Russia and the CIS News Digest
Putin Welcomes Bush Win; Other Russians Not Convinced
Speaking Nov. 3, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the reelection of George Bush demonstrated that Americans have not bowed to intimidation. Putin said that international terrorists had decided at all costs to prevent Bush from winning, citing the recent tape attributed to Osama bin Laden, as evidence of this. "If Bush has really won," Putin was quoted by RIA Novosti, before Sen. John Kerry had conceded, "one could only be happy that the American people have not conceded to intimidation and just have done what they thought was reasonable. I have known Bush for four years as a consistent and decent man. If Bush gets reelected, we will congratulate him, and we will be glad that the dirt that has been cast on him has not stuck, and we will express our hope that he would reveal all his best qualities and all his experience gained in the four previous years of leadership over such an important world power as America."
Putin admitted, however, dialogue with the United States will never be easy.
Not everybody in Russia is on the "Bush is better for Russia" line, spouted by many analysts and endorsed by Putin. Dmitri Rogozin, Deputy Speaker (and former Foreign Affairs Committee chairman) of the State Duma and leader of the Rodina party, was quoted by RIA Novosti as warning against Russia's being dragged into U.S. "adventures." He expressed concern that Bush would continue policies of "maintaining instability in the Persian Gulf region and threatening to use force against Iran and Syria."
On election eve, senior Americanologist Sergei Rogov, director of the USA-Canada Institute of the Academy of Sciences, continued to rebut the "set of arguments to the effect that George Bush's victory would be more in our interests," telling Interfax on Nov. 1 that, "there are no less serious arguments that John Kerry's victory would be in Russia's interests."
U.S. Ambassador Hails Russian Base in Tajikistan
The U.S. Ambassador to Tajikistan, Richard Hoagland, has welcomed the Russian military base there as "a key element in building stability in the region." The Russian presence would "open new possibilities to cooperate in the anti-terrorism struggle," Hoagland said, in Dushanbe Nov. 5. The Russian envoy, Maksim Peshkov, said Russia and the United States were facing a common enemy in international terrorism. The Central Asian republics of Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakstan have offered landing rights for coalition aircraft engaged in battling the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.
LaRouche-Associate Cheminade Interviewed in Russian Paper
The Russian trade union website www.trud.ru, which carries contents of the newspaper Trud (founded in 1921) published an opinion column by Jacques Cheminade Nov. 31. Titled "The Caucasian Chalk Circle" (the allusion to playwright Bertold Brecht having been chosen by the editors, not Cheminade), the article was based on an interview with Cheminade, conducted by Trud's Paris correspondent, Slava Prokofyev. Cheminade was identified as leader of the Schiller Institute and the Solidarity and Progress movement. His commentary dealt with the American Presidential elections, how the situation in the Caucasus is being manipulated by outside powers, the worldwide economic crisis, and the role of Lyndon LaRouche.
FSB Chief Warns of Suicide Bombings
Addressing the State Duma on Oct. 29, Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) chief Nikolai Patrushev announced that the FSB had "established that there are more than 80 suicide attackers trained abroad, who are ready to be sent to Russia to carry out terrorist acts." Some of them had been neutralized, he said, but it remained unknown, "what route they might take to get into Russia, and this creates certain problems."
At the same Duma session, Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov previewed the 44 anti-terror measures, which his office will submit to the Duma in new legislation next month. Included are the confiscation of property and money, to undercut the finances for terrorist attacks. Another measure mentioned by Ustinov, "the detention of the relatives of terrorists during the commission of a terrorist act," touched off an uproar in the Duma. Speaker Boris Gryzlov said that such a bill would be considered, but First Deputy Speaker Lyubov Sliska, from the same majority United Russia party as Gryzlov, attacked the proposal. She said Ustinov's proposal "will return us to barbarism," and suggested the Prosecutor General start looking for another job.
Similar measures against family members have been debated in Israel. Patrushev, in his testimony, greatly played up the international "exchange of experience" among secret services and law enforcement. Without providing details, he said that three international conferences have been held in Russia for this purpose, with the participation of such agencies from 80 countries. In addition, visiting foreign intelligence personnel have asked and received permission to visit the scene of the Beslan school massacre (which Putin and others publicly blamed on foreign intelligence agencies) and study its circumstances.
Russia Debates Budget-Surplus Allocation
Russia's Federal budget surplus will reach 505.7 billion rubles ($16.86 billion) in 2004, due to high oil-export earnings, according to an Oct. 30 report in the government newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta). Three-hundred seventy-nine billion rubles will go into the government "stabilization fund," bringing it to 500 billion rubles by year's end. Rossiyskaya Gazeta quoted Deputy Finance Minister Tatyana Golikova as saying that some of the stabilization-fund money could be used to cover pension-fund shortfalls and that increased spending on defense and security, agriculture, and health care was also possible. Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin and Presidential economics adviser Andrei Illarionov, however, both fiercely oppose any such increased spending. Illarionov, with dire warnings that spending the money inside Russia will touch off inflation, told Interfax on Nov. 2 that every spendable penny in the stabilization fund (by law, only amounts over $17.4 billion) should be given to Russia's international creditors, to pay down the foreign debt. "Stabilization-fund money must not be spent inside the country. Never!" said Illarinov, adding that this prohibition "should be written in gigantic neon letters and put on the roofs of the Finance Ministry, the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade, the government building and the Kremlin."
The London Independent reported Oct. 31 that some people in Russia are mobilizing to prevent these funds from being spent on infrastructure: "Still others believe that with state monopolies such as Transneft, the pipeline operator, and the national power utility openly discussing projects they would like funded, the result would be waste and corruption.... Igor Shuvalov, a Kremlin adviser, has suggested spending on railways, highways, airports, powerlines, and pipelines...." Then there is Alexander Lebedev, a banker and former government member (under Boris Yeltsin), who says that Russia needs a "New Deal" to better the lot of the impoverished majority of the population.
Russians Short of Military Manpower
The Russian Defense Ministry paper Krasnaya Zvezda wrote Oct. 27, that the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade is circulating a proposal to address the shortage of military conscripts, by ending student deferments. The plan would require 18-year-old males to serve two years in the military before entering any university or other institution of higher education. Krasnaya Zvezda noted that last year 1.3 million men, or 36% of those available to be drafted, had student deferments. The article quoted Minister of Education and Science Andrei Fursenko as saying, "The conscription of students into the military will not be the undoing of Russian science." Besides the effect of lower birth rates in the 1980s, the manpower shortage is also caused by the physical unfitness of many youths for service, due to poor health.
Run-off Slated for Ukrainian Presidential Election
There will be a run-off on Nov. 21 in Ukraine's Presidential election, after neither Prime Minister Victor Yanukovych nor opposition leader Victor Yushchenko won a simple majority in the first round. With almost 95% of the vote counted, the official returns showed Yanukovych with 40.12% of the vote and Yushchenko with 39.15%. The next three candidates were Alexander Moroz (Socialist) with 5.77%, Pyotr Symonenko (Communist) with 5.09%, and Natalia Vitrenko (Progressive Socialist) with 1.54%. Moroz endorsed Yushchenko and Vitrenko endorsed Yanukovych for the second round.
Maps of the vote showed the country sharply split, with Yushchenko winning throughout western Ukraine, and Yanukovych prevailing in the east and the south; even in the Dnepr industrial region, where some of the leading interests are hostile to Yanukovych, he beat Yushchenko by more than two to one. There were no reports of major incidents of violence, but both the OSCE and the U.S. State Department issued condemnations of the election for "failure to meet international standards," especially concerning the use of state resources in the campaign. Yushchenko's ally, Yuliya Tymoshenko, charged during a session of Parliament, subsequent to the first round vote, that there had been "massive falsifications." The promised thousands-strong demonstrations of Yushchenko supporters did not materialize, however, at least not after this first round.
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