in place at all Russian facilities until 2020. A Department of Energy report issued earlier this year by a task force headed by former Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker and Washington power lawyer Lloyd Cutler put the peril posed by weak Russian nuclear safeguards bluntly: "The most urgent unmet national security threat to the United States today is the danger that weapons of mass destruction or weapons-usable material in Russia could be stolen and sold to terrorists or hostile nation-states and used against American troops abroad or citizens at home." The Izmailovo Park device offers a glimpse at the real threat that terrorists might devise and use a dirty, or radiation, bomb. "What it (the incident) demonstrates is that acquiring the materials you need to make a dirty bomb is really fairly trivial," Blair said. " . . . What this reveals is the attention that one terrorist group was willing to give to the potential for this type of weapon." STOLEN FROM NUCLEAR PLANT The material used in the Izmailovo Park weapon appears to have been stolen from one of Russia's many unsecured nuclear facilities. A week after the cesium was recovered from the Moscow park, Russian authorities found four 198- pound lead vessels in an abandoned mine shaft in the Ural Mountains that contained the same material. The cesium found in the Urals had been stolen from an industrial plant a short time before. It was not the first time radioactive material was lifted from a former Soviet facility, nor would it be the last. In 1993, scientists at the Sukhumi nuclear research center in Georgia fled oncoming Georgian insurgents, leaving behind two kilograms of highly enriched uranium, enough to make a deadly radiation bomb. When a Russian team returned four years later, the radioactive material was gone. "That is actually the most serious case," said Blair. "It doesn't get much more serious than that. That's the kind of material you use to make a real nuclear weapon, not just a dirty bomb." In 1996, Russian officials reported that a large cache of nuclear waste -- including plutonium and uranium isotopes used in atomic weapons -- was missing from a storage site in Chechnya. And just last year, authorities at the border between Uzbekistan and Pakistan seized ten lead-lined containers of strontium 90, a material that can be used to turn a conventional explosive device into a radiation weapon. There is little question that bin Laden has coveted nuclear weaponry for years. He once said that acquiring weapons of mass destruction for use in the war against the West was a "religious duty." In 1998, an aide to bin Laden, Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, was arrested in Germany for reportedly attempting to obtain highly enriched uranium in the mid- 1990s. Testimony during recent trials of bin Laden associates in Egypt and the United States included word of his al Qaeda terrorist group's repeated efforts to buy nuclear weaponry and radioactive material. 'SUITCASE BOMB' In the past five years, bin Laden has spent more than $3 million attempting to acquire a portable nuclear device from sources in the former Soviet Union, said Yossef Bodansky, the staff director of the U.S. Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare and author of "Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America." Bodansky said bin Laden had been most interested in obtaining a "suitcase bomb" that would be harder to detect and easier to deliver than a conventional bulky military weapon. "Although there is debate over the precise quantities of weapons purchased, there is no longer much doubt that bin Laden has finally succeeded in his quest for nuclear suitcase bombs," Bodansky said. Since 1991, the United States has spent roughly $2 billion on various programs to help prevent Russian nuclear materials from falling into the hands of terrorists. The effort has succeeded in securing nuclear weapons and facilities in a number of parts of the former Soviet Union, and eliminating them entirely in Kazakstan and Ukraine. But policymakers and disarmament experts say the program has been underfunded and complicated by the fact that many Russian officials remain reluctant to allow U.S. personnel to enter secret facilities or have data on their nuclear arsenal. Whatever the reasons, experts say U.S. efforts to deny terrorists access to the store of Russian nuclear materials so far just haven't been good enough. "It's a serious threat, and one that requires serious attention," said Graham Allison, director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University and an assistant secretary of defense during the Clinton administration. "But if you look at our performance on preparing for chemical or biological or nuclear weapons, it looks a lot like airport security did before Sept. 11," he said. "If we were giving a report card, you would have to say we are failing." ******* #4 ORT Review www.ortv.ru Compiled by Luba Schwartzman (luba7@bu.edu) Research fellow at the Institute for the Study of Conflict, Ideology and Policy at Boston University HEADLINES, Monday, December 10, 2001 - December 10th is International Human Rights Day, and the defense of civil rights was at the top of the agenda at today's cabinet meeting. Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke about the protection of Russian abroad. Later in the day he met with representatives from the Organization of Russian Ukrainians. President Putin declared that it is vital to strengthen Russian-Ukrainian relations. - The final statements of the prosecution and defense for Chechen terrorist Salman Raduev and his accomplices will be delivered this Thursday. - Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Fleet Vladimir Kuroedov has arrived at the North Fleet to introduce its new commander, Vice Admiral Gennady Suchkov. - The problems of developing the diamond-mining industry were discussed at a special Kremlin meeting. The Yakutian ALROS diamond company will enter an agreement with De Beers -- the government will not take part in the decision-making process, but will continue to review the work. - Aleksandr Belkin, the head of a regional police department in Murmansk, has been arrested for abusing his position. - New Year's celebrations are under way in the predominantly Buddhist republic of Kalmykia. - A new, powerful hydro-electric generator was launched in Daghestan. RAO-UES (Russia's Unified Energy System) head Anatoly Chubais attended the ceremony. - President Putin met with US Secretary of State Colin Powell to discuss a number of questions, including the situation in Afghanistan and nuclear arms reduction. - An investigation into the problems of the Maritime regional Duma elections has been initiated. Due to low voter turn-out, elections were recognized in only 18 of the 39 okrugs. Two commissions will visit the region to work on the site. - Final results are being counted in the presidential election in the unrecognized Transdniester region. According to preliminary reports, incumbent Igor Smirnov is the winner. Former Bender Mayor Tom Zenovich will challenge the vote in court. - President Putin discussed Russian-NATO relations with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. ******* #5 Wall Street Journal December 11, 2001 Russia’s Ominous Afghan Gambit By S. Frederick Starr Chairman, Central Asia Institute, Johns Hopkins University Russia’s positive new attitude towards the US and NATO may end a rivalry that dominated world affairs for much of the last century. But under the new dispensation how will Putin’s Russia conduct itself in other parts of the world? Judging by recent events in Afghanistan, there is good reason for concern. The turn of events that culminated in the mutual inspection of souls in Crawford, Texas, began on September 11 with Putin’s warmly received words of sympathy and his expression of support for a war on terrorism. Less well known is the fact that he then spent the next three days on the phone, cajoling the presidents of the five newly independent states of Central Asia not to cooperate with American requests to use their territory for strikes against Afghanistan. His foreign minister backed him publicly by declaring that even hypothetical talk of American forces in Central Asia was out of the question. All five of the Central Asian presidents thought otherwise, however, and boldly told Putin so. President Karimov of Uzbekistan held a press conference to say that when its national security was at stake, Uzbekistan did not have to consult with anyone. Putin then deftly executed a 180 degrees and announced to the world that, through his tireless efforts, he had succeeded in persuading the Central Asian states to cooperate with America. This went down well in Washington but not with Putin’s own ministries of foreign affairs and defense, nor the FSB. All had worked tirelessly since the Red Army’s humiliating defeat in 1989 to reassert Russia into Afghan affairs. For nearly a decade they had provided support to their Afghan clients, Mullah Burhanuddin Rabbani’s Northern Alliance. Notwithstanding Russian and Iranian support, the Alliance was all but dead by September 10. Now they saw an opportunity, which Putin’s high-wire act had nearly destroyed. They were doubly outraged, first by Putin’s failure to impose his will on the Central Asian presidents and, second, with the resulting expansion of US military ties with Central Asia. At a session held in the Tajik capital of Dushanbe during the American bombing of Afghanistan’s North, Putin’s top ministers and the head of the FSB laid out an aggressive plan to preempt America’s growing role in Afghanistan. The head of the General Staff, General Anatoli Khvashnin, had engineered the Russian army’s foolish and dangerous 1999 rush on the airport at Pristina in Kosovo. In Dushanbe he proposed a similar tactic for Kabul, using the Northern Alliance troops as a Trojan horse. Brushing aside warnings by both the US President and Secretary of State, the conferees authorized the Alliance to charge headlong and seize Kabul and other northern centers. Following the meeting Putin told the press that Russia’s loyal client, Mullah Rabbani, should become president of all Afghanistan. So much for the Afghans’ themselves deciding such things. What failed in Pristina succeeded in Kabul. Not wanting to upset the spirit of Crawford, Secretary Rumsfeld meekly announced that the Northern Alliance’s sweep was really a good thing after all. Caught off balance, Secretary Powell declared that Kabul would be open to all Afghans and pleaded with the Northern Alliance not to send in its 2000 police force since an international force would be arriving soon. The Alliance ignored America’s request, sent in its forces, told the British troops to go home, and then received twelve transport planes full of Russian troops from the Ministry of Emergency Situations, masquerading as a medical unit. Over the next weeks the Northern Alliance, with Putin’s support, began staffing their own “power ministries” (internal affairs, foreign affairs, and security), naming governors, and even offering jobs in their new government to Taliban defectors. To none of this did the US administration raise the slightest public objection. If there were private objections they were simply dismissed. At Bonn the ambitious Alliance ministers, eager to keep their posts, joined Pashtun negotiators in scuttling the presidential ambitions of their boss, Rabbani. Had he stayed it would have meant that they would have had to turn over their own portfolios to the Pashtuns, which they were not about to do. Initially demanding 20 ministries, the Northern Alliance ended up with fifteen, including they key ones they already held. They beat back King Zahir Shah’s candidate for president, a highly regarded Uzbek with a national reputation, Dr. Sirat, and welcomed instead Hamid Karzai, a genial but so far ineffectual warlord with neither an all-Pashtun nor a national leadership profile. Finally, they neutralized the UN’s demands for an international security force, which ended up in the role of “assisting” the Northern Alliance’s security troops that were already in place. Now, all this may still turn out well, since the interim administration’s writ is supposed to last only six months. A Loya Jirga, if it is held, is bound to produce a more balanced government than what was created by the Northern Alliance’s virtual coup. But what exists now is dangerously unbalanced in favor of the same men whose misrule between 1992 and 1996 destroyed Kabul and created the conditions in which even the Taliban looked like a good alternative. Thankfully, the Pashtun population for the time being is preoccupied with sorting out the post-Taliban situation in the South. Perhaps it will be temporarily mollified by assurances that the Loya Jirga will produce a more balanced outcome, and by promises of development assistance flowing their way. Sheer exhaustion may also help prevent a blowup. This, at least, is what American officials are hoping for. But this may be wishful thinking. If western leaders seem unconcerned, many Russian observers see Putin’s moves with the Northern Alliance as a dangerous manifestation of neo-Soviet chauvinism. The influential Moscow daily Kommersant warned that the Kremlin has already sent armed troops to Afghanistan. Some Russian critics have drawn comparisons with Stalin’s activities in Berlin in the closing days of World War II. Another [Ural Sharipov of the Institute of Oriental Studies, Moscow], writing in Nezavisimaia gazeta, has cautioned that any government without strong Pashtun representation will never succeed in Kabul. What does all this mean for US-Russian friendship, and for hopes of a breakthrough in NATO’s relations with Russia? First, it indicates that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, FSB, and the Russian army, still largely unreconstructed from Soviet times, share none of the current euphoria over Russian-western comity. They are still prepared to engage in the kind of irresponsible scheming that gave them a black eye at Pristina and nearly led to open conflict. Second, it reveals that when push comes to shove, Putin is not yet inclined to stand up to his own subordinates. Instead, he seems to have struck a deal, in which his views prevail with respect to Europe and their views hold sway in Afghanistan and perhaps elsewhere. Finally, in light of Putin’s own actions between September 12 and 14 and in light of the fact that he has publicly endorsed every subsequent step in this drama, one must question where Putin himself really stands. ****** #6 From: "Peter Lavelle" Subject: Untimely Thoughts Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2001 Peter Lavelle: Untimely Thoughts - How much of Putin is a good thing for Russia? (re Constitution Day and presidential terms) Tomorrow is Russia's Constitution Day - though this had to be checked and rechecked by some of my employees, just to make sure. However, all agreed that Wednesday in not a working day. Russia's Constitution is young, thus memories still short - civic practices take time to take root. Many Russians are not aware of what the national holiday commemorates, though the newly elected Federation Council Speaker - Sergei Mironov - is certainly not among them. Mironov shows no signs he intends to slowly grow into his new position. He has already found a new mission for a body that seemingly is without a mission. His mind is very much on the Constitution - and how to amend it. Mironov is of the opinion that the present presidential term of four years is too short and should be lengthened. In a short article published in Kommersant, one could easily gather that Mironov could find himself in hot water with Putin for airing this opinion. Kommersant's comment is odd - there has been talk of changing the Constitution for some time. The proposal to lengthen the president's term has been mentioned by many across the political spectrum over the past year. The only difference in this case is that Mironov can actually do something to make this happen. The Moscow Times, in an article today titled "Constitution's Strength Is in Immutability", is of the opinion that lengthening the presidential term is "Lurching in this direction will bring Russia closer to Kazakh and Belarussian practice, and take it much further away from the Western democratic norms...". This is an exaggeration. Constitutions change, some very often - even in the west. Even the US Constitution was changed in respect to presidential terms - a constitutional change that was politically motivated. Constitutions are, after all, a guide and a reflection of a political order. Russia's current political order is clearly evolving; changes to the Constitution may be necessary. Is the lengthening the presidential term to five or seven years a good idea for Russia? Before I express my thoughts on this, a SWOT analysis of this proposition may be helpful. Also, it needs to be kept in mind that amending the Constitution before the next presidential election may allow Putin the "start all over again". Thus, in theory, if Putin so desired, he could be President of the Russian Federation for fourteen years or even, as some claim, nineteen years. Strengths: Lengthening the presidential term would allow Putin to see his reforms come to fruition. Even eight years is not enough to push through meaningful banking and military reform, to cite just two examples. Russia's political parties remain immature and without large constituencies focused on discernable political agendas. The next decade is critical for Russia to reform and restructure itself in a fast-moving international environment. Having Putin at the helm for longer than eight years would guarantee Russia stays the course. Weaknesses: Foreknowledge that his administration could last into the middle of the next decade could engender presidential complacency. Political and economic imperatives could be put off. Serving for up to fourteen years may retard the development of a new and alternative political elite. The Kremlin always has the advantage at the polls and new leaders my find "high politics" an impossible goal to attain. The importance of politics will lessen and cronyism (around Putin) encouraged. Opportunities: Putin would have the chance to radically change Russian political culture. Rooting out corruption and promotion of merit could be strongly embedded in political life and the economy. Putin could allow the civil society project to finally pick up momentum. Putin could become its "roof" and protector. He could become the "little father" for those the political process in the Duma leaves out as reforms progress. Threats: The democratic process comes to a halt and presidential rule - virtual power structures - becomes the norm. Politics remain within the purview of the bureaucracy, civil society and small and medium sized businesses derived of any form of agency. Democracy is not learned, but acted out in a way dictated by the Kremlin. Putin could represent the past with only a more humane face. Granted, I have only touched in few issues for each category. However, the positives and negatives of Mironov's idea are apparent. Given the enormity of Russia's reform project, someone like Putin would clearly like to have more time to see his vision through. On the other hand, when is Russia to learn about democracy, checks and balances, the rule of law, and the very process of politics itself? At this stage of Russia's development some of these points seem a bit mute for many Russians, I would agree. But if Russians can't remember what December 12 stands for a decade from now not only will have Putin's reforms failed, but also democracy itself will not be doubt - it will have failed as well. The Russian Constitution is important, but it also should be deemed as a living document. Russia has changed a lot since 1991 and will continue to change a lot for the time to come. ****** #7 Izvestia No. 229 December 11, 2001 [translation from RIA Novosti for personal use only] PRIMAKOV TO HEAD CHAMBER OF COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY By Valery VOLKOV and Konstantin GETMANSKY State Duma member Yevgeny Primakov publicly confirmed his consent to become president of the national chamber of commerce and industry for the first time this past Sunday. Primakov's future career now depends on the delegates of the chamber's extraordinary congress, which would be expected to openly the new president December 14. According to Izvestia's sources, more than 50 percent of all delegates are ready to back the former Russian prime minister. Primakov, who turned 72 this past October, says he is ready to head the chamber of commerce and industry, if the congress prefers his candidacy. The statute of this non-governmental and non-profit organization, which assists Russian businessmen, implies that the chamber's president shall be elected, if more than 50 percent of all delegates vote for him. Right now, Primakov has enlisted the support of 50 percent of 400 congress delegates. By all looks, Primakov will be unanimously supported by delegates from the Volga, Urals, North-West and Central federal districts. The former prime minister has already worked out his own action program for improving the performance of the chamber of commerce and industry. Primakov intends to improve its performance, while serving as State Duma member. Moreover, he doesn't want to leave the lower parliament house. According to Primakov, the chamber of commerce and industry should render additional services, after obtaining some federal prerogatives (sic!). However, Primakov still keeps mum about such prerogatives. They started looking for a post (that could be accepted by Primakov) ever since spring. At first, it was believed that Primakov would become State Duma speaker; subsequent rumours implied that he was going to head the Federation Council. However, Sergei Mironov, member of the so-called St. Petersburg group, became Federation Council speaker December 5. Apart from that, people used to say that Primakov would be elected to the post of president of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Still one should keep in mind that Primakov's good relations with Vladimir Putin don't necessarily mean that such relations are something productive. It seems that the President of Russia doesn't want the former prime minister to obtain any key positions. ******* #8 From: shiryaev@novayagazeta.ru Subject: THE FOX IS BEST GUARDIAN OF THE HENHOUSE. Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2001 You can find the Russian version of this on our website. It may be of interests to those of your subscribers who are investors or follow developments in the securities market in Russia. www.novayagazeta.ru This article was published in "Novaya gazeta" . December, 3-5, 2001. THE FOX IS BEST GUARDIAN OF THE HENHOUSE. After a meeting of the cabinet of ministers, the head of the FKTsB (Russian Federal Securities Commision) Igor Kostikov, not hiding his joy said "The decision of the government in discussions about the Code (of Corporate Governance) is one of the decisive factors in defining corporate relations in Russia". He added that "participants in the meeting noted the high caliber of the document". According to the words of the head of the FKTsB, Premier Mikhail Kasyanov even proposed to start introducing the principals of the code first with companies in which the government is a shareholder. However, market participants view the code unenthusiastically. "Civilized markets long ago determined the rules of the game according to which companies live" - says the coordinator of the Association for the Protection of Rights of Minority Shareholders - Sergey Karpov. Among the obligatory standards is full openness of information about shareholders, management and organs of governance of an issuer and conditions to prevent working through affiliated structures. That this condition is, for practical purposes, not reflected in the proposed text of the code is by no means accidental. According to the Association for the Protection of Rights of Minority Shareholders this important condition did not make it into the code because Igor Kostikov created it not only as head of FKTsB, but as owner of investment company "Alexander V. Kostikov & Partners", created and fully controlled by him from 1993 until he entered government service in March 1999. Representatives of the Association are certain that Kostikov, the civil servant, did not let his corporate offspring get away but still controls Group AVK through a network of offshore companies. Until March 1999 Igor Kostikov and his close relatives owned 90% of the shares of the company. But in 1999 Kostikov was appointed Deputy Chairman of the Committee of Financial Administration of St. Petersburg. According to the Law on Civil Service it is not possible to participate in commercial enterprises. At first the shares were distributed between managers with no right of resale. Usually such conditions attach to shares of purely nominal shareholders, and in reality the shares belong to someone else who does not wish to be known. For this, the company Simpson Froud, which specializes in offshore structures, was employed. An interesting detail: one of the words in the name of the company sounds like the English word "fraud". Probably this is strange English humor. So Simpson Froud founded, in the small English town of Orpington, Bishopsgate UK Investment Limited, to which was transferred ultimately the controlling stake in AVK. Coincidentally, right after Kostikov was appointed to be deputy chairman of the Committee of Financial Administration of St. Petersburg, the idea of holding a tender for the role of general agent for the city's municipal bond program was scrapped. In this way, AVK received an unlimited exclusive right from the St. Petersburg authorities to distribute at auction its bonds to investors. It is not surprising that upon appointment of Kostikov the former Vice Governor and Chairman of the Committee of Finance of St. Petersburg, Igor Artemiev, said it was like appointing the "fox to guard the henhouse" and noted that it "created ideal conditions for corruption". Time has proven Artemiev to be right. In a report by the Accounting-control chamber of St. Petersburg in 1999, it is reported that serious violations were uncovered in the activities of the city Finance Committee: in its own accounting documents it did not reflect all means which the city attracted through its bond offering. In particular, the reporting of the Finance Committee did not account for all operations conducted by AVK. The auditors, however, never received answers to their questions. It probably is not necessary to say that with Kostikov's further advancement up the bureaucratic ladder, AVK also hit its stride. In March of 2000, Igor Kostrikov was appointed head of FKTsB. Before 6 months had passed, AVK was granted a totally unique array of licenses to operate on Russian securities markets. The decision about the appropriateness of issuing such licenses is, of course, taken by the FKTsB, which means not least by Kostikov. AVK became general agent of government debts and financial consultant to administrations in Sverdlovsk, Orenburg, Omsk, Kaliningrad and Khanti-Mansisk. Today according to AVK, it controls more than 40% of municipal bonds in Russia. Formally, however, according to documents AVK is not owned by Igor Kostikov but by the offshore company Bishopsgate. It turns out that 40% of Russian municipal bond markets are controlled by some unknown foreign firm. This does not get in the way of Kostikov's work on the Code of Corporate Governance in Russia. This endeavor is not an easy one. On one hand he needs the Prime Minister to praise the Code, and on the other hand he needs not to loose anything through it. Hence there is virtually nothing in the document about affiliated structures. It remains possible, however, to change the code. The final version of the code of Corporate Governance is due to be presented to the government at the end of January 2002. Right now, as Kostikov himself acknowledged, the FKTsB has plenty of corrections proposed by organization participating in discussions. Will Kostikov-the civil servant forget about the interests of his offspring - AVK? This depends on the Code of Corporate Governance. Will it serve the interests only of affiliated, pocket companies or will it be of real use to the Russian market economy. ******* #9 RFE/RL RUSSIAN POLITICAL WEEKLY Vol. 1, No. 31, 10 November 2001 WILL TV-6 GO OUT WITH A BANG OR A WHIMPER? By Laura Belin Earlier this year, the partly state-owned gas monopoly Gazprom claimed to be acting purely out of economic interests when it gained a controlling stake in NTV and several other assets belonging to Vladimir Gusinsky's Media-MOST holding company. Few Russian journalists or media analysts took that claim seriously: Gazprom's shifting stance toward Media-MOST appeared to be politically motivated, and its insistence on changing NTV's management drove away many of the network's best staffers, undermining future prospects for profitability. But the gas monopoly had guaranteed hundreds of millions of dollars in loans to Media-MOST over the years, and Media- MOST could not repay those debts. Gazprom therefore could plausibly claim some economic justification for its actions toward Gusinsky's media empire. The same cannot be said for partly state-owned LUKoil's approach to the private network TV-6, in which the pension fund LUKoil-Garant owns a 15 percent stake. In apparent disregard of its own economic interests, LUKoil-Garant has pursued the dissolution of TV-6, Russia's fourth-largest television network in terms of broadcast reach. The Moscow Arbitration Court on 26 November upheld its earlier decision ordering that TV-6 be liquidated within six months. The court's justification was the rarely-invoked article 35 of the Russian law on joint-stock companies, which states that a company can be liquidated if, two years running, its debts exceed its assets. Attorneys for TV-6 argued that the network turned its financial situation around in 2001, thanks to a ratings and advertising boost after the arrival of journalists from NTV in the spring. However, the Moscow Arbitration Court discounted those arguments, since the law allowed it to consider only year-end balance sheets, not the quarterly or semi-annual documents showing that TV-6's assets now exceed its liabilities. The court appeared to be drawing on political considerations in its decision to liquidate a company that was gaining market share and increasing revenues. "Moskovskie novosti" pointed out on 27 November that judges could have postponed hearings on TV-6's appeal until January, enabling it to consider the network's 2001 balance sheet. (Lengthy court delays are common in Russia.) Meanwhile, LUKoil's strategy toward TV-6 defied all business logic. A joint statement issued by the Union of Journalists and the Glasnost Defense Foundation on 28 November noted that "for several years, the channel's loss-making didn't bother anyone, but as soon as the new team of professionals arrived, as soon as the channel's ratings began to rise, and its profitability along with them, a shareholder goes to court for the express purpose of depriving himself of any opportunity of recovering the money he has invested." If anything, that assessment understates the absurdity of LUKoil's approach. After TV-6 hired many former NTV employees, LUKoil-Garant tried unsuccessfully to nullify the shareholders' meeting at which those hires were approved, suggesting that the oil company was above all interested in gaining control over the network's management decisions. Normally, a minority shareholder who is dissatisfied with a company's management will try to sell his or her shares in that company. But LUKoil never seriously pursued the option of selling its shares in TV-6. Boris Berezovsky, who has controlled 75 percent of the network's shares since the summer of 1999, publicly offered to pay $10 million for LUKoil-Garant's 15 percent stake (see his open letter published in "Kommersant," 17 October 2001). LUKoil did not take Berezovsky up on that deal, even though neither LUKoil nor its pension fund stands to gain financially from the liquidation of TV-6. Whereas Media-MOST's largest creditor was Gazprom, TV-6's main creditor (from which it received a loan of $8 million) is Obedinennyi Bank, controlled by Berezovsky. On 23 October, LUKoil President Vagit Alekperov announced that his company was interested in buying Berezovsky's 75 percent stake in TV-6. If LUKoil-Garant's efforts to liquidate TV-6 were based on the network's poor economic fundamentals, why would LUKoil executives entertain the prospect of buying a controlling stake? Alekperov's statement made sense only as a message to Berezovsky: he could either sell TV-6 or watch his network be forced out of business. In November, Alekperov changed course again, suggesting that he would like to trade LUKoil-Garant's stake in TV-6 for some of Berezovsky's assets in the Russian oil sector (see Alekperov's interview in "Nezavisimaya gazeta," 15 November 2001). If LUKoil was interested in exchanging its TV-6 shares for oil company assets of any value, forcing TV-6 into bankruptcy could only torpedo that goal. Berezovsky and TV-6 General Director Yevgenii Kiselev have accused the Kremlin of using LUKoil to achieve political aims. LUKoil's business prospects, as well as the careers of its senior executives, depend on favorable decisions by government and Kremlin bureaucrats. According to Anna Kachkaeva, a media expert for RFE/RL's Russian Service and professor at Moscow State University, LUKoil bosses may also harbor personal enmity toward Berezovsky. He acquired a controlling stake in TV-6 against the wishes of LUKoil, and one of his first management decisions was to end the network's contract with the Television News Service (TSN). Owned by LUKoil-Garant, TSN had supplied news programs to TV-6, but Berezovsky wanted the network to form its own news department. While Berezovsky was in favor at the Kremlin, LUKoil did not publicly challenge his decisions at TV-6, even though the oil company had invested millions of dollars in building TSN, which was reportedly owed some $3 million by TV-6. (In October 2001, TSN sued TV-6 for $5 million.) What fate awaits TV-6? Kachkaeva argues that many groups have an interest in eliminating TV-6 as a competitor for television ratings and advertising dollars. Some Russian commentators have speculated that Media Minister Mikhail Lesin could withdraw TV-6's license to broadcast at any time. Technically, the ministry is obliged to delay that step until TV-6 has exhausted the appeals process, and Lesin has promised to make decisions regarding the network "exclusively on a legal basis," "Gazeta" reported on 28 November. But Lesin is not known as a stickler for the letter of the law. He drew fire in late 1999 for not applying rules on election commentary even-handedly toward Russian television networks. In July 2000, Lesin signed a secret document promising that criminal charges against Media-MOST bosses would be dropped if they sold a controlling stake in the company to Gazprom. As founder of the Video- International advertising agency, Lesin could also benefit financially from TV-6's disappearance, which would likely prompt advertisers to buy more air time on nationwide networks that have exclusive contracts with Video-International. On the other hand, Kachkaeva is among those who think that Berezovsky and Kremlin officials may reach a compromise allowing TV-6 to survive in exchange for assurances that it will not pursue an oppositionist editorial policy. The Kremlin could then authorize a higher court to uphold TV-6's appeal, especially if the most recent balance sheets show the network's financial condition to be healthy. A precedent for such a compromise exists. In May and June 2000, the Media Ministry postponed an auction for the broadcast frequency used by TV-Tsentr, controlled by the Moscow city authorities. Following back-room negotiations between Lesin and Moscow Mayor Yurii Luzhkov, TV-Tsentr's license to broadcast was extended. The network's news and analysis programs have since avoided the kind of hostile coverage that irritated the Kremlin during the summer and autumn of 1999. Although TV-6 executives and attorneys denounced the Moscow Arbitration Court's ruling, the network has eschewed the path of confrontation taken by NTV in the late stages of its battle with Gazprom. Unlike NTV staffers, TV-6 journalists have not encouraged street demonstrations or staged on-air protests against attempts to "smother free speech." That may be in part because a poll by the All- Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion (VTsIOM) in early November showed that more than half of the 1,600 respondents nationwide said they would not consider it a loss if TV-6 disappeared, "Izvestiya" (part-owned by LUKoil) reported on 26 November. TV-6's editorial policy has been more cautious and less oppositionist than was NTV's, according to Kachkaeva. Some Kremlin critics who enjoyed ample air time on NTV, such as Yabloko leader Grigorii Yavlinskii, rarely appear on TV-6. Berezovsky has not publicly spoken of possible compromise with the Kremlin, but a deal might suit his interests. He is a wanted man in the Russian Federation, and TV-6 is by far his most influential media holding. However, the Kremlin's interest in a compromise is less clear. In this era of friendly relations between Russia and the West, shutting down TV-6 is unlikely to provoke an international scandal. Letting the network continue to operate with the current management, in contrast, would carry political risks. If economic troubles dent President Vladimir Putin's popularity, and a profitable TV-6 sharpens its criticism of the authorities, another economic pretext for shutting down the network may not present itself. Whether TV-6 goes out with a bang, having its broadcast license withdrawn and liquidation forced upon it, or with a whimper, hanging on by virtue of a back-room political deal, its fate will inevitably shrink pluralism in the Russian television market. Laura Belin, a doctoral student at Oxford, has written about Russian politics and media issues since 1995. ******* #10 Izvestia December 11, 2001 RUSSIANS DO NOT KNOW THEIR CONSTITUTION [from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html] Public Opinion foundation conducted a survey on the eve of the Day of the Constitution to discover Russians' attitude towards the celebration. The results were predictable. 55% of Russians admit that they do not know major provisions of the Constitution, and 47% assume that this is just "a formal document which has no bearing on the actual life of the country". Only 36% of respondents say they know major provisions of the Constitution, but sociologists treat this figure with suspicion. Random checks in Samara and Novosibirsk did not find a single (!) respondent acquainted with the text of the Constitution. Only two were found in Moscow. The fact that most Russians have never read the Constitution does not prevent them from expressing their attitude. 38% of respondents do not think much of the Constitution and 28% actually like it. More than every third respondent refused to even try and evaluate it. 67% of Russians advocate for a revision of the Constitution, and only 8% want it left alone. Specialists ascribe this dislike of the Constitution in society to "Soviet" mentality - the country is in chaos, and this means that the laws are flawed. ******* #11 Moscow Times December 11, 2001 Editorial Constitution's Strength Is in Immutability Constitution Day provides a good opportunity for reflection on this most fundamental of documents and cornerstone of the Russian political system. Moreover, comments regarding constitutional amendments made by Sergei Mironov just after being elected speaker of the Federation Council provide further food for thought. He proposed extending the presidential term from the current four years to five or even seven years, reviving an idea originally floated last year during the presidential election campaign, which back then received qualified support from Vladimir Putin. Russia's first post-Soviet Constitution had a somewhat turbulent birth in 1993, following President Boris Yeltsin's bombardment of the Supreme Soviet into submission and its adoption by a referendum whose legitimacy has been called into question. However, for all Russian democracy's manifest failings, the Constitution has provided an element of political stability. The polity that is sometimes referred to as "super-presidential" is indeed weighted heavily in favor of the president, but nonetheless the Constitution does establish the fundamental separation of powers between the executive, legislature and judiciary -- the bedrock of any democracy. This is in stark contrast to the unworkable Constitution inherited from the Soviet Union, which in essence provided for two centers of executive power (the presidency and the Supreme Soviet) and should take its fair share of the blame for the bespredel that prevailed between 1992 and 1994. Moreover, those doomsayers who saw the Constitution as paving the way for full-blown authoritarianism have clearly not been vindicated. One of the strengths of the Constitution is its extremely complicated amendment procedure (evidenced by the total absence of amendments in the eight years of its life). This has ensured stability of the rules of the game and discouraged sitting presidents from trying to tinker with it. Mironov's proposal (whether or not motivated by the desire to show gratitude to the president for his support) in this respect deserves to be consigned to the rubbish heap of history. There is no analogy to support the argument advanced by several Kremlin-linked political commentators that a longer presidential term will serve to smooth Russia's difficult transition. On the contrary, regular elections are a crucial part of the democratic process and the threat of being turfed out of power is one of the few checks on graft and corruption. Furthermore, any attempt to tinker with the Constitution is fraught with the danger of the slippery slope: Once you've gone to the effort of setting the amendment process in motion, why stop at just the presidential term? Lurching in this direction will bring Russia closer to Kazakh and Belarussian practice, and take it much further away from the Western democratic norms that Putin apparently strives for. ******* #12 Moscow Times December 11, 2001 Constitution Turns 8, Public Still Ambivalent By Oksana Yablokova Staff Writer Russia is to take the day off on Wednesday for the eighth anniversary of the first post-Soviet Constitution -- a document that more than half the population has never read and in which nearly half has no confidence. The Constitution Day holiday was first declared by then President Boris Yeltsin in 1994, to mark the December 1993 constitutional referendum that some opposition leaders, including Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov, had accused the Kremlin of falsifying. Now, eight years later when the legitimacy of the referendum is no longer an issue, a surprisingly large part of the population remains in the dark about what exactly the holiday celebrates. In a survey released Thursday by the Public Opinion Foundation, 55 percent of those questioned said they did not know what the Constitution contains, and 47 percent said they consider the Constitution to be a formal document with no influence on the country's life. Only 28 percent said they regard the Constitution to be good and 8 percent said there was no need to change it, while 38 percent considered it bad and 67 percent said it should be changed. Calls to amend the Constitution have been coming from above as well. Last week, the newly elected speaker of the Federation Council, Sergei Mironov, spoke out in favor of a constitutional change to extend the current four-year presidential term. But any changes are problematic, as Russia has neither a constitutional assembly -- a body allowed by the Constitution to make changes to its most crucial chapters -- nor a federal law on forming such an assembly. Two bills proposing two different ways of establishing a constitutional assembly have been awaiting discussion in the State Duma for at least a year. In the first bill, offered by Union of Right Forces Deputy Boris Nadezhdin, the assembly would consist of 400 members including the president, members of the Constitutional Court, heads of the Supreme Court and Higher Arbitration Court, 100 experts appointed by the president, all members of the Federation Council and 100 Duma deputies. Prominent human rights advocate and Duma Deputy Sergei Kovalyov contributed the second bill, calling for a 450-member assembly to be elected in a nationwide vote, rather than appointed. ******* #13 Nezavisimaya Gazeta December 11, 2001 A PERSONALIZED CONSTITUTION The Constitution may be amended in eight years Time to change the Constitution - to suit a new president Author: Lidiya Andrusenko [from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html] CONSTITUTIONS IN RUSSIA ARE STILL WRITTEN AND REVISED TO SUIT NATIONAL LEADERS, NOT THE NATION. THE PRESENT CONSTITUTION IS ASSOCIATED WITH THE EVENTS OF OCTOBER 1993. IT IS NOW POSSIBLE, AND EVEN ESSENTIAL, TO AMEND THE CONSTITUTION. A CONSITUTIONAL ASSEMBLY WILL SOON BE CONVENED. The present Constitution was adopted in 1993 by only 30% of voters. It is known as Yeltsin's constitution; and the attitude of most Russians toward the first president is anything but unequivocal. Moreover, this Constitution is more or less associated with the events of eight years ago in Moscow, when the conflict between the Kremlin and the Russian White House, then the seat of the parliament, resulted in tragedy. Essentially, this authoritarian constitution was a reaction to the crisis of dual power. Before 1993, Russia had a different constitution, one that reserved the key position in the system of power for the parliament. Even despite the institution of the presidency. The parliament could adopt constitutions and amend them, order referendums, endorse prime ministers, annul presidential orders and decrees, and impeach presidents. But all major decisions were made by the president de facto, and the de jure side of the matter was of paramount importance for Yeltsin. The new constitution offered for the nationwide vote could not be adopted by the majority because the coveted consensus was something both the regime and society lacked. Instead of documenting a concurrence of various political forces with the state structure, Yeltsin's constitution documented the triumph of one side. The status of the parliament was restricted, and the president got the powers of a "nationwide elected monarch". In theory, the parliament can impeach the president even now, but the procedure is so complicated that the president can relax and forget about it. It is also difficult to amend the Constitution itself. The procedures are complicated, and Articles 1, 2, and 9 cannot be revised by the Federal Assembly at all. A special Constitutional Assembly is needed for that. There are many paradoxes and flaws in the present Constitution. For example, the president alone has the power to nominate the prime minister, but the candidate has to be endorsed by the Duma, on pains of disbandment. Along with that, neither the president nor Duma deputies are accountable for the prime minister's performance. The prime minister himself - the person responsible for the whole Cabinet - is unable to put together his own team. He is forced to maneuver between the Kremlin and Okhotny Ryad. The president wields virtually limitless power in the matter of changing the structure of the corridors of power. The latter thus depends entirely on the personal whims of the president. Presidential envoys, as invented by Putin, are a vivid example. The Constitution is also vague on the principles of federal structure. As a result, the powers-that-be alternate between almost confederatism and almost unitarism every now and then. No political force confident of its ability to come to the corridors of power through direct elections would want the present Constitution seriously amended. No Russian politician could withstand the temptation to become a super-president. On the other hand, for the past eight years we have been hearing speculations to the effect that the constitution is not a sacred cow. When Vladimir Putin was elected, everyone seemed to forget about the constitution. No matter what the president did (splitting Russia into seven federal districts, changing the principle of formation of the Federation Council, etc.), top lawyers immediately pronounced the action to be constitutional. Regional leaders and Duma deputies merely muttered discontentedly at seeing the upper house turning from a body of "true representatives of the interests of the regions" into "a voting machine" and the lower house into "a legislative appendix of the Kremlin, remote-controlled by cell phone." All the same, no one dared even consider amending the constitution. Now that Sergei Mironov from St. Petersburg is "the third man in the state" and successor to Yegor Stroyev, amendment of the constitution is both possible and essential. The Constitutional Assembly will be convened soon, which means that "the untouchable" articles of the Constitution will be dealt with. We can hardly expect a change in the balance of powers or a legislative movement toward the presidential-parliamentary republic which is known as the most stable form of state structure. The corridors of power themselves are not yet prepared to boost their legal and political level of culture. It means that the constitutional carcass of the super-presidential republic will become even more inflexible. According to Mironov's recent statement, moves will be made to extend the president's term in office to at least five years. This means amendment of Article 81 of Chapter 4 which states that the president is elected for four years. Even if this is just a feeler to gauge public opinion, the moment for it could not have been chosen any better. The nation is at a crossroads. Some qualitative leap is needed, and that is impossible without strong presidential power. All constitutions in Russia are still written to suit a specific leader. This tendency casts serious doubts on Russia's democratic future... ****** #14 Time Europe Russians Happy to Follow the Leader Putin’s foreign and domestic policies are worlds apart BY YURI ZARAKHOVICH/MOSCOW Thursday, Dec. 6, 2001 Formally, the Office of the Prosecutor General of Russia is a civilian organization. But this Office also belongs to what is called the "silovyye vedomstva": the community of security and military agencies and ministries that is the backbone of Russian power. In the former Soviet Union, prosecutors wore uniforms. In the new liberal Russia, these uniforms have slowly been transformed into a more military type, with the same kind of shoulder straps and insignia other siloviki wear. Formally, prosecutors and investigators still retain civilian titles: counselor of justice, senior counselor of justice, counselor of justice second class, etc. In informal parlance, however, people refer to them as captains, colonels and generals. Blue is the traditional color of Russian repressive agencies; the Federal Security Service uniforms, for example, still retain the blue shoulder straps and cap-bands of the KGB. But it is the prosecutors who now sport all-blue uniforms. When Stalin died, I was just six-years-old. But I recall that many civilian agencies—the Foreign Ministry, geologists, engineers—had military-type uniforms then. It's universally accepted that smart uniforms are needed for airline or railway personnel, but the sight of military-looking civilian prosecutors makes me uneasy. Now, I hear that they are re-introducing uniforms at the Foreign Ministry and at the Mountain Engineers Institute in Saint Petersburg. The fashion seems to be in tune with times. What kind of uniform will be offered to journalists? Well-cut straight yellow coats, with pens on the shoulder straps? Or simply straight jackets? Another blast from the past is the growing cult of the leader. "We have a missile launcher Grad/ Behind us Putin and Stalingrad," raves the latest popular hit about the Chechen war. Teenage members of a pro-Putin organization stage rallies, dressed in T-shirts printed with the face of their beloved leader. In Murmansk last September, I saw an exhibition of Putin photos. Two larger-than-life Putins, both resplendent in a Russian Navy uniform, looked at each other from either side of the entrance. The caption under the left Putin read: "Our President"; the caption under the right Putin read: "Our future." Looked more like our past to me. In the town of Izborsk in western Russia, which Putin visited back in August 2000, a special "Putin path" was opened for tourists eager to follow in his footsteps. In the Urals, a local factory bakes cakes adorned with a Putin image. Lev Kerbel, 84, who created the mammoth monument to Marx in the downtown Moscow, wants to immortalize Putin in bronze or marble. The latest hit is a calendar comprising 12 portraits of the President. Created by the artist Dmitry Vrubel (known for his image of Brezhnev kissing Honneker, painted on the Berlin Wall) and his wife Viktoria Timopheyeva, 1,000 copies of the calendars have been printed. But none are for sale. They have been given as gifts to the chosen few at the Kremlin, the Cabinet and the Parliament. The West now seems infatuated with Putin. The Russian President appears a paragon of liberalism, democracy, sophistication and championship of human rights. Nice to have such an ally. Yes, the one good thing he has done for his country was siding with the United States in the war on terrorism. Yes, his foreign policy has taken a major and welcome turn. But Putin's foreign and domestic policies are taking divergent courses. And Putin's stand is not all that unusual for Russian rulers: Alexander I promoted liberal constitutions in post-Napoleonic Europe, but banned any such attempts at home; he championed human rights elsewhere, but not in Russia. Putin's attempts to launch a liberal economy and civil society by police control look very much a contradiction. For all the success on the international stage, Russia is sliding back to militarized uniforms, cult images and controlled speech at home. ****** Web page for CDI Russia Weekly: http://www.cdi.org/russia Archive for JRL: http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson A project of the Center for Defense Information (CDI) 1779 Massachusetts Ave. NW Washington DC 20036