In this issue:

Russia and European Union Sign Accord

Russia Exercises UN Veto on Cyprus

Russian Foreign Ministry Rebuffs Sharon Threat to Arafat

Glazyev Holds Conference of His Movement

Old U.S. Intelligence Report Provokes Furor in Russia

Uzbekistan Links Ouster of Soros to Georgia Activities

From Volume 3, Issue Number 18 of Electronic Intelligence Weekly, Published May 4, 2004
Russia and the CIS News Digest

Russia and European Union Sign Accord

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and European Union officials, meeting in Luxembourg April 27, as the Russia-EU Permanent Council, signed an accord extending the Russia-EU Partnership and Cooperation Agreement to the 10 new members of the EU, joining on May 1. Most of the new members are major trading partners of Russia, and three of them, the Baltic countries (Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia), are former republics of the Soviet Union. An accompanying joint statement took up disputed issues, including increased trade quotas and anti-dumping exceptions for Russian chemicals and steel industry exports to the new members; duty-free transit between Kaliningrad and the rest of Russia, across Lithuania and Latvia; and the rights of the Russian-speaking population within EU member states.

This last point was phrased vaguely as "commitment to the protection of human rights and the protection of minorities," without mention of Estonia or Latvia, which have been the scene of large demonstrations protesting language discrimination against Russian-speaking schoolchildren. Lavrov suggested that more specific guarantees would be required, in order for the State Duma to ratify the accord.

Irish Foreign Minister Brian Cowen, speaking for the EU, said that the two sides could now "look forward to a productive summit in May, and to bringing EU-Russia partnership to a new level." Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Vladimir Chizhov, who conducted the negotiations, spoke somewhat cautiously, telling NTV's Itogi program on April 27, "We advocate a Europe without dividing lines and the European Union, at least in words, holds the same view.... The EU has worked out a new concept, 'Wider Europe—New Neighborhood,' that covers the countries that will be the closest geographical neighbors of EU—Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, as well as the countries of Northern Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean. We have frankly warned our partners that if it turns out to be a new edition of the concept of creating 'limitrophs,' that is, buffer states, a concept that appeared 100 years ago, nothing will come out of it, as history has proved. Russia does not see itself either as an object or a subject of such policy. Our relations with the EU are based on the principles of strategic partners. Naturally, Russia, being a growing economic power, will compete with the EU."

Russian press coverage of the signing featured headlines like "Europe Backs Down," appearing in Vedomosti and Gazeta. The latter asserted that potential Russian trade losses from the EU's expansion had been cut in half from the often cited estimate of 150-300 million euros annually. Neither officials, nor press took note of the systemic world financial and economic crisis, which threatens the very functioning of the EU as well as the national economies within it.

Russia Exercises UN Veto on Cyprus

For the first time in a decade, Russia has exercised its right of veto as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. On April 22, Russia blocked a resolution on security guarantees for Cyprus, in the event of reunification of its Greek and Turkish zones, which was the subject of an April 24 referendum. Russian diplomats called the resolution an attempt to influence the vote. As it turned out, people in the Turkish part of the island voted in favor of reunification, but a large majority vote against it prevailed in the Greek zone. Thus, internationally recognized Greek Cyprus will enter the EU alone. This is the option preferred by Russian corporations, which have major operations in the Greek part of Cyprus—a big center of offshore, including criminal, financial flows.

Russian Foreign Ministry Rebuffs Sharon Threat to Arafat

Alexander Yakovenko, spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, expressed official concern about "Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's statement that he is free from his former promise not to physically hurt [Palestinian leader Yasser] Arafat," Pravda.ru reported April 24. "We would like to confirm Russia's resolute position on the inadmissibility of such threats against the legal Palestinian leader, acknowledged by the international community," Yakovenko said. "We call on the Israeli leadership to observe international law, including provisions of the 4th Geneva convention, and to resume political dialogue with the Palestinian authorities on the basis of the road map worked out by Russia, the USA, EU and UN."

Glazyev Holds Conference of His Movement

Former Russian Presidential candidate Sergei Glazyev presided April 24, over a conference of the public organization he had established earlier this year, under the name of "Rodina"—meaning "Homeland," the same as the name of the electoral coalition Glazyev led to a strong showing in the December 2003 State Duma elections. Dmitri Rogozin and other members of Rodina in the Duma, however, worked with members of the Kremlin staff to split Rodina over the issue of Glazyev's independent Presidential campaign. He was kicked out of the chairmanship of the Rodina group in the Duma, and Rogozin obtained from the Justice Ministry exclusive rights to use "Rodina" as the name of a public organization.

The April 24 meeting renamed the Glazyev-led movement as the "For a Worthy Life" public organization. It will have a newspaper, and a youth movement.

In an interview with Gazeta.ru on the eve of the conference, Glazyev said he was in no rush to turn "For a Worthy Life" into a political party. He said that party-building is practically futile just now, in the face of the Kremlin's readiness to use the resources of the state against any opposition. At the same time, Glazyev said, he wants this public movement to be open both to Rodina supporters and to others, who might not have joined Rodina. There continues to be speculation that a whole wing of the Communist Party will ally with Glazyev.

Immediately after the brutal suppression of his campaign for the March 14 Presidential election, and his ouster from leadership of the Rodina group in the Duma, Glazyev spoke openly about quitting politics, as such, and perhaps working only in the framework of the Academy of Sciences. But now he has returned to work at the Duma, telling Gazeta.ru he feels both personal and "collective" (with other elected members of Rodina) responsibility to promote legislation for implementing Rodina's program.

Glazyev also voiced his view, that the much-vaunted grip of Russian President Vladimir Putin and his circle on power is not absolute. "I think the system that has come into being," Glazyev said to Gazeta.ru, "will prove non-viable at the first threats to its authority. The authoritarian style of decision-making, and the concentration of power in the hands of one person, leads to bureaucratic sclerosis and the loss of governability.... For all the outward appearance of a strengthening of power, in reality it is decaying. There are no checks or mechanisms of responsibility. Therefore, this system seems to me to be non-viable."

Old U.S. Intelligence Report Provokes Furor in Russia

Tendentious reporting of a four-year-old U.S. National Intelligence Council report, recently declassified and posted on the Central Intelligence Agency web site www.cia.gov, touched off a flood of press articles and comments by political figures in Russia starting April 28. The report, titled "Global Trends 2015: A Dialogue About the Future with Non-Government Experts," was written in December 2000, after 15 months of deliberation. Regarding Russia, the NIC document expands on different aspects of the country's weakness, including the statement: "Between now and 2015, Moscow will be challenged even more than today, to adjust its expectations for world leadership to its dramatically reduced resources. Whether the country can make the transition in adjusting ends to means remains an open and critical question," and, "Many Russian futures are possible, ranging from political resurgence to dissolution."

The mention of "dissolution" was grabbed up by Russian media, who attached specifics to it, which are not in the report. Pravda.ru headlined, "CIA analysts predict: Russia will disintegrate into five-eight states, while the U.S. will prosper." Komsomolskaya Pravda, under the headline, "By 2015, there will be eight states in place of Russia," printed a map of what their borders might be. Radio Ekho Moskvy, Strana.ru, and other media devoted space to debating the "CIA forecast," as if it were a fresh intervention. Speaker of the State Duma Boris Gryzlov was quoted on RBC.ru, "I completely rule out a threat that Russia will disintegrate," and pointed out that Executive Branch power, in particular, has been strengthened in the past four years.

A CIA spokeswoman told Russian journalists that the report does not reflect current evaluations and does not talk about "five to eight states." That there would be such a scenario is quite plausible to Russians, who have heard about Zbigniew Brzezinski's prospectus for splitting Russia into three parts, or the Clifford Gaddy-Fiona Hill thesis in The Siberian Curse, that Russia will lose Siberia and the North, if it does not agree to dismantle its urban settlements there.

Uzbekistan Links Ouster of Soros to Georgia Activities

The government of Uzbekistan, which shut down George Soros's Open Society Institute in Tashkent in April, initiated its new registration requirements for NGOs after the ouster of Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze in a "democracy" operation late last year. Shevardnadze, who has close ties to Uzbekistan President Islam Karimov, had accused Soros of funding the uprising. The Moscow Times reported April 24 that "Western officials" in Tashkent are saying the government "fears that international organizations are training opposition forces to stage a Georgia-style revolution." However, the OSI was the only foundation whose registration was not renewed. The new regulations require foreign organizations to register with the Justice Ministry rather than the Foreign Ministry, and that they must provide detailed financial records and notification of planned seminars.

U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher voiced support for Soros, saying that, "the United States is disappointed that the government of Uzbekistan decided last week not to renew the registration of OSI.... This jeopardizes valuable [U.S.] assistance programs." Boucher said that OSI's projects are "fully consistent" with the 2002 U.S.-Uzbekistan Strategic Partnership Framework, which agreed to "strengthen democratic institutions" in Uzbekistan. Uzbekistan's Foreign Ministry spokesman Ilkhom Zakirov commented, "If Soros was not accredited, that means the foundation's activity in Uzbekistan is undesirable."

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