April 12, 2000    
This Date's Issues: 4242 • 4243

Johnson's Russia List
#4243
12 April 2000
davidjohnson@erols.com

[Note from David Johnson:
1. Reuters: Russian cultural figures defend Chechnya action.
2. AFP: Russia's Duma indignant at Europe rap over Chechnya.
3. AFP: Young Chechens Called To Serve In Russian Army.
4. Moscow Times: Simon Saradzhyan, Khinshtein: Interior Ministry Set Up Babitsky.
5. Reuters: Chechen villagers return to flattened homes.
6. Moscow Times EDITORIAL: Maskhadov's Overnight Absolution.
7. The Times (UK): Richard Beeston and Alice Lagnado, Opposition grows to Putin audience with the Queen.
8. Segodnya: Andrei KAMAKIN and Andrei SMIRNOV, BEREZOVSKY'S DEFENCE. Why the Notorious Oligarch Looks Forward to a Meeting with President-Elect.
9. The Electric Telegraph (UK): Marcus Warren, Putin humiliated power struggle for St Petersburg.
10. Nezavisimaya Gazeta: Sergei PRAVOSUDOV, PUTIN AND COMMUNISTS.
Communist Leaders Ponder Variants of Cooperation with the New 
President.
11. Washington Post: David Ignatius, Moscow Money Trail.
12. Reuters: Russia's Putin to meet Gazprom, UES over supply row.
13. Jake Rudnitsky: re:Womack #4241.
14. Rossiiskaya Gazeta: Yuri YERSHOV, BETTER RATIFY THE TREATY THAN QUARREL. (START-2)]

*******

#1
Russian cultural figures defend Chechnya action
April 11, 2000
By Evelyn Leopold

UNITED NATIONS, April 11 (Reuters) - Russia's U.N. mission circulated a 
statement by 21 prominent cultural and academic figures defending Moscow's 
military campaign in Chechnya and condemning critics of human rights abuses 
in the territory. 

``It would seem that the world community, which is spending huge resources to 
fight terrorism, could have supported the efforts of Russia, which is 
literally guarding the sound sleep of its citizens,'' said the appeal to 
foreign media, distributed on Tuesday. 

The attempt to deflect criticism came after a turbulent visit to Moscow by 
U.N. Human Rights Commissioner Mary Robinson and the start of a debate in the 
Geneva-based 53-nation U.N. Human Rights Commission, many of whose members 
have at one time or another condemned Russia on Chechnya. 

The European Union has introduced a resolution urging Moscow to probe reports 
of mass killings and other serious abuses against civilians in Chechnya. 

The Russian appeal, by writers, musicians, academics, scientists, artists and 
filmmakers, maintained that sanctions, trade embargoes and a suspension of 
Moscow's membership in international organisation were being discussed ``in 
earnest on a high level.'' 

``It appears that the emerging political stabilisation in Russia, the trend 
to economic growth and, hence, Russia's better competitiveness in the world 
arena are taken as a real threat to somebody's interest,'' the statement 
said. 

PUTIN ELECTION CITED 

The group said the Russian people had voted for Vladimir Putin as president 
recently, proof that they supported his offensive policies in Chechnya. 

Among the signers were film director Nikita Mikhalkov, who won an Oscar for 
best foreign film in 1994 with the anti-Stalin ``Burnt by the Sun.'' 
Mikhalkov spoke out earlier this month against foreign media, accusing them 
of feeding the world a distorted picture of Russia. 

Also on the list was singer Alexander Gradsky, who previously conceded Russia 
was a young democracy making mistakes other countries had made 200 years ago. 

The appeal was also signed by Irina Antonova, director of the Pushkin State 
Museum of Fine art, pianist Nikolai Petrov and Karen Shakhnazarov, whose film 
``Day of the Full Moon'' was shown at the Cairo International Film Festival 
last year, and 1964 Nobel laureate Aleksandr Mikhailovich Prokhorov, a 
physicist specialising in optical-fiber research. 

Russia sent troops into Chechnya for the second time last September after 
militants in the territory invaded neighbouring Dagestan. Moscow has also 
blamed Chechens for four bomb blasts in Russian cities that killed 300 
people. 

In the current campaign against Chechnya, unlike the first one, Russia's 
media and most of its people have supported the government. Recently, 
however, Jewish leaders raised a rare voice of discord, telling authorities 
not to turn a fight against terrorism into persecution of Chechens, who are 
reviled and find it hard to move to other regions. 

******

#2
Russia's Duma indignant at Europe rap over Chechnya

MOSCOW, April 11 (AFP) - 
Russian lawmakers on Wednesday condemned an "insulting" Council of Europe 
move last week to suspend its voting rights in the pro-democracy body because 
of Moscow's crackdown in Chechnya.

"Stripping Russian representatives of their right to vote is insulting and 
contradicts the principles of parliament," said a resolution which won 
approval in a preliminary vote by the State Duma.

The lower house of parliament passed the statement by 374-21 with three 
abstentions.

A second vote on the definitive wording of a letter to be sent to the Council 
of Europe's Strasbourg-based parliamentary assembly is set for 4:00 p.m. 
(1200 GMT).

The debate comes two days before the Duma debates the START II nuclear 
disarmament treaty.

For the first time in Russia's post-Soviet history the Duma is not led by 
Communists and their nationalist allies. Deputies on Tuesday signalled that 
the START II treaty would be passed.

Yet they vented their grievances Wednesday at the Council of Europe decision 
-- even if they had few cards up their sleeves.

The Council of Europe's parliament body "must think about how it can correct 
the situation," the Duma's Communist speaker Gennady Seleznyov was quoted as 
saying by ITAR-TASS.

Meanwhile senior Kremlin officials continued to issue only measured noises 
about last week's vote.

"We will co-operate with the Council of Europe in the future," said Sergei 
Yastrzhembsky, Moscow's chief spokesman on Chechnya, during a visit to 
Kyrgyzstan.

His comments come as the current head of the Organization for Security and 
Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) traveled to Moscow and Chechnya to check on the 
conflict zone for herself and press Russia over human rights.

OSCE chairperson-in-office Benita Ferrero-Waldner, Austria's foreign 
minister, will hold talks with Russian President-elect Vladimir Putin and 
Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov during the three-day trip.

She was due to arrive in Moscow late Wednesday before traveling to the North 
Caucasus on Friday.

Ferrero-Waldner's predecessor as OSCE head, Knut Vollebaek, spent three days 
in the region in December.

Yet Moscow turned a deaf ear to his requests for a ceasefire and dialogue 
with the Chechens.

And just on the eve of Ferrero-Waldner's arrival, ITAR-TASS reported that the 
Kremlin has brushed aside a recent overture from Chechen President Aslan 
Maskhadov for talks.

These statements are a "diverting maneuver, an attempt for his worn out gangs 
to catch their breath," Yastrzhembsky said.

Maskhadov in an interview with Germany's Deutsche Welle accused Kremlin 
insiders of sponsoring rebel warlord Shamil Basayev's two raids into 
neighboring Dagestan last August.

Those incursions helped justify Russia's October 1 ground assault on 
Chechnya, which had gained de facto independence from Moscow following a 
brutal 1994-96 war that killed an estimated 80,000 people.

"With the Dagestan attack last summer, Basayev provoked the war with Russia," 
Maskhadov said. He accused him of having links to Russian tycoon Boris 
Berezovsky.

*******

#3
Young Chechens Called To Serve In Russian Army

MOSCOW, Apr 12, 2000 -- (Agence France Presse) Vladislav Putilin, head of the 
Russian army's mobilization administration, announced Tuesday that over 2,500 
young Chechens have already been called to join the army and more have been 
enlisted.

Speaking on the state RTR television, Putilin said young Chechens living in 
Russian-controlled villages of the separatist republic of Chechnya have been 
registered for military service.

"They are serving in the unarmed units such as the rail-track forces which 
are rebuilding the railway system," Putilin said.

"They could also work in the emergency services, engineering and construction 
industries. We need extra arms to help restore their country," Putilin told 
RTR.

The Chechen railway system is in desperate need of reconstruction after 
consistent bombing by federal forces. However, some rebels have been taking 
advantage of the Russian army's new initiative by infiltrating and then 
attacking trains.

Only last week, a conscript was arrested for the murder of seven Russian 
soldiers who were escorting a train carrying military supplies.

On the ground, Russian soldiers are increasingly worried by growing foliage 
that provides coverage for attacking militants.

"When the sun goes down we can't see anything hiding in the nearest bush. 
It's all caves, mountains and forest," a young soldier stationed in the 
south-eastern town of Nozhai-Yurt close to the border with Dagestan told 
private NTV television.

"We are expecting an increase in deaths with the onset of spring. Women and 
children have left a nearby village so rebels will probably strike soon," 
said another soldier.

Deputy Interior Minister Igor Zubov announced that in the next few days, the 
army would concentrate on capturing one of the Chechen warlords. He did not 
name the person.

A former deputy president of Chechnya, Vakha Arsanov, is reported to have 
been seen in a southern village where armed rebels are still hiding, a 
spokesman for the federal forces told ITAR-TASS on Tuesday.

General Viktor Kazantsev, commander of Russian troops in the north Caucasus, 
had previously maintained that Arsanov died in February. Other reports say he 
has moved on to Turkey.

The speaker of the upper house of parliament, Yegor Stroyev, said he and 
President-elect Vladimir Putin had agreed at talks on Tuesday that Chechnya 
"has been and always will be a part of Russia." They also discussed how 
Russia could bring order to Chechnya without declaring a state of emergency 
in the region.

The notorious detention camp of Chernokozovo, where numerous allegations of 
beating and rape have been reported to international human rights 
organizations, has freed 497 people, staff of presidential aide to Chechnya 
Sergei Yastrzhembsky informed ITAR-TASS. A further 114 persons are still 
being held there.

Magomedsalikh Gusayev, Dagestani Minister for Nationalities, Information and 
External Relations has dismissed Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov's 
condemnation of Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev for the rebel intrusion into 
Dagestan last August.

Saying Maskhadov's condemnation was a little too late, Gusayev recalled that 
before the start of the anti-terrorist operation in Chechnya, Maskhadov had 
been urged to publicly condemn the aggression and to disassociate himself 
from the terrorists.

"He did not do that, saying the intrusion was Dagestan's internal affair.... 
Now he is saying this because the Chechens are planning to attack Dagestan 
again."

Rumours about a new possible invasion into Dagestan have been circulating for 
a while as stacks of weapons are being found on Dagestani soil.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe is sending its 
chairwoman and Austria's Foreign Minister Benita Ferrero-Waldner to Moscow on 
Wednesday.

The visit will include a meeting with Putin and Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov 
and a trip to the Northern Caucasus "to study the situation in Chechnya," the 
Russian Foreign Ministry announced.

In Washington, the head of the Islamic Supreme Council of America, Sheik 
Muhamed Hisham Kabbani, has voiced support for the Russian anti-terrorist 
campaign in Chechnya.

He told ITAR-TASS that any manifestations of extremism must be put down. He 
said the proliferation of Wahhabism and other radical Islamic trends in 
Central Asia and the Caucasus prompt concern even for the United States. ((c) 
2000 Agence France Presse) 

******

#4
Moscow Times
April 12, 2000 
Khinshtein: Interior Ministry Set Up Babitsky 
By Simon Saradzhyan
Staff Writer

According to allegations by investigative reporter Alexander Khinshtein, the 
Interior Ministry deliberately furnished Radio Liberty correspondent Andrei 
Babitsky with falsified documents soon after his being "swapped" for several 
Russian soldiers in Chechnya in February - and then used the documents to 
build the case now pending against him. 

Khinshtein, a reporter with Moskovsky Komsomolets, said Tuesday he has 
evidence proving that the Interior Ministry obtained a blank Soviet-era 
passport, then filled it out to identify Babitsky as Ali Isa-Ogly Musayev, a 
native of Azerbaijan. 

The passport, which Babitsky was carrying when he was apprehended by police 
in Dagestan on Feb. 25, has since been used by the ministry's investigative 
committee to initiate a case against him for carrying false documents. 

Committee spokesman Vladimir Martynov said Tuesday that his colleagues would 
look into whether such a passport was in fact issued by the ministry. 
However, the case against Babitsky would stand regardless, since the 
journalist had used the document to register at a hotel and had produced it 
to the police patrol, Martynov said. 

Babitsky, who has repeatedly angered military and law-enforcement officials 
with his critical coverage of Russia's campaign in Chechnya, was first 
detained by Russian police in Grozny on Jan. 23 for failing to have obtained 
accreditation to travel to Chechnya. 

On Feb. 3, the journalist was then handed over to what the Interior Ministry 
has described as Chechen rebels in exchange for several Russian soldiers. 
According to Babitsky himself, however, the exchange was staged and he was 
handed not to the rebels but to supporters of pro-Moscow Chechen politician 
Adam Deiniyev - a claim that Deiniyev, a self-described "spiritual leader" of 
Chechnya, has flatly denied. 

Babitsky said Tuesday that following the exchange, his captors confiscated 
Babitsky's genuine passport, replacing it with the Musayev passport and a 
foreign travel passport identifying him as Kirill Burov. 

On Feb. 24, the captors tried to cross the Russian-Azeri border in Dagestan 
along with Babitsky, who was using the Burov passport. Russian border guards 
refused to let Babitsky pass, saying that his passport was not "properly 
filled out," Babitsky said. He then disposed of the Burov passport at the 
advice of his captors, he added. 

The supporters then paid a local guide to smuggle the journalist to 
Azerbaijan. Babitsky, however, managed to convince the guide to let him go 
and traveled instead to the Dagestani capital of Makhachkala, where he was 
finally detained by police on Feb. 25 while carrying the Musayev passport. 

On Feb. 29, Babitsky was released and allowed to travel to Moscow, where he 
was immediately charged by the Interior Ministry's investigative committee 
for holding falsified documents. 

Khinshtein, however, says he has sufficient evidence to prove that it was the 
ministry's own passport and visa directorate that requested the Soviet-era 
passport Babitsky was carrying at the time he was detained. 

Khinshtein provided The Moscow Times with a photocopy of what he said was the 
official request, printed on the directorate's letterhead and addressed to 
the visa and passport service of the Moscow region's police force. 

The Feb. 16 letter, signed by a Colonel Smorodin, asks the service to provide 
a blank Soviet-era passport to a Major Natalya Kandybenko. The letter said 
the ministry required the passport for "service needs." 

Another photocopy provided by Khinshtein bears the signature of Kandybenko 
and says that on Feb. 16 she received a blank passport, serial number 1-LB, 
No. 681699. 

Both Babitsky and Khinshtein allege the Musayev passport handed to Babitsky 
bore the same number and series, and say they believe the ministry's top 
brass - including Interior Minister Vladimir Rushailo - used the passport to 
frame the Radio Liberty journalist. A ministry spokesman denied Tuesday that 
Rushailo had engineered the case against Babitsky. 

Babitsky has already officially requested that the Chief Military 
Prosecutor's Office investigate his exchange, and says he now plans to 
provide prosecutors with photocopies of the two documents that he believes 
prove that the exchange was staged. 

The Musayev passport has already been seized from Babitsky and handed to the 
ministry's investigative committee, said Khinshtein, who himself recently 
fought off an Interior Ministry case accusing him of concealing a history of 
psychiatric disorders when obtaining a driver's license. 

Khinshtein's defenders have said his articles targeting government corruption 
drew the ire of the ministry's investigative committee, which suddenly closed 
the case against him on Feb. 16, saying Khinshtein's alleged disorders 
"presented no major threat to society and caused no serious consequences." 

******

#5
Chechen villagers return to flattened homes
April 11, 2000

KOMSOMOLSKOYE, Russia (Reuters) - Dozens of Chechen villagers went searching 
for their homes Tuesday but found only twisted metal and splinters of wood. 

``This is all that remains of this house and all that was in this house,'' 
said Umar Ismailov in Komsomolskoye, which was flattened, as though by a 
hurricane, in fighting between Russian troops and Chechen rebels last month. 

Ismailov was among the first residents to return to the village since Russian 
troops drove the rebels out. 

Thousands used to live in the settlement, 16 miles south of the Chechen 
capital Grozny, where fighting flared after Russian troops were attacked by a 
large group of rebel fighters led by field commander Ruslan Gelayev. 

Television pictures at the time showed Russian tanks firing straight into 
houses, pounding them into heaps of rubble and dust before advancing 
cautiously in fear of sniper fire. 

Workers from the Russian Emergencies Ministry only recently finished clearing 
the corpses of rebel fighters from the ruins, before the civilians were 
allowed to return. 

Higher up the Argun gorge, on the road to the mountain strongholds of the 
rebels, the picture was the same. 

One woman sobbed as she surveyed the graveyard at the village of Ulus-Kert, 
where shells had gouged huge holes in the earth and smashed tombstones. 

Others sat on their doorsteps -- often all that remained of the homes where 
they used to live. 

Malika Usmanova, outside her wrecked home, lashed out at Russian 
President-elect Vladimir Putin, who said at the start of the six-month-old 
offensive that he would wipe the rebels out everywhere. 

``The barns are destroyed,'' she said. ``Look there, the cows are all lying 
dead and rotting.'' 

*******

#6
Moscow Times
April 12, 2000 
EDITORIAL: Maskhadov's Overnight Absolution 

"The aggression in Dagestan was the last step to end the dubious legitimacy
of 
President Aslan Maskhadov. ... The man was elected in disregard of the laws 
of the Russian Federation. He does not control the situation on the territory 
of the Chechen republic, and therefore he has no legal authority. ... in 
Chechnya there is no one with whom Russia could conduct negotiations." - 
Kremlin spokesman Sergei Yastrzhembsky, quoted by Itar-Tass, Jan. 27. 

"We are also ready for the talks Maskhadov spoke of. The 'talks' will be held 
by representatives of the Defense Ministry and the Prosecutor General's 
Office in keeping with article [270 of the Criminal Code, for armed revolt], 
under which a criminal case has been opened against Maskhadov." - 
Yastrzhembsky, Interfax, March 2. 

"Any 'talks' with Maskhadov other than in the framework of the criminal case 
against him are out of the question." - Yastrzhembsky, Interfax, March 13. 

"[Maskhadov] is expected at the Prosecutor General's office and he is charged 
with involvement in an armed insurgency. If it is proved he does not have 
blood on his hands and he repents his deeds, he can try to get a pardon." - 
Yastrzhembsky, Interfax, March 29. 

"It is absolutely obvious that we have to keep up contacts. We have 
repeatedly made Moscow's point of view known to Maskhadov, aiming to launch 
some kind of political process." - Yastrzhembsky, Itar-Tass, April 11. 

So ... what has changed? Since the war began, the Kremlin has insisted 
Maskhadov is illegitimate, in armed rebellion, a criminal. 

Maskhadov has responded that he is none of these things; that it was Shamil 
Basayev and Khattab who invaded Dagestan, not he; and that Basayev's invasion 
force was funded by President-elect Putin's political ally Boris Berezovsky - 
who now admits he has been taken so deeply into the confidence of the rebel 
leaders that in the spring they sought his opinion of their plans to invade. 

Maskhadov has pleaded for talks. The Kremlin has answered with bombs and 
outlandish ultimatums - until this week, when it slyly veered off in a new 
direction, waxing eloquent about how "absolutely obvious" has been the need 
for "contacts" leading to "some kind of political process." 

So again, what has changed? Is it perhaps that Chechnya is boring in a 
post-elections era, and ought to go away? 

- Matt Bivens 

******

#7
The Times (UK)
12 April 2000
[for personal use only]
Opposition grows to Putin audience with the Queen
BY RICHARD BEESTON AND ALICE LAGNADO IN MOSCOW

THE Queen risks being caught up in an international dispute if her meeting 
with President Putin of Russia goes ahead in London next week. 

As details are finalised of the one-day visit on Monday, there is growing 
pressure at home and abroad not to grant the newly elected Kremlin leader 
such a prestigious meeting while Russia faces unresolved accusations of gross 
human rights violations in Chechnya. 

Mr Putin and his wife are due to arrive in London on Sunday night. On Monday, 
the Russian leader will meet British industrialists, attend a a working lunch 
at Downing Street and is then scheduled to have an audience with the Queen. 

In the Commons yesterday, Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat Foreign 
Affairs spokesman, called on the Government to postpone the visit. "After the 
treatment which has been meted out to Mary Robinson, the UN Commissioner for 
Human Rights, and also the decision of the Council of Europe to begin 
proceedings which may lead to the suspension of Russia, does the Government 
feel no discomfort at the notion of welcoming Mr Putin in London?" he asked. 

In Russia, Yelena Bonner, the widow of the Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov, 
repeated her charge that the war in Chechnya was "genocide" and urged Tony 
Blair not to grant Russia new loans while the war continued. 

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International are preparing letters to Downing 
Street demanding that Mr Putin be brought to task for a conflict which he 
masterminded. "One of the few levers that the international community has 
over Mr Putin is his access to the world stage," said a spokeswoman for Human 
Rights Watch in New York. "By granting a meeting with the Queen, Britain is 
enhancing his international prestige and receiving nothing in return." 

Despite the row, Mr Putin is expected to take advantage of Britain's moderate 
stance on the war in Chechnya to push for foreign investment. He is wasting 
no time in following up Tony Blair's visit to St Petersburg, which 
established a personal relationship that the Russian leader is keen to 
exploit. 

Mr Putin clearly believes that Russia needs massive foreign investment if its 
economy is to improve, which explains why he is spending Monday morning 
talking business. Russia's main British investors include Shell, BP Amoco, 
Unilever, Cadbury Schweppes and British American Tobacco. Despite this list, 
there are huge problems for foreign investors trying to set up in Russia, as 
demonstrated by the problems experienced by the Swedish furniture chain, 
Ikea, which set up a shop in Moscow last month. 

Mr Putin will be seeking to reassure existing and potential investors that he 
will pass the necessary laws to make putting money into Russia worth their 
while. Political analysts in Moscow believe Mr Putin does wish to make the 
investment climate more favourable, but the changes required are too large to 
realise quickly. 

That may not matter to some Western investors. "Many investors in the West 
are like rabbits to a boa constrictor. The boa constrictor opens its mouth, 
and they are hypnotised and swallowed," said Yevgeni Volk, a leading 
commentator. 

The Russian leader also wants to sound out both British and European ideas 
about Russia and Europe. "Putin will get information on the views of the EU 
and the larger Euro-Atlantic Alliance. Also, this high-level dialogue will 
contribute to the formulation of Russia's new foreign policy, which Russia 
will have to change after the past two years," Sergei Karaganov, the deputy 
director of Moscow's Europe Institute, said. 

Mr Karaganov said that the Russian leader saw Mr Blair as a useful pointer to 
"new" European thinking. "Tony Blair is not simply the British leader but an 
intellectual guru for the new Europe," he said. 

*****

#8
Segodnya
April 12, 2000
[translation from RIA Novosti for personal use only]
BEREZOVSKY'S DEFENCE
Why the Notorious Oligarch Looks Forward to a Meeting with 
President-Elect 
Andrei KAMAKIN and Andrei SMIRNOV

According to information at the disposal of this 
newspaper, State Duma Deputy Boris Berezovsky is out to be 
received in audience by President-elect Vladimir Putin. The 
notorious oligarch has at least two reasons to wish such a 
meeting. The first is Aslan Maskhadov's scandalous interview 
with the Deutche Welle Radio. The Chechen President put 
Berezovsky, who has been elected to the State Duma from the 
Karachayevo-Cherkess republic, in the same company with Shamil 
Basayev and Movladi Udugov, claiming that precisely these three 
persons provoked the war by masterminding the invasion of 
Chechen militants into Dagestan.
The second reason is utterly unrelated to Chechnya. Segodnya 
has found out from sources in the Prosecutor-General's Office 
that it has already been decided to advance charges against 
Berezovsky on several counts, including swindle and money 
laundering. According to our information, investigators are 
completing the examination of data on Aeroflot accounts. In a 
short while, their conclusions are to be put on the desk of 
acting Prosecutor-General Vladimir Ustinov, who is the only 
official entitled to authorise the further course of 
developments. Ustinov is to ask the Duma to agree to strip 
Berezovsky of his parliamentary immunity so that he could be 
arrested.
By and large, the situation has gone so far that there is 
nothing left for Berezovsky but to appeal to Putin. The 
President-elect's press service has not confirmed that 
Berezovsky has submitted an official request for a meeting with 
Putin.
According to our source, however, "Berezovsky's influence on 
the Kremlin has not grown so weak, as he would have to file a 
written request for such a meeting". On the other hand, the 
same Kremlin insider does not exclude that Maskhadov's 
revelations about the latest developments in the Northern 
Caucasus was an action masterminded by none other than 
Berezovsky himself to interest Putin in a meeting with him to 
discuss a subject of interest to the President-elect. If this 
is really so, the tactics of Berezovsky's defence become 
crystal clear. The oligarch may offer to use his vast 
connections with separatist leaders to "make peace in Chechnya" 
in exchange for the closure of the Aeroflot case. The source 
doesn't exclude this variant.
The disgraced Prosecutor-General Yuri Skuratov in a 
conversation with this newspaper confirmed that, according to 
his information, "the Prosecutor-General's Office has received 
enough materials from Switzerland to bring charges against 
Berezovsky.
Skuratov carefully selected words when talking about the 
prospects of the "Aeroflot affair". In his view, its outcome 
will give "one more chance to find out what Putin is. It is 
obvious that a political decision will be required." Our 
insider in the Prosecutor-General's Office is not surprised by 
Berezovsky's moves: "It is all for the better. At least, we 
will check the Kremlin's reaction." Asked what if the case is 
decided in Berezovsky's favour, he said: "What decision can the 
President make? Only pardon! This right of his is codified by 
the law - he can pardon anyone by his decree. But this is 
sooner from the domain of science fiction. I am sure that 
everything will pursue its natural course."
It has already happened once that Berezovsky passed from 
the category of the accused to the category of the witness. It 
was connected with the "Aeroflot affair", when he was accused 
of illegal entrepreneurial activities. However, investigator 
Nikolai Volkov had, under incredibly strong pressure, to 
withdraw those charges on the eve of the State Duma elections. 
Berezovsky paid off the Kremlin at that time by knocking 
together the Unity election bloc and "spoiling Luzhkov in the 
loo" with the help of the television channel under his control. 
He is now building his tactics of defence under the same 
pattern. Berezovsky is trying to bargain with the Kremlin, 
while his ORT channel is preparing to give a salvo against the 
initiators of the "Aeroflot affair".
Segodnya has found out that an ORT team is just back from a 
month-long business trip in Switzerland where they were 
searching for compromising material against Swiss and Russian 
law-enforcers involved in the investigation of Berezovsky's 
activities.

*******

#9
The Electric Telegraph (UK)
12 April 2000
[for personal use only]
Putin humiliated power struggle for St Petersburg
By Marcus Warren in St Petersburg

AN early test of Vladimir Putin's leadership has humiliated the Russian 
president in his home town, St Petersburg, exposing weakness where those who 
voted for him last month had hoped for strength.

A battle for control of the country's second city - and contract killing 
capital - has turned into an apparent rout for the Kremlin. The victor, 
Vladimir Yakovlev, the current governor, was once likened by Mr Putin to 
Judas. Efforts by Mr Putin and his advisers to field a candidate capable of 
defeating Mr Yakovlev at the polls have collapsed and the resulting debacle 
risks prolonging the status quo of corruption and murder blighting the 
"Venice of the North".

Mr Putin is now backing Mr Yakovlev, the favourite in next month's local 
elections, despite their personal history of bad blood and the widespread 
expectation that, on becoming president, he would launch a crackdown against 
Russia's regional leaders. The defeat in the city he once all but ran has 
coincided with the anniversary of his first 100 days as acting president and 
alarmed many who saw in the former KGB officer the makings of a dictator. His 
weakness may be just as dangerous, they now caution. 

Writing in yesterday's Sevodnya daily, Leonid Radzikhovsky, a political 
commentator, said: "Looking at his passivity and indecision, some completely 
different fears come to mind: can he wield any power at all?" Lev Lurie, a St 
Petersburg analyst, said: "We seem to have a new Gorbachev on our hands, 
someone who manoeuvres between different groups looking for a consensus. The 
solution he opts for is not what is required but what is least dangerous." 

Such hesitancy and weakness contrast with the image cultivated by the Kremlin 
and believed by many in the West of Putin the man of action, who last week 
dived to the depths of the ocean in a submarine and flew to Chechnya in a 
bomber's cockpit. 

In St Petersburg Mr Putin has failed a test of his ability to impose himself 
and break down resistance to the Kremlin's rule. Thanks to his personal links 
with the city and local anger at its miserable plight, he started from a 
position of strength as well. "The City Has Had Enough" and "The City 
Deserves Better" say posters plastered over the centre of town. Part of the 
now stalled anti-Yakovlev campaign, they nevertheless express something of 
the popular mood.

The cull of businessmen and politicians by contract killers has secured St 
Petersburg a reputation as Russia's criminal capital. Police were yesterday 
investigating the death of another victim, murdered with three shots to the 
head. Mr Putin's last two visits to his birthplace, one to hold a summit with 
Tony Blair, were also marked by the fatal shootings of influential local 
entrepreneurs. Few of the killings are ever solved. 

The "Judas" taunt dates back to the last local elections four years ago, when 
Mr Yakovlev stood against and defeated both men's former boss, Anatoly 
Sobchak. Mr Putin moved to Moscow soon afterwards. Besides the two men's 
personal animosity, Mr Yakovlev and his running of the city embody the kind 
of rule that many of Mr Putin supporters hope he will stamp out.

Some parts of the city administration are directly linked to crime, a deputy 
interior minister and the head of a Moscow task force investigating local 
corruption, Peter Latyshev, claimed last month. Mr Yakovlev has denied the 
allegations. Boris Nemtsov, a leading Moscow liberal, said: "What is going on 
in St Petersburg is a huge, terrible defeat for Putin in his home town. The 
Russian president, voted for by more than 60 per cent of local people, has no 
candidate of his own for the job of governor." 

*******

#10
Nezavisimaya Gazeta
April 12, 2000
[translation from RIA Novosti for personal use only]
PUTIN AND COMMUNISTS
Communist Leaders Ponder Variants of Cooperation with the 
New President
Sergei PRAVOSUDOV

In past elections communists failed again to take power in 
their hands. However, they do not think that that was the end, 
drawing up sweeping plans for the future, which is anyway 
linked to the new president, of course. In actual fact, 
communists are going to play according to the Kremlin's rules - 
depending on the road Vladimir Putin will take. 
If the new president practically does not change the 
system that formed under Boris Yeltsin whereby oligarchs still 
own a mammoth share of property, the budget is formed by 
revenues from raw materials export, consumer goods are bought 
abroad, while domestic production keeps dragging a miserable 
existence, then, in communists' opinion, Vladimir Putin will 
not be able to substantially improve the economic situation of 
the population.
Communists' reckoning is simple - such a policy of the new 
president would lead to the growth of popular discontent.
Communists know even the slogans that are bound to appear in 
the streets: "Putin duped us." Communists also count on 
replenishing the opposition's ranks at the expense of those who 
for various reasons will not get a post from Vladimir Putin. 
And as always, according to communists' plans, in search of an 
alternative, the popular masses will turn their eyes to the 
communist party - the only powerful opposition party that can 
make a better showing in the next elections due to the 
abovesaid. 
However, Vladimir Putin may take another road, making a 
stake on the support of domestic producers, something that 
communists count on. In this case, the new president will have 
to markedly cut the export of raw materials, sending them for 
processing to manufacturing enterprises inside the country. The 
communist leaders are sure that this policy of the president 
would hardly be to the liking of oligarchs who would sustain 
heavy losses as a result of export reductions. The people 
expressing the interests of the financial-industrial groups in 
the government and the presidential administration would hardly 
be glad to start pursuing a policy of cutting the incomes of 
their patrons. Based on this circumstance, communists draw the 
following conclusion: Vladimir Putin will need new people to 
rely on. Since the communist faction controls all the Duma 
committees dealing with industry and agriculture, communists 
hope that their representatives will not be left without 
ministerial portfolios. 
The communist leaders consider the second variant 
unrealistic, though. Secretary of the communist party central 
committee for ideology Alexander Kravets said the following on 
this score: "I do not believe that Boris Yeltsin's circle of 
confidants could have given the reins of government to a man 
whom they would not be able to control. They are sure to have 
the materials that allow them to keep a tight hold on him." 

*******

#11
Washington Post
12 April 2000
[for personal use only]
Moscow Money Trail
By David Ignatius

One of the more intriguing bit players in the carnival of Clinton White House 
fund-raising was a shadowy Lebanese American financier named Roger Tamraz.

Tamraz, you may recall, wanted to build a pipeline to carry oil from 
Azerbaijan to Turkey--a project on which he stood to make an estimated $125 
million. A similar pipeline scheme is now official administration policy. But 
back then, in 1995, it was controversial. So Tamraz did what any careful 
student of American politics would do: He began doling out campaign 
contributions to the party in power. 

During 1995 and 1996, Tamraz made a total of about $300,000 in contributions 
to the Democrats, and officials apparently hoped he might contribute another 
$400,000. Along the way, he met six times with President Clinton, including 
at a Democratic National Committee reception on Sept. 11, 1995, a DNC dinner 
on Sept. 15, another DNC reception on Dec. 13, another DNC dinner on March 
27, a presidential coffee on April 1 and a buffet dinner and private 
screening of "Independence Day" at the White House on June 22. 

Tamraz told Senate investigators that the "only reason" he made these 
contributions was to get access to the White House. And he was, indeed, able 
to pitch Clinton personally on his pipeline plan. With refreshing candor, 
Tamraz observed later, "I think next time I'll give $600,000." 

An interesting yarn, to be sure, but there's just one problem. Investigators 
never explored the most interesting part--a meeting about the pipeline 
project that allegedly took place in late 1995 in Milan among Tamraz and two 
of Russian president Boris Yeltsin's top aides.

Two CIA officials who debriefed Tamraz about the meeting came away thinking 
it had involved discussion of reciprocal campaign contributions--Tamraz would 
give money to Yeltsin's '96 campaign, perhaps on behalf of the United States, 
and Russian money would make its way to Clinton's '96 campaign. "Tamraz said 
he would propose mutual help for the elections," recalls one official 
familiar with the case. "He wanted to serve as a back channel between the 
U.S. and Russia." 

Now this one is screaming for a closer look. We're not talking about Buddhist 
monks here but former KGB operatives and major international fixers. 
Unfortunately, the Justice Department's campaign-finance task force dropped 
the ball, and so did Sen. Fred Thompson's Government Affairs Committee. 

So I called Tamraz this week, to see if he could shed any light. And in a 
return call from Cairo, where he's trying to put together some new oil deals, 
the financier did just that. Tamraz confirmed that he had met at the Four 
Seasons Hotel in Milan on Nov. 30 and Dec. 1, 1995, with Alexander V. 
Korzhakov, a KGB bodyguard who at the time was Yeltsin's security chief and 
by many accounts the most powerful adviser to the Russian president. Also 
present was Pavel Borodin, another Yeltsin adviser and, as it happens, the 
man credited by some Russians for engineering the rise of Yeltsin's 
successor, President Vladimir Putin. 

Tamraz remembers that the Russians wanted campaign money to help Yeltsin, who 
at that time was behind in the polls. "They were looking for funds," he 
recalled. "Anything that would help would be good. That's why I passed it 
along to the CIA . . . I wanted to leave it up to our government in its 
wisdom to decide what to do." 

"There was a window of opportunity," Tamraz explains. He says he doesn't 
recall the Russians suggesting a specific donation of $100 million--the 
number cited in a later CIA document describing the Milan meeting. 

After he returned from Milan, Tamraz met on Dec. 12 with a CIA officer at the 
Four Seasons Hotel restaurant in Georgetown. Concerned that the Russians 
might be proposing reciprocal payoffs, that officer asked his boss, the chief 
of the CIA's Central Eurasia division, to meet with Tamraz the next day, 
which he did. 

Those two conversations were later summarized in a Dec. 26 agency memo. To 
get some collateral evidence to back up Tamraz's account, the CIA division 
chief contacted the Italian security service. They provided confirmation that 
Tamraz, Korzhakov and Borodin had, indeed, been registered under their own 
names at the hotel in Milan on the days Tamraz mentioned. 

Tamraz insists that the CIA officials must have misheard him if they thought 
he was suggesting Russian contributions to Clinton. He said they never made 
any such proposal, and that even if they had, he wouldn't have passed it 
along to a CIA case officer. "It shoots itself in the foot," he says of this 
suggestion. He never met again with the Russians, he says, or with the CIA, 
for that matter. "It became messy," he says.

The moral of the story? Well, if you ask Tamraz, he's still convinced he did 
all the right things. He passed along a possible covert-action opportunity to 
the CIA. He made enough campaign contributions to be able to pitch his 
pipeline project to the president. In short, he played the game. 

"I don't regret it," Tamraz said. "If you're on big projects, you've got to 
be in the loop. What am I doing different from the oil companies or the 
tobacco companies? I don't see what all the hullabaloo was about." What 
indeed? 

Still, I'd be happier if I understood just what Yeltsin's inner circle had in 
mind that day in Milan, when they suggested working closely with a man who 
was potentially an intermediary for their close friends and supporters in the 
Clinton-Gore administration. 

******

#12
Russia's Putin to meet Gazprom, UES over supply row

MOSCOW, April 12 (Reuters) - The heads of Russian gas giant Gazprom and of 
national power grid UES EESR.RTS, locked in a row over supplies, will soon 
meet President-elect Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin said on Wednesday. 

``The meeting, where problems of the fuel and energy complex will be 
discussed, is scheduled to take place one of the coming days,'' a spokeswoman 
for Putin's press office told Reuters. 

Putin on Monday ordered the conflict over cuts in gas deliveries to UES, 
which has threatened Russia with power cuts, to be solved in two days. 

UES chief Anatoly Chubais told ORT television late on Tuesday that the 
meeting with Putin and Gazprom's Rem Vyakhirev would take place in the 
Kremlin on Thursday. 

Gazprom cut gas deliveries to UES's power stations from April 1, arguing it 
did not have enough gas, and it suggested other types of fuel be used 
instead, like fuel oil or coal. It also said it wanted UES to pay 100 percent 
in cash for supplies and to repay a debt of $1.57 billion. 

UES said it would have to slash electricity supplies to 11 cities and 
regions. 

Chubais and Vyakhirev failed to resolve the issue completely at a meeting on 
Tuesday, although Gazprom agreed to increase supplies slightly in the second 
quarter of this year. Chubais said UES would still be forced to make some 
electricity cuts. 

Chubais was quoted as saying earlier this week by Russian media that Gazprom 
could increase domestic supplies by cutting its export shipments to hard 
currency markets. 

But Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Khristenko ruled out such a possibility. 

``These are long-term contracts which form the base of hard currency 
revenues. Therefore, it is not reasonable to talk about cutting exports (to 
the West),'' he told reporters on Tuesday. 

Gazprom produced 556.5 billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas in 1999 and exported 
126.8 bcm to countries outside the Commonwealth of Independent States. 

******

#13
Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2000 
From: Jake Rudnitsky <jake@thepost.kiev.ua>
Subject: re:Womack #4241

Although I am a generally passive reader of JRL, every once in a while I
read something so ridiculous that I feel compelled to respond. Even then, I
usually don't do anything. But Helen Womack's piece in #4241 about
psycho-shrinking her accountant was so outrageously offensive that something
has to be written. Hopefully some Russians will also write in complaining
about being labeled barbarians, but for the record, not all Westerners are
able to say with a straight face that we are simply more advanced.

Look at some of Womack's proof of Russian's barbaric nature. They put
cigarettes out in the hall. While this might seem unbelievably shocking for
the upper middle class women who read the Independent while sipping tea at
three in the afternoon in a private home, can Womack think that there are no
places in the West with cigarette butts in the hall? Just because the line
between rich and poor is simply not as well demarcated in Russia (a.k.a.
poor people are not ghettoized nearly to the degree as in the civilized
west), Russians are barbaric. Please, Womack. You know, there are plenty of
buildings in the west that have graffiti in them and smell like piss, too.
It's just people like you don't go to them.

Then, the fact that Russians rent, not own. Well, thanks for the bourgeois
connection between ownership, self worth and development. For the record, as
everyone except perhaps Independent readers knows, Russians don't rent.
Their apartments are virtually free if they've been living there since the
collapse of the USSR. The State takes care of flooding, issues with heating
and all other problems, albeit in a terribly inefficient manner. Still, if a
place is privatized, ZhEK won't do jack for the owners. It can be quite a
hassle. And, the process of privatizing, while not expensive, is a real pain
in the ass. 

Then there's the bit about dog shit. I've only been to Paris once, and it
was only for a couple days, but my dominant memory is not Gothic cathedrals
or 19th century boulevards. It's dog shit. On every street. I didn't have
time to look up at any Beaux Art masterpieces because I was far too busy
guarding my boots. There was far more than I've ever noticed on the streets
of any former Soviet city. Maybe its because only WASPs are civilized? 
And, Russians are rude on the street! Unlike, say, New Yorkers? Of course
they're rude, Moscow is a big city, and people are always rude in big
cities. Go to Odessa, and barbaric Russians will smile at you. 

But, moving beyond the absurd proofs she offers of Russian wildness, there's
the even more offensive underlying theme of Westerner as shrink, Russian as
patient. Womack's article is about the process of gaining the trust of her
accountant, so that she can proceed to council him on his inner barbarian.
It reads like a Psychology 101 manual. First gain trust. (Womack tells him
that even though the collective barbaric Russian soul is brutally killing
Chechnya, it's ok. The important thing is that he won't be freeze up and get
defensive during the coming soul searching session. In time, he himself will
admit he is a barbarian). Next, get over denial. (Our everyman, who is
actually a wealthy accountant who probably masturbates to images of suburban
America, needs to admit that he is, like all Russians, a godless barbarian
in need of etiquette classes) Step three, come to terms with the truth (now
that he has admitted his weaknesses, he can learn to live with the fact that
he is and always will be inferior) She even goes so far as to agree, in
principle, with Hitler. While she denies that Russians are subhuman, she
does say that they are certainly inferior to our brand of human. Lucky
accountant, unlike Womack's other friends who somehow delude themselves into
thinking they are equal to Womack's superior intellect and culture, now he
doesn't need to live a lie that he is equal to a westerner. 

Equal how, I wonder? No Russian thinks they get equal salaries to westerns;
certainly they have no illusions about that. Civilized Westerners truly
believe that, Russians not being equal, they should receive shit wages for
equal work. They justify themselves by saying it's good money by barbarian
standards. 

But on all other scales, they seem equal to me. They are equally willing to
believe bullshit fed them in the media (that's why the West supported Kosovo
and the Russians support Chechnya, to sight dramatic examples). Russians
have an equivalent education, if not better. They are certainly less caulked
full of bullshit bourgeois complexes than westerners. Except for Womack's
accountant, that is, who I'm sure drools over all those stupid lifestyles
magazines that the Moscow times publishes. 

Ultimately, this article is yet another of the endless reiterations of West
is the doctor, Russia needs the cure. JRL readers are no doubt aware of how
much good that condescending attitude has done in the last several years. 
And, I haven't even addressed the first, most glaring factual error of
Womack's piece. Accountants (even Russian ones) really are boring people.

Jake Rudnitsky
Kyiv

*******

#14
Rossiiskaya Gazeta
April 12, 2000
[translation from RIA Novosti for personal use only]
BETTER RATIFY THE TREATY THAN QUARREL
Yuri YERSHOV

The Americans themselves are to blame, to a degree, for 
the procrastination with the ratification of START-2 in Moscow. 
For as soon as the State Duma decided to ratify it, they did 
something to prevent this. First they bombed Iraq (and are 
still bombing it), then they launched the missile and bombing 
bacchanal in Yugoslavia, and now they proclaimed their 
intention to create a national ABM system, which runs counter 
to the provisions of the 1972 ABM Treaty. 
This behaviour of Russia's overseas partners was bound to 
worry us. On the other hand, we must not permit the signed 
treaty to continue to gather dust in the State Duma. Vladimir 
Putin seems to have convinced the bulk of deputies (the heads 
of all Duma factions attended the recent Security Council 
session).
Anyway, their statements and the voting results in the Duma 
committees on international affairs and on defence hint at the 
possibility of the treaty ratification. This might happen at 
the Friday plenary session. 
The ratification and, most important, the implementation 
of that treaty will directly benefit Russia. Economically-wise, 
this will slash spending on the maintenance of the nuclear 
arsenal in combat readiness. From the military-political 
viewpoint, the ratification of the treaty will pave the way to 
talks on START-3, expected to lower the nuclear ceiling to 
1,000 warheads. As US Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott 
said, Washington, believing Moscow's assurances of prompt 
ratification of START-2, is resolved to progress towards 
START-3. 
Besides, this will give Russia a sound chance to strictly 
demand compliance with the ABM Treaty, whose liquidation can 
plunge the world back into a period of confrontation, Foreign 
Minister Igor Ivanov said. Dmitry Rogozin, chairman of the Duma 
committee on international affairs, fully agrees with Ivanov. 
He pointed out yesterday that the ratification of START-2 was 
"our chance to keep the US side from making a rash decision on 
reviewing the ABM Treaty." For this treaty is the major 
stabilising factor that keeps the world from an all-out war. 
In addition, by ratifying START-2, Russia will regain its 
place among the ranks of initiators of the disarmament process. 
And such initiative, such proactive steps graphically 
express the essence of Russia's energetic foreign policy, as 
advocated by Vladimir Putin at the Security Council session. He 
pointed to the need to gear all Russia's international 
obligations to the draft national security concept and the 
develop programme for the Armed Forces.
The concept provides for pursuing an independent and 
constructive foreign policy and for firmly upholding national 
interests. According to Igor Ivanov, the greatest priority of 
Russia's foreign policy now is to protect the individual, 
society and the state. As some foreign politicians say, the 
sooner Russians start acting in their own interests, the safer 
Russia and the world will become. And this is the indisputable 
truth. 

*******

Web page for CDI Russia Weekly: 
http://www.cdi.org/russia