In this issue:

Leonov: Rodina Campaigning To Shift Russia's Economic Policy

Ten Candidates in Russian Presidential Race

Putin Hails Special Operation in Dagestan

NGO-backed Coupist Saakashvili Takes Georgian Presidency

Soros Group Active in Destabilization of Russia, CIS Countries

RFE/RL Focus on Projected U.S.-Russian Clashes in CIS

From Volume 3, Issue Number 2 of Electronic Intelligence Weekly, Published Jan. 13, 2004
Russia and the CIS News Digest

Leonov: Rodina Campaigning To Shift Russia's Economic Policy

Amid continuing high publicity for the Rodina (Homeland) electoral bloc, in connection with its leader Sergei Glazyev and leading member Victor Gerashchenko both filing to run for President of Russia, one widely reported item was a Jan. 5 NewsInfo.ru interview with leading Rodina figure Gen. (ret.) Nikolai Leonov, formerly deputy chief of the First Main Directorate (foreign intelligence) of the Soviet KGB. He emphasized that Rodina is committed to shifting the economic policy of Russia, from within the Duma and also through the Presidency, including while Vladimir Putin is President.

Asked to compare the Rodina candidacies with previous campaigns of the "left-patriotic camp" or the Communist Party to "overthrow the 'anti-people regime,'" Leonov replied, "We do not use the word 'regime.' In our view, Russia does not have some 'regime' that would need to be fought. What there is in Russia, is state power. It must be respected, strengthened, and helped to improve." But if Glazyev and Gerashchenko are not running to "torpedo Putin," NewsInfo.ru asked, "whom will they criticize?" Leonov: "Those who hinder the President's carrying out a policy in the people's interest.... Our Presidential candidates will speak against the forces that control the country's finances and media, and use them to distort the President's policy. Our main enemy is the handful of oligarchs, who are robbing the Russian people.... Ultimately, the President himself is also combatting the oligarchs.... So one cannot equate the President and the Government. While Vladimir Putin is strictly against the oligarchs, our government has repeatedly supported them." (See EIW #52 Dec. 30, 2003 for in-depth coverage of the Russian elections.)

Ten Candidates in Russian Presidential Race

By the Jan. 6 deadline, four party-nominated candidates and six individuals had filed to run for President of Russia. The individuals are President Vladimir Putin, Rodina leader Sergei Glazyev, neo-liberal Union of Right Forces (SPS) figure Irina Khakamada, former Speaker of the Duma Ivan Rybkin, and two lesser-known men. Except Putin, each must present 2 million valid petition signatures before Jan. 28, in order to stay in the race. The nominees of the Communist Party and Vladimir Zhirinovsky's Liberal-Democratic Party of Russia do not have to petition, having been nominated by parties elected to the Duma.

On Jan. 5, Central Electoral Commission head Alexander Veshnyakov announced that the other candidate from Rodina, Victor Gerashchenko, would also have to petition, even though Rodina is in the Duma, because he was formally nominated by the Party of Russia's Regions, rather than by Rodina itself (which would have required several other conventions to be held). Rodina leader Sergei Glazyev told press that Gerashchenko would not petition and shouldn't have to, insofar as Russia's Regions is a major constituent of Rodina. (Rodina itself, is not a party, but an electoral bloc, and therefore is required to submit petitions, even though it is in the Duma.) Veshnyakov himself stated that nobody has ever successfully gathered 2 million valid petition signatures in post-Soviet Russia.

Putin Hails Special Operation in Dagestan

Russian President Vladimir Putin held a ceremony at the Kremlin Jan. 5 to present awards to members of a military intelligence (GRU) special forces unit that smashed a group of Chechen guerrillas, who infiltrated Dagestan on Dec. 15. Fierce fighting was reported at the time, ending with many casualties among the guerrillas. Putin made a special point about the successful coordinated operation of Russian armed forces, special services and law enforcement, as contributing to the fight against international terrorism, and his remarks were featured on national TV. RIA-Novosti quoted an unnamed GRU officer, who said that "a major group of rebels led by a serious field commander ceased to exist," as a result of the operation. Russian media is rife with speculation that the killed field commander might have been the Chechen Ruslan Gelayev or the Arab-origin Abu al-Walid, but neither version has been confirmed. The anonymous GRU man said more information would be forthcoming.

NGO-backed Coupist Saakashvili Takes Georgian Presidency

Hours after polls closed in the Georgian Presidential election, held Jan. 4, an NGO called Global Strategy Group published the results of exit polls done "with assistance from Georgian activists." According to its calculations, 86% of Georgian voters took part in the elections and 85.8% of them chose Michael Saakashvili, leader of the National Movement and graduate of Columbia University Law School in New York. None of the other candidates garnered more than 2%. Thus, Saakashvili is set to assume the Presidency of Georgia, just one month after leading the overthrow of President Eduard Shevardnadze by storming a session of Parliament and shouting him down.

The turnout and vote figures had an "Albanian-style" unanimity to them, many observed, which—had it been announced for elections in, say, Belarus—would have occasioned furious denunciations in the international media, for vote fraud achieved by totalitarian methods of managing the electoral process.

Inside Georgia, political figures opposed to Saakashvili's George Soros-financed sweep to power, dispute the turnout figures. During voting on Jan. 4, Central Electoral Commission (CEC) head Zurab Chiaberashvili had said that the turnout was so low, that the 50% required minimum might not be reached. (Aslan Abashidze, Governor of the Ajaria region, cancelled his earlier call to boycott the elections, but the turnout may have been as low as 24%, according to Georgian press monitored by RFE/RL Newsline.) After Saakashvili declared that the turnout was high, Chiaberashvili announced that the 50% level had been reached after all; later the CEC announced it was 83% nationwide. Akaki Asatiani, head of the Union of Traditionalists, said Jan. 6 that other exit polls showed it was less than 50%. Shalva Natelashvili, head of the Labor Party, announced he will challenge the election's validity by appealing to an international court.

Soros Group Active in Destabilization of Russia, CIS Countries

A Dec. 31 report by the Moscow correspondent of the Indian daily The Hindu shed light once again on the role of George Soros's Open Society Foundation and related organizations, not only in promoting the recent "democratic" coup d'etat in Georgia, but also in fanning unrest in Moldova (where Russia maintains military bases in the Transdniestr area), Ukraine, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. The report said that Russian foreign intelligence has traced the activation of students in these developments, back to OTPOR, a group of Serbian students that played a catalytic role in the 2000 "democratic" coup in Belgrade. Many students in other countries of the East have received training by OTPOR, according to Russian investigations.

Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, in a lengthy Jan. 4 article, also focussed on the role of Serbia's OTPOR (Resistance) in Georgia and other countries. It mentioned that among the most important financial sources for OTPOR are the United States Institute of Peace and the National Endowment for Democracy—the original "Project Democracy." Both are Congressionally chartered "quangos" ("quasi-autonomous non-governmental organizations") and receive government funding.

The Hindu pointed to the activity of Soros-linked organizations also in Central Asia, especially Kazakstan, Tajikistan (where a manual on "how to build a velvet revolution," modelled on the recent coup in Georgia, is being circulated), and Turkmenistan.

RFE/RL Focus on Projected U.S.-Russian Clashes in CIS

RFE/RL Newsline, a U.S. Government-funded project with its roots in "Radio Free Europe," is playing up the prospect of heightened U.S.-Russian tensions in Eurasia, over the extent of both Russian influence and U.S. penetration in the former Soviet republics. RFE/RL Newsline highlighted these analysts' commentaries:

Sergei Markov, director of the Institute for Political Research, said in a Dec. 30 interview that Russia, in asserting its influence within the CIS, will collide with the United States and the European Union. This has already happened in Georgia and Moldova, Markov said, and could erupt in Ukraine and Kazakstan.

Fyodor Lyukanov, editor of Russia in Global Policy, opined to a RosBalt interviewer on Dec. 25, that Russian-EU cooperation will be challenged when 10 new members join the EU in May, because most of them are former Soviet republics or Comecon countries, whose trading preference for Russia will be undercut by their EU membership.

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