In this issue:

Russian General Staff Officer Warns vs. U.S. Mini-Nukes

Putin on Georgia Crisis: Warns Against 'Pressure' for Regime Change

Shevardnadze: U.S. Engineered His Downfall

Ukrainian Opposition Figures Cite Georgia Model

Caucasus Spiritual Leaders Meet Russian Church Patriarch

From Volume 2, Issue Number 48 of Electronic Intelligence Weekly, Published Dec. 2, 2003

Russia and the CIS

Russian General Staff Officer Warns vs. U.S. Mini-Nukes

General-Colonel Yuri Baluyevsky, the First Deputy Chief of Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, voiced strong concern over U.S. plans to develop low-yield nuclear weapons, saying Moscow might be forced to review its own nuclear doctrine. General Baluyevsky told reporters on Nov. 26 that the Pentagon's plans to develop such weapons would be destabilizing.

A defense bill signed by President George W. Bush two days earlier lifted a decade-old ban on mini-nuke research and authorized $15 million for continued research into nuclear weapons capable of destroying underground bunkers. "That causes us concern," Baluyevsky said. "Should we somehow review our nuclear strategy? Yes, I believe we should."

Putin on Georgia Crisis: Warns Against 'Pressure' for Regime Change

Opening a Cabinet meeting Nov. 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke out on several aspects of the political crisis in Georgia and the resignation of President Eduard Shevardnadze the previous day. Putin pointed to the economic crisis (which resulted from Georgia's toeing the IMF line, and allowing the privatization and shutdown of core industries, as well as from the rampages of criminal gangs) as the cause of the political one. Also of note, are his reference to Georgia's geopolitical situation (having been cultivated by circles in the U.S., as an asset on Russia's southern flank), and his warning against people who resort to various methods of pressure to achieve such regime changes. Here are Putin's words about the events in Georgia:

"We see nothing unexpected in these events. The change of regime in the republic is the logical result of a series of foreign and domestic policy and state economic policy mistakes made by the former authorities.

"The country's foreign policy failed to take into account the deep cultural and historical roots of the Georgian people and the current geopolitical situation. Domestic policy, instead of strengthening democratic institutions and the foundations of Georgian statehood, gave us a display of futile political lobbying by various political forces in the country, and economic policy was reduced to no more than a battle for humiliating handouts from abroad. Georgia's foreign debt rose to $2 billion, approximately 60% of the country's GDP and the country was essentially in a state of default.

"Over recent years around 1 million people have left Georgia, many of them settling in Russia. Georgian specialists themselves estimate that the sum total of currency inflow from Russia, both official and shadow flows, comes to around $2 billion a year—far more than the total foreign aid the country receives. We, of course, are aware here of the difficult situation the Georgian population is in and of the low incomes there. I think the problem is not just that people are living badly, but they can no longer even see any light at end of this long tunnel. Corruption has taken more and more of a stranglehold on the country's political and economic life.

"Relations between Georgia and Russia have not always been simple over recent years. We have each had our share of complaints about the other and Russia certainly had plenty of questions for the former Georgian authorities. But what is very clear, and what I want to emphasize, is that Eduard Amvrosievich Shevardnadze was never a dictator. This is why we feel a legitimate concern at the way pressure was used to help bring about this changeover. Those who organize such actions and those who encourage them take upon themselves an enormous responsibility toward their people, in this case the Georgian people, with whom Russia has a tradition of centuries-old fraternal relations. We hope that in the future, legitimately elected authorities in Georgia will do all within their power to restore these traditions of friendship between our countries. This can be the only objective of Russia's policy towards Georgia."

Shevardnadze: U.S. Engineered His Downfall

In a Nov. 27 interview to the London Daily Telegraph, former Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze directly accused the United States, particularly Ambassador Richard Miles, of having organized his downfall. Shevardnadze expressed a sense of deep betrayal, by Miles, as well as the opposition figures backed by American financing. He said he couldn't understand why they abandoned him, after he had backed U.S. foreign policy, including on Iraq. "When they needed my support on Iraq, I gave it," he said. "What happened here, this I cannot explain."

Regarding Miles, he said: "In relation to the Ambassador, I have serious ... suspicions that this situation that happened in Tbilisi is an exact repetition of the events in Yugoslavia. Someone had a plan." This refers to the fact that Miles had been in Belgrade at the time of the overthrow of Milosevic. Opposition leader Mikhail Saakashvili has already said that he went to Belgrade earlier this year to study the events there three years ago and wanted to repeat them in Georgia.

Shevardnadze criticized the storming of the Parliament as wrong. He said he decided to resign, to avoid bloodshed. "Everything was ready—the army, the internal troops, the police—but I looked at the huge crowd," he said. "I saw in their faces it would be impossible to calm them, that they were not afraid of anything, and I knew there would be bloodshed. That morning I told my colleagues the only way out was my resignation."

Shevardnadze recalled his role as Soviet Foreign Minister, in rescuing the world from the Cold War. "If the Cold War had not stopped there would have been a Third World War," he said. "We rescued the world. I'm not saying that I did it alone but I played one of the most important roles. There were 40,000 Soviet tanks in Europe and hundreds of thousands of guns. Within 24 hours they could have been on the Atlantic coast [of France] but we didn't do that, even when the hotheads wanted to use force in Berlin and crush Solidarity in Poland," he said.

Ukrainian Opposition Figures Cite Georgia Model

Ukrainian opposition leaders Victor Yushchenko, Alexander Moroz, and Pyotr Symonenko have issued a warning to President Kuchma, European press reported Nov. 26. He was told to heed the lessons of Georgia. Moroz said he did not exclude that a similar scenario could unfold in Ukraine during next year's Presidential elections. They say Kuchma cannot qualify as a candidate again.

Caucasus Spiritual Leaders Meet Russian Church Patriarch

Armenian Catholicos Garegin II, Patriarch-Catholicos of Georgia Ilya II, and spiritual leader of the Muslims of the Caucasus Sheikh-ul-islam Allahshukur Pasha-Zade held talks in Moscow with Patriarch Aleksi II of the Russian Orthodox Church, to seek ways of stabilizing the Caucasus, especially Georgia. A document was to be issued, Itar-TASS reported on Nov. 26.

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