In this issue:

Putin: Main Task Is To End Poverty

Putin Rejects Bush Threats to Arafat

Israeli Ultra-Rightist in Moscow Pushing Elimination of Arafat

Russian Scientists Protest Below-Survival Funding

Once Again, What Sank the Kursk?

From the Vol.1,No.17 issue of Electronic Intelligence Weekly
Russia and Eastern Europe News Digest

Putin: Main Task Is To End Poverty

At his June 24 press conference, Russian President Vladimir Putin defined "our principal task" as being "to get the country out of poverty." This statement came in reply to a question about the potential for "extremist" movements to arise in Russia. Putin countered, "I do not see such a threat. In my opinion, broadly speaking, such a threat develops, or can develop, where and when the leadership of a particular country does not pay attention to the basic needs of the population."

Questions about economic strains on the Russian population and the country's many impoverished regions, were prominent throughout the press conference. The President strongly criticized some regional leaders: "What have they been doing over the previous ten years? They would not pay wages for years and pensions for months, they did not pay social benefits at all, they accumulated billions in debts on benefits for children, and so on. And they are still unable to settle the debts. What operational decision can be taken today, other than to redistribute resources? In what way? — Through the Federal center." Putin said he saw no other way to balance the needs of "donor regions" and "subsidized regions," than through the orchestration of Federal budget spending. The Russian government, and Putin's staff economics advisers, have been hotly debating blanket spending cuts, as they attempt to maintain a budget surplus. Putin confirmed, however, that international debt service remains sacrosanct, and will be at the level of $17 billion next year.

Putin acknowledged that he wants to tread ever so carefully in the matter of utilities and housing reform, which is slated to involve substantial domestic rates hikes. This reform "is developing quite slowly," he said, and "it is clear why. It is because this is a very sensitive question for the population."

Putin Rejects Bush Threats to Arafat

On June 24, the same day as George W. Bush's speech on the Middle East, Russian President Vladimir Putin said it would be "dangerous and wrong" to remove Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Speaking at his second-ever full-scale press conference for Russian media, Putin called on the Palestinian Authority to do everything possible to stop terrorism, but added that the ouster of Arafat would cause dangerous radicalization.

The Russian President stated, "We are very much concerned about what is happening in the Middle East and not only because the Middle East region is not far from our borders, but also because the Middle East is one of those world centers whose developments affect the situation in the more remote regions of the world.... We believe that solving all the disputes and problems, and untying the Middle Eastern knot, must be based on the resolutions adopted by the United Nations....

"At the same time, we of course condemn any manifestations of terrorism, and we believe that the Palestinian leadership should do everything they can to ensure an end to the terrorist activity in the region. An unconditional end.

"I would make only one remark in this connection, namely, that when I spoke about the Palestinian leadership, I had in mind, first and foremost, Chairman Arafat. And I must note in this connection that it would be dangerous and erroneous to eliminate him from the political stage, because in the view of the Russian leadership this would only radicalize the Palestinian movement."

On Thursday, June 27, Associated Press reported that President Putin's foreign policy adviser, Sergei Prikhodko, reiterated the Russian view, saying "We must work with the leadership in place, including Arafat."

Israeli Ultra-Rightist in Moscow Pushing Elimination of Arafat

However, on June 24, the same day that President Putin defended Arafat's continuing as Palestinian leader, the ultra-rightwing, racist Israeli faction was represented in Moscow in the person of Avigdor Lieberman, head of the Israel Beiteinu Party, who was advancing the plan to annihilate Arafat.

In an interview to Izvestia, Lieberman explained that he and his faction (allegedly) broke away from the Likud Party because Likud leader and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon conceded to the plans of establishing a Palestinian state. Contradicting himself, he immediately declared that Likud's majority is opposed to any plan of Palestinian statehood. "Therefore, Sharon will not be able to implement such a plan in the near term."

His main message—also delivered in private meetings to parties unknown—was that Arafat has to be eliminated. Only after Arafat is gone, can the Palestinians be managed, and Lieberman proposed that instead of the Oslo "land for peace" approach, there would be—after Arafat—"five enclaves" that would be completely unconnected, and under Israeli rule. These would be four Muslim enclaves "in Gaza, Judea, Samaria, and Jericho," and a Christian enclave around Bethlehem. "Under Arafat's power, Christian Arabs undergo heavy pressure. Christian girls are raped by Islamic radicals," Lieberman declared.

Lieberman, noted Izvestia, owes his political career to Israel's former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who also recently visited Moscow, and who led the ruling Likud Party into a vote—supposedly against Sharon's wishes—declaring that there will never be a Palestinian state next to Israel.

Russian Scientists Protest Below-Survival Funding

A march on Moscow by Russian scientists began the week of June 24, according to the BBC and other media. The BBC's Nikolai Gorshkov reported that "the desperate state of affairs in Russian science," was the theme of the 62-mile march on foot to the capital, from a research center 62 miles to the south of Moscow. The plan was to cover the distance in three days, and hold a rally at the gates of the Russian government on June 27. According to Gorshkov, they will "urge the government to reverse the current downward trend and increase the funding for science."

Russian scientists say that at least half a million scientists have left Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union, a "massive brain drain." President Putin has made rejuvenating Russia's scientific establishment a priority, but the scientists accuse the government of reneging on its pledge to keep up funding. According to Gorshkov, "Russia's budgetary spending on science has decreased twofold in the past six years, and is now less than a budget of a single major Western university, the organizers of the scientists' protest say."

Once Again, What Sank the Kursk?

Russian statements concerning the cause of the sinking of the nuclear submarine Kursk in August 2000, took a new turn on June 21, when the head of the official investigative commission, Science Minister Ilya Klebanov, announced that the hypothesis of a collision with a foreign—American or British—submarine, had finally been dropped from the commission's list of three alternative explanations for the tragedy.

Klebanov used curiously evasive language: "We have accepted what is currently the only legitimate explanation: an explosion of a 650-mm torpedo," which was carried in the nose section of the Kursk. But the fact that such an explosion occurred, has never been in serious doubt. The crucial question, to which Klebanov once again failed to give a decisive answer, was: What caused the torpedo to explode?

Furthermore, Klebanov unexpectedly announced the termination of ongoing operations in the Barents Sea, to raise large fragments of the exploded forward section of the Kursk from the sea bottom—fragments that might provide crucial evidence of what actually occurred. So far, only a few fragments have been recovered; the rest are to be destroyed on the ocean floor by explosive charges, supposedly to eliminate any danger to fishing in the Barents Sea.

Readers of Executive Intelligence Review have been provided with details from high-level Russian military officials which repeatedly referred to an entire array of evidence pointing to a collision with a foreign submarine, as having been the trigger for an explosion.

The circumstances behind the June 21 announcement point strongly to a move by Klebanov and others in the Russian government, to definitively bury any "U.S. connection" in the sinking of the Kursk, in an effort to propitiate the Bush Administration. The practice of sacrificing truth for the sake of favors from Washington, threatens to bring far greater disasters to Russia, than the loss of a nuclear submarine.

All rights reserved © 2002 EIRNS