Roving Russia

Russian Navy deploys ships to Venezuela

2008-09-23T17:36:00.000-07:00

By Ilya Kramnik
RIA Novosti military commentator, 23/09/08

MOSCOW - A Russian Navy squadron set off for Venezuela Monday in a deployment of Russian military power to the Western Hemisphere unprecedented since the Cold War.

During the Cold War, Latin America became an ideological battleground between the Soviet Union and the United States.

The Kremlin has recently moved to intensify contacts with Venezuela, Cuba and other Latin American nations amid strained relations with Washington after last month's conflict between Russia and Georgia.

The squadron comprising the Russian Northern Fleet's Pyotr Veliky (Peter the Great) battle cruiser and the anti-submarine warfare (ASW) ship Admiral Chabanenko will participate in exercises off the Venezuelan coast.

In the past, the world's major powers would demonstrate their naval capabilities in various regions, hinting ominously that they could disrupt enemy lines of communication in case of conflict.

Gunboats and other small warships, rather than capital warships, were an effective instrument for accomplishing such objectives.

However, the Pyotr Veliky and the Admiral Chabanenko are the Russian Navy's newest capital ships. Moscow's decision to send them to Venezuela implies that both warships can show their flags and defend them.

Military analysts often stress that the Russian Navy is vastly outnumbered by the U.S. Navy and those of NATO countries, and that Russian warships would be unable to score any impressive results.

Although the U.S. Navy is a powerful fighting force, it cannot be strong everywhere. The arrival of two capital Russian warships in the Caribbean Sea, traditionally a U.S. sphere of influence, will be a nasty surprise to Washington, compelling it to devote more attention to regional defenses.

The Pyotr Veliky displaces 25,000 metric tons and carries 20 P-700 Granit (SS-N-19 Shipwreck) supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles that can destroy ships of any class. The Russian battle cruiser is also heavily armed for ASW and air-defense missions; such weaponry also enhances its combat survivability.

The Admiral Chabanenko, which carries eight P-270 Moskit (SS-N-22 Sunburn) anti-ship missiles and surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems, is intended to locate and destroy enemy submarines.

Both warships can support each other and have the capability to inflict major losses on any adversary before they are outgunned.

The Russian squadron's objectives, rather than its capabilities, are a high-priority issue. The Kremlin has recently used the Navy during the peace enforcement operation in Georgia and now wants to display its naval might at America's doorstep.

Nevertheless, the Russian Navy's state will not improve as a result of Moscow's modified policies. Hopefully, the government will soon start restoring and rearming the Navy because any show of strength will otherwise prove ineffective.

The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.

Russia Won't Meet With U.S. on Iranian Nuclear Program

2008-09-23T17:35:00.000-07:00

By Steven Lee Myers
New York Times, 23/09/08

Russia said on Tuesday that it would not participate in a meeting with the United States this week to discuss Iran’s nuclear program, the most significant indication yet of how Russia’s war with Georgia has spoiled relations regarding other security issues.

Russia’s move apparently effectively scuttled the meeting.

The Russian Foreign Ministry issued a biting statement that criticized remarks last week by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who declared that Russia had taken "a dark turn" away from democracy and respect for international norms.

"We would very much like Washington, in the end, to make up its mind what kind of relations they want with Moscow," a ministry spokesman, Andrei Nesterenko, said in the statement. "If they want to punish Russia, that is one thing," he said. "If they agree that we have common interests that need to be jointly advanced, then that’s another."

Sean McCormack, the State Department spokesman, said in a press briefing on Tuesday that the decision to cancel the meeting was mutual and not a game of tit for tat with the Russians. "We agree with them the time is not right to have a meeting at the ministerial level," he said.

Russia and the United States, with China, Britain, France and Germany, had been scheduled to meet Thursday in New York to discuss additional punitive actions against Iran in the wake of a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency criticizing Iran’s failure to fully answer questions about its nuclear activities.

Russian officials had already made clear that they did not support new sanctions beyond three rounds already approved by the United Nations Security Council.

Ms. Rice is scheduled to meet her Russian counterpart, Sergey V. Lavrov, on Wednesday on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

A senior administration official, attending the meetings, acknowledged relations with Russia were in "a very rocky period" that tested the administration’s efforts to continue to cooperate on security issues even as President Bush and his aides strongly criticized Russian actions after the brief war with Georgia.

"They definitely don’t share the same sense of urgency that we and some of our European partners have," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the matter.

Russia in talks with Cuba, Venezuela on joint use of Glonass satellites

2008-09-23T17:31:00.000-07:00

RIA Novosti, 23/09/08

MOSCOW - Russia is negotiating with Cuba and Venezuela on the joint use of Russia's Glonass navigation satellites, the head of the federal space agency said on Tuesday.

"I have just returned from a working visit to Cuba. They are very interested in cooperating with us in the use of the Glonass system, which will cover the globe by 2010," Roscosmos chief Anatoly Perminov told reporters in Moscow.

He said Moscow and Havana are working on a space cooperation agreement and have considered ways of jointly using earth remote sensing satellites.

Russia has previously said it intends to share its space technology with Cuba, and has begun discussions on building a space center in the country.

Perminov also said Russia would like to station several ground based space communication facilities in Venezuela, but stressed that they would have no military application.

Glonass (Global Navigation Satellite System) is the Russian equivalent of the U.S. Global Positioning System (GPS), which is designed for both military and civilian use, and allows users to identify their positions in real time.

Russia plans to launch six satellites in the next three months to increase the existing Glonass grouping to 18-19 spacecraft.

According to the Central Research Institute for Machine Building, the Glonass system currently consists of 16 satellites, with 13 satellites working in orbit, two undergoing maintenance, and one due to be withdrawn from the orbital grouping.

Perminov earlier said that the number of Glonass satellites will be increased from the current 16 to 30 by 2011.

A total of 9.9 billion rubles (around $400 million at the current exchange rate) was allocated for Glonass from the federal budget in 2007, and 4.7 billion rubles ($190 million) in 2006.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin signed a directive on September 12 allocating an additional $2.6 billion to develop the Glonass system.

Georgia 'downs Russian drone'

2008-09-23T17:29:00.000-07:00

Al Jazeera, 23/09/08

Georgian officials have said that an unmanned Russian reconnaissance drone has been shot down just south of the breakaway region of South Ossetia.

Moscow denied the claim on Tuesday and accused Tbilisi of "provocation".

"This is the latest media provocation by Georgia with the aim of destabilising the situation in the region," Alexander Drobyshevsky, the Russian defence ministry spokesman, said.

"The aircraft of Russia's defence ministry have conducted no flights in the security zone," he said.

Russian forces moved into Georgia in support of South Ossetian separatist forces last month after Tbilisi launched an offensive to retake the region.

Drone 'patrolling'

The Georgian interior ministry said the drone was shot down on Monday morning near the town of Gori, about 30km from the de facto border with South Ossetia

"It was flying over the territory between the villages of Khurvaleti and Tsitelubani," Shota Utiashvili, an interior ministry spokesman, said. "We believe it was patrolling the territory where the Baku-Supsa [oil] pipeline runs."

The ministry displayed what it said was the downed Russian drone during a news conference. The aircraft was around one metre in length and 1.5 metres wide.

Utiashvili said it was a short-range drone capable of taking photographs, and suggested it had been launched from Russian positions at a "security zone" just a few kilometres north of Gori.

Russian forces continue to hold positions inside undisputed Georgian territory. A French-brokered deal which requires Russian forces to withdraw from "security zones" adjacent to South Ossetia and another breakaway region, Abkhazia, by October 10.

European monitors

A European Union mission of at least 200 monitors begins deploying this week to observe the pullback.

Before last month's war, Georgia flew unmanned reconnaissance aircraft over Abkhazia. A United Nations report concluded one of them had been shot down by a Russian jet, though Moscow denied this.

One Georgian police officer was killed and three others were wounded on Sunday by fire from separatists fighters in Abkhazia. Another two Georgian officers were wounded on Monday when they went to the area to investigate and stepped on a landmine.

Bush chides Russia in UN speech

2008-09-23T17:25:00.000-07:00

George Bush calls for more unity in the United Nations

BBC, 23/09/08

George W Bush has accused Russia of violating the UN's charter by invading Georgia, in his final speech to the world body as US president.

Mr Bush urged world leaders gathered at UN in New York to "stand united in our support of the people of Georgia".

In a wide-ranging speech, Mr Bush also urged the international community to continue the fight against terrorism.

He also gave an assurance that the US was taking decisive action over the current global economic crisis.

Mr Bush's speech touched on the themes of his presidency.

He accused Iran and Syria of continuing to sponsor terrorism, saying they were growing more isolated.

He also urged the UN to enforce sanctions on North Korea and Iran over their nuclear programmes.

'Equal rights'

On terrorism, the president warned that the world's leaders could not simply pass resolutions condemning terrorist acts after they had happened.

He said that instead, terrorism should be confronted with a "clarity of vision".

Referring to Russia's recent military action in Georgia, he said: "We must stand united in our support of the people of Georgia.

UN General Assembly
Economic issues are expected to dominate this year's assembly

"The United Nations charter sets forth the equal rights of nations large and small. Russia's invasion of Georgia was a violation of those words."

Mr Bush's comments came hours after Georgia said it had shot down a Russian reconnaissance drone flying over its territory.

It said the unmanned plane was downed south of its de facto border with the breakaway region of South Ossetia.

Russia dismissed the claim as a "media provocation by Georgia".

Mr Bush also assured world leaders that the US was acting decisively to contain the current global economic crisis.

He said he was confident that his plan to buy up the bad debt blocking the flow of credit would be passed by the US Congress "in the urgent timeframe required".

Summit call

Speaking after Mr Bush, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Europe's message to Russia was that it could not accept the use of force to settle disputes.

Mr Sarkozy also called for a summit of world leaders to be held by the end of the year to discuss lessons learned from the global financial turmoil.

And he said the G8 group of leading industrialised countries should be expanded to include China, India, South Africa, Mexico and Brazil.

World financial problems were also a major theme of the address by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon when he opened the annual assembly.

He said the financial turmoil put at risk the achievement of the UN-agreed Millennium Development Goals set in 2000 to halve global poverty by 2015.

He added that the crisis demanded a new approach with less "uncritical faith in the 'magic' of markets".

"The global financial crisis endangers all our work-financing for development, social spending in rich nations and poor, the Millennium Development Goals," he told the meeting.

Bush accuses Russia of violating UN Charter in Georgia conflict

2008-09-23T17:23:00.001-07:00

RIA Novosti, 23/09/08

WASHINGTON - U.S. President George W. Bush accused Russia on Tuesday of violating the UN Charter in its recent conflict with Georgia, and said the U.S. would continue to support Georgia.

"The UN Charter sets forth the 'equal rights of nations large and small.' Russia's invasion of Georgia was a violation of those words. Young democracies around the world are watching to see how we handle this test," Bush said in his farewell speech to the UN General Assembly.

He said Washington would work with its NATO allies and with the European Union to defend Georgia's territorial integrity.

Russia came under strong criticism for Western powers in its five-day conflict with Georgia last month, which followed Georgia's August 8 attack on breakaway South Ossetia. Russia subsequently recognized South Ossetia, along with Abkhazia, as independent states.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy also singled out Russia for criticism in his speech to the assembly, saying Moscow "cannot compromise on the principle of states' sovereignty and independence, their territorial integrity."

The main focus of the UN General Assembly session was the ongoing global financial crisis.

In his speech, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned that financial troubles in rich nations could harm aid to poor countries, and called on states to abandon their "uncritical faith" in market forces.

Abkhazia to host two Russian military bases

2008-09-23T17:23:00.000-07:00

RIA Novosti, 23/09/08

SUKHUMI - Abkhaz President Sergei Bagapsh confirmed Tuesday that two Russian military bases are to be stationed in the republic, recognized as an independent state by Moscow on August 26.

He said the bases would be located in the towns of Gudauta and Ochamchira, in the west and east of the republic, respectively.

Bagapsh said a military airport would be reopened in Gudauta. "New housing and an appropriate infrastructure will also be built for the families of Russian servicemen," he told a press conference.

The Abkhaz leader also said a seaport would also be restored in Ochamchira. "Taking into account that, after everything, Georgia will still in the near future join NATO, Abkhazia should do everything necessary to strengthen state security," Bagapsh said.

Russia recognized Abkhazia and South Ossetia, another breakaway Georgian region, as independent states last month after a brief armed conflict with Georgia. The five-day war began when Georgia attacked South Ossetia on August 8.

Russia signed friendship and cooperation treaties with South Ossetia and Abkhazia on September 17, promising them military and economic support.

South Ossetia and Abkhazia have so far only been recognized by Russia and Nicaragua. Belarus has pledged to follow suit in the near future, and Venezuela has voiced support for Russia's recognition of the two republics.

The two republics broke away from Georgia following the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s amid wars that claimed thousands of lives.

Chavez says Latin America needs Russia

2008-09-21T17:28:00.000-07:00

AP, 21/09/08

MOSCOW - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said in an interview broadcast Sunday that Latin America needs strong friendship with Russia to help reduce U.S. influence and keep peace in the region. The interview aired as a Russian Navy squadron prepared to sail to Venezuela.

Venezuela recently hosted a pair of Russian strategic bombers and is preparing to conduct a joint naval exercise with Russia. Russian media say Chavez plans to visit Moscow Friday, his second trip in just over two months.

"Not only Venezuela, but Latin America as a whole, needs friends like Russia now as we are shedding this (U.S.) domination," Chavez told Russia's Vesti 24 television. "We need Russia for economic and social development, for all-around support, for the life of the peoples of our continent, for peace."

During the Cold War, Latin America became an ideological battleground between the Soviet Union and the United States.

The Kremlin has moved to intensify contacts with Venezuela, Cuba and other Latin American nations amid increasingly strained relations with Washington after last month's war between Russia and Georgia.

The weeklong deployment of a pair of Tu-160 strategic bombers to Venezuela-and the plan to send a navy squadron there-mark a projection of Russian military power to the Western Hemisphere unprecedented since the Cold War.

The nuclear-powered Peter the Great missile cruiser, accompanied by three other ships of Russia's Northern Fleet, was preparing to sail from its base on a cruise that will include a joint exercise with the Venezuelan Navy, Navy spokesman Igor Dygalo said on Vesti 24 television. The RIA Novosti news agency quoted the Northern Fleet command as saying the ships will likely leave early Monday.

Russian officials had said earlier that the squadron was to head to Venezuela in November. They would not explain the change.

Russia's intensifying military contact with Venezuela appears to be a response to the U.S. dispatch to Georgia of warships carrying aid after its war with Russia. Russian officials harshly criticized the U.S. deployment to Georgia's Black Sea coast.

President Dmitry Medvedev warned this month that Russia could follow its dispatch of bombers to Venezuela by deploying forces to other friendly nations.

Under Chavez, Venezuela has cultivated close ties with Moscow and placed big orders for Russian jets, helicopters and other weapons. Chavez has repeatedly warned that the U.S. poses a threat to Venezuela.

Russia has signed weapons contracts worth more than US$4 billion with Venezuela since 2005 to supply Sukhoi fighter jets, Mi-17 helicopters, and 100,000 Kalashnikov assault rifles. Chavez's government is in talks to buy Russian submarines, air defense systems and armored vehicles and more Sukhoi jets.

Russian and Venezuelan leaders have also talked about boosting cooperation in the energy sphere to create what Chavez has called "a new strategic energy alliance."

Russian companies Gazprom and Lukoil have signed agreements with Venezuelan state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA to jointly explore several Orinoco fields.

Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, who visited Venezuela last week, announced that five of Russia's biggest oil companies are looking to form a consortium to increase Latin American operations. State-controlled Rosneft, Lukoil, Gazprom Neft, Surgutneftegaz and TNK-BP hope to build a US$6.5 billion refinery to process Venezuela's tar-like heavy crude.

Such an investment could help Venezuela, the world's ninth-biggest oil producer, wean itself from the U.S. refineries on which it depends to process much of its crude. Already, Chavez has moved to reduce the involvement of private companies, including Exxon Mobil, Chevron and ConocoPhillips, while striking new oil development agreements with state companies from Iran and China.

"The level of our development allows us to conduct strategic projects in Latin America," Sechin said in remarks broadcast Sunday on Vesti 24 television.

And he warned the United States that it should not view the region as its own backyard: "It would be wrong to talk about one nation having exclusive rights to this zone."

Russia rejects new measures against Iran

2008-09-20T17:35:00.000-07:00

By Conor Humphries
AFP, 20/09/08

MOSCOW - Russia said Saturday it had rejected US proposals for new UN Security Council measures against Iran over its suspect nuclear programme amid deteriorating ties between Moscow and Washington.

At a meeting Friday with diplomats from the United States, China, Britain, France and Germany, Russia "said it was against the development at this stage of additional measures in the UN Security Council," the foreign ministry said in a statement.

"The Russian side underlined the necessity of continuing efforts to restore constructive dialogue with Tehran with the aim of moving forward the negotiation process," the statement said after the meeting in Washington.

The White House on Monday warned Iran that it faced possible new sanctions over its failure to stop uranium enrichment, which can be a key step towards making nuclear weapons.

But it said poor relations with Russia-a veto-wielding member of the UN Security Council-could complicate matters.

Ties between the two have been severely damaged in recent weeks by Washington's sharp criticism of Russia's incursion into neighbouring Georgia, a close US ally.

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said the West must choose between support of Georgia and Moscow's cooperation on other international issues.

France has echoed the US call for sanctions, but China said such a move would not resolve the stalemate. On Friday, Germany said it still aimed to reach a negotiated settlement with Tehran.

After Friday's meeting, the US State Department had said all six powers were "committed to exploring possible further" sanctions.

The foreign affairs political directors of the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany met to help prepare for a meeting next week of their respective foreign ministers.

The six powers are attempting to convince Iran to halt sensitive nuclear work with an incentives package in exchange for full suspension of uranium enrichment.

"All participants of the meeting expressed their support for the actions of the IAEA and underlined the need for Iran's full and transparent cooperation with the agency," the Russian statement said.

The IAEA, the UN's atomic watchdog, on Monday said Iran had failed to freeze uranium enrichment activities as instructed by the United Nations.

In its restricted report, the IAEA complained it was making little headway in investigating allegations that Tehran had, in the past, been involved in studies to make a nuclear warhead.

The agency "regrettably has not been able to make any substantive progress on the alleged studies and other associated key remaining issues which remain of serious concern," said the report.

Three sets of UN sanctions have now been slapped on Iran, for defying Security Council resolutions to stop enrichment

Diplomats in Vienna said Saturday that the IAEA last week showed its members documents and photographs suggesting that Iran secretly tried to modify its long-range Shahab-3 missile to carry a nuclear bomb.

The US envoy to the IAEA, Gregory Schulte, said IAEA officials "told us the information they have is ... 'very credible' and they have asked Iran to provide 'substantive responses'."

Iranian ambassador Ali Asghar Soltanieh said the evidence was forged and complained Tehran was being pressured to disprove the allegations by revealing information vital to its national security.

Meanwhile in Russia's southern resort of Sochi Saturday French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said that Europe and Russia were equally dependent on each other.

There was no alternative to strong relations between Paris and Moscow, he said after talks with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.

Russia opposes new UN sanctions on Iran for now

2008-09-20T17:34:00.000-07:00

Haaretz, 20/09/08

Russia made clear Saturday that it opposes a Western push for new sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program.

Russia spoke out against a fourth round of UN sanctions against Tehran at a meeting of the five permanent UN Security Council members and Germany in Washington on Friday, the Foreign Ministry said.

Russia stressed the need to draw Tehran into constructive dialogue, the ministry statement said. In this context we spoke out against the development at this time of new measures along UN Security Council lines.

The U.S. and other nations suspect Iran is seeking nuclear weapons under the guise of an atomic energy program. Russia, which has close ties to Iran and is building its first nuclear power plant, says it is not convinced.

Russia agreed to three previous rounds of U.N. sanctions, but along with China has slowed down their passage and ensured they were less punitive than measures the U.S. was seeking.

The U.S. and its European allies are pushing for quick passage of a fourth sanctions resolution to show the international community's resolve amid a crisis in Moscow's ties with Washington and Brussels over last month's conflict in Georgia.

Major powers end Iran talks

Major powers haggled on Friday over a fourth round of UN sanctions against Iran to curb its nuclear program, but ended with no firm commitments amid Russian and Chinese resistance to more punitive measures.

State Department spokesman Robert Wood said the meeting of senior officials from the permanent five members of the UN Security Council-Britain, France, the United States, Russia and China-and Germany concluded without agreement on either the timing or content of a new UN resolution on Iran.

But he said all six expressed a commitment to the so-called two-track approach-using both carrots and sticks to get Iran to give up its sensitive nuclear work.

"They remain committed to exploring possible further measures on the second track," Wood said, referring to sanctions under consideration by the six.

He said the six countries again urged Iran to accept an offer of trade and other incentives presented in June in exchange for giving up uranium enrichment. Tehran has not accepted the offer and has said it will not give up sensitive nuclear work.

Iran says its nuclear program is intended to generate more power for the Islamic republic and not to build an atomic bomb as charged by the West.

A European diplomat said after the talks that all sides agreed on the principle of more sanctions but there was no consensus on the substance and timing of those measures.

"The Russians are obviously not fully ready to move forward right now and the
Chinese are not far from Russian thinking," said the diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Low expectations

Even before the meeting began, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack played down expectations, urging Russia to shelve differences over Georgia, which Russia invaded last month, and work together on Iran.

"We would urge them to put aside, as we have, any issues that exist between the
United States/the rest of the world on Georgia and work on areas where we can work together-Iran," said McCormack.

Highlighting divisions, China and Russia were excluded from a morning meeting at the State Department to discuss both Georgia and Iran, but were brought in for a lunch where the discussion was solely on Iran's nuclear program.

"The Russians have always been very reluctant and usually every resolution of sanctions is an ordeal-three or four months of negotiations, comma by comma. I guess it will be more or less the same," said a senior European official.

"This resolution, if and when we get it, will be very weak," he added.

Earlier this week, the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency said in a report that Iranian stonewalling had brought to a standstill its investigation into whether Iran had covertly researched ways to make an atom bomb.

U.S. President George W. Bush's national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, said it was "not reassuring" that Iran was not cooperating with the IAEA, adding that such a move only increased suspicions in the international community about its nuclear activities.

"Since they have not made that strategic choice and seem to be even less cooperative, I think you'll find a call over the weeks ahead for greater pressure on Iran," Hadley said.

Iran has withstood three rounds of UN sanctions imposed so far. Iranian
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad reiterated on Thursday Tehran would not suspend its enrichment program and brushed aside the threat of more sanctions.

With four months left in office, the Bush administration's leverage is slipping on the Iran dossier, experts say, and Tehran, Moscow and Beijing are taking this into account.

McCormack rejected the view that time was running out and that only a weak UN resolution, if any, could emerge.

"We are looking for the most robust Security Council resolution we can get," he said.

While U.S. officials stress their focus on diplomacy to resolve differences with Tehran, the nuclear dispute and hostile rhetoric have fueled speculation in the global financial markets this year of a possible military confrontation between Iran and the United States or Israel.

Foreign ministers from the major power are set to discuss Iran, the world's fourth largest oil producer, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York next week but McCormack said he did not anticipate any decision would be taken on sanctions then either.

Solana: IAEA's Iran report worries Russia, China

2008-09-18T17:37:00.000-07:00

AP, 18/09/08

PARIS - The European Union's foreign policy chief says he believes Russia and China are "quite worried" about a new IAEA report that says Iran has blocked efforts to investigate its nuclear program.

Javier Solana says the report presented Monday by the U.N. nuclear watchdog "isn't good for Iran."

He stopped short Thursday of saying that there is support for France's push for more U.N. Security Council sanctions against Tehran.

Solana says the U.N. General Assembly will "analyze" the situation. He was speaking on the sidelines of a Paris meeting of EU foreign ministers with their counterparts from five central Asian nations.

Western nations fear Iran's program masks intentions to build bombs. Iran insists its plan is to generate electricity.

Solana: IAEA's Iran report worries Russia, China

2008-09-18T17:29:00.000-07:00

AP, 18/09/08

Iran: Tehran Makes A Cautious Move Toward Moscow

2008-09-09T17:36:00.000-07:00

By Kamal Nazer Yasin
Eurasianet, 09/09/08

The Caucasus crisis, precipitated by Russia’s incursion into Georgia, created the possibility of a grand bargain between US and Iranian leaders, under which Tehran could have made a deal on its nuclear program in return for a commitment to develop Iran into a transit state for Caspian Basin energy. The window of opportunity for such a deal now seems to be closed, as Iranian and American experts say the Bush administration never seriously pursued Iranian diplomatic overtures to explore such a trade-off.

Over the past two weeks, Iran has made cautious moves in a pro-Moscow direction after staking out a decidedly neutral stance immediately following the outbreak of Georgian-Russian hostilities. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. The shift toward Russia became evident in late August, when President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad attended the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Tajikistan, and expressed support for the Kremlin’s version of events. "We think Georgia’s leaders should be more in control of the situation and they should stop countries from outside the region from interfering," the Iranian president said, clearly referring to Tbilisi’s close strategic relationship to Washington.

Iran’s neutral stance for most of August, according to policy experts in Tehran, was a signal to the United States that Iranian leaders were interested in probing a diplomatic deal. For a short while, it seemed as though the Bush administration might seize the opportunity, as rumors swirled in Tehran that the United States would soon open an interest section in Iran. But now it appears that the initial optimism surrounding a possible new departure in US-Iranian relations was unfounded.

"Iran was hoping that withholding support to the Russians could tempt the Americans into offering something substantial to us," said an Iranian expert, speaking to EurasiaNet on condition of anonymity. "Nothing of the kind has materialized-if you leave out the fact that [US Vice President Dick] Cheney refrained from lashing out at Iran when he was visiting Azerbaijan and Georgia on September 3-4]."

It would seem that Iran misjudged the Bush administration’s desire to open an interest section in Tehran. US officials floated the idea last July, but on September 7, Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani told MPs that "there is no movement on that front that we know of."

According to Gary Sick, a New York-based expert on Iran and a former member of US National Security Council under Carter and Reagan Administrations, if the Iranians were indeed waiting for a US reward, their expectations were unrealistic. "On the whole many people in Washington were probably happy that Iran was taking [a neutral] position. But that was in Iran’s own interest," Sick told EurasiaNet. "After all, Russia was using its military might against an independent country that had normal diplomatic and trade relations with Iran."

Iran stands to gain immediate benefits from closer ties with Moscow. As one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, Russia is in position to veto any attempt to expand economic sanctions against Iran made in connection with the ongoing dispute over Tehran’s nuclear program. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Closer relations would also facilitate Iran’s purchase of sophisticated Russian military hardware, such as S-300 surface-to-air missiles.

In the coming weeks, Iran is expected to press Russia to complete the Bushehr Nuclear reactor, a project that has dragged on for years. On August 1, Russia’s ambassador to Tehran, Alexander Sadovnikov, announced that Moscow was committed to finishing the plant "in the shortest possible time." The envoy went on to hint that the reactor could be operational "by the end of 2008."

Russia has long treated Iran as an ally of convenience. But Sick said Moscow is now more interested in retaining Tehran’s support, given the renewal of Cold War-like tension between Russia and the West. "Russia is playing a more active part in world’s politics and that’s where Iran could play a constructive role for them as far as the Middle East is concerned," Sick said.

While there are major incentives for Iran and Russia to promote closer cooperation, the two countries also face some large diplomatic stumbling blocks. Most importantly, the two countries’ energy ambitions sharply diverge: Russia is intent on monopolizing Caspian Basin energy exports, while Iran would like to develop into an alternate route for energy being shipped from the Caspian Basin to Europe. Russia’s incursion into Georgia served to heighten Iran’s ambitions in this regard by casting security doubts upon existing routes connecting Azerbaijan and Turkey. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

Past experience is prompting Iran to proceed cautiously. Russian support for Iranian policy goals has never been firm. A late August commentary posted by the Iranian website Tabnak, which is controlled by former commanders of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, perhaps best summarizes the Iranian stance. It calls on policy makers in Tehran to take "maximum care" and show "diligence" in pursuing closer ties to Russia.

"The possibility of Russia using ’the Iran card’ in its relations with the West exists," the commentary said. "Georgia has no winning cards to offer us, but if Russia is to be supported tacitly, we must first ensure that it (Russia) would not sell us out to the West."

Kamal Nazer Yasin is a pseudonym for a freelance journalist specializing in Iranian affairs.

A Rose Among Thorns: Georgia Makes Good

2008-09-07T18:54:00.001-07:00

By Charles King
Foreign Affairs, March-April 2004

Georgia's recent, peaceful revolutions might allow the country to become a beacon of hope for a troubled region. For that to happen, however, its new leaders must find a way to deal with local secessionists, as well as with Moscow and Washington.

"Oh, fatherland! How I think of you now," lamented Euripides' Medea, the princess of ancient Colchis-today part of the republic of Georgia. "In every way the situation is bad." Modern Georgians understand her sentiment only too well. In the first decade and a half since their independence from the Soviet Union, they have faced civil war, separatist movements, economic malaise, rigged elections, and dysfunctional government.

Recently, however, Georgians have started to take matters into their own hands. In November, they staged a bloodless revolt against their president, Eduard Shevardnadze, for overseeing fraudulent parliamentary elections. When Shevardnadze tried to open the new legislative session, protesters took over parliament peacefully, some handing out roses to the police. At first, Shevardnadze responded by declaring a state of emergency, but he soon thought better of his legacy. Within days, he agreed to resign. New presidential elections, which international observers deemed generally free, were held on January 4, 2004. By an overwhelming majority, the vote awarded the presidency to Mikheil Saakashvili, a 36-year-old Columbia University-educated lawyer who had led the demonstrations.

During his brief electoral campaign and tenure as president, Saakashvili has made all the right moves. He has promised to fight corruption, to reform government-from the structure of the constitution to taxation policy-and to improve relations with Russia while maintaining strong ties with the United States. What his government must do first, however, is find a way to win the allegiance of all Georgia's inhabitants, including staunch secessionists in the north and a prickly potentate along the Black Sea. Before it can become a real democracy, Georgia must become a real state.

VANISHING LINES

The peaceful ouster of Shevardnadze was a signal event in the politics of Eurasia-but only because it is unlikely to be repeated elsewhere in the region. Georgia is the only member of the Commonwealth of Independent States, the association of 12 former Soviet republics, that can be said to have genuinely democratic aspirations. Some-Russia, Ukraine, and Moldova-still use the language of democracy but have spent the last several years perfecting their own brand of illiberalism. Others-Azerbaijan, Belarus, and Turkmenistan-have tired of even pretending. Since the downfall of communism, most governments across the region have simply replaced Soviet authoritarianism with homegrown varieties. Elections-if they are held at all-are systematically manipulated, either at the ballot box or, more subtly, through control of the media and harassment of opposition parties. In Russia, the "dictatorship of law" promoted by President Vladimir Putin now seems disturbingly close to a dictatorship pure and simple. If, as the old adage goes, democracy is a system in which it is safe to lose an election, then Eurasia's democrats still need to watch their backs. Georgia's "revolution of roses" stands out as the former Soviet Union's only successful popular uprising against this trend and the lackluster statesmanship and corruption that have attended it.

Observers have been quick to draw lessons from the Georgian experience, for Eurasia and for other parts of the world. The billion dollars in democracy and development aid that Georgia has received from the United States since 1991-by far Washington's largest per capita investment in any Soviet successor state-seem to have paid off. Washington at first lauded Shevardnadze as a beacon of democratic reform, but as the 1990s progressed, his democratic credentials became more suspect. The United States, along with nongovernmental organizations such as the Open Society Institute, stepped up support for the growing political opposition. That assistance was an important catalyst of change. And it is evidence, observers say, that sustained political engagement, party training, and civil-society building can eventually bring down autocrats.

Yet the story of Georgia's awakening is also a cautionary tale. Development strategies there and in many other parts of the world have sometimes encouraged democratization programs without tackling basic problems such as undefined state boundaries or weak government capabilities. In failing states, the strategy has been to build a democracy and hope that, in time, the rest will take care of itself. But the history of Georgia since 1991 illustrates that leaving fundamental questions unanswered-Is this one country or several? Who is sovereign? Where are the country's legitimate borders?-can stymie reform and pollute public life.

Development specialists are not wholly blind to this problem, of course, which is why "governance"-capacity building, institutional design, anticorruption campaigns-has recently become a fashionable focus of international assistance programs. But "governance" is simply a euphemism for what used to be known as "politics," the first requirement of which is to know where power resides. Since the early 1990s, Georgia has been divided among a weak central government and several functionally independent regions, with predictably corrosive effects on national politics. Turning Georgia into a country that is both functional and democratic is the goal of the post-Shevardnadze leadership and of Georgia's friends in the West. The coming months will show whether it can be achieved without first settling the basic issue of territorial control. So far, the lesson seems to be that it cannot.

THINGS FELL APART

Georgia is among the smallest of the former Soviet republics-a little bigger than West Virginia, with a population of about five million. Yet it loomed large in Soviet history and post-Soviet politics. Its capital, Tbilisi, was the site of one of the first major Bolshevik operations, a 1907 bank heist that swelled party coffers. (One of its planners, Iosif Dzhugashvili, would later change his name to Stalin.) Blessed with an appealing climate, productive farmland, and legendary hospitality, Georgia was also among the Soviet Union's wealthiest republics. After the end of communism, it adopted a strongly pro-Western orientation and learned to leverage its strategic location on the Black Sea's eastern shore to become a major player in discussions about routes for Eurasian oil and gas exports. (The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline now under construction will be the primary conduit for transporting hydrocarbons from the rich Caspian basin to the rest of the world. Transit fees are expected to bring Georgia billions of dollars in the coming decades.)

The breakup of the Soviet Union was accompanied by the fracture of Georgia itself. In the northwest, members of the Abkhaz ethnic group asserted their right to self-determination, and the Georgian army launched a poorly executed war to prevent their secession. Ethnic Ossetes also declared their own separate republic in the north, while, in the south, Azeri and Armenian minorities complained of discrimination and occasionally rumbled about breaking away. Political differences, fueled by competition among regional clans and criminal gangs, escalated even among ethnic Georgians. A full-blown civil war of Georgians against Georgians raged alongside the secessionist conflicts.

Because of these disputes, the state known as "Georgia" has largely been a fiction of recent international diplomacy. Nearly 20 percent of the country's territory remains beyond the central government's control. Abkhazia and South Ossetia, for example, function as de facto independent countries, even though no one has recognized them. The presence of Russian soldiers-in peacekeeping contingents authorized by the Georgians themselves and on bases left over from the Soviet era-has discouraged Tbilisi from trying to retake the areas by force. And Adjaria, a province along the Black Sea, maintains an uneasy "autonomous" relationship with the Georgian center-and hosts a Russian military base to underscore it.

When Shevardnadze stepped into the presidency in 1992 promising to restore Georgia's territorial integrity and promote ties with the West, he was greeted as a savior. Relative political calm did return during his tenure, but he proved unable to solve the basic conundrums of territorial control and state performance. Today still, the central government's influence begins to wane just a few miles outside Tbilisi. Even in the capital, average citizens often do without electricity or running water. Although the population is highly educated, the economy is in shambles. Georgia's per capita national income is lower than Swaziland's, and more than half of the population lives under the poverty line.

Under Shevardnadze, the government's inherent weakness was exacerbated by a dysfunctional political system. Parties appeared and disappeared. Elections were falsified. Corruption became rampant: police officers extracted fines for imaginary traffic offenses and government officials misappropriated international aid or helped sell off state industries to their cronies. In the end, nothing became Shevardnadze in power like the leaving of it.

This is the difficult legacy that Saakashvili's government has inherited. The secessionists in Abkhazia and South Ossetia will look no more kindly on the new leadership than they did on the old. There are signs, in fact, that they may be even less inclined to cooperate with energetic reformers than they were with the generally accommodating and avuncular Shevardnadze. As soon as Shevardnadze fell, the renegade regions appealed to Russia, their long-time protector, to dissuade the new Georgian leadership from making aggressive moves. Elsewhere, local elites have become accustomed to running their own affairs, and efforts by the central government to rein them in may produce conflict. That is the case with Aslan Abashidze, the potentate in Adjaria. Once a rival of Shevardnadze, Abashidze threw in his lot with the former president and often manipulated electoral results to guarantee a victory for Shevardnadze's party, as he did last November. Abashidze has already proved to be a thorn in the side of Saakashvili by discouraging Adjarians from participating in the latest presidential elections and complicating plans for the next parliamentary ballot.

Then there are the entrenched interests of bureaucrats and businesspeople who benefited from the largesse and laxity of the Shevardnadze years. (Off-the-record deals are said to account for 60 to 70 percent of the country's total economic activity.) Corruption has long tentacles in Georgia, and setting out to tame the criminal networks that infest state structures can be a dangerous pursuit. Shevardnadze himself was the target of several assassination attempts, even though he was hardly a serious reformer. The murder of Zoran Djindjic, the reformist prime minister who tried to clean up Serbia after Slobodan Milosevic, undoubtedly weighs heavily on the minds of Saakashvili and his cohort.

Georgia's revolution injects a welcome dose of uncertainty in a region where political outcomes have become oppressively predictable. It is unclear, however, whether the country's new leaders will have the conviction and deftness to capitalize on Shevardnadze's departure. They will have to deal with (or buy off) local power brokers without prompting them to turn to violence. They will have to root out the widespread use of public office for private gain. They will have to find ways to keep the electricity on and the water flowing. Otherwise, Georgians will begin to wonder whether the end of Shevardnadze really marked the beginning of something better.

BALANCE OF POWERS

Georgians say that the country's biggest problem is Russia. The Russian government has never denied that it takes a keen interest in its neighbor, and Georgia's secessionist leaders welcome Russian support-they even visited Moscow just days after Shevardnadze resigned. Russia has effectively cemented the status of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as protectorates by maintaining preferential visa and passport regimes with them and making it easier for their inhabitants to obtain Russian citizenship. (It has extended that special relationship to Adjaria as well.) Russia also operates military bases in Georgia, in contravention of international agreements to close them down.

To balance Russia's influence, Georgia's central government needs outside help, especially from the United States, which has been the country's most generous backer for a decade. A stable and democratic Georgia is the linchpin of U.S. policy in the Caucasus, and the Caucasus, in turn, is a critical part of the strategic future of Eurasia and the greater Middle East. The Clinton administration gave Georgia massive amounts of aid, a good deal of which helped Shevardnadze stay in power so long. Since the "revolution of roses" last fall, U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and other senior U.S. government officials have visited Tbilisi, underscoring Washington's commitment to Saakashvili and his associates. These moves are encouraging to many Georgians, who say that the country needs to establish the right "pressure gradient" in its foreign policy. They hope that the United States and its allies will put pressure on Russia, so that Russia, in turn, will put pressure on the Abkhaz and South Ossetian leaderships to give up their quest for independence. With a big enough push from the outside, their logic goes, Georgia's territorial problems would go away.

Things are more complicated than this, however. Abkhazia and South Ossetia certainly depend on Russia. Their trade is oriented almost exclusively toward the north, and Russian financial assistance, especially via subsidized energy supplies, is the bedrock of their existence. Moreover, Russian bases support local economies, even outside the secessionist zones; closing them down without a plan for replacing the jobs lost would be disastrous. At the same time, residents of these regions remember the violent conflicts of the early 1990s and remain understandably wary of the central government. Over the past decade, they have built their own administrations, security forces, and-most critically-school systems, with little connection to the rest of the country. Shevardnadze did little to reach out to the average people in these peripheral regions or to restore their confidence in the recognized government. Reversing that practice should be one of the key criteria by which outside powers judge Saakashvili's leadership.

Thinking creatively about what a meaningfully united Georgia ought to look like, instead of simply condemning Russia's dark influence, is the best way forward. There are several ways to bring together the country's disparate regions and interests, provided someone dares to consider and implement them. Federations, confederations, condominiums, and various forms of limited sovereignty have never really been put on the table in Georgia, even though these solutions are already being discussed in other parts of eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Until now, the situation in Georgia has not been sufficiently dire for anyone-at least not for anyone with real political power-to worry about solving it.

Saakashvili has a chance to change Shevardnadze's dismal legacy. But that will require statesmanship in the purest sense of the word, including articulating a clear case for why residents of Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and any other part of the country should think of their future as lying within a state controlled by Tbilisi. Continued kvetching about territorial integrity and the nefarious designs of the Russian Federation will only alienate the secessionists further. In time, even Georgia's friends may come to wonder whether a country with fictitious borders and no plan for making them real is a country worth helping.

Georgia's strategic location and its pro-American foreign policy first helped put the country on the United States' radar screen. The government's weakness and Washington's fear that terrorists might set up camp in the country's mountain passes have kept it there. Money has flowed freely from Washington to Tbilisi for more than a decade, and U.S. soldiers have helped train the Georgian military. It is only recently, however, that the U.S. commitment to Georgia has come with meaningful admonitions about democracy, human rights, and the rule of law. Washington's growing honesty about the reality of Georgian politics helped bring about Shevardnadze's resignation. The United States should now help Georgia's new leadership think creatively about basic questions of sovereignty, territorial control, and institutional design. The central government must recognize the multiethnic and multireligious reality of the country. It must accept a decade of state-building in the secessionist regions and allow local governments to be empowered. If these efforts succeed, Georgia could well become the positive example for eastern Europe and Eurasia that observers have long hoped for.

Charles King is Associate Professor of Foreign Service and Government at Georgetown University and author of The Black Sea: A History.

Russia's role in the Iran crisis

2008-09-06T17:36:00.000-07:00

By Ray Takeyh and Nikolas Gvosdev
The Boston Globe, 06/09/08

It is one of the rites of passage of the fall-every September, the Bush administration returns to the United Nation for another sanctions resolution against Iran. However, this time there is much consternation in Washington that Russia's invasion of Georgia-and the subsequent chill that has descended on relations between Russia and the West-has ended any possibility of cooperation between the United States and Russia in dealing with Iran's nuclear imbroglio. Such fears are overblown.

Russia's assault on Georgia may produce no measurable change of its Iran policy. Indeed, President Dmitry Medvedev of Russia made it clear that, despite the harsh rhetoric that has been exchanged between Moscow and Washington, Russia continues to support efforts to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.

The primary reason for the continuity is that both Iran and Russia are essentially satisfied with existing US-European policy of applying incremental and largely symbolic UN sanctions on Tehran. Moscow feels that as long as the diplomatic process remains in play, America is in no position to launch a military strike that could destabilize the Middle East. At the same time, the theocratic regime has increasingly adjusted to a sanctions policy whose impact is negated by increasing oil prices.

Although Tehran would be grateful for a Russian veto of any future sanctions resolutions, it does seem content with a Russian policy that waters down UN mandates while deepening its commercial ties with Iran. On the one hand, Moscow has supported three previous Security Council injunctions against Iran, yet it has also signed lucrative trade deals and expanded its diplomatic representation in Iran. The incongruity of today's situation is that Russia rebukes Iran for its nuclear infractions while providing technical assistance to the Bushehr plant, which is a critical component of Iran's atomic industry.

For its part, Russia is happy with the standoff between Iran and the United States. Not only does it destabilize international oil markets-keeping prices higher than they ought to be-but Iran's large natural gas reserves are effectively off-limits for European use, reinforcing the continent's dependency on Moscow. At the same time, as Iran strengthens its economic links with key Asian powers, it makes it more dependent on Russia and China for its critical trade and investments. Russia can only benefit from Iran's gradual reorientation toward the East.

All this is not to suggest that Iran has not benefited from the Russian-Georgian conflagration, but that those advantages have been subtle. Tehran is using the Georgian crisis as a cautionary lesson to the Persian Gulf states. From its podiums and platforms, the message emanating from the Islamic Republic is that the Georgians mistakenly accepted American pledges of support only to pay a heavy price for their naiveté. The Gulf sheikdoms who similarly put much stock in US security assurances would be wise to come to terms with their populous and powerful Persian neighbor. In a region where America is viewed as unpredictable and unreliable, this message has a powerful resonance.

The contours of Russia's policy became obvious in the recent meeting of the Shanghi Cooperation Organization. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran was unable to persuade Moscow and its partners to extend security guarantees to Tehran, or to gain Russian support for switching oil pricing from dollars to euros. Medvedev and his Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov continued to urge Iran to be flexible and negotiate a restraint on its nuclear activities. Yet, Moscow also declared support for Iran's nuclear activities that were designed for peaceful purposes.

Given the fact that technologies employed for civilian use can be the basis of a military program, it is hard to see the utility of Russia's latest pronouncement.

What this means?

Russia is not interested in playing an active role in resolving the Iran crisis on terms America will find acceptable. If the next president is going to solve the Iranian nuclear conundrum, he must appreciate that the UN process has reached its limits, and that the only manner of moving forward is for Washington to engage in direct negotiations with Tehran.

Ray Takeyh is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Nikolas Gvosdev is a member of the faculty of the US Naval War College.

Russia: A useful enemy in US polls

2008-09-04T18:14:00.000-07:00

By Andrei Tsygankov
04/09/08

The United States presidential candidates increasingly present Russia as a threat in their campaigns. Republican Senator John McCain is clearly thriving on the recent Georgia-Russia war. Escalation in the Caucasus has been lobbied by McCain since at least 2003, and he is now exploiting the conflict to his full advantage.

McCain worked to bring President Mikheil Saakashvili to power in Georgia, and the McCain-led International Republican Institute, an international wing of the National Endowment for Democracy, was involved in training and financing the revolutionary opposition to Saakashvili's political rival Eduard Shevardnadze.

After helping to bring Saakashvili to power, McCain became aleading voice in advocating Georgia's membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Along with other anti-Russian politicians, McCain saw the alliance's purpose as containing Russia and promoting American domination in the Eurasian region, which has vast resources and geopolitical importance.

He has supported Saakashvili in all of Georgia's conflicts with Russia, including the most recent one, and even nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize for winning "popular support for the universal values of democracy, individual liberty and civil rights".

McCain's advisor Randy Scheunemann has reportedly been paid nearly US$800,000 since 2004, including $300,000 since January 2007 for lobbying Georgia's NATO membership. Since 2004, Scheunemann's company, Orion Strategies, has arranged over 70 telephone calls between McCain or his advisers and foreign customers, most of them candidates for membership in NATO.

Unlike the George Bush administration, McCain did not pretend to consider Russia a partner in security relationships. Although the US needs Russia's cooperation on Afghanistan, Iran and other international issues, McCain is looking for confrontation. He hardly stands a chance to win elections on domestic issues, and he admitted as much early in the campaign, "The issue of economics is not something I've understood as well as I should."

His winning strategy is pegged to a national security election, and for that he needs an international conflict with serious repercussions for the United States. In June, McCain's chief strategist, Charlie Black, indicated that another terrorist attack against the country "would be a big advantage" for McCain, as his "ability to talk about it re-emphasized that this is the guy who's ready to be commander-in-chief". Although McCain disagreed with the statement, he insists on viewing Russia as a threat to the United States.

Consciously or not, American officials are assisting McCain in presenting the Russia-threat image and Russia's position in the conflict with Georgia as fundamentally at odds with US interests. Vice President Dick Cheney referred to Russia's role as "unjustifiable assault" and said that "Russian aggression must not go unanswered, and that its continuation would have serious consequences for its relations with the United States".

Moscow has since recognized the breakaway Georgian territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. A Georgian offensive against South Ossetia last month led to the Russian intervention in the country.

Cheney further insisted on selling Georgia more arms, including Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, to defend itself against Russia. President George W Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice also threatened that Russia would "pay a price" for its actions, and Rice compared the Kremlin's role with the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968.

Democratic Senator Barack Obama, meanwhile, also wants to be tough on Russia. The crisis over South Ossetia has abundantly demonstrated that Russia demands to be a part of the security system in the Caucasus and it would be extremely provocative to ignore this demand. Yet Obama's statements on the crisis indicate that, just like McCain, he views the solution to the crisis as bringing Georgia into NATO, despite Russia's objections.

Obama's circle of Russia advisors as well as his choice of Senator Joe Biden as his running mate also suggest that Obama may have bought into the Russophobic rhetoric popular with some groups in Washington.

Biden and McCain are no different in their stance on Russia. It was following McCain's statement in the senate in November 2003, warning of "a creeping coup against the forces of democracy and market capitalism" in Russia that others on Capitol Hill, including Biden, began calling on the administration to get tough with the Kremlin.

Both McCain and Biden signed "An Open Letter to the Heads of State and Governments of the European Union and NATO", organized by the right-wing group the Project for the New American Century and released in September 2004. The letter raised concerns over "the deteriorating conduct of Russia in its foreign relations".

Both have characterized Russia's current political system as neo-Soviet, called for isolating the country from the West and advocated a fast track for Georgia's membership in NATO.

Obama, who is playing by McCain-devised rules of competition, may yet out-tough his Republican opponent.

Andrei P Tsygankov, professor of International Relations/Political Science, San Francisco State University.

Russia Turns the Corner

2008-09-03T19:02:00.000-07:00

By Stephen Sestanovich
Foreign Affairs, January-/February 1994

Despite apparent anarchy, Russia is passing three important tests for establishing a democracy. The military is acquiescing in the new democratic order, the old managers of the economy are losing their political grip, and the new regime has come to embody patriotism and legitimacy in the mind of the populace. A fledgling Russian republic may succeed where the Weimar Republic failed.

TAKING WEIMAR SERIOUSLY

Drug dealers, gangsters, flagrantly corrupt bureaucrats, destitute pensioners, an embittered intellectual class-it is sorry figures like these who increasingly shape our image of Russia. Together, they are thought to have made the recent electoral victory of Vladimir Zhirinovsky and his neofascist party almost inevitable. They give weight, moreover, to forecasts of grimmer things-unappeasable popular anger, the collapse of public order and eventually dictatorship.

New democracies in danger always call forth comparisons with the doomed Weimar Republic, and there is no denying that the analogy is useful for thinking about Russia's prospects. But, it is only useful if we take the similarities, and differences, seriously enough. The Weimar record teaches more than the lesson that well-organized, charismatic thugs can feed on social distress. It is a reminder to look at political fundamentals and beyond the mood of the moment to the institutions, interest groups and issues that define the new regime.

Over the long term, Russians have to create what they call a "rule of law" state, based on legal norms consistently applied. Without progress in this direction (and Boris Yeltsin's new constitution is a major step forward), any democracy remains precarious. Yet here again the Weimar analogy can keep us from too narrow a focus. Germany in the 1920s was both a Rechsstaat and a highly vulnerable democracy, and its fatal weaknesses suggest how Russia, too, could lose its way. German generals endured civilian rule, but they adapted to it little and identified with it less; the industrialists who had produced decades of rapid economic growth under the Kaiser saw their achievements threatened in the Weimar years; worst of all, fascist ideologues were able to say that liberalism was a byproduct of national defeat and could never restore German greatness.

If Russian democracy is to take hold, it must succeed where the Weimar Republic failed. It must build support among crucial constituencies and neutralize issues that could be its undoing. Three tests of success stand out. The first concerns the armed forces: Do those who control the instruments of coercion accept the new order? The second test has to do with economic transformation: What is the political balance of power between those who want to hang on to remnants of the command economy and those who expect to do well in the market? Finally, there is the problem of legitimacy: Does the new regime embody traditional patriotic values, or are its domestic and foreign policies seen as a threat to national identity and pride?

Russian democracy has to defend and define itself in these three areas-the politics of force, the politics of money and the politics of patriotism. These were the crucial battles that the Weimar Republic lost. By contrast, Russia's democrats have begun to win them. Their progress does not mean that the danger of fascism can be ignored; the December elections allow no such complacency. But the political achievements of the past year mean the new regime that the fascists want to destroy has put itself on a more secure footing. It goes into the battle stronger than many think.

THE POLITICS OF FORCE

To many observers, post-communist civil-military relations pose a dilemma from which democratic leaders cannot escape: they are damned if they rely on the army and damned if they do not. The past year has vividly illustrated both halves of this problem. In December 1992, when Yeltsin made his first open challenge to the parliament, by calling unexpectedly for a referendum to test popular confidence in the executive and legislative branches, he was forced to back down almost at once-not least because the military immediately expressed its neutrality, which was universally read as a sign of opposition. Yet when Russian Defense Minister Pavel Grachev abandoned his neutral pose and ordered tanks to the White House, the question raised by many analysts was whether Yeltsin could ever extricate himself from his deal with the devil.

This is the wrong way to look at the military's decision to take sides. What happened in the past year was not the slow emergence of a deal with Yeltsin, but something far more important-the growing realization within the high command that its own fate is inseparable from that of Russian democracy. This is still a provisional result, but the fact that it occurred at all-particularly in light of the antidemocratic leanings of many generals-is extremely important for understanding where Russia is headed over the next five years.

How did it happen? Part of the answer is that there is hardly any institution of the new Russia under more acute stress than the army, and Yeltsin has been prepared to make a great many concessions to the military-from pay, perks and promotions to the interpretation of arms control treaties. Marginal inducements of this kind matter (Grachev was quoted not long ago as saying that the generals would "fight" for their dachas), but bribes alone cannot make the armed forces an ally of Russian democracy. Perhaps the single most important factor in fixing the high command's pro-Yeltsin orientation has been, ironically enough, the strong latent opposition to him in military ranks.

For all their rhetoric about neutrality, a great many officers became active in Russian politics in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and the vast majority of them were anti-Yeltsin extremists. They ranged from the organizer of the hypernationalist Officers? Assembly, Colonel Stanislav Terekhov, a proponent of a loony foreigners-are-brainwashing-us theory of Western subversion, to Vice President Aleksandr Rutskoi, whose challenge to Yeltsin was especially ominous because, as an Afghan war hero and serving general, he was thought to have a large residual following in the armed forces.

The conservatives? attempt to find supporters in the military meant that they posed a completely different threat to the army from that posed by liberals. Yes, the Yeltsin government's program of economic shock therapy meant privation for officers and their troops, but conservative politicians were actually trying to split the military as an institution. As early as last spring, General Grachev complained angrily to parliament about the support it provided for meetings of the Officers? Assembly, offering a platform for the group's wild calls "to use force and man the barricades." Said Grachev:

Is that really constitutional? Is that really just? Is that really within the framework of the laws which state that the army is outside politics and should not get involved?

Saying he had raised this problem before without getting any help from legislators, the defense minister called on parliament to back a crackdown on political agitation within the military.

In making such an appeal, of course, Grachev knew that he had no chance of getting the support he wanted. Yeltsin's opponents could not afford to encourage military discipline. To succeed, Rutskoi and then-Chairman of the Supreme Soviet Ruslan Khasbulatov needed to break the military apart; it was Yeltsin who was trying to keep it together. As a result, steering a neutral course between the president and parliament became less and less viable for Grachev. Such a stance merely created the conditions for drawing the army deeper into politics.

Against this background, the high command's support for Yeltsin during the confrontation of September and October 1993 was barely a matter of choice. On the first full day of the crisis, Grachev said that he and his colleagues were "appalled" that parliament had appointed General Vladislav Achalov as its own defense minister-a move, he warned, designed to set soldiers against each other in battle. As the army's newspaper editorialized when the uprising was over, the survival of the military depended on preserving unity of command:

If the Army, despite everything, maintains its unity, controllability and stability it becomes in itself a factor of colossal stabilizing force for all society. However, if it does not hold firm, allows itself to be split, or starts living not on the principle of a "single order," but of two, three or ten orders, then it is no longer the Army but simply "matériel"-"cannon fodder" for a civil war.(1)

The generals acted against the conservative-nationalist insurrection not as part of a deal, or because Grachev saw that he too would go down if Yeltsin fell, or even because there was a threat to public order that the police could not handle by themselves. The military leadership, for all practical purposes, had made its choice before the crisis, and its support for the government was based on the strongest of instincts-institutional self-preservation. It is no small matter for Russian democracy that the generals see their survival this way.

There has, of course, been another threat to the integrity of the military: economic necessity has obliged many units to fend for themselves, to negotiate their upkeep with local politicians, enterprise directors and farm managers. Extrapolate this trend into the future a few years, and it is not hard to conjure up military formations independent of headquarters, serving regional rather than national interests; in a word, warlordism. But extrapolation of this kind misses the time-bound sources of today's problems, many of which will not recur. Above all, the resolution of the standoff between president and parliament puts most political problems in a new context. It has not ended the economic crisis that subjects military units in the provinces to so much stress, but it means that they will no longer receive political protection from those in Moscow who see them as a lever to bring down the government.

The high command now clearly has a freer hand to do what it has wanted to do for some time-tighten discipline in the ranks. Grachev knows, for example, that the Officer's Assembly and similar opposition groups are much better organized in the country at large than they are in Moscow, and he will try to curtail their activities. He is in fact likely to be far less patient with all kinds of political activity and agitation in the armed forces. This is why, breaking with the practice of recent years, senior officers now say that being a politician is incompatible with being a soldier; those who run for office will be suspended from their military duties. In looking ahead to the state of Russia's armed forces five years from now, this trend toward a stricter separation of military and political roles is the right one to extrapolate.

Admittedly, a military establishment that has restored its internal unity may be better able to advance its own interests in the political system as a whole. For some time to come, Russia's leaders will feel the need (in the words of one senior minister) to "give something to the generals." The army's ability to get its way on major issues carries with it any number of problems for a government trying to maintain a stable fiscal policy and shrink the size of the defense industry. But as long as the army operates basically as an interest group, rather than as an alternative government, the threat to democracy is limited. The military men who wanted to create an alternative government lost what may prove to have been the deciding round at the White House on October 4.

THE POLITICS OF MONEY

Russian democracy faces no task more difficult than remaking the economy bequeathed it by Soviet central planners. This is the second test for evaluating the consolidation of the new regime. In purely economic terms, last year's results were only slightly better than those of 1992. Yet the broader political question that concerns us cannot be answered by looking at exchange rates and production trends. What matters most is whether the rigors of economic transformation are strengthening those with an illiberal, undemocratic agenda. This worry has not quite disappeared, but it is greatly diminished.

In 1992 the radical economic reforms of Yeltsin and his economic czar, acting Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar, brought into being what seemed like a particularly potent new political opposition group, the Civic Union, which was dominated by members of the old Soviet industrial elite. Its leader, Arkady Volsky, who once oversaw heavy industry for the Central Committee, tried-with real success-to give his group the aura of political inevitability. Claiming to speak for 40 percent of parliamentary deputies, Volsky said the time was past for academic experiments in economic policy; only people who knew the "smell" of factories firsthand could get things back on track.

It was hard to ignore such a challenge, and for much of 1992 Yeltsin and his colleagues explored a possible accommodation with the Civic Union. The idea was always a little dubious (there were simply too many conflicts between its program and the government's), but there seemed no other way to broaden the political base of reform. In 1993, by contrast, a proposal for such a coalition was not even broached. What Yeltsin's government did instead was to co-opt Soviet-style industrial managers without adopting industry's program. Despite fits and starts, the substance of policy has remained basically reformist. The managers-above all, Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin-give the government legitimacy in industrial circles and make it steadily harder for the Civic Union to speak for them.

Volsky's idea was that economic turmoil would force the government to turn to experienced "businessmen" (as he called himself and his associates). But he never faced the conflict between those of his supporters who wanted the old economy back and those who expected to flourish in the new. Meanwhile, others better prepared to address this choice began to copy his real innovation-a political lobbying organization. Many groups now proudly claim to speak for the new Russian bourgeoisie and boast of the impact they expect to have on government policy. Perhaps the most important of these is Gaidar's Association of Privatized and Privatizing Enterprises, formed last June while he was out of office. Gaidar and other advisers to Yeltsin have turned Volsky's insight around: rather than use the grievances of the old economic elite to slow the pace of change, they want to identify businessmen who have succeeded in the market and make them the spokesmen for reform.

The changing role of the industrial elite was evident in the fall 1993 election campaign, in which one party after another presented itself as the voice of business. There was, of course, a very practical reason for politicians to court entrepreneurs: the campaign's financing rules permitted extremely large corporate contributions.(2) But this motive hardly diminished the significance of the change from a year earlier. In 1992 the "industrial lobby" had shaky democratic credentials; in 1993 the leading parties of business were unimpeachably the parties of reform. There were almost three times as many candidates for parliament from privatized businesses as from state-owned enterprises. In this new setting Volsky's Civic Union lost its central role; it was spurned as an ally even by those, like economist Grigory Yavlinsky, who wanted to tap dissatisfaction with government policy.

Over the past year, as fear of the old guard's revenge subsided, it was replaced by worries about a new form of money politics-the seemingly unrestrained drive for autonomy by Russia's regions. Relations between the central government and the provinces are being thoroughly remade by the creation of a market economy, and the result will be a far more decentralized system of rule than Russia has ever known (probably more so than most Russians can now imagine). The living standards of the provinces will come to depend more on their natural endowments, populations, infrastructures and so forth than on subsidies, grants and decisions made in Moscow.

What unnerves Russians about this process, apart from its novelty, is the possibility that it might somehow spin out of control, that provincial assertiveness could leave the central government too weak to hold the country together. The conflict that developed last year over the nonpayment of taxes by regional governments was easy to interpret as a sign that matters were getting out of hand. Finance Minister Boris Fedorov, for one, was apocalyptic on the subject. "The state," he said, "is basically finances, money and the budget." A Russia that cannot collect taxes doesn't exist.

Yet Russia's federal tax crisis was much less momentous than it seemed. Like political agitation in the military, it was in part an extension of the conflict between a reformist government and a conservative parliament. The decision (or threat) to withhold taxes was typically made by a regional legislature and, just as typically, overruled or ignored by the regional executive (in most cases an appointee of the president). Yeltsin's deputies charged that the federal parliament was actually egging on its provincial sisters in their mischief, and there was plenty of evidence to support such a view.

Now that the confrontation with parliament is behind them, Yeltsin and his colleagues can deal much more effectively with the problems that it spawned. Although the central government is still being weakened in many ways, it retains major points of leverage over the provinces. As early as September, for example, the Cabinet began to hint about its possible responses to nonpayment of taxes: suspension of financing for federal spending in the territories; revocation of export licenses for strategic raw materials; termination of credits from the central government, including credits for purchases of foodstuffs; and a freeze of cash support for territorial banks.

One of the particular targets of this threat was the republic of Bashkortostan, which was unable to defy the central authorities for long. According to Russian media reports, its 1,700 oil wells were temporarily shut down, and federal purchases of the republic's oil were suspended. This squeeze soon had its effect. On October 1-before the White House shoot-out-Bashkortostan and the federal government announced an agreement on resumption of tax payments.

The revolts of the enterprise directors and the provinces were caused by economic change, which has fallen well short of expectations. Further tests are ahead, of course, and the one that seems to be next-the structural transformation of heavy industry-could have more dangerous political consequences than anything yet seen. No one really knows what will happen when millions of Russians are thrown out of work. Yet even here-post-communist Russia's biggest undertaking to date-there are reasons to be skeptical of alarmist scenarios.

For one thing, structural transformation is already underway, even without a full-blown government campaign. Industrial employment declined by three million workers in 1993, according to Gaidar, with virtually no effect on the unemployment rate. His explanation: Russia's expanding service sector has picked up the slack.

Second, because joblessness will begin to rise in the near future (no matter how fast services grow), the government knows that it must build a functioning system of unemployment relief. As Gaidar puts it, policy must shift from protecting vulnerable factories to protecting vulnerable people. Such a welfare system would, moreover, immediately ease pressure on the state budget. Finance Minister Fedorov argues that paying unemployment benefits costs only a third of what it takes to keep running factories where the unemployed used to work.

To date, the attitude of the Russian people toward economic reform has been, as Sartre might have had it, that of the crowd waiting to take the bus, not the crowd waiting to take the Bastille. An effective social safety net would go a long way toward solidifying popular support for the Yeltsin government's program. One recent poll found that 84 percent identified inflation as a prime concern; only 30 percent cited unemployment. These numbers are certain to change as more workers lose their jobs, but even unemployment need not threaten the regime if the government shows that it can help people through the transition.

THE POLITICS OF PATRIOTISM

The third challenge that Russian democracy must meet concerns national identity and pride. The country's current troubles evoke centuries-old anxieties about whether Russia has a distinctive mission that can only be served by rejecting Western models. To this long-standing ambivalence, the collapse of the Soviet Union added a psychological jolt that may be felt for years to come. Russia's relations with other former Soviet states-the so-called "near abroad"-will for the foreseeable future be the most important single issue in the politics of patriotism. This patriotism, however, need not pose a threat to the consolidation of democracy; to the contrary, there are already signs that it is losing its emotional charge.

This is not because the opposition has neglected it. For hard-line nationalists, who like to call the Yeltsin government an occupation regime, patriotic appeals are a way of challenging the legitimacy, even the moral fitness, of Russia's new rulers. Democrats, they say, are basically traitors. Both Aleksandr Rutskoi and Ruslan Khasbulatov made increasing use of this theme in their struggle with Yeltsin last summer and fall. Typical was Khasbulatov's charge that democrats consider patriotism inherently antidemocratic. "[H]ow can we not love our own people?" he fulminated to journalists. "I want to see the word patriotism in the newspapers."

One reason that democrats have sometimes done poorly in the politics of patriotism is that Khasbulatov's claim was not his usual crude invention. Some Russian reformers really do consider patriotism dangerous and repugnant. The leaders of Democratic Russia, the umbrella group that united the anticommunist opposition in the days of Gorbachev, tirelessly repeat their view that democracy and patriotism are incompatible. In taking such a categorical stand, Democratic Russia may well play into the nationalists? hands, but it does not in any sense speak for the current government. Yeltsin himself has long made full use of the rhetoric of national pride and frequently refers to patriotic sentiment as a great national resource in rebuilding the country. One of his closest advisers, Vladimir Shumeiko, recently acknowledged that a post-communist regime, like its predecessor, must have its own ideology, and he identified the animating idea of all government policies as the "revival of Russia as a mighty state." For him, there are no contradictions between modernity and tradition: the goal of reform is "a new democratic state that is still Russia all the same."(3)

Another of Yeltsin's deputies has gone still further in trying to appropriate nationalist themes. At the start of the fall campaign, Sergei Shakhrai, expounding the goals of his new party, known as the Party of Russian Unity and Accord, said that an alternative name for the group might be the "All-Russian Conservative Party"-dedicated to preserving the family, traditional morality and so forth. This might be dismissed as simple slogan-mongering but for one fact: in the Russian reformist vocabulary of the past few years, the word "conservative" has been virtually synonymous with "Stalinist." That it can now be dusted off and used without embarrassment by leading democrats like Shakhrai suggests the ongoing normalization of Russian politics.

PATRIOTISM AND THE RUSSIAN PERIPHERY

In its public rhetoric, the Yeltsin government is effectively protecting its patriotic credentials. It has been decisively helped over the past year by the mistakes of the so-called red-brown coalition. Communists and fascists grossly misread the popular mood (which is one of worry, not fanaticism), and by resorting to violence they demonstrated that their brand of patriotism is a formula for civil war.

Yet Yeltsin and his colleagues have had to contend with more than rhetorical challenges on the patriotism front. In the past year Russia has begun to face the practical difficulties involved in creating viable postimperial relations with the other former Soviet states. At issue here is a problem far more complex than whether, as Western commentators like to ask, the Russians "accept" the sovereign independence of their new neighbors or want the empire back. For Russian policymakers, the real question is whether the new democratic regime can deal effectively with the problems created for it by the breakup of the U.S.S.R.

If over the next several years these problems seem manageable-close economic ties are restored, no new security threats appear, Russian minorities feel safe-then there is not likely to be any serious revanchist movement in Russia; only extremists will demand the restoration of the Soviet Union's old borders. If, by contrast, the former Soviet states represent a continuing source of turmoil and threats to Russia's own well-being, then there will be a consensus that the country should act to protect itself. Liberals, moreover, will join this consensus. They are not prepared to be advocates of national weakness or chaos.

For now, however, there is no consensus, only ambivalence. The mixed feelings toward all former Soviet states was aptly captured by the columnist who described the dualism of public opinion toward Russia's southern neighbors:

On the one hand, the consciousness of the average citizen is warmed by the thought that "[the Central Asian nations] will not be able to do without us after all." On the other hand, quite often angry exclamations are heard: "Our people are hungry themselves, and these have to be fed too."(4)

From deeply ambivalent views come deeply ambivalent policies. Responding to the first half of this sentiment-the half that desires some sort of reintegration with the former Soviet states-the government in the past year negotiated an agreement with them on a Russia-dominated economic union and ruble zone, involved Russia more deeply in ethnic conflicts in Tajikistan and Georgia, coaxed Azerbaijan into the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), and offered continued energy subsidies to Ukraine as part of a deal on the Black Sea fleet and nuclear missile forces.

This is a generally popular record. The "near abroad" is seen to have created a host of new challenges to which Russia cannot respond passively. Foremost among these is the need to protect the position of Russian minorities now living beyond Russia's borders, not least so as to prevent an unmanageable mass exodus back to Russia. Policies of all kinds-from creating the ruble zone to defending the Afghan border against Islamic fundamentalists-are explained in relation to this goal: giving Russians abroad the confidence they need to stay put. Foreign Minister Kozyrev's description of government policy in dealing with the civil war in Tajikistan is applicable to many other issues as well: "We cannot afford to do nothing."

Yet there is a second side to policy toward the "near abroad" that is far more grudging and much less activist and prepared, given Russia's troubles at home, to make sacrifices for what is now foreign policy. Reintegration is simply expensive. Almost all the policies that have been put in place to create "special relationships" with the former Soviet states are criticized as unaffordable. No sooner had agreement been reached on the ruble zone, for example, than senior Russian officials began to express doubts about its destabilizing impact on economic reforms. Russia, said Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandr Shokhin (now a leading member of Shakhrai's "conservative" party), cannot afford to play wet nurse to poor neighbors. Russian negotiators quickly began to impose stricter conditions for monetary union, and the idea receded into the future. Money and patriotism were at odds; money won.

The same choice is evident in other areas as well. With its heavy reliance on export earnings, Russia cannot easily continue subsidizing energy deliveries to other former Soviet states. Yet a sudden cutoff would subject its neighbors to worse economic trials, with uncertain political effects. The result, for now, is a compromise, but one tilted heavily in favor of Russia's own interests: in the first nine months of 1993, oil deliveries to former Soviet states were down 41 percent.

Even security issues are seen in a double perspective. In thinking about the "near abroad," the high command clearly wants to be able to station forces on the territory of other Commonwealth states. Defending the old Soviet border (rather then fortifying the new Russian one) is a familiar and recognized military mission. However, getting involved in ethnic and communal conflicts is not. General Grachev himself has said that such peacekeeping missions rouse painful memories of Afghanistan. They are, besides, very expensive, and as Yeltsin said at a CIS summit meeting last spring, Russia cannot bear the cost by itself.

Ambivalent policies like these mark the start of a transformation in the politics of patriotism. The problems posed for democracy are real, but not so irreducibly emotional as they appeared in the initial aftermath of the Soviet Union's collapse. At that time, it was impossible to discuss the "near abroad" coolly. There was no common ground between those who believed that preserving the empire was inconsistent with democracy and those who regarded it as a single indissoluble motherland.

Since then, the shock of the empire's collapse has begun to wear off. The reasons for Russia to take an interest in the affairs of its neighbors have become clear to all, but so have the problems raised by such involvement. A new, more practical view of the "near abroad" is emerging, with fundamental implications. If democrats are free to fashion Russia's postimperial role on the basis of costs and benefits, dispassionately weighed, they will have a far better chance of securing the legitimacy of their new regime.

WEIMAR RUSSIA?

To say that Russia is solving three problems crucial to the creation of a democratic system does not mean that they will stay solved. The failure of Weimar democracy is an important reminder that a new regime can collapse even after a period of seeming stability. In the middle 1920s, Germany experienced a solid half-decade of economic growth and political normalcy-the kind of record that, were Russia to repeat it in the 1990s, would lead most commentators to declare victory. It was only at the end of the 1920s, with the renewal of economic crisis, that it became clear how ill-prepared German democracy was for hard times.

If Russian democracy takes hold and survives until 2005, it will not have lasted any longer than the fragile Weimar Republic-famous as the "republic without republicans." The comparison suggests how foolish it would be to argue, at this early date, that Russia can no longer be knocked off its democratic course. Obviously it can be. The question is, how easily? Certainly much of the progress that has been made in the past year would be at risk without Yeltsin. Routine derailments of democracy are, unfortunately, not hard to imagine. In each of the three arenas we have examined, Russia's leaders will face a similar temptation-to finesse their political problems by spending money they don't really have. The generals want big budgets, the old industrial directors want cheap credits, the weak governments of the "near abroad" want cheap oil. In the short run, at least, inflation can be made to seem like a strategy for staving off threats to democracy. In the long run, it will deny Russia the stability it desperately needs. To stay on its feet, Russia needs something like the solid middle years of Weimar.

And yet stability is not by itself the secret of democratic success. Democracies do not succeed merely by hanging on. They have to build new institutions, remake old ones, contend with powerful opponents, answer challenges to their legitimacy. In this light, the recent past has brought both very bad and very good news. It has identified a new and quite frightening enemy of the regime. But it has also marked the waning of other challenges-force, money, patriotism-that not long ago seemed very serious. In the past year, the Yeltsin government has gone a long way toward claiming these resources of power as its own. The struggle is far from over. Yet for all the country's troubles, the disorder of everyday life and the lack of constitutional traditions, it is getting easier to imagine Russian democracy's success.

FOOTNOTES:

1. Krasnaya Zvezda, October 16, 1993, p. 1.

2. The rules set a very low cap on party contributions by individuals (30 monthly salaries), but left it high for corporations (20,000 monthly salaries).

3. In the same spirit, one campaign commercial of Russia's Choice, the party most closely associated with Yeltsin, showed film clips of soaring military jets with a pop religious tune called "Russia Is Risen" playing in the background.

4. Segodnya, September 30, 1993, p. 3. The article noted that these complaints were often voiced by nationalists; conservatives opposed to foreign aid are, it seems, a universal type.

Stephen Sestanovich is Director of Russian and Eurasian Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.

Cheney to rally U.S. allies in Russia's backyard

2008-09-03T18:59:00.001-07:00

By Lada Yevgrashina
Reuters, 03/09/08

- U.S. Vice President to visit oil producing ally

- Russia says Washington helped trigger Georgia violence

- Georgia next stop on Cheney trip

BAKU - U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney was on his way to ex-Soviet Azerbaijan on Wednesday for the first leg of a trip to show that Washington stood by its allies in the region despite Russia's military intervention in Georgia.

As Cheney headed into a region Russia sees as its backyard, the Kremlin renewed its rhetorical attacks on Washington, accusing it of helping trigger the conflict by backing a pro-Western Georgian government bent on aggression.

Azerbaijan and Georgia are links in the chain of a Western-backed energy corridor that bypasses Russia, but which the West fears could be in jeopardy after the Kremlin last month sent troops and tanks deep into Georgian territory when Tbilisi tried to retake the separatist region of South Ossetia by force.

Cheney begins his week-long trip in Azerbaijan on the Caspian Sea, then heads to Georgia and from there to Kiev for meetings with Ukraine's pro-Western government, which like Tbilisi is defying Moscow by seeking membership of NATO.

"These are the three countries that are the most directly affected by Russian pressure at the moment," said Janusz Bugajski, director of the New European Democracies Project at Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"It's also sending a regional signal that America hasn't walked away from the region," he said of Cheney's trip, which will round off with a visit to Italy.

CARTE BLANCHE

The Kremlin signalled it had little patience with Washington's role on its southern flank.

The United States, Georgia's closest big-power ally, has been fiercely critical of the Russian intervention there and is weighing options to punish Moscow, including scrapping a lucrative civil nuclear deal.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Tuesday it was time for Washington to re-evaluate its policy of supporting Georgia's staunchly pro-Western President Mikheil Saakashvili.

"Unfortunately, at a certain point they (the United States) gave Saakashvili carte blanche for any actions, including military. All that was translated into aggression," Medvedev told Italy's RAI television network in an interview.

Medvedev also described Saakashvili, a U.S.-educated lawyer with a Dutch wife, as a "political corpse" and said Moscow wanted nothing to do with him.

Those remarks contrasted with the more conciliatory language Medvedev used about the European Union, which on Monday threatened to suspend talks on a partnership pact but rejected sanctions on Russia, the EU's biggest energy supplier.

Russia sparked Western condemnation by sending its forces deep into Georgia and later recognising the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states.

Russia said it was morally obliged to attack Georgia to prevent what it called a genocide in the rebel region. Moscow says it is in full compliance with a French-brokered ceasefire.

ENERGY CORRIDOR

In an effort to show Russia could still act as honest broker in separatist conflicts, Medvedev was expected to press for a peaceful settlement when he meets the head of a breakaway region in ex-Soviet Moldova on Wednesday.

Azerbaijan pumps nearly one million barrels a day of high quality crude-equivalent to about one percent of the world's oil supplies-through a BP-led pipeline which passes through Georgia and Turkey.

In a move likely to alarm the pipeline's Western backers, Azerbaijan has said it is re-routing some of its crude to a rival route through Russia, citing the conflict in Georgia as part of the reason.

"The importance of working with Azerbaijan to help its people develop their energy resources and reliably bring them to market is a very strong common interest, not just for the United States but for all the nations of Europe as well, as they plan for their own energy futures," a senior U.S. administration official told reporters last week.

Azerbaijan and Georgia are both pivotal in plans for the Nabucco pipeline, a project backed by Washington and Brussels to break Moscow's stranglehold on the transit of Central Asian gas by shipping it to Europe around Russia's southern flank.

Dick Cheney to take fight against Russia's oil dominance to Azerbaijan

2008-09-03T18:59:00.000-07:00

Dick Cheney, the US vice-president will arrive in the Caucasus on a mission to prevent Russia from gaining a stranglehold over Central Asia's vast reserves of energy.

By Damien McElroy in Tbilisi and Bruno Waterfield in Brussels
Telegraph, 03/09/08

As he starts a tour of Georgia, Azerbaijan and Ukraine, Mr Cheney will try to allay fears that Russia's campaign in Georgia has fatally damaged a cornerstone of the West's energy policy.

That message will be particularly potent in Azerbaijan's capital Baku, once the capital of the Soviet oil industry and now a pivotal ally of the United States.

The Caucasus region, between the gas-rich Caspian Sea and Turkey, provides the only energy pathway from Central Asia to Europe that does not traverse Russia or Iran.

"If Azerbaijan tilts to Russia there goes 15 years of US energy diplomacy," said a Western diplomat in Baku. "Cheney has the history and personal clout to make this trip clearly focused on energy."

Mr Cheney's unparalleled reputation as a defender of US interests and close ties to the oil industry means the vice president is uniquely placed to deliver a tough message to Russia.

John Hannah, his national security advisor said: "The overriding priority, especially in Baku, Tbilisi and Kiev, will be the same: a clear and simple message that the United States has a deep and abiding interest in the well-being and security of this part of the world."

After European leaders bickered over how to deal with Russia at a summit on Monday, Mr Cheney will have to shore up Azerbaijan's confidence in Western support.

In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, the Georgian prime minister Lado Gurgenidze said that without efforts by Gordon Brown, the EU position would have been weaker.

"We are aware that the document perhaps would have read differently if it had not been for the efforts of the British delegation," he said.

The vulnerability of pipelines running from Azerbaijan to Turkey was dramatically illustrated by Russia's war in Georgia, when exports were halted and expatriate energy workers evacuated.

"Russia didn't need to attack the pipelines running through Georgia but by stopping the flow west it ensured that the great fears over the system have been realised," said Andrew Neff, an analyst at research firm, Global Insight. "Cheney must ensure that Azerbaijan doesn't take the wrong message from events in Georgia."

Supplies of Azeri gas are crucial to European efforts to build the 2,000 mile Nabucco pipeline through Turkey to Austria by 2013. Its inauguration would erode Russian's dominant role in energy supplies to Central and Eastern Europe.

America has been a strong proponent of the project. "Without Azeri gas, the Nabucco pipeline is dead on the drawing board," said Mr Neff, who concluded that Russia's campaign in Georgia had given it a "de facto veto" over energy flows through Georgia.

Russia has already attempted to coax Azerbaijan away from its Western backers. President Dmitry Medvedev used a visit to Baku in the spring to herald "co-operation prospects" between the two states.

Gazprom, the large Russian oil firm, has offered to pay market rates for its gas, which at a time of rising prices is more attractive than the long-term supply deal prices proposed by the West.

Ilham Aliyev, Azerbaijan's president, has been solidly pro-Western since succeeding his father in 2003.

However, despite its rapid economic growth, Azerbaijan remains vulnerable to Russia intervention in the breakaway enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. As in the Georgian territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, separatists in Nagorno-Karabakh rely on Russian backing.

Diplomats have urged Mr Aliyev not to succumb to the short-term pressures of Russian expansionism. "It's 'don't lose sight of the long-term goal for a short-term fix'," said one official. "Ultimately Azerbaijan needs direct access to the Western market to remain independent of Russia."

Senior American conservatives have rallied behind Mr Cheney's trip, possibly his last significant act before President George W Bush's term ends in January. "The security of Georgia and Azerbaijan are vital American interests for a variety of reasons," said John Bolton, a former US ambassador to the United Nations. "Including the critical corridor they provide to get oil and natural gas out of the Caspian Basin region without transiting Russia or Iran. Europe should also understand this key point."

EU showed 'common sense' on Georgia crisis: Putin

2008-09-03T18:58:00.001-07:00

AFP, 02/09/08

MOSCOW - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Tuesday praised what he called the "common sense" shown by the European Union in its mild response to Russia's conflict with ex-Soviet Georgia.

"Thank God, common sense prevailed. We saw no extreme conclusions and proposals, and this is very good," Putin said in comments shown on NTV television. "We have a basis for continuing dialogue with our European partners."

EU leaders decided at an emergency summit in Brussels on Monday to freeze talks on a new EU-Russia accord.

However the bloc did not accept proposals by Britain and eastern European nations for a harder line over Russia's military offensive in Georgia and recognition of two separatist regions.

Some EU members had called for sanctions against what they see as Russia's aggression against a neighbouring country.

Moscow still expressed dissatisfaction over the limited stand taken by Brussels.

The Russian foreign ministry said that "the intention to freeze talks about a new partnership agreement is a cause for regret."

Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, welcomed the absence of sanctions, saying this showed "EU countries are still willing to further to develop, to broaden the relationship with Russia in general."

However, he criticised what he said was Europe's failure to understand Russia's motivations for deploying its army on August 8, driving Georgian forces out of the two separatist zones and occupying swathes of the country.

"It was not 'action' of Russia-it was 'reaction', reaction to Georgian aggression," he said.

"We are really sorry our European partners are still unable to look into the very truth, the heart of the problem we're facing."

Moscow says that troops were sent to repulse an attempt by Georgia to restore control over South Ossetia, a tiny region where the local ethnic Ossetian population broke away with Russian backing in the 1990s.

Last week the Kremlin recognised the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. No other country has yet followed suit.

Georgia says the Russian incursion was part of a plan to annex its territory and an attempt to bring down the pro-Western government of President Mikheil Saakashvili.

Georgia airfields earmarked for war on Iran

2008-09-03T18:58:00.000-07:00

Press TV, 03/09/08

Georgia permitted Israel to use two military airfields for 'a potential pre-emptive strike' against Iranian nuclear sites, a report says.

The revelation came after Georgia's offensive into South Ossetia in early August prompted Russia to march its Special Forces into the region, United Press International reported.

Russian Special Forces raided the airfields-in addition to other Israeli facilities in southern Georgia-, where Israeli drones were captured.

According to the report, Israel had used the airfields to 'conduct recon flights over southern Russia, as well as into nearby Iran.

"A secret agreement between Georgia and Israel had earmarked two military airfields in the south of Georgia for use by Israeli fighter-bombers in a potential pre-emptive strike against Iran," read the report.

Tel Aviv has threatened to launch air strikes against Iranian nuclear installations under the pretext that Tehran, a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), has plans to develop nuclear weaponry.

This is while the UN nuclear watchdog has confirmed that Iran enriches uranium-235 to a level of 3.7 percent-a rate consistent with the construction of a nuclear power plant. Nuclear arms production requires an enrichment level of above 90 percent.

Iran currently suffers from electricity shortage and has been forced to adopt a rationing program by scheduling power outages-of up to two hours a day-across both urban and rural areas in the country.

In early June, Israel conducted a military maneuver over the eastern Mediterranean and Greece in preparation, according to Pentagon officials, for an aerial bombardment of Iranian nuclear facilities.

Over 100 Israeli F-16s and F-15s partook in the exercise, which spanned some 900 miles, roughly the distance between their airfields and a nuclear enrichment facility in the central Iranian city of Natanz.

"(The Georgian airfields) would sharply reduce the distance Israeli fighter-bombers would have to fly to hit targets in Iran," continued the report.

Israel, in return, has been providing Georgia's pro-Western government with considerable amounts of training and armament for its military.

Georgian Minister of Reintegration Temur Yakobashvili, an Israeli citizen, said on August 10 that Israeli efforts to strengthen the Georgian army caused Russia 'enormous damage'.

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili declared on August 13 that 'effective' Israeli weapons would ensure his country's success in the military conflict with Russia.

MD/AA

Georgia won't affect Russian stance on Iran

2008-09-03T18:57:00.000-07:00

Reuters, 03/09/08

The Georgian crisis will not affect Russian cooperation with the West on tackling Iran's nuclear program, unless Western powers make it an issue, Moscow's ambassador to Britain said on Wednesday.

Asked how cooperation on the Iran nuclear question would be affected, envoy Yuri Fedotov said: "It's a different issue which of course has no relation to the crisis in Georgia."

IMF to lend Georgia $750 million to rebuild

2008-09-03T18:56:00.000-07:00

AP, 03/09/08

WASHINGTON - The International Monetary Fund said Wednesday it has agreed to lend Georgia $750 million to help rebuild the economy of the pro-Western former Soviet republic after Russia's invasion last month.

The loan is intended "to help mitigate the adverse economic and financial consequences of the recent conflict," the IMF said.

The United States is expected to roll out a $1 billion aid package to help rebuild the country's war battered infrastructure, the Associated Press reported Tuesday, and European Union aid is expected as well.

The IMF said Georgia's strong record of reform and sound macroeconomic policies have "strengthened the resilience of the economy and bodes well for a solid recovery" from the Russian invasion that followed Georgia's move to reclaim a breakaway province.

The IMF said the financial package also was intended "to help sustain the confidence of markets and investors."

An IMF mission visited Georgia Aug. 23-Sept. 3 to help assess the country's needs, meeting with Georgian officials. The IMF said the proposed loan needs the approval of the IMF's executive board, which is expected to consider Georgia's request later this month.

Earlier this year, the IMF said it expected Georgia's economy to grow by 12.4 percent this year, but that rate is expected to decline due to the conflict. Transportation, utility and other essential facilities were destroyed by Russian tanks, troops and airstrikes, U.S. officials said.

On Aug. 7 Georgian forces attacked South Ossetia, hoping to retake the province, which broke away from Georgia in the early 1990s. Russian forces repelled the offensive and pushed into Georgia. Both sides signed a cease-fire in mid-August, but Russia has ignored its requirement for all forces to return to prewar positions.

Russia sets conditions for withdrawal of remaining troops from Georgia

2008-09-03T18:54:00.000-07:00

By Julian Borger
Guardian, 03/09/08

Russia will withdraw its troops from the "buffer zone" it has created in Georgia when they are replaced by international peacekeepers and once the Georgian government has signed non-aggression pacts with the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, Moscow's ambassador to London, Yuri Fedotov said today.

Speaking just before the arrival of the US vice-president, Dick Cheney, in Georgia, Fedotov said he "deplored" the severe criticism of Russia voiced by Gordon Brown and David Miliband in recent days. He also claimed to have repeatedly warned Britain's Foreign Office about the worsening crisis in Georgia in the months leading up to the conflict that broke out on August 7. He said he had been assured that the Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili was "under control" and would not instigate a conflict. The Foreign Office rejected his account.

The Russian ambassador was speaking to a group of journalists about the prospects for a deal at a Moscow summit on Monday, when Nicolas Sarkozy will represent the European Union in talks with the Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev.

"I think the European Union is knocking at an open door," Fedotov said. "I'm not in a position to anticipate the outcome of Monday's discussion, but if the EU proposes a very clear plan on how to prevent a potential confrontation and further shelling in the territory of South Ossetia ... then its not difficult to deploy 200 or 400 people in the zones and to allow Russia to withdraw its personnel. It depends on political will."

Fedotov said there were 500 Russian soldiers, whom he called "observers", manning checkpoints in "buffer zones" around South Ossetia and the Georgian port of Poti, insisting they were only there to "prevent further confrontation".

As a further condition for withdrawal, he said the situation on the ground would have to "stabilise" and non-aggression agreements would have to be drawn up between Tbilisi and the two breakaway regions.

Tbilisi has so far rejected any agreements that confer sovereignty on the regions, which have declared independence but have been recognised only by Moscow.

Fedotov suggested an international monitoring force could be organised by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), and should include Russian observers, although he added the Russian role was open to negotiation.

The OSCE has only 28 monitors in Georgia, and they have so far been stopped from travelling around the conflict zone by Russian checkpoints. The arrival of another 80 observers is dependent on an agreement among OSCE members, including Russia, over the "modalities" of their deployment.

The European Union has also said it will send hundreds of monitors.

In the months before the conflict ignited, Fedotov said he led regular Russian delegations to the Foreign Office to express Moscow's concern over rising tensions between the Georgian government and the Russian-backed regions.

"It had become a kind of routine. Every week or every two weeks, we received instructions from Moscow to raise the issue of the situation around South Ossetia and Abkhazia officially and to warn that there may be some deterioration of the situation," he said. "Warning signals were sent, but there was no meaningful reaction."

He said Foreign Office officials told him that Saakashvili was under their control. However, he conceded that this was not a direct quote but his interpretation of what he was being told.

Fedotov said: "It meant that the United States, and the UK were talking to President Saakashvili. It meant that this regime was considered a kind of ally of the west and they were sure he will behave more responsibly."

A Foreign Office official rejected Fedotov's account of the talks, saying the meetings had been upgraded with the participation of more British officials as the situation worsened in Georgia.

"As violence increased in July so did our concerns and our diplomatic activity, and I would completely refute the thesis that we were inactive or complacent," the official said.

Russian leaders have blamed Saakashvili for starting the conflict. The Georgian president claims he only sent his troops into South Ossetia in an abortive attempt to pre-empt a long-planned Russian invasion aimed at occupying Georgia and removing him from office.

Fedotov warned that any Nato attempts to rebuild Georgia's military after the conflict would be destabilising.

"If Nato now plans to rearm Tbilisi, to restore or even enhance its military potential, of course it will be very deplorable. And it would not help ... a political solution," he said.

Russia tries to exploit division in Europe

2008-09-03T18:53:00.001-07:00

Moscow's strategy to drive a wedge between European countries was on display during Monday's EU crisis meeting.

By Robert Marquand
Christian Science Monitor, 03/09/08

Brussels - As Europe wrestles over how to deal with a game-changing Russia, the largest country in the world, it faces one of the oldest tactics in Moscow's diplomatic playbook: the art of divide and separate.

That strategy was on display Monday in the first European Union (EU) crisis summit since the 2003 Iraq war. The 27-member Union strongly condemned Moscow's Aug. 8 blitz into Georgia and its recognition of two breakaway republics-and warned Russia that it faced isolation if such actions continued, though the summit fell short of more serious and controversial actions, like sanctions.

Before, during, and after the EU event-which ended with an 11-point statement seen by Brussels insiders as marking a "crossroads" in Europe's relationship with Russia-Moscow put on a concerted effort to highlight divisions among European nations, and between the US and Europe.

It sought to target divisions inside Germany, played on Italian and French concerns about the consequences of tough actions, and belittled the deeper worries in the "new Europe" bloc, led by Poland and the Baltics, contrasting them with the "reasonable" approach of what former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld famously called "old Europe," further west.

"Moscow is certainly trying to divide Europe, and to divide Europe from the US," argues Ronald Asmus, head of the Brussels office of the German Marshall Fund. "In the past few days they've started to try to emasculate NATO, to tell Europe not to go with the US. The comments sound Soviet-era."

Moscow's diplomatic "salami tactics," as they have been called, are expected to continue this fall, as EU officials decide how to support Georgia with a proposed EU observer mission-and whether or not Russia is complying with the terms of a cease-fire it signed with French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Mr. Sarkozy visits Moscow next week to discuss the Georgia crisis.

Much of the initiative for the Sept. 1 summit came from Eastern European countries, who pushed in Brussels for a massive aid program for Georgia, the specifics of which were not clear in the final statement.

Speaking after the EU meeting, Moscow's ambassador to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, said, "It is clear who the loser is-it is the policy pushed by the Polish president and his Baltic co-thinkers; they acted as the advocates of Washington's line to undermine pan-European cooperation."

Just ahead of the summit, Moscow targeted Germany, which relies on Russia for 40 percent of its gas imports and about 35 percent of its oil. Also, divisions between a Moscow-leaning lobby and a more transatlantic position are expected to heighten in the run-up to German elections next year.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that the reconciliation between Russia and Germany is one of the most important factors of the construction of a new Europe. "We will not let anybody place a wedge between our two peoples," he said.

Yet Eckart von Klaeden, spokesman for German Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union in Brussels, described Mr. Lavrov's comments as "the attempt to separate Germany from its allies, and this will fail. Trying to separate us from Europe has been the Russian strategy for a long time, [and] in many ways."

One problem for Moscow, say diplomats, is that its separation strategy depends heavily on an international consensus that its border-changing actions in Georgia are themselves reasonable.

Yet so far, other states have not agreed. China, the world's other rising superpower, last week broke with its traditional support of Moscow on the question at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization meeting in Dushanbe, Tajikistan.

"Russia has discarded what it presented as a basic interest, that of post-Soviet borders," argues François Heisbourg, in Paris. "For the rest of the world this was clear, understandable, and it made sense. That has been thrown to the wind, and has caused deep anger in the rest of the world. This was not chess, it was extreme poker; it is very worrying when a superpower state doesn't act out of reasonable interests."

Last week, in an interview with CNN, and later with German ARD TV, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin accused the United States of provoking Georgia's leadership to attack the Republic of South Ossetia in a bid to create an international disturbance that would help unite the US electorate around the presidential bid of Sen. John McCain (R) of Arizona.

Although Russian military officers have stated that Georgia's weapons were supplied by the US, the White House described Mr. Putin's assertion as "ludicrous."

At a German Marshall Fund debate ahead of the EU summit, Matthew Bryza, deputy assistant secretary of State in charge of Eurasian affairs, who shuttled this spring between Moscow and Tbilisi, countered the Russian charge of military aid. "We gave [Georgia] uniforms, boots, Kalishnikovs, sidearms... no heavy weapons. We did not arm, or provide arms. When [Georgian troops] left Iraq, they left their weapons behind."

Mr. Byrza also advocated that the international community now enter Georgia and examine closely what actually happened during the Aug. 8 crisis in South Ossetia-look into the charges of genocide leveled by Russia as a reason for entering the republic. "Let's investigate. Let's look at what happened. Let's be transparent."

Russian officials in South Ossetia have said they are not yet ready for such investigations, citing security concerns.

A proposed EU mission to Georgia would include both military and non-military observers, according to a new blog, "Bruxelles2," that is devoted to EU security matters.

The EU mission, described as taking place in two phases, the second in November, would constitute several hundred personnel, and supplement a mission in Georgia of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which has Russian participants.

Russian ambassador to the EU Vladimir Chizov said Monday Russia would accept "about a 100 observers."

Russia warns US over missile deal

2008-09-03T18:53:00.000-07:00

Press TV, 03/09/08

Moscow has warned Washington that it will respond to deployment of interceptor missiles and radar facility in Poland and the Czech Republic.

"If the decision to deploy missile interceptors is made, if the radar is switched on, we will have to respond to that because we haven't received any reasonable explanation why it's being done," Dmitry Medvedev said in an interview with Italian RAI television broadcast Tuesday without specifying what the response would entail.

The US is planning to install a tracking radar system in Czech soil, twinned with interceptor missiles in neighboring Poland, under the pretext of protecting US and Europe from potential missile attacks from the Middle East, including Iran.

Medvedev dismissed the likelihood of such threats, stressing that the defense shields "won't help security in Europe".

Russia insists that US missile shield plan clearly seeks to weaken Russia.

After a year and a half of negotiations, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski signed a deal in August for siting 10 missile interceptors in Poland within a distance of just 115 miles from Russia's western frontier.

The talks were recently stalled by Poland's demand for US Patriot missiles to protect it from short-range missiles from Russia. Washington gave in after Poland used the Georgia conflict to justify its need for higher security.

Russia enraged by the signing of the deal, warned that it might attack the former Soviet satellite.

Analysts say Russia fears not only a potential long-term threat to its own nuclear deterrent and airspace security, but that it is also wary of NATO's prospective enlargement plan to include the former Soviet states of Ukraine and Georgia.

FF/BGH

Saakashvili 'no longer' Georgia president

2008-09-03T18:51:00.001-07:00

Agence France-Presse, 03/09/08

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev no longer considers his counterpart Mikheil Saakashvili to be Georgia's leader, telling Russian television today that Mr Saakashvili is a "political corpse".

"For us, the present Georgian regime has collapsed. President Saakashvili no longer exists in our eyes. He is a political corpse," Mr Medvedev said.

He also said that Moscow did not fear being expelled from the Group of Eight industrialised nations over the Georgian crisis, as has been suggested by some in the West.

Medvedev said the suggestions were being made in relation to the upcoming presidential election in the United States.

"The calls that are being heard, I explain them exclusively by the American electoral technology as a way of raising popularity based on conflict," the president said in an interview broadcast on Russian television.

Ukraine coalition set to collapse

2008-09-03T18:51:00.000-07:00

Jazeera, 03/09/08

Viktor Yushchenko, the president of Ukraine, has threatened to call an early election, accusing his prime minister of effectively breaking the coalition government by joining forces with his rivals.

"If ... a coalition of factions is not created, I will use my right to dismiss parliament and announce early elections," Yushcenko said in a televised statement on Wednesday.

Yushchenko's long-troubled government is on the verge of collapse after his allies in parliament pulled out of the ruling coalition with his Our Ukraine party.

Yulia Tymoshenko, the prime minister, and her party joined the opposition also in passing a law on Tuesday curbing presidential powers and boosting those of the premier.

Yushchenko said in a live national broadcast on Wednesday that the move a day earlier amounted to "a political and constitutional coup".

He said a new governing coalition should be formed.

Tymoshenko said: "The president and his office has used every means to ruin the coalition."

"It is a pity that the president behaves with no responsibility. The coalition split yesterday, by his own decision," she told a cabinet meeting.

Divide over Russia

In a parliament session on Tuesday, the ruling coalition also failed to agree on a joint declaration about the war between Russia and Georgia, which like Ukraine, is bidding to join Nato and the European Union.

Yushchenko has accused Tymoshenko of "high treason and political corruption" for allegedly siding with Moscow over the conflict in Georgia last month, a charge she has denied.

If the pro-Western allies Our Ukraine and Tymoshenko Bloc do not re-unite and the decision to split comes into effect, members of parliament would have a further 30 days to form another coalition government.

The president would have the right to dissolve parliament if talks failed.

Tymoshenko has long had shaky relations with Yushchenko despite their alliance in the peaceful protests known as the Orange Revolution of 2004.

She is believed to be planning to run against Yushchenko for president in elections due in 2009 or 2010.

Tymoshenko abstained from a vote in Ukraine's security council last month imposing restrictions on the movements of Russia's Black Sea fleet, which is based in southern Ukraine and was involved in military action against Georgia.

European officials including Bernard Kouchner, the French foreign minister, and Olli Rehn, the EU enlargement commissioner have warned Ukraine could be the next target of political pressure from Russia in its mounting stand-off with the West.

Dick Cheney, the US vice president, was due to visit the capital Kiev this week as part of a four-nation tour to support US allies Georgia and Ukraine.

Cheney arrived in oil-rich Azerbaijan on Wednesday at the start of his tour.

US sends Navy flagship to Georgia, plans to roll out $1 billion aid package

2008-09-03T18:50:00.000-07:00

By Misha Dzhindzhikhashvili
AP, 03/09/08

TBILISI, Georgia - A U.S. Navy flagship loaded with aid steamed through the Dardanelles on Wednesday en route to Georgia, as the Bush administration prepared to roll out a $1 billion economic aid package for the former Soviet republic.

In Azerbaijan, Vice President Dick Cheney said the United States had a "deep and abiding interest" in the region's stability. It was the first stop on a tour of three ex-Soviet republics that are wary of Russia's intentions after its war with Georgia last month.

The multiyear U.S. aid proposal calls for spending about half of the money in the Bush administration's remaining five months in office and recommending that the incoming president keep funding the project when he takes over in January, a senior U.S. official said.

The White House and State Department plan to jointly announce the aid package later Wednesday. It follows an assessment mission to Georgia by Reuben Jeffrey, a senior U.S. diplomat, the official told the AP.

Jeffrey has recommended that assistance be sped to Georgia to help rebuild its economy and infrastructure that was destroyed by Russian tanks, troops and airstrikes, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity ahead of the announcement.

Russia was watching Cheney's trip with suspicion, and a top Russian security official accused Cheney of an ulterior motive: seeking to secure energy supplies in the South Caucasus in exchange for U.S. support.

Cheney, who was due to arrive in Georgia on Thursday, met with U.S. Embassy officials and international oil executives before going to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliev's residence on the Caspian Sea.

Cheney said the principle of territorial integrity was endangered today, noting that they were meeting "in the shadow of the Russian invasion of Georgia."

He added that President Bush had sent him with a clear message that the United States had a "deep and abiding interest" in the stability and security of countries in the region.

Azerbaijan has some of the largest oil and gas reserves in the former Soviet Union.

The Russian consul in Georgia, meanwhile, said Russia closed its embassy there and has halted consular operations after Georgia severed diplomatic ties following last month's war.

The diplomatic suspension means no new applications for Russian entry visas will be accepted, a blow to Georgians who have relatives in Russia or other ties there. Hundreds of thousands of ethnic Georgians live in Russia, many with Russian citizenship.

"A break-off of diplomatic ties is an action that has a price," Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko said in Moscow. He said the ministry is considering other measures.

The diplomatic break follows a war between Georgia and Russia in August and Moscow's recognition of two separatist Georgia regions, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, as independent nations. The conflict has brought tensions between Moscow and the West to their highest level since the 1991 end of the Soviet Union.

"Now I cannot get to Russia to see my wife," Vakhtang Tsereteli, a Georgian whose wife is a Russian citizen and lives in Moscow, said outside the consulate Wednesday. "I don't know what to do."

The United States has already sent two military ships bearing aid to Georgia, and the USS Mount Whitney-the flagship of the Navy's 6th Fleet-steamed through the Dardanelles early Wednesday and was expected to pass through the Bosporus later in the day. The two Turkish-controlled straits link the Mediterranean to the Black Sea.

One of the other U.S. ships, the USS McFaul, sailed back through the straits toward the Mediterranean late Monday.

"We don't understand what American ships are doing on the Georgian shores," Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Tuesday. "The second question is why the humanitarian aid is being delivered on naval vessels armed with the newest rocket systems."

Russia's reaction to NATO ships "will be calm, without any sort of hysteria. But of course, there will be an answer," Interfax quoted Putin as saying during a visit to Uzbekistan.

The conflict erupted Aug. 7 after Georgia launched an assault to regain control of South Ossetia, a region supported by Russia. Russian forces swiftly repelled the offensive and drove deep into Georgia, whose staunchly pro-Western President Mikhail Saakashvili has angered Moscow by seeking NATO membership for the Caucasus nation.

Georgia straddles a major westward route for oil and gas from Central Asia and the Caspian Sea and has become the focus of a struggle for regional clout between Russia and the West.

On Wednesday, the European Parliament appealed to Russia to "honor all its commitments" to withdraw troops under a cease-fire agreement with Georgia.

The EU parliament also condemned alleged looting carried out by Russian forces and their separatist allies in Georgia, and criticized the use of cluster bombs by both sides in the conflict.

NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer will visit Georgia on Sept. 15-16. NATO declined to offer Georgia a road map for membership in April, partly because of concerns about angering Russia, but the alliance has assured Georgia it will eventually join.

Associated Press writers Matthew Lee in Washington, Steve Gutterman in Tbilisi and David Nowak and Mansur Mirovalev in Moscow contributed to this report.

Bush Checkmated in Georgia

2008-09-03T18:49:00.000-07:00

By Michael T. Klare and Tom Engelhardt
www.tomdispatch.com, 03/09/08

It's now hard to remember that, when the Bush administration arrived in office in 2000, its hardcore members were all old Cold Warriors who hadn't given up the ghost. If the Soviet Union no longer existed, they were still quite intent on rolling back what was left of it, stripping off Russia's "near abroad," encircling it militarily, and linking various of its former Eastern European satellites and socialist republics to NATO, as well as further penetrating and, after 2001, deploying troops to the oil-rich former SSRs of Central Asia.

As Stephen Cohen wrote in a pathbreaking piece in the Nation, "The New American Cold War," back in 2006, even as the Bush administration began to claim that the U.S. had an overriding national interest in scores of nations around the planet (including Iraq and Iran), there was "a tacit ... U.S. denial that Russia [had] any legitimate national interests outside its own territory, even in ethnically akin or contiguous former republics such as Ukraine, Belarus, and Georgia." As had been true in the 1990s under the Clinton administration, the new administration was eager to kick a former superpower when it was down on its luck and just beginning to emerge from its era of "catastroika."

While George Bush looked into Vladimir Putin's eyes and declared him a soul mate, his vice president and various neocon allies were spoiling for a fight. And this isn't exactly ancient history, either. As David Bromwich pointed out recently in a canny piece at the Huffington Post, Cheney essentially threw down the gauntlet to Russia in a speech in Vilnius, Lithuania, in May 2006 in which he "threatened Russia with a new Cold War if Russia did not capitulate to American demands of cheap oil for Russia's pro-American neighbors."

How the worm turns. A very energy-rich worm, as it happens, at a time when control over energy resources and their delivery is what makes the world spin. The events in Georgia this August, analyzed below by Michael Klare, author of the new book Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy (which explains just how the world turns), were but another reminder that the officials of the Bush administration have proven bush leaguers when it comes to assessing how power really works in the world. They were, from the beginning, fantasists in love with the supposedly unique power of the American military to cow the planet. For all the talk now about being at the beginning of the Cold War (Act II), this is also fantasy, as well as "home front" spin in an election year, and manna, of course, for worried U.S. arms makers. (The brief war in Georgia, reported the Wall Street Journal, was seen by some Wall Street stock analysts as "a bell-ringer for defense stocks.")

Right now, the Bush administration continues to have its hands militarily more than full just handling a low-level war in Iraq and a roiling one in the backlands of Afghanistan (and Pakistan). At the moment, it couldn't fight a "new Cold War" if it wanted to. Not only is the world no longer America's backyard, but for much of the world, when an American president says, "Bullying and intimidation are not acceptable ways to conduct foreign policy in the twenty-first century," and the Republican Party candidate for president adds, "But in the 21st century, nations don't invade other nations"-as each did in regard to the Russian war in Georgia-it's only an indication of just how out of touch they are. (At least UN ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad was careful to qualify his version of this statement geographically: "The days of overthrowing leaders by military means in Europe-those days are gone.")

For all their bluster, they now find themselves strangely powerless in a world that is increasingly anything but "unipolar."

Putin's Russia

2008-09-02T19:00:00.002-07:00

By Padma Desai
Foreign Affairs, May-June 2008

Michael McFaul and Kathryn Stoner-Weiss ("The Myth of the Authoritarian Model," January/February 2008) make several erroneous judgments regarding the current Russian scene. The Russian economy has grown in the last seven years at an annual rate of 6.5 percent. The ongoing debate among economists and other informed observers of Russia is over whether this is a result of exceptionally high (and rising) oil prices, and hence a reversible phenomenon if the price of oil collapses, or the result of substantive changes in the last decade that made high growth rates sustainable. At a major World Leaders Forum and a scientific conference attended by distinguished Russia scholars at Columbia University last April, participants shared the view that Russia's economic performance was not a flash in the pan caused by oil; rather, the consensus was that important policy changes had taken place. Still, no responsible Western scholar of Russia (nor even a supporter of former Russian President Vladimir Putin) has suggested that the high growth rates in Russia are a product of Putin's authoritarian ways. The claim by McFaul and Stoner-Weiss that this argument is made is simply creating a straw man.

The authors also exaggerate former President Boris Yeltsin's democratic accomplishments in order to make a compelling case against Putin's supposed authoritarian consolidation. Yeltsin, they argue, started to develop "all the basic elements of an electoral democracy." Yeltsin and his young reformers did indeed demolish the communist planned economy and the authoritarian arrangements; they planted the liberal idea in the land of Lenin and Stalin and changed the course of Russian history. But they did not introduce, much less develop, basic liberal democratic institutions, such as a party system, fair elections, a free press, or strong legal and financial organizations. These were unlikely to spring fully grown, like Athena from the brow of Zeus, in a country with a long history of tsarist and communist authoritarianism.

McFaul and Stoner-Weiss claim that "electronic and print media outlets not controlled by the state multiplied [under Yeltsin]." This is misleading. During the Yeltsin presidency, Russian TV networks and the press, strapped for cash and lacking advertising revenues, turned to the money-wielding oligarchs. According to the Russian Media Fund, a U.S.-based media-advocacy group backed by the International Center for Journalists and others, nonmedia oligarchs moved into the media business in order to take advantage of the tax exemption for profits enjoyed by media companies. As a result, the media then became mouthpieces of the special interests of the few oligarchs who dominated the scene and sought to control the state.

The authors also provide a flawed assessment of Putin's economic policies, including those regarding the Russian energy sector. In Putin's view, the Russian energy sector, which has driven Russia's economic growth since 2000, could not be left completely to the initiative of the private sector, domestic or foreign. Putin sought to balance private profit making with what he regarded as the broader national interest. His policies did not constitute the blanket "renationalization" of the energy sector that the authors allege. Rosneft, a state-owned oil company, will counter Lukoil, a private oil company. Gazprom, the 51 percent state-owned natural gas monopoly, has acquired a 51 percent stake in the Sakhalin-2 oil and natural gas unit, which was previously owned by Royal Dutch/Shell, Mitsui, and Mitsubishi. And BP has been reduced to a minority stake in the Kovykta natural gas unit in western Siberia, with Gazprom acquiring 51 percent ownership. In each of these cases, the process involved the Kremlin flexing its muscles, but the details and the numbers suggest strategic policy maneuvering. Foreign minority partners will supply needed cash, management expertise, and technology in the energy sector, which would not have been true if there had been a sweeping renationalization.

Beyond the energy sector, much of Russian industry, including businesses in aluminum, steel, aircraft, or automobile manufacturing, is less controlled by the Kremlin, more prone to inviting active Western business participation, and more open to competitive pressures from foreign multinationals. The flourishing retail sector remains fully open to the participation of foreign firms. Doing business in Russia is not for the faint-hearted, but according to current indications, foreign investors, including Shell and BP will continue to participate in the economy, from the energy sector down to retail businesses. Their involvement will help maintain the country's high growth rates.

Finally, McFaul and Stoner-Weiss complain about the legislation restricting foreign nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), as if Russia were the only country restricting their entry. They do not seem to be aware that over 400,000 Russian NGOs are engaged in a variety of activities relating to health care and environmental issues at the local level. Is it not sensible for Russian civil society to grow from within instead of depending on foreign largess, which taints the recipients and prevents them from grounding their activities in Russian society itself?

It would seem that their excessive Putin and Kremlin bashing prevents the authors from recognizing the positive impact of the economic revival on the lives of Russians. I lived and traveled in the Soviet Union in 1964 and remember that Orwellian landscape of bleak monotony, state control, and pervasive fear. I have been studying Russia ever since and visiting frequently. Today, it is a different country, undergoing remarkable changes. To suggest that it will morph into another Angola is to lose all perspective.

PADMA DESAI

Gladys and Roland Harriman Professor of Comparative Economic Systems and Director, Center for Transition Economies, Columbia University

Michael McFaul and Kathryn Stoner-Weiss reply:

We do not claim that Russia today is the Soviet Union. We write, "Russians are richer today than ever before." Our article attempts to explain why. Contrary to Padma Desai's oversimplification of our analysis, we emphasized both the impact of rising oil and gas prices and the "important policy changes." But the policy changes that jump-started growth were undertaken before Putin came to power. Russia's real economic turnaround came after the financial meltdown in August 1998, which forced the Russian government to pursue prudent fiscal policies and a more rational exchange-rate policy. As a result of these reforms -- carried out by a left-of-center government headed by Yevgeny Primakov -- Russia's economy began to grow a year before Putin became prime minister and 18 months before he became president.

We did note that Putin implemented some important macroeconomic reforms, such as the 13 percent flat income tax, a reduction in the corporate tax, and the creation of a stabilization fund. But tracing the relative impact of these reforms, against the backdrop of the fundamental macroeconomic reforms before Putin and the rising oil and energy prices while he was president, is the harder analytic task for Putin apologists such as Desai, because there have been other real economic, social, and political costs associated with his rule. As we document in our article, Putin's transfer of the assets of the privately owned Yukos to the state-owned Rosneft destroyed hundreds of millions of dollars in value in the company and created a less profitable, less productive enterprise. And all independent measures show rising levels of corruption in Russia under Putin. The real question is not how well the Russian economy is growing now but how well it could be growing under a less autocratic form of government.

Desai writes about Putin's "authoritarian ways," but she also tries to defend his regime by recounting the flaws in Yeltsin's democracy and suggesting that we are not aware of Russia's 400,000 NGOs. But many of these NGOs, especially those working on anything considered to be remotely political, are being shut down, forced out of business by a restrictive new law, and their leaders are being imprisoned. In early March, Lev Ponomarev, a Russian colleague of ours in the NGO community, was arrested, along with others, for participating in a peaceful demonstration against the overmanaged "election" of Putin's successor, Dmitry Medvedev.

Regarding the Yeltsin era, we agree that the "oligarch"-owned media outlets might have become "mouthpieces of the special interests." However, one wonders what Desai would say about the oligarchs who own Fox News, CNN, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Nation, The New York Times, or The Weekly Standard. And even if a totalitarian dictatorship had run Russia in the 1990s (it did not), how would that justify Putin's "authoritarian ways" today?

Finally, we disagree with Desai's assertion that we have created a straw man in recounting that some argue that it was Putin's regime that helped produce economic growth and better governance in Russia. The evidence to the contrary is far too substantial. Both the Russian and the Western media are filled with accounts of how Putin's strong hand spurred growth. Time magazine named Putin its Person of the Year, in part based on this logic. And inside Russia, public opinion polls confirm that a majority of people have accepted the alleged tradeoff between less political freedom and more wealth. President-elect Medvedev based his campaign on maintaining Putin's "strong" state and economic success. Maybe Desai can afford to ignore all this. But judging from the overwhelming reaction to our article, including from Putin himself, it appears that we are arguing against not a straw man but a strongman.

Abkhazia Leader Says Wants Russian Military Bases

2008-09-02T19:00:00.001-07:00

AFP, 02/09/08

SUKHUMI, Georgia - The Moscow-backed rebel region of Abkhazia has asked Russia to establish military bases on its territory to ensure security, the region's leader, Sergei Bagapsh, said on Tuesday.

"Russian military bases are a guarantee of stability and security. There has been such a request from our administration. It is now a question for the Russian leadership. I think the request will get a positive response," Bagapsh told journalists, a week after Russia recognized Abkhazia as independent.

He said the Russian military presence would be a modest one, replacing forces described by Moscow as peacekeepers prior to Russia's recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, another Georgian rebel region.

He added there was no question of Abkhazia becoming an alternative home to the Black Sea fleet, currently based in Ukraine and due to leave the Ukrainian port of Sevastopol by 2017.

"Here we will have ground forces that will fulfill the same peacekeeping functions that they have fulfilled up to now. There won't be a lot of bases. They will be the same bases where Russian peacekeepers have been all these years.

"The Black Sea fleet will remain in Sevastopol," Bagapsh added.

Abkhazia says no plans for new Russian bases

2008-09-02T19:00:00.000-07:00

RIA Novosti, 02/09/08

SUKHUMI - Abkhazia will not host new Russian military bases on its territory, the leader of the region recently recognized by Russia as independent said on Tuesday.

"There will be no new bases," Sergei Bagapsh said, adding that Russia's Black Sea Fleet will not be based in the republic either.

"Only units of Russia's ground forces that have always been based here will continue to be stationed in Abkhazia," he said.

The new statement contradicts the Abkhazian president's earlier suggestions. After Russia recognized the independence of Georgia's two breakaway regions, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Bagapsh said Russia's Black Sea Fleet could use one of the ports in the republic to station its warships.

A Russian military diplomat said in late August, speaking on condition of anonymity, that Russia had been evaluating the possible deployment of military bases in the Abkhaz cities of Gudauta and Ochamchira and the South Ossetian city of Java.

Russia has always claimed that it closed down its military base in Gudauta in 2001 as envisaged by the OSCE Istanbul treaty, but according to some sources about 400 personnel are still stationed at the base, along with some combat and transport helicopters, various military vehicles, a fuel storage area, and other facilities.

Moscow has never allowed international inspections of the base and has provided no data on suspected stockpiles of arms and ammunition. The Russian military also maintains the Bombora airfield, which is part of the Gudauta base complex.

Russia earlier said it would station 2,142 peacekeepers in Abkhazia and had no plans to boost its peacekeeping numbers in Abkhazia and South Ossetia after it had recognized their independence from Georgia.

E.U. talks tough on Russia

2008-09-02T18:59:00.000-07:00

In an emergency session Monday, European Union leaders threatened to postpone talks on a pact with Russia unless Russian troops pull back from positions in Georgia.

By Robert Marquand
Christian Science Monitor, 02/09/08

Brussels - The first European Union (EU) meeting on how to deal with a different and more assertive Russia ended here Monday with patches of strong language in a statement condemning Moscow's blitz into Georgia and Russia's subsequent recognition of the republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

"With the crisis in Georgia, relations between the EU and Russia have reached a crossroads," reads the 10th point in a joint EU statement from the first emergency session called in Brussels since the 2003 Iraq war.

The statement urged Russia "not to isolate itself from Europe."

But particularly for frontline Eastern European states like Poland and the Baltics, and for Britain, the final communiqué, issued by EU president Nicolas Sarkozy of France, was too general. It did not spell out any specific actions or plans to censure Moscow-even as Russia again turned up the rhetoric in a speech Sunday by President Dmitry Medvedev describing Russia's right to a special sphere of influence on its borders known as Russia's "near abroad." Sanctions were not seriously considered diplomats said.

Instead, Mr. Sarkozy will go to Moscow on Sept. 8 to discuss whether Russia is adhering to a six-point EU plan for a cease-fire. Europe also agreed not to talk with Moscow about an upcoming "partnership" plan involving better trade and exchange until Russian troops in Georgia move back to positions held on Aug. 7-inside the two breakaway republics.

While EU members met to consider the greatest challenge from Russia since the end of the cold war, most diplomats said the real challenge in the meeting was achieving unity among 27 members. The French, Germans, and Italians were advocating a more conciliatory approach, offering strong words, but not "cutting ties to dialogue with Moscow," as a French diplomat stated.

"All of Europe is united," against Moscow's behavior in Georgia, Sarkozy told a press conference after the meeting, and trying to throw responsibility for the crisis back to Russia: "The question is, 'What does Russia want?' Does it want …cooperation, or confrontation?

"We can't go back to the age of spheres of influence," Sarkozy told reporters, in a direct reference to Medvedev's speech on Sunday. "Yalta is behind us," he said, referring to the post-World War II conference that divided the world and created new borders throughout Europe, Russia, and the Middle East.

Ahead of the half-day Brussels session of 27 EU members, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown called for the EU to "review-root and branch-our relationship with Russia." The Poles had also been working behind the scenes ahead of Monday's meeting to emphasize a long-term, massive aid and assistance plan for Georgia and Ukraine-in lieu of a project of sanctions or direct confrontation with Russia.

The final agreement here does offer EU monitors for Georgia, and aid. The statement did not reflect any size or emphasis on the aid, though Sarkozy told reporters, "We will not disappoint [the Georgians]."

Eckart van Klaeden, spokesperson for Germany's Christian Democratic Union in Brussels, told the Monitor that sanctions were a nonstarter, but that a statement that was strong and serious would mean something.

"What happened in Abkhazia and South Ossetia is not acceptable," Mr. van Klaeden said. "They have violated international law by recognizing the republics and by invading Georgia's heartland. I don't know what happened between Aug. 7 and Aug. 9. But I know what happened with Russia's position before the war, its provocations, and I know what happened after the war, occupation and recognition. So the Russian actions can't be justified, or seen to be so. That's why we are here."

Georgia Eager to Rebuild Its Defeated Armed Forces

2008-09-02T18:57:00.001-07:00

By Vasily Fedosenko
Reuters, 02/09/08

TBILISI, Georgia - Just weeks after Georgia’s military collapsed in panic in the face of the Russian Army, its leaders hope to rebuild and train its armed forces as if another war with Russia is almost inevitable.

Georgian soldiers passing a destroyed Georgian armored vehicle as they left their position near the town of Gori on Aug. 11.

Georgia is already drawing up lists of options, including restoring the military to its prewar strength or making it a much larger force with more modern equipment, like air-defense systems, modern antiarmor rockets and night-vision devices.

Officials at the Pentagon, State Department and White House confirmed that the Bush administration was examining what would be required to rebuild Georgia’s military, but stressed that no decisions had been made. The choices each pose difficult foreign policy questions.

Georgia’s decision to attack Russian and South Ossetian forces raises questions about the wisdom of further United States investment in the Georgian military, which in any case would further alienate Russia. Not doing so could lead to charges of abandoning Georgia in the face of Russian threats.

In Moscow, President Dmitri A. Medvedev said Tuesday in an interview that he no longer considered President Mikheil Saakashvili to be Georgia’s leader, calling him a "political corpse."

Georgian statements have hardened as well, even before the army has identified and buried all of its dead.

"Our mission is to protect our country from Russian aggression," Davit Kezerashvili, Georgia’s 29-year-old defense minister, said in an interview last week when asked what missions the military would be organized to perform. "Large-scale Russian aggression. The largest aggression since the middle of the 20th century."

Russian officials last week repeatedly expressed concern about the possibility that the United States would undertake a major effort to rebuild Georgia’s military. "The Americans will enter Georgia," said Dmitri O. Rogozin, Russia’s representative to NATO. "I believe that soon there will be an American military base in Georgia, officially. And not only advisers. There will be a flag, tanks, artillery, aviation, even marines."

So far the Bush administration has chosen to trumpet its humanitarian efforts in Georgia, and has avoided publicly discussing efforts to study how best to rebuild the Georgian military.

The official silence reflects worries in Washington about tensions between the United States and Russia, officials said, and explains why the Bush administration policy makers and military officers who discussed these efforts did so only after demanding anonymity.

One brief, public discussion of American efforts came last Thursday, when Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at a news conference that Georgia was "a very important country to us" and that the United States intended to continue the military-to-military relationship.

"It’s going to be very important that the government of Georgia makes some decisions about what they want to do, and then I think the U.S. would be in a position to respond to that," he said.

Military rebuilding will take years, which means that long-term decisions about American support to Georgia will fall to the next presidential administration.

Republicans and Democrats alike have signaled strong support for Georgia.

Mr. Saakashvili has cultivated close ties to both the McCain and Obama campaigns. Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Democratic nominee for vice president, visited Mr. Saakashvili last month, as did Cindy McCain, the wife of Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee. Mr. McCain has been a vocal proponent of Mr. Saakashvili’s government, and a strong critic of the Kremlin.

Defense officials in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, said that at a minimum they hoped to re-equip the army’s four existing brigades with modern equipment, and increase the size of the country’s air force. Georgia’s military now includes 33,000 active-duty personnel.

Mr. Saakashvili said he also planned to emphasize officer training in the years ahead. "We have no problem with the individual skills of soldiers," he said in an interview. "We need to do this same thing with the officers."

Georgia also hopes to acquire an integrated air-defense system that covers the country’s entire airspace, to arm its land forces with modern antiarmor rockets, and to overhaul the military’s communication equipment, much of which was rendered useless by Russian jamming during the brief war.

It also wants to distribute large numbers of night-vision devices to the country’s forces, which could help create parity in the field against the numerical superiority of Russian armored units.

Russia’s military, while able to overpower and scare off the inexperienced Georgian Army, went into battle with aging equipment, including scores of tanks designed in the 1960s, and armored vehicles that broke down in large numbers along Georgia’s roads.

One option, Mr. Kezerashvili said, would include creating up to four more combat brigades. He said that training and equipping new brigades, re-equipping existing forces and installing a modern air-defense network could cost $8 billion to $9 billion.

"Together with Europeans and the United States, we have to rebuild our army and make it stronger, because it is in the common interest," he said, adding that Russia could attack another neighbor, and must be deterred. "Who will be the next victim? Nobody knows."

But as Georgia and the West begin to discuss military collaborations, the conversation is informed by the events of last month, in which the Georgian military scattered under fire.

Georgia’s own analysis is straightforward: its principal vulnerabilities, which it said proved decisive, were its comparative weakness to Russian air power and its inability to communicate effectively in combat.

These problems, according to Mr. Kezerashvili and Batu Kutelia, Georgia’s first deputy defense minister, could be remedied with investments in equipment.

"We know 100 percent that we need a very, very sophisticated air-defense system, that is multi-layered, to defend all of our airspace," Mr. Kutelia said.

But interviews with Western military officers who have experience working with Georgian military forces, including officers in Georgia, Europe and the United States, suggested that Georgia’s military shortfalls were serious and too difficult to change merely by upgrading equipment.

In the recent war, which was over in days, Georgia’s Army fled ahead of the Russian Army’s advance, turning its back and leaving Georgian civilians in an enemy’s path. Its planes did not fly after the first few hours of contact. Its navy was sunk in the harbor, and its patrol boats were hauled away by Russian trucks on trailers.

The information to date suggests that from the beginning of the war to its end, Georgia, which wants to join NATO, fought the war in a manner that undermined its efforts at presenting itself as a potentially serious military partner or power.

Mr. Saakashvili and his advisers also say that even though he has no tactical military experience, he was at one time personally directing important elements of the battle - giving orders over a cellphone and deciding when to move a brigade from western to central Georgia to face the advancing Russian columns.

In the field, there is evidence from an extensive set of witnesses that within 30 minutes of Mr. Saakashvili’s order, Georgia’s military began pounding civilian sections of the city of Tskhinvali, as well as a Russian peacekeeping base there, with heavy barrages of rocket and artillery fire.

The barrages all but ensured a Russian military response, several diplomats, military officers and witnesses said.

After the Russian columns arrived through the Roki Tunnel, and the battle swung quickly into Russia’s favor, Georgia said its attack had been necessary to stop a Russian attack that already had been under way.

To date, however, there has been no independent evidence, beyond Georgia’s insistence that its version is true, that Russian forces were attacking before the Georgian barrages.

During the battle, one Western military officer said, it had been obvious that Georgia’s logistical preparations were poor and that its units interfered with each other in the field.

This was in part because there was limited communication between ground forces and commanders, but also because there was almost no coordination between police units and military units, which often had overlapping tasks and crowded one another on the roads.

One senior Western military official said that one of the country’s senior generals had fled the battle in an ambulance, leaving soldiers and his duties behind. Georgia’s Defense Ministry strongly denies this.

No one disputes that the army succumbed to chaos and fear, which reached such proportions that the army fled all the way to the capital, abandoning the city of Gori without preparing a serious defense, and before the Russians had reached it in strength. It littered its retreat with discarded ammunition.

C. J. Chivers reported from Tbilisi, and Thom Shanker from Washington. Clifford J. Levy contributed reporting from Moscow.

Georgia mobilizes commando units near S.Ossetia - Russian military

2008-09-02T18:57:00.000-07:00

By RIA Novosti, 02/09/08

MOSCOW - Georgia is mobilizing commando units near its border with South Ossetia, a senior Russian military official said on Tuesday.

Russia officially recognized South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states on August 26, saying the move was needed to protect the regions after Georgia's August 8 attack on South Ossetia.

"According to our information, Georgian security forces are trying to restore their [military] presence in Georgian populated villages in South Ossetia. With this aim, Georgia is mobilizing its special forces from the interior and defense ministries near the administrative border with South Ossetia," Col. Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn, the deputy chief of Russia's General Staff, said.

He also said that Russia had deployed 19 peacekeeping observation posts in South Ossetia to provide security and stability in the republic, adding that South Ossetian military detachments were also mobilizing near the border to counter any possible Georgian attacks.

Georgia attacked South Ossetia on August 8 in an attempt to regain control over the republic, which split from Tbilisi in the early 1990s. Most people living in South Ossetia have Russian citizenship and Moscow subsequently launched an operation to "force Georgia to accept peace." The operation was concluded on August 12.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Sunday that Russian support for South Ossetia and Abkhazia envisaged military as well as economic assistance.

INTERVIEW - EU steps needed if Russian troops stay - Sweden's Bildt

2008-09-02T18:56:00.000-07:00

By Anna Ringstrom and Niklas Pollard
Reuters, 02/09/08

STOCKHOLM - The European Union will need to take further action if Russia fails to withdraw its troops from Georgia in line with a ceasefire agreement, but should stop short of sanctions, Sweden's foreign minister said on Tuesday.

European Union leaders agreed at an emergency summit on Monday to postpone talks on a new EU-Russia accord due later this month until Moscow pulls its troops to pre-conflict positions in Georgia.

Carl Bildt, former United Nations special envoy to the Balkans and a vocal critic of Russia in the Georgia crisis, gave no details of what steps he favoured, but told Reuters in an interview he hoped Russia would forestall them by withdrawing.

"The determining point will be if they carry out the full withdrawal they have promised or not. If they don't do it, then of course there will be further measures of some kind," he said.

Russia crushed its southern neighbour in a brief war last month after Georgia sent troops to retake the separatist region of South Ossetia. Moscow drew Western condemnation by pushing beyond the disputed region, deploying troops well inside Georgia proper.

IT has now withdrawn most of its troops but has kept soldiers in "security zones" which include Georgian territory around South Ossetia and another breakaway region, Abkhazia.

EU leaders on Monday also condemned Russia's recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states.

NO SANCTIONS

The moves were aimed at bridging national differences within the bloc on how to deal with Russia and shied away from imposing sanctions on the EU's biggest energy supplier.

While Sweden has sided with Britain and eastern European states in urging a tougher line than countries such as Germany and France, Bildt said trade sanctions were hardly realistic.

"I can't really see that, and I have not seen anybody calling for it either," he said.

"I always have a sceptical view on sanctions in general. I think that long-term economic ties benefit a positive development of different societies, be it China or the Soviet Union back in those days, or Russia of today."

Bildt said that whatever steps the EU took it should not halt its dialogue and a planned EU-Russia summit in November should go ahead even if Russia did not comply with the ceasefire agreement brokered by current EU president France.

"It is always valuable to keep the contact channels open, even if the content of these channels, so to speak, changes quite dramatically," Bildt said.

"It is important that the summit is held, though the atmosphere at the meeting will be different now than it would've been, no doubt about that."

The Georgia crisis fanned fears about energy security in Europe, since many EU members are heavily dependent on Russian natural gas.

Bildt said he did not believe this would hamper EU efforts to pressure Russia, but urged an intensification of the bloc's efforts to diversify gas supply.

(Editing by Robert Hart)

Putin vows 'an answer' to NATO ships near Georgia

2008-09-02T18:55:00.003-07:00

Putin promises Russia will 'answer' NATO ships in Black Sea

By Mike Eckel
AP, 02/09/08

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that Russia will respond calmly to an increase in NATO ships in the Black Sea in the aftermath of the short war with Georgia, but promised that "there will be an answer."

Russia has repeatedly complained that NATO has too many ships in the Black Sea. Foreign Ministry official Andrei Nesterenko said Tuesday that currently there are two U.S., one Polish, one Spanish and one German ship there.

Russian officials say the United States could have delivered weapons to Georgia under the guise of humanitarian aid.

"We don't understand what American ships are doing on the Georgian shores, but this is a question of taste, it's a decision by our American colleagues," he reportedly said. "The second question is why the humanitarian aid is being delivered on naval vessels armed with the newest rocket systems."

He said Russia's reaction to NATO ships "will be calm, without any sort of hysteria. But of course, there will be an answer," Interfax quoted Putin as saying during a visit to Uzbekistan.

Asked by exactly what measures Russia would take, Putin was quoted as answering "You'll see."

Separately, Russian officials criticized European threats to postpone talks on a partnership deal over the war in Georgia, but the Russian envoy to the EU said he was not surprised that the bloc declined to impose sanctions on Russia.

"We are too interdependent," Vladimir Chizhov told reporters in Moscow. "Russia and the European Union are bound by destiny to be close partners."

EU officials said Monday that unless Russian troops pull back from positions in Georgia, talks on the wide-ranging political and economic agreement would be put off.

Britain and Eastern European nations held out for a tougher line, but Europe's dependence on Russian oil and natural gas deterred stronger sanctions.

"The partnership with the European Union should not be a hostage to the conflict" over Georgia, Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko told reporters Tuesday.

Nesterenko also claimed efforts were under way to rebuild Georgia's armed forces, and said Georgian military forces were behind protests against Russian troops stationed in the country.

"There are active attempts to restore the activity of Georgian troops," he said. "Yesterday, there were rallies and provocations near the town of Kapoleti targeting Russian troops. We believe they were organized by Georgian special services."

Georgian officials could not be immediately reached for comment on the claim.

"Naturally, we cannot agree with a number of biased statements regarding Russia in the final declaration of the summit, including the assertion that our reaction to the Georgian aggression was disproportionate," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

"The main thing, however, is that they are in the minority and the majority of EU countries have manifested a responsible approach and confirmed their intention to continue the partnership with Russia," the ministry said.

On Aug. 7, Georgian forces attacked South Ossetia, hoping to retake the province, which broke away from Georgia in the early 1990s. Russian forces repelled the offensive and pushed into Georgia. Both sides signed a cease-fire deal in mid-August, but Russia has ignored its requirement for all forces to return to prewar positions.

Moscow insists the cease-fire accord lets it run checkpoints in security zones of up to 4 miles into Georgian territory.

Russia criticizes EU threats over Georgia conflict

2008-09-02T18:55:00.002-07:00

By Mike Eckel
AP, 02/09/08

Russia criticized the European Union on Tuesday for threatening to postpone talks on a new economic and political partnership deal over the war in Georgia, saying the EU's statements were biased.

EU officials said Monday in Brussels that unless Russian troops pull back from positions in Georgia, talks on the wide-ranging agreement would be put off. However, the move is widely seen as just a slap-on-the-wrist for Moscow.

"Naturally, we cannot agree with a number of biased statements regarding Russia in the final declaration of the summit, including the assertion that our reaction to the Georgian aggression was disproportionate," the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Britain and Eastern European nations at the summit held out for a tougher line, but Europe's dependence on Russian oil and natural gas deterred the EU from stronger sanctions.

"The main thing, however, is that they are in the minority and the majority of EU countries have manifested a responsible approach and confirmed their intention to continue the partnership with Russia," the foreign ministry statement said.

Vladimir Chizhov, Russia's envoy to the European Union, suggested he was not surprised that the European Union declined to impose sanctions on Russia.

"We are too interdependent," he told reporters in Moscow. "Russia and the European Union are bound by destiny to be close partners."

He also denied allegations by EU members that Russia has failed to live up to the terms of the cease-fire agreed to between Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Sarkozy said he plans to travel to Moscow on Monday for talks with the Russian leadership. A cease-fire he brokered to end fighting between Russian and Georgia calls for forces to be withdrawn to their positions before the war.

Asked why Russian troops control the Georgian Black Sea port of Poti, Chizhov said they do not. Instead, he said, a limited number of peacekeeping forces are there to track shipments into the port.

"This is only one checkpoint, to monitor the possible use of the port to transfer arms," he said.

Regarding the postponement of work on a security agreement between the EU and Russia, Chizhov said the EU had "internal difficulties" among its members that it needed to sort out before the deal could be negotiated. "We were patient enough and remain patient," he said.

Russia's NATO envoy, meanwhile, accused the United States of pushing Poland and the ex-Soviet Baltic states to demand tougher sanctions against Russia.

"It is clear who the losing side is: the policy pursued by the Polish president and his Baltic co-thinkers," Dmitry Rogozin was quoted by Interfax as saying.

They acted as "the advocates of Washington's line to undermine pan-European cooperation," he was quoted as saying.

Also on Tuesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met his Turkish counterpart for talks on the Georgian crisis.

Turkey has threatened to retaliate against new Russian import controls that are seen as an attempt to punish Turkey for allowing U.S. warships carrying aid to Georgia to pass through the Turkish straits, which connect the Mediterranean to the Black Sea.

The extra import checks for Turkish goods have resulted in hundreds of Turkish trucks being held up at Russian border posts.

Russia Expresses Regret Over EU's Decision To Freeze New Partnership Talks

2008-09-02T18:55:00.001-07:00

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 02/09/08

Moscow has sent a mixed message following the EU's stronger-than-expected response to Russia's recent military action in Georgia.

At a press conference in the Russian capital, Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko expressed regret over the EU's decision that followed an emergency summit on September 1 to examine ways to respond to the crisis.

"We regret the [EU] intention to suspend negotiations on the new partnership agreement-although in the past two years Moscow has already become used to artificial obstacles on the path to this document," he said. "We are interested in signing it equally as much as the European Union is."

Nesterenko went on to say that the entirety of Russia's cooperation with the EU should not be "held hostage" to differences on individual issues, and said Russia disagreed with "a whole number of biased statements" in the EU statement, "including the idea of a disproportionate reaction by Russia to Georgian aggression."

But the ministry spokesman also put a positive spin on the EU's move, considering that some EU members had called for sanctions to be imposed on Russia. That cooler heads prevailed shows that the EU realizes the importance of mutually beneficial cooperation with Russia, Nesterenko said.

"It is more important, however, that they [EU countries calling for sanctions against Russia] found themselves in a minority, while most of the EU member states demonstrated a responsible approach, reaffirmed their course for cooperation with Russia, understanding very well the significance of mutually beneficial cooperation, where a lot has been achieved in recent years," Nesterenko said.

Brussels has objected to Russia's failure to fully withdraw from undisputed Georgian territory as called for in the French-brokered cease-fire that stopped fighting between Georgia and Russia last month. But the EU's response was widely expected to be tempered by the bloc's weak position owing to its dependence on Russia for energy.

Russia's dominant position as an energy supplier was one reason the two sides entered into talks in July on a new Partnership and Cooperation Agreement. They had planned to hold their next round of talks on the agreement on September 15-16, but talks are suspended pending Russia's withdrawal from Georgia proper.

Immediately after the decision, Russian Ambassador to the EU Vladimir Chizhov appeared indifferent, saying Russia doesn't need the talks any more than the EU and that Brussels had missed an opportunity to improve its relations with Moscow.

"It is more of a self-punishment for the European Union because this does not improve the EU's credibility as a negotiating partner," Chizhov said on September 1. "The EU has missed a good opportunity to promote its strategic partnership with Russia by expressing solidarity [with Moscow] rather than supporting the aggressor, which is in this case certainly Georgia."

EU Support For Georgia

EU External Affairs Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner, speaking alongside Georgian Prime Minister Lado Gurgenidze in Brussels on September 2, expressed the bloc's commitment to helping in the reconstruction of Georgia.

Ferrero-Waldner said a donors conference will likely be held to examine ways of assistance, and discussed measures intended to facilitate Georgia's integration with the EU.

"On this whole package, there are two most important issues: one is the question of a free-trade area between the European Union and Georgia, and the second is the question of visa facilitation versus readmission agreement that we will also start rather quickly," Ferrero-Waldner said.

The EU's strong response followed an internal struggle during the emergency summit. The decision to freeze the partnership talks was absent in the first draft of the summit declaration circulated by France at the beginning of the meeting. Officials said, however, that pressure from Britain, Sweden, Poland, and a number of other Eastern European countries-all critical of Russia-tipped the scale.

Germany was said to be crucial for the mood swing that took place in the course of the summit. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has voiced unusually strong support for Georgia's NATO bid in the aftermath of the Georgia crisis, and is seen as sympathetic to the views of states in the former Soviet sphere.

But some observers have suggested that the West could benefit from backing off issues known to irritate Moscow, such as NATO expansion.

Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, a former German justice minister, suggests such tactics will only make relations with Russia worse.

"I think that possible NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia should not be treated as a priority," Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger says.

"Doing so would, with reason, only render the situation even more tense, and states that have internal conflicts are not is a position to become members of NATO as that would only draw all other NATO member states directly into these conflicts. That is why the issue is not one for immediate discussion, and I hope the EU summit will send that particular message."

Russia reacts to NATO ships

2008-09-02T18:55:00.000-07:00

Putin vows ‘there will be an answer.’

AP, 02/09/08

MOSCOW - Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said today that Russia will respond calmly to an increase in NATO ships in the Black Sea in the aftermath of the short war with Georgia but promised "there will be an answer."

Russia has repeatedly complained that NATO has too many ships in the Black Sea. Foreign Ministry official Andrei Nesterenko said today there are two U.S., one Polish, one Spanish and one German ship there currently.

Russian officials say the United States could have delivered weapons to Georgia under the guise of humanitarian aid.

"We don’t understand what American ships are doing on the Georgian shores, but this is a question of taste, it’s a decision by our American colleagues," Putin reportedly said. "The second question is why the humanitarian aid is being delivered on naval vessels armed with the newest rocket systems."

Russia’s reaction to NATO ships "will be calm, without any sort of hysteria. But of course, there will be an answer," Interfax quoted Putin as saying during a visit to Uzbekistan.

Asked exactly what measures Russia would take, Putin was quoted as answering, "You’ll see."

Separately, Russian officials criticized European threats to postpone talks on a partnership deal over the war in Georgia, but the Russian envoy to the EU said he was not surprised that the bloc declined to impose sanctions on Russia.

EU officials said yesterday that unless Russian troops pull back from positions in Georgia, talks on the wide-ranging political and economic agreement would be delayed.

Britain and Eastern European nations held out for a tougher line, but Europe’s dependence on Russian oil and natural gas deterred stronger sanctions.

Putin’s visit to Uzbekistan only highlighted that dependence: The Russian leader announced a new natural gas pipeline to cross Uzbekistan, strengthening Russian control over Central Asian gas exports to Europe and undermining Western-backed efforts for a trans-Caspian route.

Criticizing the EU decision, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko said Russia had fulfilled "all of its commitments."

He claimed efforts were under way to rebuild Georgia’s armed forcesand said Georgian military forces were behind protests against Russian troops stationed in the country.

Georgian officials could not be immediately reached for comment on the claim.

On Aug. 7, Georgian forces attacked South Ossetia, hoping to retake the province, which broke away from Georgia in the early 1990s.

Russian forces repelled the offensive and pushed into Georgia. Both sides signed a cease-fire deal in mid-August, but Russia has ignored its requirement for all forces to return to prewar positions.

Russia to press Moldovan separatists for deal

2008-09-02T18:54:00.000-07:00

By Denis Dyomkin
Reuters, 02/09/08

SOCHI, Russia - Russia will encourage separatists in ex-Soviet Moldova to strike a deal with the government there, a Kremlin aide said on Tuesday, as Moscow moves to shore up its reputation after the Georgia conflict.

Russia's decision to send troops into Georgia has provoked both Western condemnation and fears that it could launch similar action in other former Soviet states with separatist regions.

Moscow has recognised South Ossetia and Abkhazia-two breakaway, pro-Russian provinces of Georgia-as independent states, although no other country has yet followed its lead. Russia says it sent in troops to protect the regions from Georgian aggression.

Sergei Prikhodko, chief foreign policy adviser to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, said Moscow was committed to a different policy for Moldova and its separatist Transdniestria region. "Our position is to support the efforts of President (Vladimir) Voronin in the Transdniestria peace process, and the readiness of Russia to offer help was recently expressed," he told reporters.

"To continue our efforts, we are preparing for a serious discussion with (separatist leader Vladimir) Smirnov in the next few days," he said.

A separate Kremlin source said Medvedev's meeting with Smirnov could take place on Wednesday in the Russian leader's Black Sea residence in Sochi.

Smirnov has suggested Russia should recognise his breakaway region after cementing the secession of Abkhazia and South Ossetia from Georgia.

Some analysts suggested that after sending troops into Georgia, Moscow wants to show the world it can resolve another "frozen conflict" more amicably.

The EU and the United States have led international criticism of what they say was a "disproportionate" response from Moscow to an attempt by Tbilisi to retake South Ossetia by force.

They say the continuing presence of Russian troops on undisputed Georgian territory is in violation of a ceasefire agreement.

Transdniestria has close parallels with South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Like the Georgian regions, it broke away from central rule in fighting in the early 1990s, with Russian help. Russia has had peacekeeping troops based there since then.

Medvedev, who met Voronin in Sochi on Aug. 25, told him he saw "good prospects" for reaching a deal with the separatists.

(Writing by Oleg Shchedrov; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)

Russia to suffer economically and politically - Britain

2008-09-02T18:53:00.000-07:00

By
Reuters, 02/09/08

DUBLIN - Russia will suffer politically and economically for its military intervention in Georgia even though it may have won short-term gains, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said on Tuesday.

Moscow is now more isolated and less trusted than it was a month ago, Miliband wrote in an opinion piece in the Irish Examiner newspaper.

Russia crushed its southern neighbour in a brief war last month after Georgia tried to recapture by force its pro-Moscow, separatist region of South Ossetia.

It has drawn Western condemnation by pushing beyond the disputed area, bombing and deploying troops deep inside Georgia proper.

"It has made short-term military gains, but over time it will feel economic and political losses. If Russia truly wants respect and influence, it must change course," Miliband wrote.

European Union leaders agreed on Monday to postpone talks with Russia on a new partnership pact due later this month until Moscow withdraws its troops to pre-conflict positions in Georgia. The EU avoided imposing sanctions on its largest energy supplier.

"Isolating Russia would be counter-productive, because its international economic integration is the best discipline on its politics," Miliband said.

Miliband said Europeans needed Russian gas but Russia also needed European markets and investment.

"Our approach must be hard-headed engagement," he said.

"Russian President Dmitry Medvedev says that he is not afraid of a new cold war. We don't want one. He has a big responsibility not to start one," Miliband said.

(Reporting by Jonathan Saul; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

U.S. warship leaves Sevastopol after protests

2008-09-02T18:51:00.001-07:00

By RIA Novosti, 02/09/08

SEVASTOPOL - The U.S. Coast Guard cutter Dallas left Sevastopol Tuesday morning after anti-NATO protests in Ukraine's Crimean port.

The Dallas, which recently delivered humanitarian aid to Georgia's Black Sea port of Batumi, docked on Monday at the Crimean port, where Russia has a naval base, at the invitation of Kiev.

The ship's arrival was met by thousands of anti-NATO protesters chanting "Yankees go home!" and waving banners with the slogan "NATO Stop!" Police cordoned off the area around the ship.

Ukrainian customs officers who boarded the ship and met the commander said they had been prepared to lay on buses for the U.S. crew to give them a tour of the city, but apart from a few officers, no one left the vessel.

Tensions between Russia and the West have been exacerbated by the build up in the Black Sea of U.S. and NATO naval vessels delivering humanitarian aid to Georgia. In an apparent response, Russia sent a group of warships last week, including the Moskva missile cruiser, to Sukhumi, the capital of Abkhazia.

A Russian warship, the Smetlivy patroller, has meanwhile returned to Sevastopol after being involved in peacekeeping operations off the Abkhazian shore, a Russian Black Sea Fleet command source said.

"Smetlivy returned to its base this morning. Everyone on board is safe and sound. A group of ships has remained near the Abkhazian shore to ensure the republic's maritime security," the source said.

Most of Russia's naval group have returned to the Black Sea bases of Novorossiisk and Sevastopol.

After a Russian ship patrolling Abkhazian waters sank a Georgian missile boat during armed conflict last month, Ukraine's Foreign Ministry said Russian warships involved in the operation near Georgia could be prohibited from returning to Sevastopol.

Russia's Black Sea Fleet uses the Sevastopol base under agreements signed in 1997. Ukrainian pro-NATO President Victor Yushchenko announced earlier this year that Ukraine would not extend the lease beyond 2017.

Yushchenko signed a decree last month requiring prior notice of all movements by Russian naval vessels and aircraft from the Sevastopol base in the Crimea. Russia views it as a provocation and is likely to resist any Ukrainian attempts to restrict the deployment of its navy.

UN worried about refugee situation in Georgia

2008-09-02T18:51:00.000-07:00

By Monsters and Critics.com, 02/09/08

Geneva - The situation for refugees in the Georgian city of Gori is worrying, UN aid organization UNHCR said Tuesday.

'With 4,200 registered persons, the accommodation capacities are exhausted,' UNHCR spokesman Ron Redmond said in Geneva.

About 450 arrived last week alone, fleeing looting militias, he said. 'The militias are made up of armed men in uniforms without markings.'

All of the refugees come from the so called buffer zone between Gori and the South Ossetia border, Redmond said.

Refugees told the UN organization that their homes were looted and set on fire. People who had stayed in their villages as the conflict first erupted were now fleeing too. Many of them had hid for two weeks before reaching the UNCHR camp.

Last month saw a brief but bloody conflict between Georgia and Russia over the breakaway Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Putin's Ruthless Gambit

2008-09-02T18:50:00.000-07:00

The Bush Administration Falters in a Geopolitical Chess Match

By Michael T. Klare
TomDispatch, 02/09/08

Many Western analysts have chosen to interpret the recent fighting in the Caucasus as the onset of a new Cold War, with a small pro-Western democracy bravely resisting a brutal reincarnation of Stalin's jack-booted Soviet Union. Others have viewed it a throwback to the age-old ethnic politics of southeastern Europe, with assorted minorities using contemporary border disputes to settle ancient scores.

Neither of these explanations is accurate. To fully grasp the recent upheavals in the Caucasus, it is necessary to view the conflict as but a minor skirmish in a far more significant geopolitical struggle between Moscow and Washington over the energy riches of the Caspian Sea basin-with former Russian President (now Prime Minister) Vladimir Putin emerging as the reigning Grand Master of geostrategic chess and the Bush team turning out to be middling amateurs, at best.

The ultimate prize in this contest is control over the flow of oil and natural gas from the energy-rich Caspian basin to eager markets in Europe and Asia. According to the most recent tally by oil giant BP, the Caspian's leading energy producers, all former "socialist republics" of the Soviet Union-notably Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan-together possess approximately 48 billion barrels in proven oil reserves (roughly equivalent to those left in the U.S. and Canada) and 268 trillion cubic feet of natural gas (essentially equivalent to what Saudi Arabia possesses).

During the Soviet era, the oil and gas output of these nations was, of course, controlled by officials in Moscow and largely allocated to Russia and other Soviet republics. After the breakup of the USSR in 1991, however, Western oil companies began to participate in the hydrocarbon equivalent of a gold rush to exploit Caspian energy reservoirs, while plans were being made to channel the region's oil and gas to markets across the world.

Rush to the Caspian

In the 1990s, the Caspian Sea basin was viewed as the world's most promising new source of oil and gas, and so the major Western energy firms-Chevron, BP, Shell, and Exxon Mobil, among others-rushed into the region to take advantage of what seemed a golden opportunity. For these firms, persuading the governments of the newly independent Caspian states to sign deals proved to be no great hassle. They were eager to attract Western investment-and the bribes that often came with it-and to free themselves from Moscow's economic domination.

But there turned out to be a major catch: It was neither obvious nor easy to figure out how to move all the new oil and gas to markets in the West. After all, the Caspian is landlocked, so tankers cannot get near it, while all existing pipelines passed through Russia and were hooked into Soviet-era supply systems. While many in Washington were eager to assist U.S. firms in their drive to gain access to Caspian energy, they did not want to see the resulting oil and gas flow through Russia-until recently, the country's leading adversary-before reaching Western markets.

What, then, to do? Looking at the Caspian chessboard in the mid-1990s, President Bill Clinton conceived the striking notion of converting the newly independent, energy-poor Republic of Georgia into an "energy corridor" for the export of Caspian basin oil and gas to the West, thereby bypassing Russia altogether. An initial, "early-oil" pipeline was built to carry petroleum from newly-developed fields in Azerbaijan's sector of the Caspian Sea to Supsa on Georgia's Black Sea coast, where it was loaded onto tankers for delivery to international markets. This would be followed by a far more audacious scheme: the construction of the 1,000-mile BTC pipeline from Baku in Azerbaijan to Tbilisi in Georgia and then on to Ceyhan on Turkey's Mediterranean coast. Again, the idea was to exclude Russia-which had, in the intervening years, been transformed into a struggling, increasingly impoverished former superpower-from the Caspian Sea energy rush.

Clinton presided over every stage of the BTC line's initial development, from its early conception to the formal arrangements imposed by Washington on the three nations involved in its corporate structuring. (Final work on the pipeline was not completed until 2006, two years into George W. Bush's second term.) For Clinton and his advisors, this was geopolitics, pure and simple-a calculated effort to enhance Western energy security while diminishing Moscow's control over the global flow of oil and gas. The administration's efforts to promote the construction of new pipelines through Azerbaijan and Georgia were intended "to break Russia's monopoly of control over the transportation of oil from the region," Sheila Heslin of the National Security Council bluntly told a Senate investigating committee in 1997.
Clinton understood that this strategy entailed significant risks, particularly because Washington's favored "energy corridor" passed through or near several major conflict zones-including the Russian-backed breakaway enclaves of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. With this in mind, Clinton made a secondary decision-to convert the new Georgian army into a military proxy of the United States, quipped and trained by the Department of Defense. From 1998 to 2000 alone, Georgia was awarded $302 million in U.S. military and economic aid-more than any other Caspian country-and top U.S. military officials started making regular trips to its capital, Tbilisi, to demonstrate support for then-president Eduard Shevardnadze.

In those years, Clinton was the top chess player in the Caspian region, while his Russian presidential counterpart, Boris Yeltsin, was far too preoccupied with domestic troubles and a bitter, costly, ongoing guerrilla war in Chechnya to match his moves. It was clear, however, that senior Russian officials were deeply concerned by the growing U.S. presence in their southern backyard-what they called their "near abroad"-and had already had begun planning for an eventual comeback. "It hasn't been left unnoticed in Russia that certain outside interests are trying to weaken our position in the Caspian basin," Andrei Y. Urnov of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs declared in May 2000. "No one should be perplexed that Russia is determined to resist the attempts to encroach on her interests."

Russia Resurgent

At this critical moment, a far more capable player took over on Russia's side of the geopolitical chessboard. On December 31, 1999, Vladimir V. Putin was appointed president by Yeltsin and then, on March 26, 2000, elected to a full four-year term in office. Politics in the Caucasus and the Caspian region have never been the same.

Even before assuming the presidency, Putin indicated that he believed state control over energy resources should be the basis for Russia's return to great-power status. In his doctoral dissertation, a summary of which was published in 1999, he had written that "[t]he state has the right to regulate the process of the acquisition and the use of natural resources, and particularly mineral resources [including oil and natural gas], independent of on whose property they are located." On this basis, Putin presided over the re-nationalization of many of the energy companies that had been privatized by Yeltsin and the virtual confiscation of Yukos-once Russia's richest private energy firm-by Russian state authorities. He also brought Gazprom, the world's largest natural gas supplier, back under state control and placed a protégé, Dmitri Medvedev-now president of Russia-at its helm.
Once he had restored state control over the lion's share of Russia's oil and gas resources, Putin turned his attention to the next obvious place-the Caspian Sea basin. Here, his intent was not so much to gain ownership of its energy resources-although Russian firms have in recent years acquired an equity share in some Caspian oil and gas fields-but rather to dominate the export conduits used to transport its energy to Europe and Asia.

Russia already enjoyed a considerable advantage since much of Kazakhstan's oil already flowed to the West via the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC), which passes through Russia before terminating on the Black Sea; moreover, much of Central Asia's natural gas continued to flow to Russia through pipelines built during the Soviet era. But Putin's gambit in the Caspian region evidently was meant to capture a far more ambitious prize. He wanted to ensure that most oil and gas from newly developed fields in the Caspian basin would travel west via Russia.

The first part of this drive entailed frenzied diplomacy by Putin and Medvedev (still in his role as board chairman of Gazprom) to persuade the presidents of Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan to ship their future output of gas through Russia. Success was achieved when, in December 2007, Putin signed an agreement with the leaders of these countries to supply 20 billion cubic meters of gas per year through a new conduit along the Caspian's eastern shore to southern Russia-for ultimate delivery to Europe via Gazprom's existing pipeline network.

Meanwhile, Putin moved to undermine international confidence in Georgia as a reliable future corridor for energy delivery. This became a strategic priority for Moscow because the European Union announced plans to build a $10 billion natural-gas pipeline from the Caspian, dubbed Nabucco" after the opera by Verdi. It would run from Turkey to Austria, while linking up to an expanded South Caucasus gas pipeline that now extends from Azerbaijan through Georgia to Erzurum in Turkey. The Nabucco pipeline was intended as a dramatic move to reduce Europe's reliance on Russian natural gas-and so has enjoyed strong support from the Bush administration.
It is against this backdrop that the recent events in Georgia unfolded.

Checkmate in Georgia

Obviously, the more oil and gas passing through Georgia on its way to the West, the greater that country's geostrategic significance in the U.S.-Russian struggle over the distribution of Caspian energy. Certainly, the Bush administration recognized this and responded by providing hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to the Georgian military and helping to train specialized forces for protection of the new pipelines. But the administration's partner in Tbilisi, President Mikheil Saakashvili, was not content to play the relatively modest role of pipeline protector. Instead, he sought to pursue a megalomaniacal fantasy of recapturing the breakaway regions of Abhkazia and South Ossetia with American help. As it happened, the Bush team-blindsided by their own neoconservative fantasies-saw in Saakashvili a useful pawn in their pursuit of a long smoldering anti-Russian agenda. Together, they walked into a trap cleverly set by Putin.

It is hard not to conclude that Russian prime minister goaded the rash Saakashvili into invading South Ossetia by encouraging Abkhazian and South Ossetian irregulars to attack Georgian outposts and villages on the peripheries of the two enclaves. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice reportedly told Saakashvili not to respond to such provocations when she met with him in July. Apparently her advice fell on deaf ears. Far more enticing, it seems, was her promise of strong U.S. backing for Georgia's rapid entry into NATO. Other American leaders, including Senator John McCain, assured Saakashvili of unwavering U.S. support. Whatever was said in these private conversations, the Georgian president seems to have interpreted them as a green light for his adventuristic impulses. On August 7th, by all accounts, his forces invaded South Ossetia and attacked its capital city of Tskhinvali, giving Putin what he long craved-a seemingly legitimate excuse to invade Georgia and demonstrate the complete vulnerability of Clinton's (and now Bush's) vaunted energy corridor.

Today, the Georgian army is in shambles, the BTC and South Caucasus gas pipelines are within range of Russian firepower, and Abkhazia and South Ossetia have declared their independence, quickly receiving Russian recognition. In response to these developments, the Bush administration has, along with some friendly leaders in Europe, mounted a media and diplomatic counterattack, accusing Moscow of barbaric behavior and assorted violations of international law. Threats have also been made to exclude Russia from various international forums and institutions, such as the G-8 club of governments and the World Trade Organization. It is possible, then, that Moscow will suffer some isolation and inconvenience as a result of its incursion into Georgia.

None of this, so far as can be determined, will alter the picture in the Caucasus: Putin has moved his most powerful pieces onto this corner of the chessboard, America's pawn has been decisively defeated, and there's not much of a practical nature that Washington (or London or Paris or Berlin) can do to alter the outcome.

There will, of course, be more rounds to come, and it is impossible to predict how they will play out. Putin prevailed this time around because he focused on geopolitical objectives, while his opponents were blindly driven by fantasy and ideology; so long as this pattern persists, he or his successors are likely to come out on top. Only if American leaders assume a more realistic approach to Russia's resurgent power or, alternatively, choose to collaborate with Moscow in the exploitation of Caspian energy, will the risk of further strategic setbacks in the region disappear.

Michael T. Klare is professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College and the author, most recently, of Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy (Metropolitan Books).

Israel of the Caucasus

2008-09-02T18:49:00.000-07:00

By Arnaud De Borchgrave
United Press International, 02/09/08

For Russia, the geopolitical stars were in perfect alignment. The United States was badly overstretched and had no plausible way to talk tough without coming across as empty rhetoric. American resources have been drained by the Iraq and Afghan wars, and the war on terror. As Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov put it, Washington must now choose between its "pet project" Georgia and a partnership with Moscow.

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili evidently thought the United States would come to his side militarily if Russian troops pushed him back into Georgia after ordering an attack last Aug. 8 on the breakaway province of South Ossetia. And when his forces were mauled by Russia's counterattack, bitter disappointment turned to anger. Along with Abkhazia, Georgia lost two provinces.

Georgia also had a special relationship with Israel that was mostly under the radar. Georgian Defense Minister Davit Kezerashvili is a former Israeli who moved things along by facilitating Israeli arms sales with U.S. aid. "We are now in a fight against the great Russia," he was quoted as saying, "and our hope is to receive assistance from the White House because Georgia cannot survive on its own."

The Jerusalem Post on Aug. 12 reported, "Georgian Prime Minister Vladimir Gurgenidze made a special call to Israel Tuesday morning to receive a blessing from one of the Haredi community's most important rabbis and spiritual leaders, Rabbi Aaron Leib Steinman. 'I want him to pray for us and our state,'" he was quoted.

Israel began selling arms to Georgia seven years ago. U.S. grants facilitated these purchases. From Israel came former minister and former Tel Aviv Mayor Roni Milo, representing Elbit Systems, and his brother Shlomo, former director general of Military Industries. Israeli UAV spy drones, made by Elbit Maarahot Systems, conducted recon flights over southern Russia, as well as into nearby Iran.

In a secret agreement between Israel and Georgia, two military airfields in southern Georgia had been earmarked for the use of Israeli fighter-bombers in the event of pre-emptive attacks against Iranian nuclear installations. This would sharply reduce the distance Israeli fighter-bombers would have to fly to hit targets in Iran. And to reach Georgian airstrips, the Israeli air force would fly over Turkey.

The attack ordered by Saakashvili against South Ossetia the night of Aug. 7 provided the Russians the pretext for Moscow to order Special Forces to raid these Israeli facilities where some Israeli drones were reported captured.

At a Moscow news conference, Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn, Russia's deputy chief of staff, said the extent of Israeli aid to Georgia included "eight types of military vehicles, explosives, landmines and special explosives for clearing minefields." Estimated numbers of Israeli trainers attached to the Georgian army range from 100 to 1,000. There were also 110 U.S. military personnel on training assignments in Georgia. Last July 2,000 U.S. troops were flown in for "Immediate Response 2008," a joint exercise with Georgian forces.

Details of Israel's involvement were largely ignored by Israeli media lest they be interpreted as another blow to Israel's legendary military prowess, which took a bad hit in the Lebanese war against Hezbollah two years ago. Georgia's top diplomat in Tel Aviv complained about Israel's "lackluster" response to his country's military predicament and called for "diplomatic pressure on Moscow." According to the Jerusalem Post, the Georgian was told "the address for that type of pressure is Washington."

Haaretz reported Georgian Minister Temur Yakobashvili -- who is Jewish, the newspaper said -- told Israeli army radio that "Israel should be proud of its military which trained Georgian soldiers" because he explained rather implausibly, "a small group of our soldiers were able to wipe out an entire Russian military division, thanks to Israeli training."

The Tel Aviv-Tbilisi military axis was agreed at the highest levels with the approval of the Bush administration. The official liaison between the two entities was Reserve Brig. Gen. Gal Hirsch who commanded Israeli forces on the Lebanese border in July 2006. He resigned from the army after the Winograd Commission flayed Israel's conduct of its Second Lebanon War. Hirsch was also blamed for the seizure of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah.

Israeli personnel, working for "private" companies with close ties to the Israel Defense Forces, also trained Georgian soldiers in house-to-house fighting.

That Russia assessed these Israeli training missions as U.S.-approved is a given. The United States was also handicapped by a shortage of spy-in-the-sky satellite capability, already overextended by the Iraq and Afghan wars. Neither U.S. nor Georgian intelligence knew Russian forces were ready with an immediate and massive response to the Georgian attack Moscow knew was coming. Russian double agents ostensibly working for Georgia most probably egged on the military fantasies of the impetuous Saakashvili's "surprise attack" plans.

Saakashvili was convinced that by sending 2,000 of his soldiers to serve in Iraq (who were immediately flown home by the United States when Russia launched a massive counterattack into Georgia), he would be rewarded for his loyalty. He could not believe President Bush, a personal friend, would leave him in the lurch. Georgia, as Saakashvili saw his country's role, was the "Israel of the Caucasus."

The Tel Aviv-Tbilisi military axis appears to have been cemented at the highest levels, according to YNet, the Israeli electronic daily. But whether the IAF can still count on those air bases to launch bombing missions against Iran's nuke facilities is now in doubt.

Iran comes out ahead in the wake of the Georgian crisis. Neither Russia nor China is willing to respond to a Western request for more and tougher sanctions against the mullahs. Iran's European trading partners are also loath to squeeze Iran. The Russian-built, 1,000-megawatt Iranian reactor in Bushehr is scheduled to go online early next year.

A combination of Putin and oil has put Russia back on the geopolitical map of the world. Moscow's oil and gas revenue this year is projected at $201 billion -- a 13-fold increase since Putin succeeded Boris Yeltsin eight years ago. Not shabby for a wannabe superpower on the comeback trail.

Russia will complete Iran nuclear plant

2008-09-02T17:35:00.000-07:00

AFP, 02/09/08

TEHRAN — The Russian company building Iran's first nuclear power plant has renewed a commitment to complete the project, the official IRNA news agency reported on Tuesday.

Russia, one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, is building the plant at Bushehr on the Gulf coast of Iran despite a long-running standoff over Tehran's controversial nuclear drive.

A visiting delegation from Russia's state-run Atomstroiexport pledged to "abide by the working agenda by providing the necessary experts... and sending the necessary equipment for the power plant in time," according to a joint statement with Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation carried by IRNA.

The Russian contractor said in December that Bushehr would not come on line before the end of 2008, amid repeated delays in construction, contractual disputes and international tensions over Iran's nuclear programme.

It took over construction of the plant from the German company Siemens in 1994.

Western governments believe oil-rich Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons, but Tehran insists its programme is peaceful and aimed at generating energy for a growing population.

The UN Security Council has imposed three sets of sanctions on Iran over its failure to heed resolutions requiring the suspension of uranium enrichment, a process which makes fuel for a nuclear power plant but also the core of an atomic bomb.

Putin and Russia's Middle Eastern Policy

2008-09-01T18:58:00.000-07:00

By Ilya Bourtman
Middle East Review of International Affairs, June 2006

Russian President Vladimir Putin is currently pursuing a two track policy towards the Middle East, allowing Russia to develop friendly ties with Israel while simultaneously nurturing alternative, sometimes competing, interests with Arab countries. This non-ideological policy has allowed Russia to reclaim a part of the economic and strategic leverage it lost following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Thus far, Russia has successfully signed diplomatic, military, and energy deals and developed ties with both Israel and its Arab neighbors without significantly alienating one or the other. Whether Putin's embrace of Hamas in March 2006 or his continued armament of Iran will damage Russia's relations with Israel is still an open question.

Russia’s Middle East Policy
Russia's policy towards the Middle East today is a far cry from the ideologically-driven, Cold War zero-sum thinking which guided the Kremlin for many years. In fact, Putin's policy towards the region has been anything but ideological. [1] Learning from U.S. policymakers who for many years developed relations with both Arab states and Israel and were thus at an advantage when it came to resolving disputes and capitalizing on economic opportunities, Russian officials now similarly avoid any ideological principle that would force their policy to be zero-sum. As Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told the Russian newspaper Pravda, "Russia's policy is neither pro-Arab, nor pro-Israel. It is aimed at securing Russian national interests. Maintaining close and friendly ties with Arab states and Israel is among them." [2]

The Kremlin's modus vivendi in the region is marked by pragmatism, cynicism, and economic calculations occasionally mixed with an undertone of anti-Americanism. Russian policymakers recognize that the Middle East is not a primary area of concern, even if it is, increasingly, becoming an area where Russia can exert influence. [3] While Russia plays more than a "niche role" [4] in the region, it lacks the well-defined, long-term strategy necessary to be considered a "real great power." [5] Russia simply cannot penetrate the Middle East as the Soviet Union once could nor does it necessarily have an interest in doing so. Russia's limited capacity to affect change far from her borders forces Russian leaders to distinguish primary from secondary objectives. Tangibly, this has meant that Russia has concentrated on maintaining its traditional role in the region as a leading arms supplier while simultaneously opening new markets to Russian companies. This was demonstrated most clearly when on his only trip to the Middle East in April of 2005, Putin's fellow travelers included the chief executives from the MiG Corporation and Rosoboroneksport (Russian Defense Exports). [6] Indeed, Putin is interested not only in continuing exporting arms to the region, but also expanding the role of Russian companies in the energy sector. For years, Russian firms have been buying oil from Iraq and then reselling it to Europe and the United States, but only recently has Russia begun crafting energy deals with Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, Jordan, and even Israel. [7]

Progress in Russian-Israeli Relations under Putin

During Putin's presidency, Israel has come to play an increasingly significant role in Russia's Middle East policy. Putin has done more than any other Russian leader to improve economic and strategic ties with Israel. At the same time, however, the Kremlin's dealings with some of Israel's adversaries have complicated the full development of Russian-Israeli ties, as was seen in the Israeli response to the Kremlin's controversial February 2006 decision to invite Hamas to Moscow for meetings with senior Russian officials.

On the surface, Russian-Israeli cooperation has never been closer. As Putin told his Israeli hosts in late April 2005, "We have all the conditions for success, and most important, there is the will and desire on both sides to strengthen our friendship, trust and cooperation and to build a constructive partnership together." [8] Trade between the countries has doubled under Putin and today amounts to close to $1.5 billion in direct trade, [9] and over a billion in energy deals. Israelis and Russians are working together in sectors spanning heavy industry, aviation, energy, and medicine. Since 1989, almost one million Jews from the former Soviet Union have immigrated to Israel, creating a natural economic bridge between the two countries. Today, they make up approximately 20 percent of Israel's population. As Putin told the Egyptian Newspaper Al-Ahram in April of 2005, Russia "is not indifferent to the fate of these people," [10] many of whom have dual Israeli/Russian citizenship and business ties with both countries. Among the immigrants have been several powerful Russian oligarchs-Leonid Nevzlin, Vladimir Dubov, and Mikhail Brudno (all former partners of Mikhail Khodorkovsky in Yukos), Vladimir Gusinsky (a media tycoon), and Arkadi Gaydamak (a suspected arms dealer). Several of the richest businessmen who invest in Israel are also wanted by the Russian government, which alleges that the men funneled hundreds of millions of dollars into Israeli bank accounts. [11] Thus far, the Israeli government has turned down Moscow's requests for their extradition.

Yet lingering scandals surrounding Russian-Israeli businessmen have not affected cooperation in other areas-most notably, in the energy sector. Although the Israeli government does not publicize its energy exporters-it worries that oil-rich Persian Gulf states who already boycott it may act to close off energy routes for Israel-bound shipments from other countries-one senior-Israeli diplomat revealed that 88 percent of Israel's crude oil comes from Russia. [12] The deal's current structure provides Israel with sour (high sulfur) oil, sometimes of poor quality, at reduced market prices. Moreover, Israel's dependence on Russian energy is increasing. Following a June 2004 meeting between Alexey Miller, the Chairman of Gazprom, and then Prime Minister Sharon, Israel promised to increase the share of Russian gas in its energy balance from one percent to 25 percent by 2025. [13] In November 2005, it was reported that the Blue Stream Natural Gas Pipeline-a $3.4 billion dollar project between Russia and Turkey-would be expanded to Israel through the Eilat-Ashkelon pipeline to allow Russian and Azerbaijani oil and gas to be exported by tanker through the Red Sea to China and through the Suez Canal to Southern Europe. [14] Were the Blue Stream Pipeline to be expanded to Eilat, Israel would instantly become a major regional hub of oil and gas, receiving hundreds of millions of dollars in tariff revenues and, maybe even more importantly, finally achieving some much needed energy security. In March 2006, following a return visit by Alexey Miller to Israel, then acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert stated that Gazprom had agreed to supply Israel with gas. [15]

The most visible area of cooperation between Russia and Israel has been in counterterrorism. Israel was one of the first nations to offer its support to Russia after the Beslan tragedy in 2004 in which almost 300 people, mostly children, were killed in a hostage standoff with Chechen rebels. "Israel, which has been struggling against terrorism for many years, stands alongside the Russian people and sends its condolences," Ariel Sharon stated, "there is no justification for terrorism and this is the time for the free, just and humanitarian world to unite and fight this horrific plague, which acknowledges neither borders nor limitations." [16] These statements were not a break from the past. Since 1999, Israeli officials have stressed the similarity between Chechen and Palestinian Islamist terrorists, and reiterated the need to respond forcefully to terrorism more broadly. [17]

Following an onslaught of terrorist attacks between 1999 and 2004 on Russian apartment buildings, subways, airlines, and theaters-and inadequate and often bungled responses by Russia's security services-Russia's intelligence services began serious collaboration with their counterparts in Jerusalem. Though Mossad agents secretly held meetings with Russians at the Kremlin during Yeltsin's tenure and Putin's first years in office, the level of cooperation increased dramatically in the post-Beslan security environment. As Ehud Olmert, then Israel's Vice Premier, stated in November of 2004, "I think there is a growing realization in Russia that they [Russians] have to become more prepared for future terror attacks and that it's a good idea to compare notes with us [Israelis]." [18] Senior level talks have focused on three areas: training, border security, and arms. Since 2004, Russian and Israeli anti-terror forces have secretly trained together, and there are plans to hold joint counter-terrorism exercises. [19] The Israeli police, by Moscow's request, also prepared reports detailing alternative responses to the hostage crises at the Nord-Ost Theater and Beslan. [20]

On the issue of border security, Israel has proposed that Moscow reform its intelligence gathering and border-protection agencies. In November 2005, The Jerusalem Post reported that Israeli and Russian experts were jointly developing a plan for a security barrier along the border with Chechnya, similar to the Israeli barrier in Gaza and the West Bank. [21] Finally, as has been widely reported in the Russian and Israeli press, Dmitry Kozak, Putin's envoy to the Northern Caucasus region, has spent the majority of time since his appointment in March 2004 shuttling between Moscow and Jerusalem signing counter-terrorism and arms deals. [22] In November 2005, for example, the state-funded RIA News reported that Kozak had negotiated a deal whereby Israel would sell unmanned flying vehicles to Russia to help patrol the border with Chechnya. [23] Even the tension caused by Hamas' visit to Moscow in March 2006 did not significantly disrupt counterterrorism cooperation between the two countries. A joint counter-terrorism working group-formed between the law enforcement agencies in both countries in the autumn of 2004-met in Israel on March 13, 2006, days after Hamas' visit, to create a single database of international terrorist organizations and their leaders. [24] On the weapons front, the two countries are jointly producing and selling military equipment on the world market including helicopters and AWACS aircraft. [25] In private conversations senior Israeli officials admit that other arms contracts have been signed, but no details have been made public.

Lingering Issues in Russian-Israeli Relations

Yet for all the progress made, major issues of contention remain. Israeli officials are currently most concerned by Russia's continued support for Iran's nuclear programs, despite the Iranian government's explicit threats to destroy Israel. Yet other issues of concern for Israel include Russian arms sales to Syria, Moscow's legitimization of Hamas, and the Kremlin's inattention to rising anti-Semitism in Russia. Russian officials, for their part, have been frustrated by Israeli resistance to Russia's efforts to play a larger role in mediating the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In the end, however, Israel has much more reason to be worried about Russia's actions rather than the other way around, because it holds far fewer levers of influence by which to affect Moscow's interests.

Most threatening to the future of Russian-Israeli relations is Russia's continued construction of a nuclear reactor in Iran, which most Israelis feel threatens their country's existence. Russia, for its part, does not believe that Israel has much cause for concern. This stems from the fact that while Putin sees his country's dealings with Iran as primarily an "economic issue," Israel views it as a security concern. More so than anyone else, Russians are aware that the market for their antiquated nuclear technology is shrinking, and that the $10 billion agreement they signed in July 2002 to provide Iran with six nuclear reactors over the next decade is a deal the Russian nuclear industry desperately needs in order to stay afloat. [26] The project, which employs several thousand top-grade Russian scientists who would otherwise struggle to find work, pays Russia in hard currency-something many of their other arms importers are reluctant to do. [27] While centered on the sale of nuclear technologies, Russia's cooperation with Iran revolves around other areas as well. As reported in Vremya Novostei in April 2005, Tehran was in the process of purchasing Tu-204 jets and a "communication satellite" from Russia. In exchange for the cooperation, Tehran has floated the idea that Russian companies will be able to play a role in oil and gas projects in Iran. [28]

Israel interprets Russia's dealings with Iran as a threat to its national security. [29] If Iran uses the Russian civilian nuclear technology to build a nuclear weapon, it would cause a radical shift in the regional balance of power, possibly catalyzing a regional nuclear arms race (led by Saudi Arabia and Egypt), and, likely, a nuclear stand-off between Israel and Iran. Giving nuclear technologies to an Iran led by radical ayatollahs and a president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who denies the Holocaust and repeatedly calls for Israel to be "wiped out from the map of the world," [30] is simply unacceptable to the Israelis. The issue of Iran looms large over all areas of Russian-Israeli relations, so much so that Dr. Robert O. Freedman, a leading expert on Russian-Israeli relations, believes that "Russia is working against Israel on all the major issues." [31] No amount of counter-terrorism cooperation or trade links will be able to save Russian-Israeli relations if Russia remains complicit in Iran's nuclear aspirations.

The issue of Russian-Syrian cooperation is additionally irksome for Israel. Russia and Syria, which are united in their opposition to U.S . hegemony in the Middle East, have a historical record of diplomatic, military, and economic co-operation that dates from the Soviet period. The invitation to Moscow that Putin extended to Syrian president Bashar al-Asad in 2005 was the first such overture by a Russian leader in over a dozen years. "Syria is a country with which the Soviet Union had, and today's Russia has, special [and] very warm relations," [32] said Putin as he welcomed Syrian President Bashar al-Asad to Moscow in late January 2005. With Putin's explicit approval, Moscow forgave 73 percent of the $13.4 billion debt owed by Damascus, a significant amount of money for Russia. [33] Moreover, in April 2005, Russia sold Strelets surface-to-air missiles to Syria, thereby ignoring vocal Israeli and American concerns that the weapons could fall into the hands of Hizballah. [34] When asked on Israeli television whether he felt the sale of the Strelets defense system posed a threat to Israel, Putin won himself few friends in Israel by laughing at the question and stating that "sure, Israeli aircraft will no longer be able to fly over Bashar Asad's palace." [35] Later, in September 2005, Russia sold munitions to Syria and promised to double the number of Syrian officers trained in Russian military academies. [36] Russian officials have also stopped short of confronting Syrian officials over their providing shelter for senior Hamas officials, even though Israeli officials have repeatedly asked them to do so. Russia's arms supplies and cooperation with her Soviet-era client has worried Israeli and American officials who consider Syria to be a "terrorist safe-haven" and a regional menace.

Some of Russia's domestic policies have also irked Israeli officials. Specifically disturbing was Putin's continued refusal to put Hamas and Hizballah on Russia's list of terrorist organizations, allowing money to flow freely from Russia to two of Israel's worst enemies. This concern became especially pronounced when in March 2006 Putin invited Hamas to Moscow claiming that Russia was in a unique position to do so since, unlike the United States and the EU, it had "never considered Hamas a terrorist organization." [37] At the time, Israeli Education Minister Meir Sheetrit compared Putin's invitation to Hamas to a hypothetical Israeli invitation of Chechen leaders: "[Putin], I believe, would feel very bad if Israel were to invite the Chechen terror organizations into Israel and give them legitimacy." [38] Other Israelis shared the belief that it was hypocritical for Russian officials to travel to Jerusalem and ask Israeli intelligence services for help in countering their own terrorist threat if the Kremlin was simultaneously acknowledging terrorist organizations seeking Israel's destruction.

From the position of the Israeli foreign ministry, equally worrisome has been the Kremlin's indifference to the spike in anti-Semitism in Russia in 2004 and 2005-due to what the Russian think-tank SOVA calls a "general growth of xenophobic sentiments in the society" and the "growth of ultra-nationalist organizations." [39] On November 4, 2005, for example, ten thousand neo-fascists marched down the main streets of Moscow carrying signs with swastikas and giving Nazi salutes to onlookers. In the weeks that followed, Putin's Kremlin issued no condemnation, giving the impression that those instigating hate and violence in the Russian capital would not face punishment. Israeli fears were confirmed when a few months later, on January 11, 2006, a skinhead ran into Moscow's main synagogue with a knife screaming "Heil Hitler!" In the mayhem that ensued, the 20-year old neo-Nazi stabbed eight people before being arrested. [40] One Israeli Foreign Ministry official worries that the Kremlin will move to assuage the concerns of Russia's Muslim population, numbering some 20 million, over controversial issues such as Chechnya by allowing anti-Semitism to fester. [41] It is conspicuous that Putin closed down two Russian newspapers for printing cartoons of the prophet Mohammed just days before Hamas visited Moscow. [42] The official's opinion might have been further vindicated by Putin's statements on a visit to Chechnya in December 2005 when he told Chechen militants that in fact "Russia has always been the most loyal, reliable and consistent defender of Islamic interests." [43] The president's political statement is telling, given that Orthodox Russia is becoming increasingly Muslim due to higher Muslim birthrates and the unprecedented rate of conversion to Islam. [44]

For some in Israel's defense community, this conglomeration of events paints a rather disturbing picture-one of a Russian state willing to help Israel's enemies and violate Israel's basic security requirements. Senior Israelis in the defense industry openly wonder whose side Russia is really on. In talking to the Israeli defense establishment about Russia's objectives in the region, the word most frequently used is "suspicion"-suspicion about its post-imperial ambitions, suspicion about its unchecked arms trade, and suspicion about its behind-the-scenes dealings. [45] Some Israelis believe that Putin misled them when he promised in 2002 that "Russia will never help Israel's enemies." [46] Many wonder aloud whether Russia is reverting back to its Soviet-era policies, especially in the wake of Putin's official embrace of Hamas.

Russian officials have also, on an intermittent basis, objected to Israel's policies. They regularly join the chorus of voices condemning Israel at the United Nations for Israeli incursions into the occupied Palestinian territories, and they have protested Israeli threats against Iran and Syria. In fact, out of 21 UN votes relating to Israel going back from September 2004, Russia voted against Israel 17 times and abstained only four times. [47] This trend may have been motivated in part by Russia's perception that Israel has been reluctant to allow Russia a greater role in mediating the Arab-Israeli conflict. For several years, Putin has been positioning himself as such-joining the Quartet, supporting the Road Map for Peace, building ties with both Israel and her Arab neighbors-but at least thus far, his advances have been largely rebuffed. During his visit to Israel in May 2005, Putin proposed that Moscow host a Mideast Peace Conference for senior Israeli and Palestinian officials in January 2006. While the Palestinians accepted the proposal, Israelis simply brushed it aside. [48]

Impact on Russia's Other Interests in the Middle East

Russia's relationship with Israel does not occur in a vacuum. Rather, it has an effect-direct or indirect-on Russia's other interests in the Middle East. Syria and Iran are most directly affected by continuing Russian-Israeli cooperation, but other Russian partners, including the Palestinian Authority, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Yemen are also involved. On occasion, Russia's relationship with Israel has impeded its ties with other countries and, in the case of Syria, done so in rather dramatic ways.

As Russia has tried to reposition itself from being a benefactor to being a partner of the Arab states, there has been a general nostalgia among some for a more "Soviet" Russian foreign policy in the Middle East. Sometimes this comes through in public statements, sometimes in private requests. Often regional leaders remind Russian leaders of their historical ties to the Arab world. Speaking to students at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations in January 2005, Syrian President Bashar Asad asserted that "Russia's role in the world is very large, and it has a colossal authority, especially in the countries of the Third World." [49] He went on to state that "in these countries, there are great hopes that Russia will restore its earlier positions in world affairs." [50] Egypt, whom Russia supplies with hardware, cars, and trucks and with whom Russia is in discussion over the sale of a research satellite and portable missiles, is also mindful of the historical ties that bind the countries. [51] As Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit told Putin during his visit to Egypt in April 2005, "Egypt remembers its friends who have always supported that country in hard times." [52] Meanwhile Algeria, which signed a $7.5 billion arms contract with Russia in March 2006, has similarly expressed hope that Russia will become more active in the Middle East. [53] For countries that hope to see Moscow revert to Soviet-era policies in the Middle East by cooling relations with Israel and placing political and personal concerns above economic calculations in dealings with the Arab states, Russian cooperation with Israel cannot be a welcome sign. Russia's invitation to Hamas in March 2006 as well as its pledge to forgive Algeria $4.74 billion of its Soviet era debt that same month must be seen, at the very least, as an attempt to placate these Arab concerns.

Syria

The country most directly affected by Russia's increasingly warm ties with Israel has been Syria, which has seen the quantity and quality of its arms supplies cut as Russian-Israeli cooperation has increased. This tension became especially pronounced in the highly publicized arms negotiations of recent years. Since 2003, reports have surfaced about Russia's potential sale to Syria of Iskander-E high-precision surface-to-air missiles, shoulder-fired Igla SA-18s, Strelets missiles, S-300 PMU2 air defense missiles, and the Tor-M1 advanced air defense system. [54] Taken together, weapons sales of this magnitude could dent in Israel's military superiority in the region and, as some defense analysts in Russia gently pointed out, threaten U.S. soldiers serving in Iraq. [55] Israeli and American authorities jointly pressured Russia to abandon the weapons deal, citing their joint fear that such weapons would fall into the wrong hands. In January 2005, Former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres told the Associated Press that any missile sales to Syria were unacceptable, arguing that "we have enough problems on the ground in Syria and we don't need more problems from the sky." [56] Meanwhile, American officials warned Putin that any advanced weapons sales to Syria would jeopardize the Bush-Putin summit in Bratislava scheduled for February 2005. [57]

Israeli and American pressure eventually bore fruit when Putin shelved the deal in late 2004, but not before expressing several choice words. Putin accused "Israeli sources" of pouring "huge sums of money" [58] into the presidential campaign of Viktor Yushchenko in Ukraine-an opposition leader whom the Kremlin opposed-and of unduly threatening Syria's President Asad. Only later, once the deal was taken off the table, did Putin take personal credit for stopping the transfer of "serious systems" to Syria. As he later boasted to the Russian daily Kommersant in January 2006, "The negotiations really took place. Our military people were ready to supply Syria with the new missile systems 'Iskander,' but I prohibited realization of this." [59] In the end, even though some Strelets missiles were sold to Syria, Russia did everything in its power to assuage Israeli concerns. Another independent Russian newspaper, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, reported in February 2006 that "insiders say that the Russian military informed its Israeli colleagues of the tactical-technical characteristics of the SAMs." [60] This was a clear indication that Russia was attempting to minimize the fallout from its weapons sale to Syria. Mark N. Katz, an expert on Syrian-Russian relations, believes that Israeli pressure on Russia succeeded in changing Moscow's weapons sale to Damascus: "Indeed, the fact that Moscow would not sell Syria the air defense missiles it apparently wanted most (S-300, Iskander-E, and Igla) due to American and Israeli objections must have been a clear indication to Damascus of how sensitivity to Israeli security concerns limits the extent to which Moscow is willing to cooperate with Syria." [61] The case of Syria demonstrates Putin's attempts to maintain traditional Arab allies while simultaneously building relations with Israel.

There are several reasons why Putin gave into Israeli and U.S. pressure. For one, Russian-Israeli trade in absolute terms is far greater than Russian-Syrian trade, thus making it more costly to jeopardize relations with Jerusalem. Additionally, as Russian defense analyst Ruslan Pukhov pointed out in Nezavisimaya Gazeta, "selling weapons to this country [Syria] would solve problems of one or two Russian companies but will not change the situation in the military-industrial sector." [62] Finally, Syria has historically failed to repay debts to Russia and its lack of hard currency made the arms sale questionable on economic grounds. In the end, the total value of the Strelets missile sale was only $100 million, in part because this was a sum the Syrians could pay on the spot.

The fact that Russia did everything in its power to assuage Israeli security fears-while at the same time going through with a deal that enriched Russian arms manufacturers-certainly could have done little to please the Syrians. It also did not help that in March 2005, Russia sided with the United States, Europe, and Israel in pressuring Syria to withdraw from Lebanon following the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. At the time, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov defended the action by stating that he was acting in accordance with a UN Security Council Resolution, but his forceful demand that "Syria must withdraw from Lebanon" [63] must have come as a surprise to Damascus.

Since Syria's withdrawal from Lebanon, however, Russian officials have attempted to mend the rift in their relationship. Chief of the General Staff Yuri Baluyevsky traveled to Syria for three days in February 2006 to meet with President Asad and other top Syrian officials. Among the topics discussed were Hamas (some of whose leadership is based in Syria) and the prospects for new weapons deals. Some Russian military analysts predicted that Russia would again propose to sell the Tunguska mobile air defense system to Damascus. [64] Overall, however, it is clear that Putin's warming relationship with Israel in 2004 and 2005 strongly affected Russia's strategic choices regarding Syria.

Iran

While Russian-Israeli cooperation has had a direct impact on Russian-Syrian relations, it is far less clear how much of an impact it has had on Iran. On one hand, following Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's declaration in October 2005 that Israel should be wiped off the map, Russia took the unprecedented step of condemning the statements of the Iranian leader-something it has consistently refrained from doing out of fear that an escalation in rhetoric could have unintended consequences on the nuclear relations between the two countries. In a clear effort to calm Israeli concerns, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called Ahmadinejad's comments "unacceptable" and promised to "bring this to the attention of the Iranians." [65] He further admitted that comments such as those made by Ahmadinejad damaged Russia's interests with Iran and give "an additional argument to those who favor transferring the Iranian nuclear issue to the UN Security Council." [66]

At the same time, however, Israeli objections have had no affect either on Russia's arms sales to Iran, or on the even more contentious issue of Russian-Iranian nuclear cooperation. As the Russian Defense Minister Ivanov stated in December 2005, "Russia is supplying Iran with conventional armaments and military hardware such as armored vehicles and air defense equipment of a limited range. This is ordinary commercial trade and we are not going to end it." [67] Andrei Piontkovsky, a well respected Russian analyst, argued in March 2006 that the Russian sale of the Tor M1 9M330 Air Defense System to Iran takes away Israel's final option at a military strike against Iran's nuclear installations. [68] If he is correct, Russia will have not only sold nuclear technologies to Iran but also tacitly protected Iran's nuclear program.

Palestinian Authority

Although there is little evidence that Russia's ties with Israel have damaged its relations with the Palestinian Authority, it is clear that Palestinian leaders have been surprised by the recent expansion of cooperation between Moscow and Jerusalem over the past several years. This is understandable given the Soviet Union's role as the leading benefactor and champion of Yasir Arafat, Fatah, and the Palestinian cause during the 1970s and 1980s. Russia's first president, Boris Yeltsin, while reducing Russia's involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, continued to support the Palestinian Authority, for instance, sending 50 armored personnel carriers to the Authority in 1994. [69] When Putin came to power in 2000, support for the Palestinian Authority continued, especially at the United Nations-where Russia repeatedly voted against Israeli actions in the Palestinian territories. On his only visit to the territories in April 2005, Putin visited the grave of Yasir Arafat and promised to "provide the Palestinian leadership with technical help, supplies of equipment and training." [70] It later emerged that Putin had promised the Palestinians 50 armored personnel carriers, two Mi-17 military transport helicopters, and training for their security services. [71] Only after substantial prodding from the Israeli military establishment did Putin renege on his commitments to the Palestinians. Russia has, however, left open the possibility of sending the helicopters to the newly elected Hamas government. [72]

Assessing Putin's Israel Policy

While Putin's actions towards Israel are certainly a break from the past in many ways, his cooperation with Hamas, Syria, and Iran are too dramatic to ignore. What explains this policy of working with Israel, while also working with Israel's enemies? There are several explanations, ranging from broader structural shifts to lasting personal interests.

International dynamics have changed drastically in recent years, compelling the Kremlin to reexamine its historically pro-Arab policies in the Middle East. With the Soviet Union gone, the Kremlin has seen its international relevance and prestige plummet. Making the transition from impractical super-power geopolitics to pragmatic and level-headed foreign policy of a rising power has proven to be a difficult task, especially in a region where the Soviets used to exert heavy dominance, but has since been drifting increasingly westward towards the United States. As a result, Russia is sometimes forced to sit on the sidelines as many of its former arms importers and trade partners, such as Syria, Iraq, and Iran, are castigated as pariah states by Americans carrying the torch of democracy.

Beyond classroom tales of lost grandeur and frustration rooted in political impotence lie murkier personal and economic interests. During the Soviet-era, many high-level relationships were formed between diplomats, spies, and businessmen in Moscow and their counterparts in the Arab capitals of the Middle East. These connections, dating back to the arms trades of the 1960s-1980s, are especially tight among the old-timers in the Russian military who have friends in high-posts in the energy-rich Persian Gulf states. Some of these men even fought and lost alongside the Arabs against Israel in 1973. Many are still embarrassed by the fiascos of the 1960s and 1970s, when the Soviets passed forged documents to the Egyptians to precipitate the war of 1967, or when Soviet Sinai defenses were overrun by Israeli armored divisions. Many in the Kremlin continue to view Israel in much the same light as it was viewed by the Party apparatus in the 1950s-as "an agent of American imperialism." [73]

The clearest example of this type of Soviet thinking in the post-Soviet era has been expressed by Yevgeny Primakov, Boris Yeltsin's Arabist foreign minister. Throughout the 1990s, Primakov encouraged Yeltsin to move Russia away from Israel and towards some of the Soviet Union's more traditional allies-notably with Saddam Hussein's Iraq. These deals of the past continue to cast a long and dark shadow on current events, helping to explain why top Kremlin operatives and politicians, including the former Chief of Staff for Putin and Yeltsin, are at the center of the United Nations Oil-for-Food Scandal. [74] Russia's close relationship with Syria can similarly be seen as a result of close interpersonal relations. Pavel Felgengauer, one of Russia's top defense analysts, believes that the relationship can be attributed to the "powerful pro-Syrian lobby in the Kremlin." [75] He points specifically to Viktor Ivanov, a confidant of Putin's who also heads Almaz-Antei, a Russian monopoly producing anti-aircraft weapons systems. If not for the personal interests and sympathies of high ranking government officials in the Kremlin, it is possible that Russia would temper its policies of arming Syria, legitimizing Hamas and Hizballah, and sharing nuclear technologies with dangerous Islamist clerics.

Putin's Real Goals vis-a-vis Israel

Given the new international context and the lingering personal interests within his government, Putin has had the unenviable task of steering his country's Middle East policy. While he has relied on Israel to diversify Russian economic interests and train Russia's beleaguered security apparatus, he has also used the high visibility of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to position himself in the eyes of the international community as a key actor in the peace process. All along, Putin has tried to market Russia as an independent, unbiased party with a large role to play in solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Due to the uncertainty about what Russia's future policies will be towards Israel and the rest of the Middle East, there are few high probabilities. Yet one thing is certain. Given that Russia will take its turn as President of the G-8 this year, and that the meeting with be held in St. Petersburg, Putin will feel pressure to project Russian power. For Israel, this will mean more of Russia's involvement in Israeli-Palestinian affairs as Putin tries to counterweigh the negative portrayal of his country as a leading weapons and energy supplier. Putin will also continue to sit on the proverbial two chairs. For a country whose prestige and power have declined precipitously in the last two decades, Putin has done an effective job of leveraging competing interests in one of the world's most volatile regions.

The ambiguity of his two track policy causes confusion and difficulties for some of Moscow's allies in the region, but from Russia's perspective, Putin has succeeded in gaining an economic foothold, developing neutral or warm ties with all the states therein, and maintaining Russia's seat at the adults' table. A final goal of Putin's may be to use Russia's increasing influence in the Middle East as a bargaining chip with the United States. It is possible that Russia is cozying up to governments and organizations with questionable objectives in the Middle East, so as to later trade a pledge of "non-interference" with the United States-by pledging to keep out of the Middle East, Russia could demand that the U.S. keep out of the Caucasus and Central Asia.

In this young new millennium, relations between adversaries seem to have been turned on their head. The historically anti-Israel Kremlin now cooperates with the Jewish state, while it is the Arab states who agonize over the future of their leading arms supplier and historic benefactor. Ultimately, however, as the past several years have demonstrated, Putin will continue to employ a two track policy which is likely to gradually strengthen Russia's position in the region. So long as Putin can avoid being cornered by the international community into "choosing sides," Russia will gain from building ties with both Israel and her enemies.

Ilya Bourtman is a Russian studies intern at AEI.

Notes

[1] One could in fact make the case that the neoconservatives in the Bush Administration have supplanted the Soviet Communists as the leading ideologues trying to reshape the region.

[2] Sergey Borisov, "Russia and Israel to join forces in anti-terrorist cooperation," Pravda, September 7, 2004.

[3] For Russian policymakers, the "Middle East" is only of primary strategic importance if it includes Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Turkey-what is typically referred to as the "Greater Middle East." Wars, insurgencies, the spread of radical Islamic networks, and the proliferation of nuclear materials in the Middle East all pose a threat to Russia's interests in the "near-abroad."

[4] Ibid. Olga Oliker and Natasha Yefimova, "Workshop on the Future of the Greater Middle East and the Prospects for U.S.-Russian Partnership," Carnegie-RAND Occasional Paper, July 2004.

[5] Robert Freedman, "Russia in the Middle East: Is Putin Undertaking a New Strategy?" Middle East Institute, Lecture, February 10, 2005.

[6] Liudmila Romanova, "Security. Putin offers the Middle East peace and weapons," Gazeta, April 27, 2005, p. 2.

[7] Oliker and Yefimova, "Workshop on the Future of the Greater Middle East."

[8] Russian Foreign Ministry Press Release, available online at: http://www.rusembcanada.mid.ru/pr/050505_3.html.

[9] "Major Israel-Russia Trade Agreement Signed," FJC, March 22, 2006 as available online at: http://www.fjc.ru/news/newsArticle.asp?AID=371602.

[10] "Interview with Egyptian Newspaper Al Ahram," Kremlin.ru, April 25, 2005.

[11] "Scandal.Israel: Rich Repatriates Harassed," The Moscow News, March 16, 2005; "Israel's Sharon Not to Extradite Russian Oligarchs," The Moscow News, April 22, 2005.

[12] Personal interview with senior Israeli foreign ministry official.

[13] "Israel interested in Gas Contracts with Russia," Izvestiia, June 2, 2004; "Gazprom to Supply Israel, Syria," Moscow Times, September 3, 2004.

[14] Alexsey Gribatch, "'Goluboy potok' prevrashayetsia v kol'tzo" [Blue stream pipeline turning into a ring], Vedomsti, November 28, 2005.

[15] "Israel, Russia Reach Preliminary Gas Agreement," RFE/RL, March 19, 2006.

[16] Joel Leyden, "Israel to Russia: Tears for Children Murdered by Islamic Terrorism," Israel News Agency, September 5, 2004.

[17] Personal interview with senior Israeli Foreign Ministry official, Washington DC, November 17, 2005.

[18] "Israel offers to help Russia fight terror," Associated Press, September 15, 2004.

[19] "Israel send experts to help Russia," USA Today, September 15, 2004.

[20] Kaakov Katz, "Israel Police to study school siege," The Jerusalem Post, September 5, 2004.

[21] The Jerusalem Post, November 8, 2005.

[22] Boris Levich, "Dmitriy Kozak Izuchayet Izrayelskiy opit" [Dmitry Kozak Studying Israeli Experience], Izvestia, August 11, 2005.

[23] "Rossiya zakupit v Izrayeli letashuyi roboti" [Russia buying flying robots in Israel], Lenta, December 11, 2005.

[24] Nikolai Kerzhentsev, "RF, Israel law-enforcers to discuss fight against terrorism, crime," Itar-Tass, March 13, 2006.

[25] Robert O. Freedman, "Russian Policy Towards the Middle East Under Putin: The Impact of 9/11 and The War in Iraq," Alternatives: Turkish Journal of International Relations, Vol. 2, No. 2 (Summer 2003), p. 67.

[26] Victor Mizin, "The Russia-Iran Nuclear Connection and U.S. Policy Options," Middle East Review of International Affairs, Vol. 8, No. 1 (March 2004). Available online at:
http://meria.idc.ac.il/journal/2004/issue1/jv8n1a7.html.

[27] Freedman, "Russian Policy Towards the Middle East Under Putin," p. 82.

[28] Andrei Zlobin, "Security. Putin May Visit Iran," Vremya Novostei, April 20, 2005, p. 5.

[29] Efraim Inbar, "The Need to Block a Nuclear Iran," Middle East Review of International Affairs, Vol. 10, No. 1, (March 2006), Available online at: http://meria.idc.ac.il/journal/2006/issue1/jv10no1a7.html.

[30] "Iranian leader: Wipe out Israel," CNN, Available online at:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/10/26/ahmadinejad/

[31] Interview with Robert O. Freedman, former President of Baltimore Hebrew University, November 19, 2005.

[32] "Putin calls for boosting ties with Syria," Itar-Tass, January 25, 2005.

[33] Nabi Abdullaev, "Assad Praises Russia, Wins Debt Deal," Moscow Times, January 26, 2005.

[34] Mark N. Katz, "Putin's Foreign Policy toward Syria," Middle East Review of International Affairs, Vol. 10, No. 1 (March 2006), pp. 55-59.

[35] Maria Grishina and Yelena Suponina, "Israel asks Russia not to sell missiles," Vremya Novostei, April 22, 2005, p. 1.

[36] Ivan Gorshkov and Igor Plugatarev, "Arms deals discussed in Syria," Nezavisimaya Gazeta, January 2, 2006, p. 5.

[37] Ezra Halevi, "Russia, United Nations and Meretz warming to Hamas," Israel National News, January 11, 2006.

[38] Oksana Yablokova, "Putin's Gamble with Hamas," Moscow Times, January 13, 2006.

[39] "Anti-Semitism in Russia. Tendency 2004," SOVA Center, November 13, 2004. Available online at: http://xeno.sova-center.ru/6BA2468/6BB4208/47E15F6?print=on.

[40] Andrew E. Kramer, "Skinhead raids synagogue in Moscow, stabbing 8," New York Times, January 11, 2006.

[41] Personal interview with senior Israeli Foreign Ministry official, Washington DC, November 17, 2005.

[42] Igor Khrestin, "Putin's Pander," Daily Standard, March 8, 2006.

[43] "Vladimir Putin claims Russia is the major supporter for the Islamic countries," Pravda, December 14, 2005.

[44] Harley Balzer, "Demography and Democracy in Russia: Human Capital Challenges to Democratic Consolidation," Demokratizatsiya, Vol. 11, No. 1 (Winter 2003), p. 102.

[45] Interviews conducted during the summer of 2005 while working for the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies.

[46] Zakhar Gelman, "Sharon treated to Kosher Dinner," Rossiiskaya gazeta, October 2, 2002, p. 2 as cited in Mark N. Katz, "Putin's Foreign Policy toward Syria," Middle East Review of International Affairs , Vol. 10, No. 1 (March 2006), p. 55.

[47] Herb Keinon, "Israel Urges Russia to Back Fence at U.N.," The Jerusalem Post, September 7, 2004, p. 1.

[48] Scott Peterson, "Russia asserts itself in Mideast," The Christian Science Monitor, April 28, 2005.

[49] Nabi Abdullaev, "Assad Praises Russia, Wins Debt Deal," Moscow Times, January 26, 2005.

[50] Ibid.

[51] "Egypt to buy Russia's VAZ cars, assemble KamAZ trucks," Itar-Tass, April 27, 2005.

[52] Dmitry Tarasov, "Egypt praises highly Russia's role in Middle East," Itar-Tass, April 26, 2005.

[53] Veronika Romanenkova, "Putin, Bouteflika focus on contacts with Hamas, Iraq, terrorism," Itar-Tass, March 10, 2006; Aleksei Nikolsky, "Putin returns with $7.5 billion in defense orders," Vedomsti, March 13, 2006, p. A2.

[54] Ruslan Pukhov, "Military Cooperation: Israel as an Important Source of Technologies," Nezavisimaya Gazeta, April 25, 2005.

[55] Pavel Felgengauer, "Military Cooperation. The Iglas Putin is Playing," Novaya Gazeta, January 21-23, 2005, p. 6.

[56] Lyuba Pronina, "Russian Missiles Put Israel on Alert," Moscow Times, January 13, 2005.

[57] Katz, "Putin's Foreign Policy toward Syria," p. 58.

[58] Pronina, "Russian Missiles Put Israel on Alert."

[59] "The Problem of S-300 Supply of Iran Reminds of the Problem connected with Missile Systems Supply of Syria a year ago," Defence & Security, January 18, 2006. Published originally in Kommersant, January 14, 2006.

[60] Ivan Gorshkov and Igor Plugatarev, "Arms deals discussed in Syria," Nezavisimaya Gazeta, January 2, 2006, p. 5.

[61] Katz, "Putin's Foreign Policy toward Syria," p. 59.

[62] Ruslan Pukhov, "Military Cooperation: Israel as an Important Source of Technologies," Nezavisimaya Gazeta, April 25, 2005.

[63] Maksim Yusin, "Russia take a new look at the axis of evil," Izvestia, March 4, 2005, p. 4.

[64] Ivan Gorshkov and Igor Plugatarev, "Arms deals discussed in Syria," Nezavisimaya Gazeta, January 2, 2006, p. 5.

[65] "Russia Condemns Iranian president's statement on Israel," Agence France Presse, October 27, 2005.

[66] Ibid.

[67] "Iran Interested in Russian Weapons - Ambassador," Mosnews.com, December 23, 2005.

[68] Andrei Piontkovsky, "Posledneya Razvilka Putina," [Putin's Last Crossroads], Grani.ru , March 1, 2006. Available online at: http://www.grani.ru/opinion/piontkovsky/m.100333.html.

[69] Molly Moore, "Putin Calls Arms Aid No Threat to Israel," The Washington Post, April 30, 2005, p. A12.

[70] "Putin, Palestinian leaders meet," USA Today, April 29, 2005.

[71] Moore, "Putin Calls Arms Aid No Threat to Israel."

[72] Vaniamin Ginodman, "Hamas in Armor," Gazeta, January 15, 2006, p. 10.

[73] Gregg Rickman, "Palestinian Diplomacy - Gorbachev's Legacy," Middle East Quarterly, Vol.7, No. 1 (March, 2000). Available online at: http://www.meforum.org/article/38.

[74] "Putin's Former Chief of Staff Voloshin Made Fortune Trading Iraqi Oil - Report," The Moscow News, July 10, 2004.

[75] Pavel Felgengauer, "Military Cooperation. The Iglas Putin is Playing," Novaya Gazeta, January 21-23, 2005, p. 6.

David Miliband and David Cameron blunder over Russia

2008-09-01T18:49:00.000-07:00

By Peter Millar
Sunday Times, 31/08/08

The most frightening sight in recent weeks has not been the media’s metamorphosis of Russia from genial, if rather uncouth, bear into snarling wolf, but the knee-jerking of British politicians.

In Kiev and Tbilisi, David Miliband, the foreign secretary, and David Cameron, the Tory leader, displayed their lack of historical perspective, posturing on politico-economic faultlines of which they appear to have barely schoolboy understanding. Russia is a huge country not as far away as we would like, about which our politicians know far too little. That is most acute when it comes to the "near abroad", the former Soviet republics to which George W Bush-and now Miliband and Cameron-would like to extend the Nato membership that the West refused Russia.

It has been said that Russia fears a new encirclement. It does, but it is more than that: for Nato forces to enter Ukraine would for most Russians be tantamount to invasion. For Cameron to equate Estonia and Ukraine, as he did last week, is stupidity.

Estonia’s history, language and culture are markedly separate. Forced into the Soviet Union in the second world war, it has also over the centuries been part of Sweden, and ruled by the Teutonic knights. Its language is related to Finnish.

Ukraine is another matter. Its name comes from Old Slavonicu kraju, meaning "on the edge"-in other words, borderlands.

We stopped saying "the Ukraine" to make it sound more like any other country. To Russians it doesn’t. "The" Ukraine had no independent existence before 1991. Like most borderlands it has been almost continuously fought over, since the early Slav kingdom of Kievan Rus fell to Mongol invaders.

Parts of it belonged for centuries to the vast Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth, then much of the west to the Austro-Hungarian empire.

Today, those are the most westward-looking regions, where the language mostly spoken is Ukrainian rather than Russian and the religion is Uniate Catholicism rather than Russian Orthodox.

Kiev, however, remains an anchor in Russo-Slav identity. Far older than Moscow, Kievan Rus gave us the word "Russia"; a statue of its first ruler, Rurik, dominates Moscow’s Pushkin Square. Kiev has totemic status, as Winchester or Runnymede does for England. Of all the losses suffered since the fall of the Soviet Union, those of Ukraine and Belarus have been hardest for Russians to suffer.

Fifty per cent of Ukraine’s population speaks Russian (compared with the 17% who are ethnically Russian). Many Russians-including the late Alexander Solzhenitsyn-see Ukrainian as little more than a dialect, no different from Geordie’s relationship to southern English. Stalin, the Georgian who became Russia’s greatest imperialist, gave the Ukrainians extra territory in 1945 because he considered them inseparable from Russia. He vetoed seats in the United Nations for Canada and Australia unless Russia’s "dominions" got them too. And they did. Never in his wildest dreams did he expect them to vote their own way, let alone achieve independence.

Georgia in Moscow’s eyes is merely a testing ground-from which it emerged victorious. If Ukraine is invited into Nato, the risk is not just a crisis over the Black Sea port of Sebastopol, leased until 2017 to the Russian navy, but also a Russian annexation of the whole Crimean peninsula. That is no more improbable than it would be difficult. Access from Ukraine proper is by a narrow causeway over marshland that could be taken by one battalion of paratroops. Meanwhile, the city of Kerch in the east is less than three miles across water from Russian soil.

Russian annexation would be locally popular. Crimea was not part of Ukraine before 1945. Ninety per cent of its population speaks Russian. Its historic population-the Tatars-were exiled by Stalin and replaced by Russians.

That would invite a Ukrainian civil war, almost certainly bringing in the pro-Moscow breakaway region of Transdnistria in neighbouring Moldova.

This is a minefield over which Miliband and Cameron are trampling without a map. John McCain may see "KGB" written in Vladimir Putin’s eyes but that doesn’t mean what it used to. Russia may be a corrupt pseudo-democracy but it is not communist.

This is a turf war. Russia no longer challenges America for global hegemony but that doesn’t mean it’s going to sit quietly while Uncle Sam parks tanks on what it considers to be its front lawn. To borrow a line from a new John le Carré book: "To ignore history is to ignore the wolf at the door."

The author was The Sunday Times central Europe reporter who was made foreign correspondent of the year for his coverage of the end of the cold war

Russia may push forward with S-300 sales to Iran

2008-09-01T17:31:00.000-07:00

RIA Novosti, 01/09/08

MOSCOW - Russia may proceed with plans to sell advanced S-300 air defense systems to Iran under a secret contract believed to have been signed in 2005, a Russian analyst said on Monday.

Commenting on an article in the Sunday Telegraph newspaper saying Russia is using the plans as a bargaining chip in its standoff with America, Ruslan Pukhov, director of Moscow-based Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, said: "In the current situation, when the U.S. and the West in general are stubbornly gearing toward a confrontation with Russia after the events in South Ossetia, the implementation of a lucrative contract on the deliveries of S-300 [air defense systems] to Iran looks like a logical step."

The U.S. and Israel were alarmed by media reports, which started circulating as early as 2005, on the possible delivery of S-300 surface-to-air missiles to Iran, as these systems could greatly improve Iranian defenses against any air strike on its strategically important sites, including nuclear facilities.

The advanced version of the S-300 missile system, called S-300PMU1 (SA-20 Gargoyle), has a range of over 150 kilometers (over 100 miles) and can intercept ballistic missiles and aircraft at low and high altitudes, making the system an effective tool for warding off possible air strikes.

The issue was again raised in December last year when Iranian Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar said Russia had agreed to deliver to Iran an unspecified number of advanced S-300 air defense complexes under a previously signed contract.

However, Russia's Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation said the issue of the delivery of S-300 air defense missile systems to Iran was not a subject of current or past negotiations.

Israeli defense sources, however, said in July that Iran was expected to take delivery of Russian S-300 air defense systems by the end of 2008.

Pukhov said: "This may be true. While Russia and the West were on good terms, the contract could have been 'frozen' for the time being. But now may be the perfect time to move forward with the fulfillment of the S-300 contract."

According to the Russian analyst, S-300 missiles and previously delivered Tor-M1 missiles would help Iran build a strong network of long- and medium-range 'defensive rings' to thwart any attempts to destroy key nuclear facilities in the country.

Moscow supplied Iran with 29 Tor-M1 air defense missile systems in late January under a $700-million contract signed in late 2005. Russia has also trained Iranian Tor-M1 specialists, including radar operators and crew commanders.

"Anyone attempting to threaten Iran with aerial bombardment would have to consider the possibility of strong and effective resistance," the expert said.

Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hassan Qashqavi denied on Monday reports that Tehran had bought S-300 air defense systems from Russia.

"Our missile and technical capability completely depends on the efforts of Iranian scientists," he said.

Russia threatens to supply Iran with top new missile system as 'cold war' escalates

2008-08-31T18:51:00.000-07:00

By Philip Sherwell in New York and William Lowther in Washington
Telegraph, 31/08/08

Russia is deploying the threat to sell a "game changing" air defence system to Iran as a high stakes bargaining chip in its new "cold war" with America, The Sunday Telegraph has learned.

US intelligence fears the Kremlin will supply the sophisticated S-300 system to Tehran if Washington pushes through Nato membership for its pro-Western neighbours Georgia and Ukraine.

The proposed deal is causing huge alarm in the US and Israel as the S-300 can track 100 targets at once and fire on planes up to 75 miles away.

That would make it a "game-changer", greatly improving Iranian defences against any air strike on its nuclear sites, according to Pentagon adviser Dan Goure. "This is a system that scares every Western air force," he said.

Senior US intelligence operatives believe that Russia is planning to use a stand-off over the S-300 to create a foreign policy showdown that would test the mettle of a new US president.

Republican candidate John McCain has taken a strongly anti-Kremlin line on a series of international issues and backed Georgia's desire to join Nato. His Democratic rival Barack Obama has also indicated he supports Nato membership for Georgia.

"The message from Moscow is very clear," said George Friedman, director of Stratfor, a leading US private intelligence agency. "They are saying if you don't stop meddling in our sphere of influence, this is what we are going to do.

"Back Georgia and Ukraine for Nato membership and you'll see the S-300 to Iran. It is a very powerful bargaining chip and a major deterrent to US actions in the region. Moscow is playing very strategically on America's obsession with Iran."

Moscow has been infuriated by the steady encroachment of Nato into the former Soviet bloc and the recent granting of independence to the ex-Serbian province of Kosovo against its wishes.

After American condemnation of Russia's foray into Georgia, Moscow invited Syria's dictator Bashar al-Assad, a long-time US foe, to discuss military deals in a deliberate signal of how it could cause trouble for Washington.

A senior US intelligence operative who recently returned from the Middle East said Russia is believed to have struck a tentative deal to sell the S-300 to the Islamic regime. There are reports that Russia has already moved some basic components for the system to its close ally Belarus, ready for possible transfer to Iran.

"Moscow cannot simply threaten to strike the deal," the official told The Sunday Telegraph. "Iran certainly thinks it has a deal. And the Israelis believe that a deal has been reached but that they can still block it."

The outgoing Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert is expected to pass that message on to his counterpart Vladimir Putin and President Dmitri Medvedev when he visits Moscow next month. Israel has already ended military assistance to Georgia in an effort to placate Russia.

Russia has denied previous assertions by senior Iranians that a deal has already been finalised on the S-300.

Dan Goure, a long-time Pentagon adviser, said: "If Tehran obtained the S-300, it would be a game-changer in military thinking for tackling Iran. That could be a catalyst for Israeli air attacks before it's operational."

Dr Friedman said that if it became operational, it would effectively rule out Israeli air raids and seriously complicate any US aerial bombardment.

The system would take up to a year to become operational. In the meantime, Israel would come under heavy domestic pressure to launch an attack on Iranian nuclear plants, which the West believes are part of a secret atomic weapons programme but which Tehran claims are for civilian energy.

A senior Iranian military commander warned yesterday that any attack on Iran would start a major conflict. "Any aggression against Iran will start a world war," deputy chief of staff for defence publicity, Brigadier General Masoud Jazayeri, said in a statement. "The unrestrained greed of the US leadership and global Zionism... is gradually leading the world to the edge of a precipice."

Putin smells a US rat in Georgia crisis

2008-08-30T19:31:00.000-07:00

By Clifford Levy
Sydney Morning Herald, 30/08/08

As Russia struggled to rally international support for its military action in Georgia, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has lashed out at the US, contending that the White House may have orchestrated the conflict to benefit one of the candidates in the presidential election.

Putin's comments in a television interview, his most extensive to date on Russia's decision to send troops into Georgia earlier this month, sought to present the military operation as a response to brazen, Cold War-style provocations by the US.

In tones that seemed alternately angry and mischievous, Putin suggested the Bush administration may have tried to create a crisis that would influence American voters in the choice of a successor to President George W Bush.

"The suspicion would arise that someone in the United States created this conflict on purpose to stir up the situation and to create an advantage for one of the candidates in the competitive race for the presidency in the United States," Putin said in an interview with CNN.

Putin did not specify which candidate he had in mind, but there was no doubt that he was referring to Republican Senator John McCain.

McCain is loathed in the Kremlin because he has a close relationship with Georgia's president, Mikheil Saakashvili, and has called for imposing stiff penalties on Russia, including ejecting it from the Group of 8 industrialised nations.

Putin offered scant evidence to support his assertion, and the White House called his comments absurd.

But they underscored the depth of the rift between Moscow and Washington over the Georgia crisis, which flared three weeks ago when the Georgian military tried to reclaim a breakaway enclave allied with Russia.

They also suggested that the Russian leader was deeply concerned about the possibility McCain, widely viewed here as having a strong bias against Russia, could become president.

Russia has been struggling to persuade the outside world to back its action in Georgia.

On Thursday, China and four other countries meeting with Russia for the annual summit meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a security alliance, declined to back Russia's military action in a joint communique.

Putin's interview came after his protege, President Dmitri Medvedev, had spoken to several foreign news media outlets this week as part of a concerted move by the Kremlin to counter Georgia's public relations offensive in the international media.

Georgia breaks relations with Russia

2008-08-30T18:51:00.000-07:00

AFP, 30/08/08

TBILISI - Georgia on Friday broke diplomatic relations with Russia, heightening hostilities between the neighbours as Moscow also hit back at Western criticism.

Georgia announced the split three days after Russia formally recognised the Georgian breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states.

"Georgia is cutting diplomatic ties with the Russian Federation," Deputy Foreign Minister Grigol Vashadze told AFP. "In such situations, Russian diplomats will have to leave Georgia."

"Only consular relations will be maintained," he added.

Russia said the move would not help ease the crisis between the two caused by their five-day war this month.

"We regret this step from the Georgian side. It will not assist our bilateral relations," Russian foreign ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko said, according to Interfax news agency.

Georgian Foreign Minister Eka Tkeshelashvili said it "would be very awkward to have a diplomatic relationship... with Russia , when Russia will be setting up diplomatic relations with South Ossetia and Abkhazia."

Speaking to reporters in Stockholm, she said a diplomatic rupture would be a temporary measure that could be ended after Russia stopped occupying Georgian territory.

Russia has turned its campaign against the West, strongly attacking criticism from NATO and the Group of Seven industrialised powers.

The G7-Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States-had called on Russia to "implement in full" a French-brokered peace plan and pull all forces out of Georgia.

A Russian foreign ministry statement accused the G7 of being "biased" in favour of Tbilisi and seeking to "justify Georgian acts of aggression".

NATO has also strongly condemned Russia 's actions in Georgia, but Russian foreign ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko hit back saying the Western alliance had "no moral right to the role of mentor in matters of international relations and to judge the actions of other states."

NATO is putting "unacceptable pressure" on Russia , Nesterenko said, in an apparent reference to the presence of alliance ships in the Black Sea, including several US naval vessels delivering aid to Georgia.

An emergency EU summit is to be held on Monday and the French presidency said sanctions would not be called for, contradicting comments made Thursday by French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner.

Russia appealed for "reason" to prevail at the summit and for EU leaders to avoid the "path of confrontation."

"We hope that reason will prevail over emotions," Nesterenko said.

But Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin insisted that Russia 's massive oil and gas supplies to Europe would not be affected by the Georgia tensions.

Britain and Germany have led calls for measures to reduce Europe's heavy dependency on Russian oil and gas.

"Even during the Cold War, regardless of political or other circumstances, the Soviet Union always promptly met its contractual obligations to deliver energy to Europe, and Russia , being a responsible and reliable partner, will also uphold such principles," Sechin was quoted as saying by Interfax news agency.

Russia maintains it has completed a troop withdrawal from inside Georgia, in line with a ceasefire accord brokered by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and that remaining troops are on a "peacekeeping" mission.

But it has faced relentless international pressure, which has brought relations with the United States and its allies to a post-Cold War low.

The war of words between Russia and the West hit a new peak when Prime Minister Vladimir Putin accused the United States of provoking the conflict, in an interview to CNN.

Putin said the US administration had a hand in the war that erupted after Georgian forces tried to take back control of South Ossetia, and drew a link with the US presidential campaign.

The White House dismissed the accusations as "patently false."

US Vice President Dick Cheney will visit Georgia on Tuesday in a new show of western support for the Tbilisi government.

No other country has recognised South Ossetia or Abkhazia but Moscow 's close ally Belarus said the issue could be taken up at a meeting between Russia and six former Soviet states next Friday.

The crisis in Georgia may prompt the NATO military bloc to significantly boost its presence close to former Soviet space, Belarus's President Alexander Lukashenko warned Friday as quoted by his press-service.

Events in Georgia "made the international situation much more tense, the direct consequence being a forceful strengthening of NATO's military and political position, and all that will be happening close to our borders," Lukashenko said.

"I think we will shortly be witness to a dramatic change of the East-West policies," he added.

South Ossetia meanwhile announced a deal to be signed next week to allow Russia to set up military bases in the Georgian breakaway region.

Russia sent troops into South Ossetia and the rest of Georgia on August 8, one day after Georgia launched a military offensive to reclaim control of the rebel province from Russian -backed separatists.

Russia slams West’s ‘bias’ over Georgia conflict

2008-08-30T18:50:00.000-07:00

Jang Pakistan, 30/08/08

MOSCOW - Russia on Friday stepped up its war of words with the West over the Georgia conflict; accusing the Group of Seven industrialised powers of bias after Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said the United States had orchestrated the hostilities.

South Ossetia meanwhile announced a deal to allowing Russia to set up military bases in the Georgian breakaway region. Russia said the G7 was "biased" and seeking to "justify Georgian acts of aggression" when it condemned Moscow’s recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states.

Russia has faced an avalanche of criticism from the West after the five day war and its formal recognition of South Ossetia and another breakaway region, Abkhazia, as independent states. The G7-Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States-had called on Russia to "implement in full" a French-brokered peace plan and pull all forces out of Georgia.

Russia’s foreign ministry said the G7’s condemnation "is biased in character and is aimed at justifying Georgian acts of aggression". Moscow reiterated that it had "completely fulfilled" the six-point ceasefire agreement. Russia maintains it has completed a troop withdrawal from inside Georgia, in line with the accord, and that remaining troops are in a "peacekeeping" mission. After recognising South Ossetia, Russia will sign an agreement "on inter-state cooperation and the setting up of Russian military bases on the territory of South Ossetia," said the region’s deputy speaker, Tarzan Kokoity, quoted by Interfax news agency.

The signing will take place on Tuesday, a day after European Union leaders hold an emergency summit over the Georgia conflict. But the French presidency said EU leaders are not considering sanctions against Russia, contradicting comments made on Thursday by French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner.

US Vice President Dick Cheney will visit Georgia on Tuesday in a new show of western support for the Tbilisi government. Putin said the US administration had a hand in the war that erupted after Georgian forces tried to take back control of South Ossetia, and drew a link with the US presidential campaign.

There were Americans in the conflict zone "doing as they were ordered, and the only one who can give such orders is their leader," he said. The powerful former Kremlin leader said he suspected that "someone in the US specially created this conflict to worsen the situation and create an advantage in the competitive struggle for one of the candidates for the post of president of the United States."

The White House dismissed the accusations as "patently false". Georgian parliament speaker David Bakradze told Georgian television that he had met with Barack Obama at the Democratic convention in Denver, Colorado and that the White House hopeful "is and will be a great friend of Georgia."

The United States said it was sending another warship to Georgia with humanitarian aid and was reconsidering an agreement on civilian nuclear cooperation with Russia. President Dmitry Medvedev held talks with his Tajik counterpart Emomali Rakhmon in Dushanbe as he sought international support and was to visit a Russian military base in the former Soviet republic.

Medevedev attended a summit with China and four Central Asian states on Thursday which said it supported Russia’s "active role" in the region, but called for a peaceful resolution of the conflict and underscored the importance of "territorial integrity".

No country has recognised South Ossetia or Abkhazia but Moscow’s close ally Belarus said the issue could be taken up at a meeting between Russia and six former Soviet states next week. Talks on Georgia were deadlocked at the UN Security Council, with a sixth meeting ending Thursday without agreement as the West insisted on a resolution upholding Georgia’s territorial integrity.

Washington confirmed it was sending the USS Mount Whitney, the flagship of the Sixth Fleet, to Georgia next week, joining two others that have unloaded aid, drawing fierce criticism from Moscow. Russia has criticised the use of US warships to deliver aid and ordered its Black Sea fleet to take "precautionary measures" in response to what it has called a build-up of Nato navy vessels in the Black Sea near Georgia.

Russia sent troops into South Ossetia and the rest of Georgia on August 8, one day after Georgia launched a military offensive to reclaim control of the rebel province.

Georgian crisis heightens US-Russian tensions over Ukraine

2008-08-29T20:01:00.007-07:00

By Niall Green
World Socialist Web Site, 29/08/08

The crisis in the Caucasus provoked by Washington’s belligerent policy toward Russia may soon be eclipsed by growing tensions over the future of Ukraine.

Following the Russian military response to Georgia’s attack on South Ossetia August 7, Ukraine’s pro-US president, Viktor Yushchenko, flew to Tbilisi to offer political support to Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili.

On his return, he restated his intention that Ukraine become a member of the US-dominated NATO military alliance, adding that, in the light of the situation in Georgia, Ukraine should boost its military defences. "We very much hope that a positive decision will be taken this year," Yushchenko said.

In a further provocative move, he issued a presidential decree demanding that Russia give 72 hours’ notice before moving vessels from its Black Sea naval base in Sevastopol in the Ukrainian province of Crimea. He also reiterated his call for Russia to remove its fleet from the Crimean port when its lease expires in 2017.

Immediately after the Georgian-Russian conflict, Yushchenko issued a decree ending participation in the 1992 agreement with Russia on the use of radar stations in Ukraine, claiming that Moscow had broken its side of the accord.

Instead, Yushchenko said he would welcome Western cooperation in running the radar stations. Ukraine’s foreign ministry said that the country could "launch active cooperation with European nations" on missile defence, possibly including "the integration of Ukrainian elements of missile early warning and space control systems with those of foreign countries that are interested in gathering space data."

Into this highly combustible mix stepped British Foreign Secretary David Miliband. Speaking in Kiev on Wednesday, Miliband gave a confrontational speech condemning Russia’s actions in South Ossetia and Abkhazia and ignoring the Georgian assault that sparked the conflict.

Speaking alongside his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Ogryzko, Miliband attacked what he described as a "unilateral" attempt by Russia "to redraw the map" of Europe.

Miliband spoke of the British government’s intention to build the "widest possible coalition" against Russia. While claiming, "We don’t want a new cold war," Miliband alluded to British support for US plans to fast-track Ukrainian NATO membership, stating, "My visit is designed to send a simple message: we have not forgotten our commitments to you."

Miliband’s remarks followed a chorus of condemnation of Russia by the US and the major European powers for Moscow’s decision announced Tuesday to recognize the independence of the Georgian breakaway provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

In response to Yushchenko’s threats, Russian authorities accused Kiev of aiding the Georgian assault on South Ossetia. A Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman said that Ukraine had been "supplying weaponry to Georgia so that it got armed to the teeth, and with that, directly encouraging the Georgian authorities to start the intervention and ethnic cleansing in South Ossetia."

Ukraine had "no moral right to tutor others and seek to participate in the settlement," the statement added.

During the fighting in Georgia, Moscow media reported that a Russian Tu-22 bomber was shot down over Georgia with an S-200 surface-to-air missile supplied by Ukraine. "We know that Kiev sold several SAM systems to Tbilisi. Among those, there could be the S-200 systems," an unnamed Russian military figure said.

Two Russian warships, the Black Sea fleet flagship Moskva and a patrol vessel, returned to the Russian port of Novorossiisk on August 10 after engaging with a Georgian ship allegedly carrying missiles. The ships returned to the Sevastopol base on August 23, without any further dispute from Kiev.

The "Orange Revolution"

A republic of the Soviet Union until 1991, Ukraine today is at the frontline of Washington’s efforts to dominate Eurasia.

Following the success of the so-called "Rose Revolution" in Georgia in 2003, which brought Shaakashvili to power with the aid of financial and logistical support from the US, Washington turned its attention to Ukraine, which had retained close political and economic ties to Russia.

The presidential election in late 2004 was to determine who would take over from Leonid Kuchma. His chosen successor, and the favourite of Moscow, was Viktor Yanukovich, prime minister of Ukraine and a man closely associated with the oligarchic clans of the Russian-speaking eastern part of the country. Against him stood former Kuchma loyalist turned pro-US politician Viktor Yushchenko.

Yushchenko and his ally Yulia Tymoshenko—another veteran of the Kuchma regime—presented themselves as the heads of an "Orange Revolution" modelled on the pro-US turnover that had taken place in Georgia.

With western backing, Yushchenko was initially successful in rallying opposition to the corrupt Kuchma regime, especially among young Ukrainian speakers in Kiev and the west of the country. But the "free market" economic policies and Ukrainian chauvinism that characterised the "Orange" forces were viewed with suspicion and outright hostility by much of the population, especially the large Russian-speaking minority, as well as those employed in industries with close ties to the Russian economy.

Over one million Ukrainians work in Russia, while 30 percent of Ukrainians have Russian as their first language.

As well as serving as a vital transit route for Russian oil and gas supplies to Europe, the Ukrainian province of Crimea hosts Russia’s Black Sea fleet. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Moscow and Kiev came to a tentative agreement over the stationing of the Russian navy at Sevastopol. Comprising the bulk of the former Soviet Black Sea fleet, the base is viewed as a vital window on the world for the Russian military, giving Moscow a naval stake in the Black Sea, the Mediterranean and, thereby, the western regions of Central Asia and the Middle East.

It was, in part, to close this window that Washington intervened by orchestrating and sponsoring the "Orange Revolution."

However, since gaining power, the "Orange" coalition has proven very unstable and has been beset by rivalries between different oligarchic interests.

Despite coming to power on the promise of cleaning up corruption and improving the living standards and freedoms of the Ukrainian people, Yushchenko has presided over a regime that is widely hated for being at least as corrupt and servile to big business interests as the previous Kuchma-Yanukovich government. Opinion polls put support for Yushchenko at under 10 percent.

Nearly two-fifths of the population live below the official poverty line. In foreign policy, Yushchenko has maintained the unpopular pro-Washington policy, based on demands for Ukraine admission to NATO—a move that polls have indicated is opposed by up to 75 percent of the population.

A state of virtual political civil war exists between Yushchenko and Tymoshenko over control of the leavers of power. As a result, the regime has had to mend its economic relations with Russia, and has been unable to push through the kind of "free market" economic restructuring that had been anticipated by Western capital.

Tymoshenko’s political fortunes have faired somewhat better, partly because she is viewed as an opponent of Yushchenko. Currently prime minister in a coalition with Yushchenko’s parliamentary bloc, Tymoshenko is widely tipped to stand against her erstwhile "Orange" ally in the 2010 presidential elections.

In a desperate attempt to hold onto power, Yushchenko is proposing constitutional reforms to replace the existing power-sharing arrangement between a directly elected president and a prime minister drawn from the largest faction in the Verkhovna Rada (parliament). In what would amount to the establishment of a presidential dictatorship, Yushchenko has proposed that the post of prime minister be abolished and that he alone be empowered to appoint the cabinet and all senior state personnel.

While the proposal has little chance of passing in the Ukrainian parliament, it is a damning exposure of the democratic pretensions of the "Orange Revolution," which brought to power a group of pro-US oligarchs with no more commitment to democracy than the previous Kuchma regime.

Russian response in Ukraine

There has been speculation that the Kremlin is backing Tymoshenko to replace Yushchenko in 2010. Although she has frequently utilised anti-Russian chauvinism to aid her political career, Tymoshenko’s virtual silence on the Georgian crisis has been taken as an indication that she is allying herself to Moscow in order to advance her presidential ambitions.

Whatever the veracity of the claims, Moscow appears to be counting on Tymoshenko to defend its interests in Ukraine.

In response to US-backed demands for Ukraine’s admission to NATO, Russia has already begun to hasten the decoupling of its military industrial complex from that of Ukraine.

Reflecting the highly-integrated economies of the Russian and Ukrainian republics that were developed during the Soviet period, the two countries still maintain close economic cooperation, especially in military technologies. However, in June a Russian military contractor announced that it would take over from a Ukrainian firm the building of engines for Russia’s cruise missiles.

Moscow also plans to develop the port of Novorossiysk on Russia’s Black Sea coast as an alternative base for its fleet, should it be unable to use Sevastopol after 2017.

There are well-founded fears in Kiev that a further souring of relations with Moscow and moves towards NATO membership could spark opposition within Crimea, an autonomous republic with strong historical, cultural and economic ties to Russia, raising the prospect of a South Ossetian scenario whose consequences would be even more catastrophic than the conflict with Georgia.

Russia: US still looking for WMDs in Iraq?

2008-08-29T20:01:00.006-07:00

Press TV, 29/08/08

Russia has slammed what it calls the UN Security Council's hypocritical stance on the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Russian Ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin has accused the world body of adopting a double standard approach in dealing with the issue.

He said members of the Council are ignorant about the essence of the Caucasus conflict, Russia Today reported on Friday.

The remarks were made after a Thursday's meeting of the Security Council during which the Western powers criticized Moscow's recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

"Russia violated the security zone patrolled by UN peacekeeping forces deployed by the UN Security Council," said Alejandro Daniel Wolff, US Representative to the UN. "In Abkhazia, Russia is violating not only the territorial integrity of Georgia, but also the integrity of this Council."

The US also said Russian troops should have never entered the territory of Georgia, a sovereign member of the international community.

Churkin, however, hit back by referring to the US invasion and occupation of Iraq.

"I would like to ask the distinguished representative of the United States about....Weapons of Mass Destruction. Have you found them in Iraq yet or are you still looking for them"? Churkin said.

Churkin, however, said the international community had failed to act in response to Georgia's invasion of South Ossetia earlier this month.

"The US and some European states promised (Georgian President) Mr Saakashvili NATO's protection and have started supplying him with new weapons. It obviously invites fresh provocations," the Russian envoy said.

He also said that Moscow had called for a ceasefire in the early hours of the conflict but no one had supported it.

SB/DT

The west is sick, Russia says

2008-08-29T20:01:00.005-07:00

View London, 29/08/08

Any plans to impose sanctions upon Russia over the deepening crisis in Georgia would be an example of the west's "sick imagination", Moscow has said.

France raised the spectre of economic sanctions earlier today when its foreign minister said the issue would be discussed by European Union leaders tomorrow.

Russia, which has faced condemnation by Nato for its military action in Georgia and its recognition of two breakaway regions as independent states, retaliated by accusing France of completely misjudging the situation.

Responding to Bernard Kouchner's comments in Paris, his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov said: "My friend [Mr] Kouchner also said that we will soon attack Moldova and Ukraine and the Crimea; but that is a sick imagination and probably that applies to sanctions as well.

"I think it is a demonstration of complete confusion."

Russia invaded Georgia after its president Mikhail Saakashvili ordered an attack upon breakaway South Ossetia, which has strong links to Moscow.

A ten-day conflict followed, after which Russian president Dmitry Medvedev signed decrees officially recognising South Ossetia and fellow rebel region Abkhazia on Tuesday.

UK foreign secretary David Miliband has warned Russia of the consequences of starting a second cold war.

"It is striking that no country has supported what Russia did on Tuesday," he said.

"The only people who have, as I understand it from the media reports, is Hamas."

Spain opposes sanctions against Russia

2008-08-29T20:01:00.004-07:00

Monsters and Critics.com, 29/08/08

Madrid - Spain opposes retaliatory measures against Russia over its policy on the Georgian breakaway regions, Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos said Friday.

It was not the time for sanctions, but for dialogue, Moratinos said.

Spain expected Monday's European Union summit to adopt no sanctions, but to send Russia a message of firmness and unity, making it clear that Russias relations with Europe come under close scrutiny, according to diplomatic sources.

South Ossetia says Russia intends to absorb region

2008-08-29T20:01:00.003-07:00

South Ossetian officials say Russia intends eventually to absorb Georgian separatist province

By Yuras Karmanau
AP, 29/08/08

Russia intends to eventually absorb Georgia's breakaway province of South Ossetia, a South Ossetian official said Friday, three days after Moscow recognized the region as independent and drew criticism from the West.

Georgia, meanwhile, said it would recall all diplomatic staff from its embassy in Moscow on Saturday because of the Russian military presence in Georgia. Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nestrenko criticized the move, saying it "will not benefit our bilateral relations," Russian news agencies reported.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and the region's leader, Eduard Kokoity, discussed the future of South Ossetia earlier this week in Moscow, South Ossetian parliamentary speaker Znaur Gassiyev said.

Russia will absorb South Ossetia "in several years" or earlier, a position was "firmly stated by both leaders," Gassiyev said.

In Moscow, a Kremlin spokeswoman said Friday there was "no official information" on the talks.

The vice speaker of Georgia's parliament, Gigi Tsereteli, said the statement cannot be taken seriously.

"The separatist regimes of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and the Russian authorities are cut off from reality," he said in Tbilisi. "The world has already become different and Russia will not long be able to occupy sovereign Georgian territory."

"The regimes of Abkhazia and South Ossetia should think about the fact that if they become part of Russia, they will be assimilated and in this way they will disappear," he added.

Moscow's recognition Tuesday of South Ossetia and another separatist province, Abkhazia, came on the back of a short war that began Aug. 7, when Georgia launched a military offensive to retake South Ossetia. Russia responded by rolling hundreds of tanks into the Moscow-friendly province and pushed the Georgian army out.

Russia blasted the offensive as blind aggression, saying the move deprived Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili of the moral authority to defend Georgia's territorial integrity.

Georgia and the West in turn criticized Russia for pressing further into Georgia proper and for ignoring a cease-fire brokered by the European Union.

But a high-ranking official in French President Nicolas Sarkozy's office says that for now "we don't foresee any sanctions decided on by the European Council."

European Union leaders are holding a summit Monday and some member countries have pushed to punish Russia over the crisis with Georgia. But Sarkozy's office believes Europe must concentrate on pressuring Russia to apply a cease-fire agreement.

France currently holds the rotating EU presidency.

The official spoke Friday on condition of anonymity because of office policy. He elaborated on remarks by France's foreign minister, who has said sanctions were being considered.

Meanwhile, Russia and South Ossetia plan to sign an agreement on the placement of Russian military bases in South Ossetia, the province's deputy parliamentary speaker Tarzan Kokoiti said. How many bases that involves will become clear on Sept. 2, when the document is set to be signed, he said.

He said South Ossetians have the right to reunite with North Ossetia, which is part of Russia.

"Soon there will be no North or South Ossetia-there will be a united Alania as part of Russia," Kokoiti said, using another name for Ossetia.

"We will live in one united Russian state," he said.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin accused the United States on Thursday of instigating the fighting in Georgia and said he suspects a connection to the U.S. presidential campaign-a contention the White House dismissed as "patently false."

Putin said that Russia had hoped the U.S. would restrain Georgia, which Moscow accuses of starting the war by attacking South Ossetia on Aug. 7. Instead, he suggested the U.S. encouraged the nation's leadership to try to rein in the separatist region by force.

Kurt Volker, the U.S. Ambassador to NATO, said Friday that the fighting was prompted by Russian pressure and shelling from South Ossetia.

"We did have lots of contacts with Georgia over a long period of time. And the nature of that has always been to say 'don't let yourself get drawn into a military confrontation here,'" Volker said in an interview with the British Broadcasting Corp. "Georgia found it too hard to hold that line when they were seeing what Russia was preparing to do."

Associated Press writers Misha Dzhindhzikhashvili and Jim Heintz in Tbilisi, Georgia; Laurent Pirot in Paris; and David Nowak and Maria Danilova in Moscow contributed to this report.

Saakashvili visits Russian-held Georgian port

2008-08-29T20:01:00.002-07:00

Reuters, 29/08/08

TBILISI - Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili travelled to the Black Sea port of Poti on Friday, where Russian forces have been holding positions since their brief war over South Ossetia.

The presidential office said Saakashvili would inspect damage in the wake of Russian air raids this month and would meet local officials.

Russian soldiers with armoured personnel carriers man at least two checkpoints on the outskirts of Poti, a small oil and grain port, although it lies outside a buffer zone created by Russian peacekeepers.

(Reporting by Margarita Antidze; writing by Matt Robinson; editing by Jon Boyle)

Russia's powerful weapon: oil and natural gas

2008-08-29T20:01:00.001-07:00

By Adrian Blomfield
Telegraph, 29/08/08

Russia believes that its standing as the world's largest exporter of oil and natural gas is the most powerful weapon in its diplomatic arsenal.

Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Belarus and Estonia have all seen either a total shut down or a reduction in Russian gas flows after annoying the Kremlin.

Given its history of using energy supplies as an instrument of foreign policy, the possibility that Russia would respond to the current international crisis by disrupting gas and oil supplies to the European Union cannot be discounted.

Yet for all the bombast, the effectiveness of Russian retaliation is often not quite as crushing as the Kremlin believes it should be. The true relationship between Russia and the EU is one of mutual dependence.

The dwindling number of pragmatic voices in the Kremlin know that Russia needs European customers as much Europe needs Russian energy.

Gazprom, the state energy giant, depends on sales to the EU for 70 per cent of its profits. Restricting exports would cost Russia billions.

The hissing of the Russian snake might sound alarming. How venomous its fangs are, however, is a matter for greater debate.

Russia: regional group to mull S.Ossetia recognition

2008-08-29T20:01:00.000-07:00

Reuters, 29/08/08

MOSCOW - A Russia-led security group of former Soviet states will discuss the recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia at a meeting in Moscow next month, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Friday.

"This question will be discussed during a session of the council of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation next week, on Sept. 5 in Moscow," Foreign Ministry Spokesman Andrei Nesterenko told reporters at a briefing.

The Collective Security Treaty Organisation is dominated by Russia and includes six other former Soviet countries.

(Reporting by Conor Sweeney, writing by Guy Faulconbridge, editing by Christian Lowe and Mary Gabriel)

EU Envoys: Russia Is Violating Ceasefire Deal In Georgia

2008-08-29T19:38:00.000-07:00

AFP, 29/08/08

TBILISI, Georgia - European Union fact finders said Friday they would tell the E.U. that Russia is in violation of a ceasefire deal in Georgia.

The group of Belgian parliamentarians was to present a report to French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, whose country holds the E.U. presidency, ahead of Monday's emergency E.U. summit on the conflict in Georgia.

Anne-Marie Lizin, a Belgian senator, told journalists that Russian " peacekeepers" had expanded a buffer zone around the disputed South Ossetia region by at least 15 kilometers.

"We have seen them as peacekeepers in not the normal places," she said. "They are trying to create a de facto situation quickly before Monday's summit."

Another member of the delegation, parliament deputy Jean-Louis Crucke, said the Russian presence seemed incompatible with peacekeeping.

"It's not a control, not a checkpoint - it's a camp," he said.

Lizin said the "credibility" of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev was on the line, given that he had signed a French-brokered peace plan requiring Russian and Georgian forces to pull back to positions held before the fighting earlier this month.

The parliamentarians said they would recommend the E.U. take measures to support Georgia.

"We are trying to find positive proposals for Georgia and visa-free travel is one of these," said Lizin, who is also OSCE Parliamentary Assembly vice president.

Russia frees Georgian soldiers, tensions persist

2008-08-29T19:37:00.000-07:00

AP, 28/08/08

Russia frees 12 Georgian soldiers, but tensions persist as West warns against new Cold War

Russian forces have turned over 12 Georgian soldiers at the border of separatist Abkhazia now under Russian control.

The release along the Inguri River that separates Abkhazia from Georgia proper was a small gesture of cooperation amid the high tensions that followed the end of open hostilities between Georgia and Russia.

The soldiers had been captured in Georgia's port city of Poti on Aug. 18 and driven away in trucks blindfolded and handcuffed. During Thursday's handover, the soldiers appeared unharmed and some were smiling.

Ten others had been released earlier.

Russia 'could destroy NATO ships in Black Sea within 20 minutes'

2008-08-29T19:36:00.000-07:00

RIA Novosti, 29/08/08

MOSCOW - Russia's Black Sea Fleet is capable of destroying NATO's naval strike group currently deployed in the sea within 20 minutes, a former fleet commander said on Friday.

Russia's General Staff said on Tuesday there were 10 NATO ships in the Black Sea-three U.S. warships, the Polish frigate General Pulaski, the German frigate FGS Lubeck, and the Spanish guided missile frigate Admiral Juan de Borbon, as well as four Turkish vessels. Eight more warships are expected to join the group.

"Despite the apparent strength, the NATO naval group in the Black Sea is not battle-worthy," Admiral Eduard Baltin said. "If necessary, a single missile salvo from the Moskva missile cruiser and two or three missile boats would be enough to annihilate the entire group."

"Within 20 minutes the waters would be clear," he said, stressing that despite major reductions, the Black Sea Fleet still has a formidable missile arsenal.

However, Baltin said the chances of a military confrontation between NATO and Russia in the Black Sea are negligible.

"We will not strike first, and they do not look like people with suicidal tendencies," he said.

In addition to its flagship, the Moskva guided missile cruiser, Russia's Black Sea Fleet includes at least three destroyers, two guided missile frigates, four guided missile corvettes and six missile boats.

NATO announced its decision to deliver humanitarian aid to Georgia after the conclusion of hostilities between Tbilisi and Moscow over breakaway South Ossetia on August 12. Moscow recognized on Tuesday both South Ossetia and Abkhazia, another breakaway Georgia republic, despite being urged by Western leaders not to do so.

Russia's General Staff later said the alliance's naval deployment in the Black Sea "cannot fail to provoke concern", with unidentified sources in the Russian military saying a surface strike group was being gathered there.

According to Russian military intelligence sources, the NATO warships that have entered the Black Sea are between them carrying over 100 Tomahawk cruise missiles and Harpoon anti-ship missiles.

Russia backs Iran's peaceful nuclear program

2008-08-29T19:32:00.000-07:00

Press TV, 28/08/08

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov says no one doubts Iran's right to use peaceful nuclear energy in accordance with the NPT.

"If and when trust in the peaceful character of the Iranian nuclear program is restored, attitude towards it will be the same as to similar programs of any other non-nuclear weapon state party to the treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons," said Lavrov in an interview with Arab-language newspaper Al-Hayat.

This adds to opportunities for Iran to actively continue political, economic and other cooperation with the international community, especially in the area of peaceful nuclear activities, he said.

He added that Russia emphasizes the settlement of the Iranian nuclear issue exclusively through political and diplomatic means.

"All the issues have to be tackled on the negotiating table. We see no alternative to this." He said.

Mentioning contacts between Tehran and Moscow, he asked the Iranian side to benefit itself of the proposals made by the Six (Russia, Britain, China, the US, France plus Germany) in Geneva in July for launching the negotiation process.

Iran has, in recent years, developed its domestic nuclear program which it maintains is for the country's electricity generation and civilian purposes.

President Medvedev fails to secure even allies' support

2008-08-29T19:28:00.000-07:00

Gazeta.Ru, 29/08/08

Russia failed to secure support for its policy in the Caucasus from participants in yesterday's summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Dushanbe, Tajikistan. The leaders of the SCO member states expressed verbal support for Moscow to President Dmitry Medvedev, but in a final statement following the summit they highlighted respect for countries' territorial integrity and spoke out against use of force in international affairs. This means Russia was left virtually alone in its growing confrontation with the West.

According to sources in the Russian delegation at the summit, Medvedev energetically raised the Georgia issue at all of his bilateral meetings and at a closed session of SCO heads of state on Thursday. All of those he spoke to said they approved of Russia's moves, but refused to declare this in formal statements.

"All SCO members have their own troubled regions. If any of them recognized the Caucasus republics' independence, claims to their territory would be reinvigorated immediately," a member of the Russian delegation told Kommersant. "China, for example, would face problems in Tibet and the Xinjiang autonomy."

Another high-ranking source said the partners told Medvedev at the talks that they sympathized with Russia's recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia's independence, and apologized for being unable to voice their position in public.

"Friendship is one thing and business is another... I cannot imagine [the SCO countries in] Dushanbe condemning anyone," said Alexei Malashenko from the Carnegie Moscow Center. "But there were some nuances too. The word 'genocide' was removed from the resolution at China's request. This is a draw, an absolutely expected result."

Kazakhstan's Communist Party leader, Serikmolsyn Abdildin, said now is not the time for Russia's neighbors and partners to be making strong statements: "[President Nursultan] Nazarbayev looks both to the United States and Russia. He will eventually pick the stronger ally."

A short thesis that the SCO states "welcome Moscow's approval on August 12 of six principles for resolving the conflict in South Ossetia and back Russia's proactive role in promoting peace and cooperation in the region" was the only consolation to Russia. However, the phrase does not contain a direct approval of Russia's moves.

The failure to secure the SCO's support in the conflict surrounding Georgia leaves Moscow face to face with the West.

President Medvedev fails to secure even allies' support

2008-08-29T19:27:00.000-07:00

Gazeta.Ru, 29/08/08

France: No EU sanctions against Russia imminent

2008-08-29T19:26:00.000-07:00

By Laurent Pirot
Reuters, 29/08/08

The European Union is not expected to imposed sanctions on Russia at a summit next week but may name a special envoy to Georgia to ensure that a cease-fire there is observed, officials in Paris and Brussels said Friday.

They also said that the EU might send a high official-perhaps French President Nicolas Sarkozy-on a shuttle mission to the region.

The 27 European Union leaders are scheduled to hold a special summit in Brussels on Monday to discuss how to respond to the recent brief and bitter war between Russia and Georgia, and Russia's subsequent recognition of the independence of two breakaway regions of Georgia.

The EU already has an envoy to Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. But under a plan that will be discussed at the summit, that job would be split up to create the special envoy to Georgia, said an official at the EU headquarters in Brussels.

The official also said that a visit by Sarkozy to both Moscow and the Georgian capital, Tbilisi would be discussed. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the rules of the job.

France's foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, had said the EU was considering sanctions against Russia following its recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

But he told reporters Friday that a provisional text for the Brussels meeting has been drawn up, and that the focus was on unity in the 27-member EU bloc.

"France doesn't foresee any sanctions," he said.

A high-ranking official in Sarkozy's office also said sanctions wouldn't be imposed at the summit.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of office policy, said the EU is also likely to ask Sarkozy to continue his "mission" in the crisis, which involved shuttle diplomacy and visits to both Moscow and Tbilisi earlier this month.

The French official said France's priority is ensuring that Russia respects a cease-fire deal that France helped craft.

Moscow's recognition Tuesday of South Ossetia and Abkhazia followed a brief war between Georgia and Russia earlier this month. Georgia had launched a military offensive to retake South Ossetia from separatists, and Russia responded by sending tanks into the Moscow-friendly province and Georgia proper.

European countries considerably toughened their stance against Russia after Moscow's move to recognize the provinces as independent. Kouchner said Thursday that France was not behind the effort for sanctions and that the French role was to unite Europeans in a common position.

A spokesman for German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she believes it is important for Monday's summit to send "a clear political signal of the European Union's unity" on the crisis.

The EU is united in saying that Georgia's territorial integrity is not up for discussion, that the EU will help in rebuilding destroyed infrastructure and that the recognition of Abkhazian and South Ossetian independence is unacceptable, Merkel spokesman Ulrich Wilhelm said in Berlin.

Associated Press Writers Robert Wielaard in Brussels and Jamey Keaten in Paris contributed to this story.

Moscow wants new rules on international stage

2008-08-29T19:23:00.000-07:00

By Fyodor Kulyanov
Vedomosti, 29/08/08

Russia's recognition of the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia goes far beyond the regional crisis that has been spreading there since early August. Now it is not all about Georgia and its leader. The stakes have been dramatically raised.

Moscow seems to have decided to stake everything and play the role of an undertaker of the weird and in many aspects perverted system of international relations, which has shaped up in the world nearly 20 years on from the Cold War.

The Russian leadership as well as the overwhelming majority of Russian society is openly shocked by the scale and unanimity of support granted to Mikheil Saakashvili in the West. Moscow can genuinely not understand how Europe and the U.S. could be so united in backing a man who overseeing war crimes and scorning everything so tirelessly proclaimed by the "civilized world."

The conflict of perception seems never to have been as acute as now. Russia sees the Western stance as uncovered cynicism going beyond normal political relations, let alone double standards.

The emotional environment and the feeling that it is "no use talking" to Western capitals have certainly made the Russian position more radical.

The domestic factor, most probably, has played its role. Given the public environment set around the war, it was hard to make diplomatic concessions and explain them to the people even though you have TV under control.

In short, the feeling that Russia yet again is being deprived of the victory that has been won both in moral and military-political terms has caused a sharp change. It seems that the decision to recognize the rebel provinces was taken to cut escape routes and make the situation with Abkhazia and South Ossetia irreversible. It does not show self-confidence, but readiness to take a big risk.

It is clear that the verdict can be now reversed only by unconditional surrender. Russia has decisively changed course by giving up attempts for its steps to be legitimized by other countries, and is finally refusing to act within the legal framework. Russia relies only on its own power (there is nobody else to lean on) and on the hope that neighboring countries think hard to understand who the real "boss" in the region is. And if the pendulum swings towards Russia on the post-Soviet territory, the matter of working out new international game rules, in which Russia will be an equitable participant, will become practical.

Fyodor Kulyanov, chief editor of the "Russia in global politics" magazine.

Moldova rejects recognition of Georgian regions

2008-08-29T19:22:00.000-07:00

Reuters, 29/08/08

CHISINAU - Moldova refuses to recognise the independence of Georgia's South Ossetia and Abkhazia regions, the government of the small ex-Soviet state with its own breakaway region said on Friday.

Russia's recognition of the two regions, after chasing out Georgian troops trying to retake South Ossetia, plunged relations with the West to new lows.

Russia sent peacekeepers to Moldova in the early 1990s to end a conflict between Chisinau and the breakaway Transdniestria region, which like the Georgian regions is populated by mainly ethnic Russians.

"The government of Moldova does not think at this moment that international recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia will become a factor stabilising the situation," the government said in a statement.

Moldova, squashed between Ukraine and Romania, fears that Russia could recognise Transdniestria especially after many Western countries supported the independence of Kosovo, formerly part of Serbia, which Russia opposed.

"As in the case of Kosovo, such methods only reduce the responsibility of the sides in the conflict for the search of a compromise between them," the Moldovan statement said.

Earlier this week Russian President Dmitry Medvedev assured his Moldovan counterpart, Vladimir Voronin, that Russia was keen to forge a deal in which Transdniestria would be part of Moldova as an autonomous region.

Some analysts have suggested that after crushing Georgia's attempt to solve one "frozen conflict" in South Ossetia by force, Russia is interested in appearing as a successful mediator capable of negotiating a compromise in another.

Transdniestria broke off contact with Moldova earlier this month until Chisinau denounced "Georgia's aggression" in its rebel regions, but since then senior Russian officials have said a solution may be reached soon.

The leaders of Moldova and Transdniestria met in April for the first time since 2001 to try to hammer out a resolution to their years-long dispute.

(Reporting by Dmitry Chubashenko; writing by Sabina Zawadzki, editing by Oleg Shchedrov and Mary Gabriel)

Iran: Tensions between US and Russia behind nuclear push, says expert

2008-08-29T19:21:00.001-07:00

By
Adnkronos International, 29/08/08

Tehran - Iran's decision to step up its nuclear programme was a bid to exploit the current tensions between the US and Russia, a leading Middle East expert said on Friday.

Sami Al-Faraj, director of the Kuwait Center for Strategic Studies, expressed concern in an interview with Adnkronos International (AKI), after an announcement by Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister, Ali-Reza Sheikh Attar.

"Iran is certainly taking advantage of the crisis in relations between Moscow and Washington in order to develop its nuclear technology," he told AKI.

Ali-Reza Sheikh Attar said Friday that Iran has nearly 4,000 working centrifuges at its nuclear facility at Natanz and another 3,000 were being installed.

Attar's comments were made on Iranian state television and reported by the official Iranian news agency, IRNA.

The 4,000 figure is in line with United Nations estimates but lower than the 5,000 cited last month by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Faraj said the Russians and the Iranians may have reached a political accord during the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization held in Tashkent in Uzbekistan on Thursday.

"Russia has sought the political support of countries in the organisation, among them China, but received a cool response. Iran could work to convince countries that are members of the SCO, like Kazakhstan and Kirghizistan, to support the Russian position in Georgia.

"In exchange, Tehran would have strong political support for its nuclear programme."

At the same time however, he warned that a possible intensification of Iran's nuclear programme could become "a big problem for the international community" because it comes at a time of great tension in the Middle East.

Referring to the UN Security Council's anti-Iran resolutions, Attar said that the sanctions were futile and ineffective.

"Had westerners become certain that the resolutions would bring us down to our knees, they would have definitely intensified them (the sanctions)," he said.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said last month Iran had more than 5,000 centrifuges.

But a diplomat close to the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, which routinely checks Iranian nuclear sites, said Ahmadinejad appeared to have overstated the number by at least 1,000.

Germany sees no signs Russia to cut oil after British report

2008-08-29T19:21:00.000-07:00

Monsters and Critics.com, 29/08/08

Berlin - The German government has not discerned any signs that Russia might cut oil deliveries to Europe as part of its response to the crisis over Georgia, a spokesman said Friday.

'We firmly assume that contracts will be adhered to,' government spokesman Ulrich Wilhelm said.

He was responding to a report in the London-based Daily Telegraph that the Kremlin would order a cut-off in supplies to Poland and Germany through the Druzhba pipeline.

'There are no signs thus far that contracts and approved deliveries will not be adhered to,' Wilhelm said.

The Telegraph reported Friday that fears were mounting that Russia could restrict oil deliveries to Western Europe as soon as Monday after reports to this effect had begun circulating in Moscow.

'It is believed that executives from lead-producer LUKoil have been put on weekend alert,' the British daily said.

It said it had been informed by a 'high-level business source' that the executives had been 'told to be ready to cut off supplies as soon as Monday.'

Regarding an emergency meeting on Monday of European Union (EU) heads on the crisis, Wilhelm said Chancellor Angela Merkel's aim was that the summit sent 'a clear political signal of determination.'

Wilhelm said the EU was united in backing the six-point plan put forward by French President Nicolas Sarkozy on August 12 during visits to Moscow and Tbilisi and subsequently signed by Russian President Dimitry Medvedev and Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili.

Georgia's territorial integrity had to be respected, he said.

Merkel phoned Medvedev on Thursday to make clear she saw Russian recognition of the breakaway Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Georgia as 'absolutely not acceptable.'

In response to a question, Wilhelm said the chancellor had not been in contact over the past week with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, seen by many observers as the driving force behind the new hardline approach from the Kremlin.

Georgians uprooted in South Ossetia

2008-08-29T19:20:00.000-07:00

By Yuras Karmanau
AP, 29/08/08

After Georgian soldiers stormed South Ossetia and killed Vitaly Guzitayev's friend, he hid in the woods. Once the Georgians left, he set fire to the elegant brick homes of ethnic Georgians who lived nearby.

"Georgians must not return here. Ossetia is for Ossetians," Guzitayev spat, sitting on a bench in Ksuisi two weeks later. "Let Georgians suffer. Now we are independent from them."

Arson gangs have targeted the homes of ethnic Georgians in breakaway South Ossetia as the conflict over control threatens to erase a centuries-old ethnic mix. Since the warfare between Georgia and Russia in early August, Associated Press reporters have witnessed burning homes and looting in villages in the region.

The conflict has pitted neighbor against neighbor in this region of mountain slopes and fruit orchards where two ethnic groups have lived side-by-side for centuries: Georgians whose culture is rooted on the Black Sea coast and Ossetians whose language and customs point to the east.

According to Georgia, at least 28,800 ethnic Georgians have fled South Ossetia in recent weeks, part of a larger exodus of some 160,000 people from the conflict zone. South Ossetian officials say the region's population of Georgians was only about 14,000 when the fighting started earlier this month.

Whatever the figure, no one disputes that there are few Georgians left in South Ossetia. And any who try to return will find many of their neighbors hostile, their language despised and their homes destroyed.

Olia Bugadze, 68, is one of a handful of ethnic Georgians left in Ksuisi. She said she hid in a corn field as Russian troops swept through, then watched as neighbors descended on her home, looted it and set it on fire. Now she camps in the ruins of her kitchen.

"I am afraid," said Bugadze, clad in a worn-out black shirt and skirt, as she showed a visitor the destruction. "Every day they threaten me and want to drive me out of Ossetia."

Georgian officials say some ethnic Georgian men were summarily shot by militia fighters in the aftermath of the fighting, a claim that the AP was not immediately able to independently confirm.

However, an AP reporter saw dozens of ethnic Georgians-all middle-aged or older men-who were rounded up after the fighting and held in the basements of South Ossetia's Interior Ministry.

They were forced to haul debris on streets bombed-out by Georgian rockets and artillery. The AP saw at least three such groups escorted by armed South Ossetian policemen.

Asmat Babutsidze lived in the hamlet Achabeti, a predominantly Georgian village in South Ossetia. After the fighting ended, she said, men with guns looted and torched her home and took her to a jail in Tskhinvali.

There, she said, she was locked in a basement cell with 43 other women, most of them-like her-ethnic Georgians.

Guards, she told the AP in an interview in Tbilisi, mocked and kicked the hostages. Women were forced to sweep the glass-littered streets, she said, while men were made to bury the dead.

South Ossetian President Eduard Kokoity said some Georgian civilians were detained for their own protection, not as part of an effort at collective punishment. "The Interior Ministry protected them to save their lives," he said.

But Kokoity also said any ethnic Georgian civilians who sided with Georgian military forces will not be allowed to return. "We warned them in advance," he said.

David Sanakoyev, a South Ossetian government official, said a total of 182 Georgian civilians were detained for their own protection and that they were eventually bused to the Georgian side. The last group of 85 men was escorted to Georgia on Wednesday, he said.

Georgian officials charge there was a coordinated campaign against ethnic Georgian civilians in Ossetian- and Russian-controlled areas.

"It was a concerted action of Russian official military forces together with paramilitaries," Eka Tkeshelashvili, a senior Georgian government official, said at a meeting in Europe in Vienna this week.

Over the past three weeks, AP reporters have witnessed burning homes in more than half a dozen Georgian villages. On Aug. 11, an AP reporter saw looting by armed men in Georgian villages north of the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali-as Russian troops stood by.

Another AP reporter saw burning and looting of Georgian homes in at least six separate areas from Aug. 22 through Thursday: the villages of Achabetiug, Kekhvi, Tamarasheni, Ksuisi and Eregvi, as well as near the capital Tskhinvali.

With most Georgians gone, there seems to be an effort to erase even the memory of their presence here. On Thursday, a South Ossetian policeman knocked down a sign with the name of the Georgian village of Tamasheni, written in both Georgian and Latin scripts, as bulldozers razed the last remaining houses. At least three more Georgian villages have been bulldozed in South Ossetia, witnesses said.

Human Rights Watch said Ossetian militias have been involved in systematic persecution of ethnic Georgian civilians.

"They aim at pushing Georgians out of their villages, to make sure they have no place to return to," researcher Tatyana Lokshina said.

Rachel Denber, deputy director of the Europe and Central Asia division of Human Rights Watch, said satellite images confirm militia attacks on ethnic Georgian villages in South Ossetia and "emphasize the need for Russian authorities to hold these militias accountable."

A Human Rights Watch team visited five Georgian villages in South Ossetia from Aug. 12-17, she said, taking photographs and interviewing victims. The team witnessed looting and burning in two of the villages, Tamareshni and Kekhvi.

Until the last years of the Soviet Union, Georgians and Ossetians had lived peacefully. But as reforms weakened Moscow's grip, Ossetians and Georgians formed nationalist movements, each staking a claim to their shared homeland.

After Ossetia declared its independence, Georgian forces invaded, launching a full-scale war that ended in 1992 in a Kremlin-brokered deal that divided the region. South Ossetia fell within Georgia's borders, but operated with wide autonomy. North Ossetia came under Moscow's control.

The uneasy peace that followed was marked by sporadic clashes, which intensified when Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili came to power four years ago, vowing to assert Tbilisi's authority over Georgia's separatist regions. This only stoked animosity among South Ossetians, who believe Georgia has no right to rule them.

On Aug. 7, Georgian forces launched a devastating rocket and artillery assault on South Ossetia's capital of Tskhinvali. Russia mounted a massive military response, sending hundreds of armored vehicles south across Georgia's border and driving the Georgians deep into their own territory.

The Russians have accused the Georgians of attempting genocide, saying the barrage targeted Tshkinvali's hospital and residential neighborhoods. They say its tanks rolled over people alive, and fired into basements where Ossetian families cowered.

South Ossetian officials and the Russian military say they have done their best to discourage looting and arson and to protect Georgian residents of the breakaway republic, despite the popular anger at what they say was Georgia's effort to destroy them as a people.

"We are not barbarians," Kokoity told the AP this week.

South Ossetian officials say 1,692 civilians were killed and some 1,500 wounded in Georgia's military assault-which devastated some Tskhinvali neighborhoods. At first Russia said about 2,000 Ossetian civilians had been killed. But on Aug. 20, it reduced that figure to 133 confirmed dead.

"The truth is no one knows," Thomas Hammarberg, the Council of Europe's human rights commissioner, told reporters in Moscow Thursday.

In Soviet times, Ksuisi residents say, Ossetians and Georgians lived harmoniously in the prosperous village surrounded by corn fields, grapevines and orchids with peaches and apples.

Now the some 400 homes in the hamlet's Georgian quarter appear to have been burned and looted. Of about 700 Ossetian houses, a small number-including a school-bore the marks of damage from Georgian artillery fire.

Many Ossetians say their ethnic Georgian neighbors bear collective guilt for Tbilisi's assault.

The mother of Guzitayev's friend, Lenya Doguzov, clutched the earth and wailed in an orchard that had been her son's grave site before his body was moved to a cemetery.

"Georgians should lie next to my son," Yekaterina Doguzova, 70, said bitterly as she grieved alongside her daughter-in-law Zemfira Doguzova, 34.

Pavel Panikaev, 73, angrily recalled how Georgians beat him with rifle butts. "We have a right for revenge," he said. "We will not leave Georgian houses, orchards, nothing. We will erase them from the face of earth."

Lena Kudakhova, 67, of Ksuisi was married to a Georgian man killed in the recent fighting. Now her half-Georgian daughter is in hiding nearby, fearing retaliation, and her half-Georgian son has fled to the Georgian capital of Tbilisi.

She wonders what will happen to her. "Nobody needs me in an independent Ossetia," she said.

Associated Press writers Mansur Mirovalev and Maria Danilova in Moscow, and Jim Heintz and Misha Dzhindzhikhashvili in Tbilisi, Georgia, contributed to this report.

Georgian conflict to lead to NATO buildup around Belarus

2008-08-29T19:17:00.000-07:00

RIA Novosti, 29/08/08

MINSK - The recent Georgian-South Ossetian conflict will lead to a buildup of NATO forces near Belarusian borders, the country's president said Friday.

"Literally over the last few days, geopolitical differences in the Caucasus have led to military confrontation. The events that followed have greatly exacerbated the international situation. A direct consequence, I believe, will be a buildup of military-political positions by the North Atlantic bloc, and all this will occur, primarily, near our state's borders," Alexander Lukashenko said.

The Belarusian leader, dubbed "Europe's last dictator" by the United States, said certain missile defense elements are being deployed in neighboring countries, in particular, Poland. He also said media reports have said that new NATO bases are being established in Baltic States.

Russia officially recognized South Ossetia and Abkhazia on Tuesday, saying the move was needed to protect the regions following Georgia's military offensive on August 8 in which hundreds of civilians died and thousands were forced to flee the region.

A Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman said earlier Friday NATO's course toward confrontation with Russia will lead to irreversible consequences.

"We consider it necessary to stress that NATO's confrontation with Russia, its attempts to put u under pressure, are utterly unacceptable and could have irreversible consequences for the military-political climate and stability on the continent," Andrei Nesterenko said.

The current standoff, in which ties between NATO and Russia have been frozen, has sparked media speculation that the seven leading industrial powers could oust Russia from the G8. However, the G7 statement avoided any hint of such a move, and British Foreign Minister David Miliband stressed Wednesday that there were no such plans.

Georgia to sever diplomatic ties with Russia

2008-08-29T18:56:00.000-07:00

By Misha Dzhindhzikhashvili
AP, 29/08/08

Georgia said Friday it will sever diplomatic ties with Moscow to protest the presence of Russian troops on its territory. Russia criticized the move, pinning blame for a breakdown in relations on Tbilisi.

Georgia said Friday it will sever diplomatic ties with Moscow to protest the presence of Russian troops on its territory. Russia criticized the move, pinning blame for a breakdown in relations on Tbilisi.

Georgia's remaining diplomats in Russia will leave Moscow on Saturday, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Nato Chikovani said.

Lawmakers had voted unanimously late Thursday to break off ties with Russia, branding it an "aggressor country" in their conflict over two Russian-backed separatist regions in Georgia.

Russia criticized the decision. "Breaking off diplomatic relations with Tbilisi is not Moscow's choice, and the responsibility lies with Tbilisi," the ITAR-Tass news agency quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko as saying.

Russia will have to close its embassy in Georgia if ties are severed, the RIA-Novosti agency quoted an unnamed ministry official as saying. However, both nations' consulates will remain open-important for the many Georgian citizens living in Russia.

Adding to the tension, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Moscow will not be isolated over its conduct in Georgia and warned Europe that it shouldn't cater to the U.S.

"If European countries want to serve the foreign policy interests of the United States, in my view they won't win anything from this," Putin said in an interview with Germany's ARD television before a European Union meeting in Brussels on Monday about the Georgia crisis and relations with Russia.

Putin also justified Russia's actions, saying it had defended the lives of its citizens during the war.

"Such a country will not be in isolation," he said in an excerpts shown on state-run Russian television.

A lawmaker in South Ossetia, meanwhile, said Russia intends to eventually absorb the breakaway province at the center of the war that broke out Aug. 7 when Georgia sent troops into South Ossetia to wrest back control from separatists, prompting Russia to send in hundreds of tanks and troops.

The five days of warfare ruined already frayed Georgia-Russia ties and caused the biggest crisis in Moscow's relations with the West since the 1991 Soviet collapse.

Russia described Tbilisi's military offensive as blind aggression, saying the move deprived Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili of the moral authority to defend his country's territorial integrity.

Georgia and the West in turn criticized Russia for pressing further into Georgia proper and for ignoring a cease-fire brokered by the European Union.

This week, Moscow announced that it will recognize South Ossetia and Abkhazia, another separatist Georgian region with strong ties to Russia, as independent states.

South Ossetian parliamentary speaker Znaur Gassiyev said Russia will absorb South Ossetia within "several years" or earlier. He said that position was "firmly stated" by both the province's leader, Eduard Kokoity, and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in talks in Moscow earlier this week.

In Moscow, a Kremlin spokeswoman said Friday there was "no official information" on the talks.

A Georgian lawmaker said his country will eventually regain control of South Ossetia and another rebel region, Abkhazia.

"The separatist regimes of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and the Russian authorities are cut off from reality," Gigi Tsereteli said in Tbilisi. "The world has already become different and Russia will not long be able to occupy sovereign Georgian territory.

"The regimes of Abkhazia and South Ossetia should think about the fact that if they become part of Russia, they will be assimilated and in this way they will disappear," he added.

Russian soldiers sealed off the tiny province's unofficial, yet vital, trade routes to Georgia proper after the de facto borders were fortified. It is now a place effectively cut off from the outside world-save a three-lane tunnel that burrows through the Caucasus range and into North Ossetia and Russia.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Tuesday that there was no reason South Ossetia could not exist as an independent state, and that recognition was not meant as a prelude to Russian absorption. But he did not expressly rule it out.

"Soon there will be no North or South Ossetia-there will be a united Alania as part of Russia," South Ossetia's deputy parliamentary speaker Tarzan Kokoiti said, using another name for Ossetia.

"We will live in one united Russian state," he said.

Associated Press writers Yuras Karmanau in Tskhinvali, Georgia; Misha Dzhindhzikhashvili and Jim Heintz in Tbilisi, Georgia; Laurent Pirot in Paris; and David Nowak and Maria Danilova in Moscow contributed to this report.

Russia, Iran to discuss Bushehr NPP completion on Sept. 1

2008-08-29T18:53:00.000-07:00

RIA Novosti, 29/08/08

MOSCOW - A delegation from a Russian nuclear power construction company Atomstroyexport will discuss the completion of the Bushehr nuclear power plant in Iran on September 1, a company spokesman said on Friday.

Russia is building the $1 billion Bushehr facility, Iran's first nuclear power plant, in the south of the country under a 1995 contract. The project is also subject to UN monitoring following Iran's refusal to halt its uranium enrichment program and Western suspicions that Tehran is seeking to build nuclear weapons.

Commenting on the upcoming visit, Russian MP Konstantin Beschetnov, member of State Duma committee on economy and business, said it is too early to determine the precise date for the completion of the project, which has suffered numerous delays in the past.

"This project is so unique that it is too early to announce a completion date. As any business project it has experienced a number of complications," he said.

"In effective business any disputable issues are resolved through negotiations. That is why I am certain that the Bushehr construction will be completed successfully," Beschetnov said. "Besides, it is important for Russia's reputation [as a reliable business partner]."

The Bushehr project was originally scheduled for commissioning at the end of 2006, but the date has been postponed several times.

Russia delivered its eighth and final nuclear fuel shipment to Bushehr on January 28, supplying a total of 82 metric tons of low-enriched uranium to the plant's light-water reactor.

Russia's nuclear power chief Sergei Kiriyenko said in early June that preparations for the launch of the Bushehr project, including nuclear fuel operations, would start in the fall. He said with confidence that the safety of nuclear fuel storage was not in doubt.

Russia to spend almost half of its budget on new arms race

2008-08-29T18:52:00.001-07:00

Kommersant, 29/08/08

What will happen to the Russian economy if the country really enters an era of isolation and Cold War? That would first hurt budget policy: The arms race requires very serious money. The consolidated budget currently earmarks 2.5% of GDP, or 8% of total spending, for national defense programs. A return to the Soviet era means that 12-13% of GDP, or almost one half of the budget, will go on war.

Add here spending on our allies i.e., discounts on oil and natural gas prices, and loans. By 1990, the socialist and developing countries owed the U.S.S.R. a total of $123.3 bln it should be noted. The bulk of the debt was subsequently canceled or restructured.

That would entail cuts in other budget expenditure. To maintain pensions and wages at their current levels, the government will have to dip into the $165 bln hedge fund for "future generations" i.e., the reserve fund and the national wealth fund, therefore fueling inflation. True, inflation could be easily chalked up to the war. However, in three to four years non-military spending will have to be slashed all the same, affecting pensioners, first and foremost.

Confrontation with the West also encourages capital flight, which affects capital investment, mostly coming from abroad. If capital inflow falls three to four times, GDP growth can lose 8-9 percentage points i.e., stop growing completely.

In the meantime, the state is attempting to compensate for the capital flight through increased budget spending, which further fuels inflation. At the same time, foreign borrowing is being replaced by domestic borrowing. Because domestic financial resources are limited, interest rates are rising, causing a liquidity problem in the real sector of the economy. It cannot be ruled out that the state will also start actively borrowing money on the market to maintain its military spending levels, which will push interest rates and inflation to new highs.