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The Eurasian Politician - Issue 4 (August 2001)

Eurasian News Report, 5:2/2001

A link recommended: Many internet sources for European and Eurasian affairs have been compiled to the link collection of Finnish Paneuropean Youth organisation:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/penuoret/links

For general news interests interests the most informative and with largest coverage is usually still the Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, http://www.rferl.org/ , where news are in a concise and short form and yet their analytical reliability is high.

FINLAND

The author of the famous Moomin books, Tove Jansson, is dead. This is only mentioned here because besides the great and righteous Finnish poet Eino Leino, Mrs. Jansson was one of the "great" and most influential writers in this journal’s head-editor’s childhood. I always used to consider Tove Jansson as a describer of human goodness, similar to St. Exupéry. The world has lost a hero.

THE NATO ENLARGEMENT

In the Ljubljana Summit, also the NATO enlargement was discussed. In the NATO Summite of Prague next year, the nine official candidate states – Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Albania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia – are expected to apply for full membership in NATO. Besides, Croatia is considered as an unofficial candidate. (RFE, 11th June.)

The eternal Russia optimist Strobe Talbott, who had painfully lot of influence in Clintonian foreign politics, said that he does not consider it probable that the US and Russia would have large disagreement over the NATO enlargement issue. As Russia wants to become part of Europe, Talbott claimed, Moscow will probably understand that in that case it cannot prevent others from becoming parts of Europe. "And this is exactly what the NATO enlargement, to my mind, is about, and should be." (RFE, 11th June.)

The strategic expert Zbigniew Brzezinski said that it is important that everybody would understand on both the sides the nature of NATO and the EU: "None of them goes around inviting new members and recruiting participants. A fact is that those countries who want to join EU or NATO, want to join them. This is a very fundamental difference in relation to the Warsaw Pact." Brzezinski said Russia probably understands that NATO is not an aggressive alliance, but a defensive alliance, even though its original purpose was to defend Europe against the Soviet Union. According to Brzezinski, Russia will more quickly become part of the Euro-Atlantic community if it does not oppose NATO’s second round of enlargement as much as it opposed the first round in 1999. (RFE, 11th June.)

Russia’s Sergei Rogov commented on the NATO enlargement by threatening with a Eurasian anti-Western alliance: "Then all the talks about a Russian-Chinese strategic alliance – where Russia and China would co-operate to oppose the US, Russia thus becoming a kind of China’s little brother – all these talks may become true." (RFE, 11th June.)

GEORGIA

Russia was engaged to remove her troops from two bases in Georgian territory, Vaziani and Gudauta, by the beginning of July. Russia would still possess two more bases, in Batumi and Akhalkalaki. Still days before the deadline Russian politicians were promising to the world that the troops would really be removed. Georgians suspected this, as Russia has shown no concrete aspiration to remove its troops, but quite the contrary, has used all possible arguments against Georgia, agitating instability to the border aras and nearby the areas occupied by Russia. Despite Russia’s vowing and political pressure against Georgia, the Georgian politicians have stayed tough. Foreign Minister Irakli Menagarishvili said: "Georgia’s stand is clear. All foreign troops must leave our territory." (AFP, Reuters, 27th-28th June.)

President Eduard Shevardnadze announced that Georgia still desires membership in NATO, but accepts that this will not happen right so. The French news agency AFP wrote that Georgia is the most Western-oriented of the states of the strategically important Caucasus region … but now Georgia is dependent on US and European support to balance Russian pressure. Shevardnadze commented: "Because of geography, Georgia’s neutrality would be difficult… NATO membership is therefore more probable a goal than neutrality." (AFP, 22nd June.)

Georgia’s army and economy are still in decay due to the war and Russia’s anti-Georgian politics and actions. There is however slow but constant progress taking place: During two weeks in June, Georgia hosted for the first time NATO military practice, which was participated by 4000 soldiers from 10 countries. The theme was interoperability in peacekeeping and humanitarian operations. Another good news for Georgia’s economic independence is that since last year Turkey has replaces Russia as Georgia’s most important trade partner. (AFP, 22nd June.)

Like expected, Russia betrayed her promises on troops removal, but finally left the Vaziani base – entirely vandalised and broken – to Georgian troops. Russia still refuses to remove its troops from Gudauta, and demands unacceptable transition periods for maintaining bases in Batumi and Akhalkalaki. Besides, there seems to be no end to Russian attempts to destabilise Georgia and to throw the country into Russia’s war against Chechens. [See article on Georgia in this issue.]

CHECHNYA

The notorious Chechen criminal chief Arbi Barayev was killed in unclear circumstances. Russian troops took glory for killing him, although the Barayev league has been observed to have worked for years in Russian protections in the Russian-occupied parts of Chechnya, like remarked by numerous reports. Barayev and his gang were connected to the kidnapping and murder of the four British and New Zealander employees of the British Telecom, who tried to install satellite phone system for the Chechen government. This incident took place during the intermediate peace in Chechnya. Already then it was widely believed that Barayev was working for the Russian intelligence, as Russia of course was the one who wanted least the Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov’s government to get installed telephone systems. Barayev was also hated and considered as a professional criminal by most Chechens.

War in Chechnya continues. The Moscow-based military expert Pavel Felgenhauer estimated that Chechnya could in near future witness big combats. (Moscow Times, 28th June.) According to Felgenhauer, the Chechen people is too small to survive prolongued war for longer periods, and on the other hand the Kremlin’s attitude is such that only a military catastrophe could get Russia to remove her troops from the country. So it would be logical for the Chechen fighters to prepare for a big operation.

The Chechens, however, face quite a challenge: a grand offensive should enjoy the support of as large part of the population as possible, and simultaneously all resistance groups and war commanders should unite in one front. According to Felgenhauer, the situation is exactly now ripe for such an uprising: "thousands of Chechens seem prepared to seize weapons and even to desperate attempt to end the brutal occupation". The Resistance is said to have shared flyers around Chechnya in recent days, calling the citiznes to prepare for combat activity. The Ingush President Ruslan Aushev – a general and Afghanistan war veteran – told to the NTV that he, as a professional soldier, believes that the Chechens are preparing, and are capable, for great offensive.

Russia has been waiting for a great counteroffensive of the Chechens for some time already, and the Chechens have been remarked to split up their fighter groups into smaller units. Putin has time after time vowed victory, but these declarations have had very little to do with reality. Removing troops from Chechnya has been a repeated rumour, which has however never been realised. Felgenhauer believes that the Kremlin will reply to the threat of Chechen counteroffensive "in a very Russian way – by sending more troops but lesser quality".

Felgenhauer also tells that a Russian general had told to him one month before the Chechens in 1996 defeated the Russians and liberated Grozny: "We have lost this war. Continuing the fight will only turn population against us and it only contributes to the strength of resistance. We have to remove from Chechnya." The Chechens did not need to defeat Russia totally – in fact the Russians could even then have continued fighting despite increasing mindless casualties. According to Felgenhauer, part of the military leadership wanted to go on fighting also then.

A week ago another "eminent three stars general, professional soldier and not a politician-turned general" again told to Felgenhauer: "We have lost this war and we should leave Chechnya." Among the generals the anti-war sentiments are growing, considering the Chechen War not only immoral, also impossible to win, and destructive to the Russian army, both in physical and in moral sense. However, Felgenhauer notes that only a strong attack from the Chechens’ side would make removing the troops real. Otherwise the political and military leadership would lose their faces.

While both the parties seem to be preparing for great offensive, strategic manoeuvres are being made – the Chechens increase surprise raids, and the Russians increase their mop-up campaigns against civilians while hunting for "suspected militants". The notorious chief of a Chechen gang, Arbi Barayev, who was also strongly disliked and considered as criminal among Chechens, was finally killed – in unclear circumstances as always (Postimees, Moscow Times). However, Russian terror against civilian population is every day contributing more to the anti-Russian devotion of the Chechen people. According to Felgenhauer, Russians are losing their ability to successful war tactics in direct correlation to their "preparing" for a Chechen offensive by terrorising the civil population.

The notorious former Grozny Mayor Bislan Gantemirov has again been rewarded for his obscure merits in Russian service, and for his reign as the deputy puppet regent of occupied Chechnya. Gantemirov got a new post. He was appointed to a super-inspector of the Federation in Putin’s "plenipotentiary" apparatus in Southern Federal District. (NTV Review, 11th June.)

Gantemirov used to be a policeman in Soviet militia, and when the Soviet Union collapsed, he became a "businessman". During the de facto independence of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria (1991-1994), President Dzoxar Dudayev’s period, Gantemirov gathered a hot-headed armed gang of his own, founded an "Islamic Party", and came to quarrel against Dudayev. (See e.g. Carlotta Gall & Thomas de Waal: "Chechnya: Calamity in the Caucasus".) He instead formed an armed opposition, and backed by Russia, he led an armed rebellion against Dudayev. During the first Chechen War and Russian occupation, Moscow appointed Gantemirov again to mayor of Grozny, and he acted in the pro-Russian occupation regime of Doku Zavgayev. (Zavgayev is nowadays the Russian ambassador in Tanzania.)

When Russia removed her troops in 1996, following her defeat to the Chechen freedom fighters, Gantemirov was imprisoned in Moscow for embezzlement of the "reconstruction" money – compensation that Russia had promised to pay to Ichkeria in the peace treaty. The money never reached Chechnya, but Gantemirov was sitting in a Russian prison, until Putin in 1999 released him to lead a new pro-Russian armed bandit gang against the Chechen government. Since Russia captured the ruins of Grozny for second time, Gantemirov has been acting as a key Chechen traitor in Ahmed Kadyrov’s puppet regime.

In late May, the editorial of the Washington Post (26th May) wrote about the war continuing in Chechnya, reminding the Western attention that concentrates in the events in the Balkans and Middle East, that the war continuing in the Caucasus is much more bloody. Alone in the week before, eleven people, three of whom children, were killed in Grozny. Russian helicopters made eleven raids to southern mountain villages. The Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov, "Putin’s spy friend" and probably the second most influential man in Russia, was defending Colonel Yuri Budanov, who is so far among the only Russian officers accused for war crimes, claiming Budanov was a "hero of Russia". Budanov kidnapped, raped and cruelly murdered a 19-year-old Chechen girl Elza Kungayeva.

The war goes on, and so do the cruelties of people like Budanov. As many as 3’000 Russian soldiers along with 30’000 Chechen civilians have been killed. There are battles every day, and the weekly death poll is hundreds. New mass-graves are found all the time, and Putin is not going to remove troops despite regularly repeated unfounded promises. The only thing, in which the Kremlin has succeeded, according to the Washington Post, is silencing the opposition against the war at home as well as abroad through abolition of free media, propaganda, and isolation. Still the West does not seem to consider what happens in Chechnya as an important matter influencing the Western-Russian relations. (Washington Post, 26th May.)

PUTIN AND CHECHNYA’S INDEPENDENCE

Patrick Armstrong made interesting notes on Putin’s statements concerning the question of Chechen independence on Johnson’s Russia List, 27th June.

What catches attention in Armstrong’s remarks is that Putin ties the opposition to Chechen independence to the conception of Islamist threat, that is, a myth created by Russian propaganda. This myth had originally no real basis, and it still has none, where it comes to Aslan Maskhadov’s moderate national-liberationist government. Maskhadov is not an Islamist. Instead, Kadyrov and Gantemirov, whom Russia considers as her allies, are Islamists. So are some other Chechen figures who traditionally form an opposition against Maskhadov. If Russia would really try to halt Islamism, Moscow should give all possible support to Maskhadov’s government instead of those adventurist Islamists whom it has now appointed as puppet regents in occupied Chechnya.

Accused for the bomb blasts of Moscow in 1999, five persons have now been charged into court. All five are inhabitants of Karachay-Cherkessia – not Chechens. (ORT Review, 29th June.) Still Russian propaganda has constructed the whole casus belli upon Russian claims that the Moscow bombs would have been work of Chechens – yet there never was any evidence for these claims. Another Russian argument for the justification of the war has been the so called Dagestan incursion in summer 1999, meaning the intrusion of 1000 volunteers to Dagestan, led by the Islamist adventurer Amir al-Khattab and the Chechen hothead Shamil Basayev but including only a couple of hundred of Chechens while the bulk of the men were Dagestanis. Russia reacted by bombing innocent Dagestani villages which had shifted to use Sharia, claiming they were Wahhabi bases, and soon escalating the war by an invasion to Chechnya. However, the Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov had several times condemned the Dagestan incursion, and the whole provocation’s connections to Russian intelligence and Boris Berezovsky have since been subjects to vivid academic and intelligence debate.

CASPIAN POLITICS

A Caspian Forum was held in Washington on 24th May. (See JRL # 5270, 26th May.) According to the analysts, USA has to change her Caspian policy towards more active, or otherwise her citizens will not be able to enjoy share of the Caspian energy resources. A positive revision in Caucasian and Caspian policies would also "greatly benefit these two Eurasian regions". Western support is the only hope the Caucasian and Caspian states, sandwiched between Russian, Chinese and Iranian crossfire, to be able to independently exploit their vast natural resources.

Senator Chuck Hagel demanded a fundamental change in the policy. He thought most stupid was that supporting Azerbaijan had been totally prohibited, thank to the destructive pressure of the Armenian lobby. According to Hagel, the US should also reconsider the sanctions against Iran, but not unilaterally. It should also demand constructive steps from Iran’s side. Suzanne Maloney, an expert of Iranian and Central Asian affairs, stated an optimistic view on Iran, supporting Mohammed Khatami’s reform policies.

All participants of the Caspian Forum agreed that the economic recovering of the Caucasian and Central Asian countries should be supported. It would be best if these countries themselves could get to exploit the vast oil and gas resources of the Caspian. Presently, Russian colonialist policy, supporting by such renegades as Iran and Armenia, prevents the Caspian states from benefitting from their richness.

S. Frederick Starr, the head of John Hopkins University’s Institute for Central Asia and the Caucasus, stated his support for the importance of the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline. According to Starr, the most important destabilising forces in the region were at the moment the Georgian-Ossetian conflict in the Caucasus, and Afghanistan’s situation in Central Asia. Another alarming factor was also constituted by the Indian-Pakistani relations. The benefits of the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline extended, according to Starr, much wider than the oil incomes of Caucasus and Central Asia, namely to the solution to poverty, which would also provide long-perspective stability in the region. Now especially agrarian poverty is a factor behind all problems.

According to Starr, the US should not be at all worried that these countries could become "centres of Islam", but instead, co-operate with them especially in the context of Islam. "The United States should help the Caucasians and Central Asians to be Muslims, moderate and modern."

A US critic of geopolitical thinking, Stephen Cohen who heads the Brooking Institute, was not optimist about the Baku-Ceyhan project. He considered the region to be too unstable, and was afraid of dangers looming in Afghanistan as well as between India and Pakistan. According to Cohen, it had to be remembered that the West was not the only client for the region’s energy resources, but also Russia, India, Pakistan and China wanted their shares.

RUSSIA WANTS TO EUROPE?

Ian Traynor and Edward Pilkington wrote in The Guardian (26th May) about Russia’s sudden talks about applying for membership in the European Union. The Russian dream about an alliance with Europe has, however, been connected to the suddenly outbursted anti-Americanism prevailing in Russia. (Another possible factor in this turn may be the Eurasianist turn in Russian foreign policy, which is, along with the formation of the Shanghai Bloc, discussed later in this report, as well as in various articles of this issue.) According to Traynor and Pilkington, a good side in the European turn could be that it would make it easier for Moscow to accept the EU east enlargement, for example to the Baltic countries.

Vladimir Ryzhkov told that as much as 40 % of Russian trade is already now to the EU member states. After EU’s east enlargement the number would rise into 70 %. Russia is pleased with the idea that Europe would unite into a bloc symmetric to Russia. "Russia thinks it would be more beneficial for her to make deals with Brussels than to deal separately with Berlin, Paris, and London." This characterises well the Russian superpower mentality and failure to see Europe as anything else but a bloc symmetric to Russia – and thus imperialistic. Russia thinks Berlin, Paris and London must automatically rule over small European states, and that it is automatically necessary to increase centralism into the hands of Brussels – since this is the only development Moscow sees satisfactory for Russia and her empire.

Others believe that in this way Russia is trying to cause friction in Europe to split Western unity. Sergei Karaganov, head of the Moscow European Institute, gave as an explanation to all that "Putin is the most Western-oriented leader Russia has had since Peter the Great and Catherine the Great". If Putin’s "Western orientation" means similar megalomaniac desire to expand the empire towards West as Peter and Catherine wished, this kind of characterisation of Russia’s European policy can hardly raise very calm feelings in Europe, especially on Europe’s eastern margin bordering with Russia.

Deputy chairwoman of the Russian "Union of Rightist Forces" Irina Hakamada presented a nowadays rare opposition voice within the Kremlin, about Russia’s geopolitical orientation. According to her, Russia must change its present "national interest" policy, and achieve an agreement with the rest of the world. Russia must adopt a more constructive attitude towards NATO, and find dialogue with the Alliance. (Interfax, 26th May.)

EURASIAN MOLOTOV AND RIBBENTROP

A philosopher and advisor to Russian "Directorate of Information and Analysis of the Federal Council", Aleksandr Yusupovsky, is worried that Putin is being referred to "in all esteemed Western publications as a KGB colonel and not as the Czar of All Russias". [Could this possibly be resulted by the facts that Putin is a KGB colonel and that Russia has no czar?] According to Yusupovsky, the Ljubljana Summit, however, brought some necessary personal worship to Putin. That was the case at least in Russia, where the state-controlled media was praising Putin’s "triumph", ignoring the fact that Russia did not actually get her will through in any essential issues in Ljubljana. (Rossiyskiye Vesti, 27th June.)

Yevgeny Kuznetsov, representative of the "North-Western Analytical Centre", blamed George W. Bush of similar "anti-Russian" and "pressuring" tactics that Ronald Reagan used to employ. However, Kuznetsov admits that Reagan was successful in his strategy, and got Mikhail Gorbachev to surrender, which Bush, according to Kuznetsov, will not be capable of. (Rossiyskiye Vesti, 27th June.)

Kuznetsov however brings up an important counterweight to Russia’s anti-American rhetorics when comparing the Ljubljana Summit with the Shanghai Summit, where, according to many analysts, a "Eurasian anti-Western bloc" was created. The Shanghai Bloc was created in the leadership of China and Russia, but also includes Uzbekistan, Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Russia’s relationship with China is changing in a relevant way. Even if Russia freely dares to cheek Bush, and at least at home openly appear scornful at the West, and despise the Europeans ("in Europe they don’t even speak about missiles"), Putin seems to appear humble in front of China. Perhaps China speaks the language of might that Moscow understand better than Western "rhetorics, hypocrisy and corruption".

"And now to the possible consequences of the Shanghai and Ljubljana Summits. China, and not Russia, is now the most energetic player changing the world political situation. And Russia will unite with China, but not as a satellite of China. Do you remember how Putin behaved in Shanghai? He was all the time staying a little bit behind President Jiang Zemin, perhaps as if respecting the latter’s age. He approached the others only a bit after Jiang Zemin. I believe that such gestures are being noticed, especially from the Chinese side." (Rossiyskiye Vesti, 27th June.)

In other words, Kuznetsov wants to believe that Putin is not genuinely respecting China, but only using a clever tactic. Similarly, Russians want to see Putin acting cleverly and heinously towards the West. Kuznetsov also wants to believe that Russia is not becoming a satellite of China, but on the other hand, he coveredly admits that China has gained the leading position, should a Eurasian Bloc against the West really be formed.

In world political sense, it is even more interesting in the formation of this new powerful "Evil Empire" in Eurasia, what Kuznetsov remarks next. And this also, more than anything, stresses the Russian present geopolitical thinking, in which the present main enemies are Turkey and Pakistan, the only regional power states of the southern front, who could be capable of containing Russian expansion. Kuznetsov stated: "What I liked especially in the Shanghai Summit was that the forum’s members seemed eager to accept India and Iran [to the Eurasian bloc], while rejecting Pakistan, although the latter had already compiled all the necessary documents." (Rossiyskiye Vesti, 27th June.)

In this issue of The Eurasian Politician, there are several articles dealing with the same characteristique of contemporary Russian geopolitical thinking.

Already in the last issue, we published a couple of essays relevant to this:

http://www.cc.jyu.fi/~aphamala/pe/issue3/czarcom.htm
http://www.cc.jyu.fi/~aphamala/pe/issue3/rus2010.htm

Worth of noticing is also the FSB’s disinformation campaign against Turkey, which has been continuing in Russia throughout the summer. Some of the spring examples are mentioned in the earlier ESN reports in this issue. Russian news agencies have regularly been spreading "news" about Turkish agents, Turkish support to Chechens, "Wahhabis" etc. At the same time disinformation on an "Islamic conspiracy" trying to make a mental association between Chechens, Albanians, Kashmiris, Uighurs and Central Asian oppositions with such generally disliked fundamentalist forces as the Taliban, have been poured to the media notably through the Indian secret service. (See for example Ahmed Rashid’s articles in various journals. See also: Strategic Analysis 24, 3/2000.) This recalls again some Soviet disinformation practises.

Pakistan has for a long time been China’s ally against India, but if the foreseen bloc consisting of Russia, China, India and Iran, accompanied by a couple Central Asian vassal dictatorships, will become true, it can be expected that China will join the Russian, Indian and Iranian efforts to destabilise Pakistan and to prologue the war in Afghanistan by guaranteeing that nobody can consolidate power or stability there, but also that Afghanistan would not be split into Turkestani (Uzbek and Tajik) and Pashtun parts. Such a move from China’s side would logically be presumed to be preceded by something like an Indian concession to China in the disputed areas (Aksay Chin, Assam), or in Nepal. Could the murder of the Nepalese royal family be connected to this?

Kuznetsov goes on with remarks which should make any Western alayst interested in the Turkestani "Heartland" alarmed: "It is very important that China is now strategically reshaping the geopolitical map in collaboration with Russia. And by the way, China is leaving Central Asia to be taken care of by Russia. This is Beijing’s way to say that these are your flock, take care of them, we have our own problems."

Both Kuznetsov and Yusupovsky finally come to the conclusion that Putin’s concessions in Ljubljana were just condescending empty presents to the US, while Americans are now being cheated very well. Iran is a rising ally for Russia – against America, the Russian analysts rejoice. At the same time they remind that Uzbekistan’s joining to the Shanghai Bloc was a "fatal blow" to the "anti-Russian" GUUAM co-operation among CIS states. Actually we predicted already in January that Uzbekistan’s joining Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova in the GUAM co-operation was not a very reliable move. Americans have traditionally overestimated Uzbekistan and Ukraine because of their size and strategic importance. At the same time, at least their practise has sadly underestimated the three other GUAM states and their desire to co-operate with Poland, Romania and Turkey. [See more in the article "Shanghai vs. the West" in this issue.]

Besides, Yusupovsky rejoices of that the communist takeover in Moldova has provided Russia with a new vassal state on the immediate doorsteps of Central Europe, and that "Ukraine and Azerbaijan can no longer act as American vassals". He also remarks that "now the position of Shevardnadze’s Georgia is getting closer to time-over", with a notice that Russia has already managed to shake effectively the power of Kuchma and Aliyev.

Finally, the discussants come to the conclusion that Washington has made a fatal error for Russia’s victory, as it timed the Ljubljana Summit right after the Shanghai Summit, as "now the only hope of the US will be agitating tensions between India and China in Asia". The Russian analysts are also convinced that the G8 Summit in Genua will prove victorious for Putin, as "Europe’s leaders Chirac and Schröder will self-evidently praise Putin", and so Bush cannot put substantial pressure on Russia.

An eminent senior European political figure also remarked to us recently that the same institutions, being led by Moscow strings, have been financing and organising the huge "anti-globalist" activities that have recently terrorised summits in Gothenburg and Genua. Most rioteers are members of hard-line communist groupings and still have strong contacts to the agencies supporting the activities of Western terrorist groups such as ETA and IRA. Europe is facing a serious threat of newly emergent Bolshevism and National-Bolshevism, with their traditional bloodveins in certain conspiratory institutions. "The numerous and violent demonstrations against globalization are directed and financed internationally. Their staff is made up principally by veterans of the ‘Peace Councils’ and have direct contacts with the support groups of IRA and ETA. In the financing of the organizations and their logistic the ‘Banque Commerciale des Pays du Nord’, formerly of major importance in the Stalin-epoch, is playing a significant role."

ON RUSSIAN DEVELOPMENT

The esteemed "Carnegie Endowment for International Peace" organised a conference with the theme "Russia – ten years later" on 7th-9th June in Washington. Lilia Shevchova, researcher of Carnegie Endowment’s Moscow office, listed the peculiarities of the present Russian regime: "the emphasis on personalized networks over institutions, on the executive over the legislative, on rhetoric over ideology, and on subordination and compliance." She also listed the mechanisms the regime uses to preserve itself: "the cooptation of representatives of major groups; the focus on imitation and faade rather than on substance; the drive to be everything for everybody (especially seen in Putin's behavior)."

Mrs. Shevchova however found the regime enough shapeless and flexible to be able to be preserved. She mentioned factors which may at all events put the regime’s preservation into contradiction: "First, all kind of implementation of responsibility and predictability would limit the power of the regime’s leaders; secondly, imitation has its loopholes – it is possible that pretending that there is a vital opposition, a strong parliament or an independent media may lead to the development of these in reality, too. A too powerful regime can only be preserved in an environment where a stagnated stability prevails."

In the same conference another contribution was given by Yevgeny Kiselev, head of the Russian TV-6. He mentioned having received from the Russian prosecutor authorities threats of tax avoiding charges about a week before his travel to the counference: He was told that his future would depend on how TV-6 would report on news like the forthcoming attempt to rise up Kursk or the ongoing Chechen War. Kiselev added that also other NTV journalists had been threatened.

A poll was made in Russia regarding the citizens’ opinions about which countries would be most popular as Russia’s allies. The most popular was communist Belarus, second China, and third Russia’s biggest trade partner Germany. (Strana.ru, 30th June.) This reflects the fact that recently tha Russian media has been emphasising the humbleness of European leaders and especially the German Chancellor Schröder’s conciliation in front of Putin, contrasting the anti-American pathos and demonisation of Bush. Does this reflect a new tendency towards the so called "Northern Treaty" of Russian history, with which Russia aimed at division of Poland and Intermediate Europe between Russia and Prussia during Catherine the Great’s period, and between USSR and Germany during Stalin’s period?

Also Vladimir Socor of the Jamestown Foundation warns of a "New Yalta". Socor also supports rapid membership of the Baltic countries in NATO so that the "Zwischenraum" between Russia and Germany would not again turn into subject of a share of interest spheres, machinised by Russia. (Wall Street Journal Europe, 22nd-23rd June.)

Against this background it is interesting to observe in geopolitical discussion, how categorically the Russian geopolitical writers have, during the past year, attacked against the contruction of a European Security Axis planned by Zbigniew Brzezinksi. Brzezinski would base his axis on Paris, Berlin, Warsaw and Kiev. When this year Putin adopted the anti-American doctrines of the Eurasianists as the basis of Russian geopolitics, the Russian geopoliticians suddenly started to speak about European Security Axis, too. Once again Russia mirrors the West. But in the Russian model, the axis would be between Paris, Berlin and Moscow – of course so that Poland and Ukraine would be overruled, and handed over to Germany (EU) and Russia respectively in a share of interest spheres. (See also: Jean-Christophe Romer: Géopolitique de la Russie, 1999. Dugin was popular in France long before his name and influence to Russian ultra-nationalist imperialism became known elsewhere in the West.)

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