In this issue:

Russian Foreign Minister: No to Unilateral Action Against Iraq

Putin Meets Italian PM Berlusconi

Pakistani President Visits Moscow

Magnitude of Global Financial Meltdown Scrutinized in Russia

Russian Observer Sees Bush Administration Trapped in 'Political Depression'

Russian Experts Wonder About 'External Factor' in Columbia Disaster

Even Liberals Worry About Raw Materials Export-Dependency

From Volume 2, Issue Number 6 of Electronic Intelligence Weekly, Published Feb. 10, 2003
Russia and Central Asia News Digest

Russian Foreign Minister: No to Unilateral Action Against Iraq

At an unusual closed session of the Russian State Duma, held Feb. 7 on the eve of President Vladimir Putin's visit to Germany and France, Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov briefed deputies on the situation around Iraq. Emerging from the meeting, Ivanov declared to the press that unilateral action by the United States against Iraq would "be a blow to the international structures and the authority of the UNO, and would lead to a split in the anti-terror coalition." The economic and political importance of the Iraq question is so great, that Russia must continue to insist on a political resolution, he explained. Justifying the unusual closed briefing to the Duma, Ivanov said that "this moment is an extremely decisive moment in the evolution of the situation around Iraq, and the parliamentarians must be prepared for any possible situation, in order to take correct decisions, in accordance with the interests of the country."

Putin Meets Italian PM Berlusconi

Russian President Vladimir Put met in Moscow Feb. 3 with Silvio Berlusconi, the Prime Minister of Italy. In remarks after their talks, Putin reiterated Russia's position that UN weapons inspections in Iraq should continue. Insisting that a peaceful solution to the Iraq crisis can be found, Putin called for turning "the Iraq issue from political matter into a technical one." The use of military force would be acceptable only "in the most extreme case," he asserted.

Pakistani President Visits Moscow

President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan, during a three-day visit to Moscow, warned Feb. 6 that there would be "fall-out in public sentiment in Pakistan," if the U.S. attacked Iraq. Musharraf made this statement to the press after meetings with Russian President Putin and Foreign Minister Ivan Ivanov. Musharraf said the Pakistani population's sentiments "are against military action generally in Iraq."

Putin and Musharraf have issued a statement calling for the Iraq crisis to be settled through diplomatic means. It said that the two sides "are resolutely opposed to any unilateral use of force or the threat of force, in violation of the UN Charter."

Musharraf also said he doubted what U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell had said regarding Iraq maintaining ties to al-Qaeda via the Iraqi embassy in Islamabad. "Certainly in Pakistan we think no such activity took place," Musharraf said. Musharraf also said that a possible war in Iraq would hurt Pakistan economically due to the effect on world oil prices.

On Pakistan-India relations, Musharraf said that he and Putin had discussed them: "In Pakistan-India relations, obviously, the focal point is Kashmir, but we didn't get involved in the methodology of resolution of the dispute." Putin said that Russian-Pakistani "relations have been developing quite well, particularly within the anti-terror coalition."

Magnitude of Global Financial Meltdown Scrutinized in Russia

Russian newspapers, which so recently wrote about Russia's main goal being to integrate into the global financial system, are devoting ever more attention to its demise. Vedomosti of Feb. 6, for example, showcased a report put out by the Dutch ABN Amro Bank, which estimated the nominal losses in global stockmarkets at $13 trillion. U.S. market losses were $7.6 trillion in that period, while the German DAX fell by 42% in 2002 alone, mostly due to the crash of financial and so-called high-tech stocks. "Today, the aggregate capitalization of all German banks does not exceed $35 billion, less than the capitalization of Barclays Bank," report the authors, who don't expect any recovery for the next 15 years—maybe.

Vedomosti cited the views of certain Russian financial analysts, still trying to put a brave face on matters. In the opinion of Sergei Glazer from Alpha Securities, "There is nothing to worry about, as the huge stock capital was fictitious...." Kirill Tremasov, head of the analytical department of the Bank of Moscow, believes that global finances might rebound to the level of three years ago, if only some "very fashionable product" comes along. Valeri Petrov, an analyst at Rosbank, suggests that a revival of the global financial system could happen in just seven years, but only if China, rather than the United States, becomes its locomotive.

Russian Observer Sees Bush Administration Trapped in 'Political Depression'

Alexander Nagorny, deputy editor of the Russian weekly Zavtra, wrote in a Feb. 7 commentary that the Bush Administration has trapped itself in a deepening "political depression," as the United States heads for "total economic collapse." Echoing some elements of Lyndon LaRouche's Jan. 28 webcast, Nagorny emphasized the sheer insanity of Bush's State of the Union address, contrasting the reality of a nation in the process of rapidly "losing its international authority and sliding ever deeper into an economic and financial crisis, leading toward total collapse," with the fantasy-world of Bush's "Hollywood blockbuster presentation of a super-empire at the moment of triumph." But the image of the Space Shuttle Columbia breaking up on reentry, is closer to the reality, says Nagorny, "in which every move [by Bush] is only leading to a further worsening of America's situation."

Russian Experts Wonder About 'External Factor' in Columbia Disaster

The widely read Russian news service RBC posted an analytical commentary on Feb. 4 which raised the question, "Could the Shuttle have been shot down?" RBC noted that NASA has categorically rejected rumors and speculation about foul play or a role of "military experiments in orbit." Furthermore, "according to NASA, any deliberate actions against the Shuttle from the outside would be impossible." But, RBC continues, "one should not completely exclude this possibility."

While the main announced hypotheses were failure of a computer or some other onboard component, a failure in the heat shield, or a collision with space junk, RBC cited unnamed Russian specialists who reviewed photos of the breakup of and said "they could not help feeling that some kind of 'external action' occurred. They note evidence of a powerful explosion, out of proportion to the small amount of fuel remaining on the Shuttle for steering purposes during the reentry maneuvers.

"'In theory, the Shuttle or any similar object could be destroyed in two ways—by a rocket or using powerful radiation,' RBC was told by an expert involved in the military use of space. 'To hit an object with trajectory parameters like those of the Shuttle (speed 22000 kilometers per hour) [or roughly 12,500 mph, faster than a speeding bullet—EIW] is practically impossible, but one should never absolutely exclude such a possibility.... If we speculate a bit more, we can also find another way to destroy the Shuttle. There exist so-called phased array antennas, that are able to strongly ionize the upper layers of the atmosphere. Such arrays are able to generate high powers of radiation even at very large distances. According to our information, such systems are already functioning in Alaska.

"During the space race in the 1960s and the ensuing 'star wars' in the USA and Soviet Union," RBC continued, "many types of space weapons were developed, from killer satellites all the way to lasers. Most of these projects were stopped due to the high cost of their realization. As one of the specialists working in the Soviet space program informed RBC, in the 1980s the Soviet Union developed a special 'space punch' for the purposes of destroying American Space Shuttles in the upper layers of the atmosphere. And this weapon was successfully tested—on the Earth, to be precise." (The above evidently refers, at least in part, to the phased-array weapon system of the sort Russia later proposed to develop together with the USA, as publicized in a signal article by Leonid Fituni in Izvestia in 1993.)

Another Russian expert quoted by RBC, Alexander Khrapchichin, said, "I do not exclude the possibility, that some explosive device was placed on the Shuttle. The American security services are weaker than the Russian ones. True, this might have changed as a result of the wave of anti-terror hysteria there" (i.e., in the United States).

RBC concluded with this thought: "Strange also is the moment of the space accident itself—exactly on the eve of the projected war on Iraq, which seemed already to be inevitable. The authors of a new James Bond film scenario might very well propose that perhaps, the catastrophe was a kind of warning to America, about to launch a conflict in the Middle East. If the 'superweapon' could already destroy a Shuttle travelling at such a speed, then a fixed American city would be a much easier target. To verify this curious theory would be simple, for the lovers of 'conspiracy theories'—America should seriously change its policy with respect to Iraq."

Even Liberals Worry About Raw Materials Export-Dependency

Addressing the first Russian government Cabinet session of 2003, on Jan. 28, Minister for Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref said that the government is committed to moving the Russian economy away from its dependence on the export of raw materials. According to Russian wires, Gref said that the economy's orientation in that direction was causing "serious harm." He suggested fixes, in the domain of tax and tariff incentives for the export of manufactured products, but there was no hint of measures for a fundamental shift of investment flows within the Russian economy.

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