DOWNSIDE LEGACY AT TWO DEGREES OF PRESIDENT CLINTON
SECTION: RUSSIA
SUBSECTION: PROLIFERATION
Revised 8/9/99
Abbreviations:
Iran-Iraq Arms Nonproliferation Act (IIANA)
Arms Export Control Act (AECA)
Export Administration Act (EAR)
Biological Weapons Convention (BWC)
Foreign Assistance Act (FAA)
Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Act (NPPA)
Director of Central Intelligence (DCI)
Early in the 1990s, Russians sold drawings of a sarin plant manufacturing procedures and toxic agents to a Japanese terrorist group (violated AECA, EAR - no publicly known sanctions.)
In 1991, Russian entities transferred to China 3 RD-120 rocket engines and electronic equipment to improve the accuracy of ballistic missiles (violated MTCR, AECA, EAR - no sanctions.)
From 1991 and 1995, Russian entities transferred cryogenic liquid oxygen hydrorocket engines and technology to India (violated MTCR, AECA, EAR - sanctions were imposed against Russia and India.)
From 1992 to 1995, Russian transfered to Brazil carbon fiber technology for rocket motor cases for a space launch program (violated MTCR, AECA, EAR - secret sanctions imposed then waived.)
From 1992 to 1996, Russian armed forces delivered 24 Scud-B missiles and 8 launchers to Armenia (violated MTCR, AECA, EAR - no sanction.)
June of 1993, Russian entities involved in missile technology transfers to India (violated MTCR, AECA, EAR - sanction imposed then waived.)
1995 to the present, construction of a 1,000 megawatt nuclear reactor at Bushehr in Iran (violated IIANA, Foreign Operations Appropriations Act, NPPA, FAA - administration refused to renew some civilian nuclear cooperation agreements, waived sanctions on aid.)
August of 1995, Russian assistance to Iran to develop biological weapons (violated BWC, AECA, EAR, the IIANA, FAA - no known sanctions. )
November 1995, Russian citizens transferred to unnamed country technology for making chemical weapons, (violated AECA, EAR - sanctions imposed on a Russian citizen.)
December of 1995, Russian gyroscopes from submarine launched ballistic missiles smuggled to Iraq through middlemen - caught red-handed, (violated United Nations sanctions, MTCR, AECA, EAR, IIANA, FAA - no sanctions.)
120 sets of guidance systems went to Iraq from Russia three different times
July-December 1996. DCI reports key supplies for technology for large nuclear projects in Iran. (violated NPT, IIANA, NPPA, Export-Import Bank Act, EAR - no sanctions.
July and December of 1996, same.
DCI reports considerable chemical weapons-related transfers for production equipment and technology to Iran (violated IIANA, AECA, EAR - no sanctions.)
January of 1997, dual use biological items to Iran (violated BWC, IIANA, AECA, EAR - no sanctions).
1997, chemical precursors, production equipment, and production technology for Iran's chemical weapons program including a plant for making glass-lined equipment (violated IIANA, AECA, EAR - no sanctions.
In September of 96, in a letter to Hazel O'Leary, Russia's Nuclear Energy Minister Viktor Mikhaylov explained that he wanted the high performance computer to "guarantee the reliability of....Russia's nuclear stockpile."
Late 1996 - MINATOM officials said that Silicon Graphics Inc. sold four computers to Chelyabinsk-70 a Russian weapons facility for $650,000 each.
Silicon Graphics was under investigation in 1997 for selling to Russia a high-powered unit that ended up in the Chelyabinsk-70 nuclear weapons laboratory.
May 1997 - US engineers convince Energomash (Russia) about cause for heavy booster failure following a launch of a military spy satellite from Baikonur Cosmodrome.
June 1998 - The new Russian SS-X-27 missile is being deployed with an advanced 550 kiloton nuclear warhead made by the Arzamas-16 nuclear design bureau, using an advanced IBM super-computer purchased in 1996 from Europe for $7 million. The Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology is providing the SS-27 design to China who intends to produce the TOPOL-M missile under the designation "Dong Feng" (East Wind) DF-41.
June 23, 1998 - President Clinton vetoed a bill to impose sanctions on Russia for selling missile technology to Iran, even though the Pentagon said the missile trade is continuing.
Reuters 7/31/98 "An International Business Machines Corp. subsidiary pleaded guilty Friday to unlawfully exporting 17 sophisticated computers to a top-secret Russian nuclear weapons laboratory, U.S. government officials said. They said the Russian subsidiary, IBM East Europe/Asia Ltd., was sentenced to pay $8.5 million, the maximum fine authorized for violations of U.S. export control laws. The officials said the guilty plea was entered at a court hearing before Chief U.S. District Judge Norma Holloway Johnson. One official said the transactions constituted "serious violations of export control laws designed to protect the national security of the United States.''They said the guilty plea stemmed from a 17-count criminal information charging the subsidiary with violating the law in connection with the computer sales in late 1996 and early 1997 to the Russian laboratory, called Arzamas-16. .. In September 1996, IBM sold 16 computers, two fiber channel switches and related hardware and software to the Russian affiliate, knowing the computers were destined for the laboratory, they said. The computers were shipped from an IBM facility in Europe to a freight forwarder in The Netherlands and then transported by truck to the laboratory in October 1996, the officials said. No licenses were sought from the Commerce Department.In mid-October of 1996, the Commerce Department told IBM its original request would be denied, the officials said. In November, an employee of the IBM subsidiary took part in installing the computers. In November of 1996, the Russian affiliate ordered another computer and hardware and software for the laboratory, which was shipped in February 1997 the same way as the other computers."
Times of London 8/4/98 Michael Evans "IRAQ is suspected of forging a deal with a Russian company to buy key guidance equipment for long-range ballistic missiles. The purchase would be in breach of a multinational agreement signed by Moscow to stop the transfer of sensitive military technology. Despite Western pressure on Russia to abide by the terms of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), intelligence services have evidence that a Russian company has agreed to sell Baghdad 120 accelerometers, the principal components of advanced guidance and control systems. A Foreign Office official in London confirmed that accelerometers were included in a list of banned equipment detailed in the overall MTCR agreement. "
8/5/98 Defense Daily Sheila Foote "A defector from an elite military intelligence unit of the former Soviet Union told Congress yesterday that it is possible that Russia has smuggled nuclear suitcase bombs into the U.S. to use in the event of war. Stanislav Lunev, a former colonel who defected in early 1992 from the GRU, or Russian Intelligence Agency, testified before the House National Security Committee (HNSC). He is the highest ranking defector ever from the GRU. Lunev is the author of a new book, Through the Eyes of the Enemy, that states that the Russian military and intelligence organizations still regard the U.S. as a threat and continue to plan for World War III scenarios in which Russia and the U.S. oppose each other. Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.), who presided over the hearing, called for the administration to do more to ensure the U.S. is prepared for this threat from Russia. Specifically, Weldon, who is the chairman of the HNSC's research and development panel, promoted the idea of spending more money on a Wide Area Tracking System intended to detect smuggled nuclear devices. The technology is under development at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory. "Given the shocking possibility that Russian nuclear suitcase bombs may even now be smuggled into the United States, I hope the Clinton administration reverses its neglect of the experimental WATS" system, Weldon said. Because Lunev has had his identity altered under the federal witness protection program, he testified yesterday behind a screen that blocked observers from viewing his face. "
8/14/98 Fred Weir Hindustan Times "Russia may use its air force to bomb Taliban positions in northern Afghanistan in order to offset Pakistani military aid to the advancing Islamic militants, a senior Russian Parliamentarian says. "We cannot rule out any preventive measures against the Taliban, including air strikes on their bases located along our borders, "the official ITAR-Tass agency quoted parliamentary Security Committee chairman Viktor Ilyukbin as saying Thursday night."
8/31/98 Baltimore Sun Robert Freedman "WHILE THE Monica Lewinsky affair has slowed the wheels of government in Washington, it has had much more dangerous effect on American policy in the Middle East. Not only has President Clinton not been able to prevent the deployment of surface-to-air missiles which Russia sold to the Greek Cypriot side of the divided island of Cyprus, a development that threatens to lead to war between two NATO allies of the United States, Greece and Turkey.
9/29/98 United News of India "Russia has reaffirmed its commitment to maintain defence supplies to India despite pressure from the United States to scale down the level of Indo-Russian defence collaboration, the Voice of Russia has said. In its comment on the forthcoming visit of an Indian defence delegation to Moscow, the Voice of Russia radio network said the Kremlin will go ahead with an agreement regarding the supply of ten new Su-10 fighter planes, new generation of submarines and high-tech missiles to India, the US pressure not to do so notwithstanding. It disclosed Russia's willingness to assist India in the production of anti-missile weaponry.."
STRATFOR 10/16/98 ".As Russia attempts to reassert itself as a global power, it is reviving old alliances. A Russian delegation headed by the Russian Minister for Emergency Situations, Sergei Shoigu, met with Libya's Moammar Khaddafi in Tripoli on October 8, reportedly to deliver a message from President Boris Yelstin to Khaddafi. On October 10, the substance of Russia's overture to Libya was made known by Foreign Ministry spokesman Vladimir Rakhmanin, who announced that Russia sought cooperation with Libya in the oil and gas sector. However, the Russian newspaper "Segodnya" reported that same day that the purpose of Yeltsin's letter to Khaddafi was to explore the "prospects of the resumption of bilateral cooperation in the sphere of nuclear power." Segodnya's report on Russian-Libyan nuclear cooperation was verified by ITAR- TASS, on October 13. .. This direct threat to U.S. interests in the region is another iteration of Moscow's new political agenda -- Russia intends to resume its role as a great power, on its own terms, with its own allies, despite U.S. interests. On October 2, we reported that Khaddafi has responded to the lack of support form the Arab community by turning his back on it and attempting to develop a Libyan leadership role in Africa. Khaddafi decided that, if the Arab community will not stand up against U.S. and UN efforts to isolate Libya, then he would find his outlet to the world through the exertion of Libyan hegemony on the African continent..Libya is but the next step in reviving old alliances and rebuilding Russian power, and the nuclear cooperation is a nice slap in the face of the U.S. in the process. However, the real story is not the threat of a possible Libyan nuclear weapon in the near future. The threat comes from the speed with which Russia is rebuilding the bipolar world. In the midst of economic collapse, Russia has discovered that many of its old friends may have been forgotten, but they're not gone. The same political patterns and animosities, and even many of the people that shaped the Cold War are intact.."
StratFor Intelligence Briefing 10/9/98 "On October 7, Russia's "Interfax" news agency reported that customs officials in the Russian Far East city of Khasan had intercepted an attempt to sell five Mil Mi-8T (NATO designation "Hip C") assault transport helicopters to North Korea. The helicopters bore identification numbers indicating they were the property of the Russian Army, and were still fitted with weapons pods and other military equipment. The helicopters, valued at $300,000 each, were reportedly offered to North Korea for $20,000 each. Additionally, on September 29, Russia's "ITAR-TASS" news agency reported that a large amount of weapons had been stolen from a Russian Pacific Fleet ammunition dump between September 22 and September 28. According to initial estimates, more than 17,000 rounds of ammunition, several thousand stun grenades, six grenade launcher rounds, and 10 grenades were missing. Thefts from Russian arsenals, prevalent since the collapse of the Soviet Union, have increased in frequency with the deterioration of the Russian economy. The theft of small arms and ammunition for use or sale by individual soldiers, criminal groups, or guerrillas is a matter of concern to the Russian government. But the attempted sale of large equipment such as helicopters to pariah regimes like North Korea is a global concern as well. Moreover, it is a serious commentary on the state of the Russian military. A private can steal a Kalashnikov, but to steal five transport helicopters requires the participation of officers. According to numerous recent reports, the Russian military, especially in the Far East and other remote backwaters of the federation, is on the brink of starvation
Global Intelligence Update 10/15/98 Stratfor Inc. ".Divided over every other policy issue, Russian politicians have come together to challenge NATO intervention in Serbia. Even the most Western oriented have insisted that only the UN Security Council has the right to authorize military intervention in Yugoslavia, while the Communists have warned of the resumption of the Cold War and radical firebrand Viktor Ilyukhin has gone so far as to threaten the lives of Western diplomats in Moscow. Leonid Ivashov, the head of the Russian Defense Ministry's main directorate for international military cooperation, told Russian Public TV on October 13 that "the operation which is being prepared against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia is a provocation by the alliance's military forces against Russia, too. Yes, this will only create a precedent. Other countries in Europe, the CIS and Russia included, could find themselves the next targets of NATO action." Ivashov said that, if NATO launched strikes against Yugoslavia, Russia would resume full military cooperation with Belgrade, including violating the arms sale embargo against Yugoslavia. In addition, Ivashov claimed that Russia would respond to any attack on Yugoslavia with "a change in partnership with NATO" and a search for "possible new military allies to maintain the necessary military balance." Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov announced that Russia's relations with NATO may have to be reevaluated, and Russia already recalled its representatives to NATO on October 12.These themes unite Russia internally, help rebuild ties within its former empire, and help reestablish Russia as a great power. But talk, as they say, is cheap. More alarming than this rhetoric, however, have been reports suggesting that Russia has already violated the arms embargo against Yugoslavia, and has provided the Serbs with military aid. On October 7, the Times of London reported that Russia has supplied the Yugoslav army with new warheads, fuses, and sensors for its SA-6 surface-to-air missiles, a charge that Russian state arms export company Rosovooruzheniye has denied. According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, Yugoslavia has eight surface-to- air missile batteries at eight sites, as well as 100 other missiles. According to Jane's, the Yugoslav army has an unknown number of SA-2, SA-3, SA-6, SA-8, SA-9, SA-11, and SA-13 towed or mobile surface-to-air missile systems, as well as a variety of man-portable missiles... According to our source, a few weeks ago Russia shipped 50 2S6M "Tunguska" self- propelled air-defense systems to the Serbs. The Tunguska is one of Russia's newest weapons systems, mounting two 30mm antiaircraft guns and up to eight 9M311 (SA-19) two-stage, hypersonic, low to medium altitude surface-to-air missiles. The Tunguska is reportedly in service only with the CIS and India. If this report of deployment to Yugoslavia is true, it would indicate a serious threat to either air-strikes or reconnaissance against the Serbs. It would also demonstrate that Russia has crossed the line, putting its missiles where its mouth is."
Washington Times via Drudge 11/18/98 Bill Gertz ".Russian missile and nuclear technology is continuing to flow to Iran despite U.S. diplomatic efforts to halt the trade, according to special U.S. envoy Robert Gallucci. "The dialogue on the ballistic missile issue is a familiar one," Mr. Gallucci said after recent meetings with government officials in Moscow. "We are still concerned about contacts, cooperation and assistance between Russia and Iran, and we are discussing that with them. It is still an issue." Mr. Gallucci said in an interview that during his visit to Moscow two weeks ago he discussed the ongoing missile trade and again tried to dissuade Russia from helping Iran's nuclear program... U.S. intelligence officials said the Russians' high-level visit to Iran is a signal of a new harder line against the United States in Moscow, since it will take place a few weeks after Congress funded the $525 million for the nuclear material program.. U.S. intelligence agencies estimate Iran is working on nuclear weapons and could develop warheads and bombs in about 10 years. Some administration officials said Iranian missile technicians are still being trained in Russia and that equipment and materials used in building missiles are being shipped from Russia. In July, Iran test- fired its first medium-range Shahab-3 missile, which U.S. intelligence agencies estimate was developed rapidly with Russian help. China also provided missile technology to Iran, they said.."
Associated Press 1/12/99 David Briscoe ". The United States imposed economic sanctions today against a Moscow university and two other Russian institutions, accusing them of leaking nuclear and missile technology to Iran. National security adviser Sandy Berger announced the sanctions at a nonproliferation conference at which he also pledged an all-out effort to gain Senate ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. He said efforts would be redoubled to stop weapons expansion in North Korea, South Asia, the Mideast and elsewhere. ``We've made it very clear the administration has authority to act against entities that violate international nonproliferation standards and we will use that authority to protect our security,'' Berger said. Similar sanctions were imposed against seven other Russian institutions in July.."
MiddleXpress; AFP 1/15/99 Freeper holly ".Security Council chairman Nikolai Bordyuzha said Friday the United States, despite repeated requests, has failed to present evidence that Russian institutes were collaborating with Iran. Bordyuzha, who also serves as President Boris Yeltsin's chief of staff, accused US diplomats of failing to cooperate with Moscow's inquiries into why Washington this week slapped sanction against three Russian science laboratories. "We are just as concerned about the proliferation of nuclear weapons as the Americans are because Iran is closer to our border than that of the United States," Bordyuzha was quoted as saying by Interfax. "However, they (US officials) have not presented us with any documents and are practically refusing to take part in an investigation." ."
Aviation Week & Space Technology 1/18/99 James R. Asker ".The State Dept. has fired another shot across Russia's bow to pressure Moscow to stop aiding Iran's missile program (see p. 22). Russia is expected to fill its quota for launching U.S-built commercial satellites at the end of 1999, a year ahead of schedule. The Russians and U.S. launch partner Lockheed Martin would dearly like to see the quotas raised or, better yet, scrapped. Last week, State Dept. spokesman James P. Rubin reiterated Washington's price: "If we don't get progress on the missile proliferation problem, we are not going to be able to support increasing that quota." Then, he added pointedly, "That is an amount of money that is on the order of hundreds of millions of dollars per year in revenue for Russia." ."
The Jerusalem Post 1/21/99 Arieh O'Sullivan Douglas Davis "..The Mossad estimates that up to 10,000 Russian experts are assisting Iran's biological, chemical and nuclear weapons programs, according to the newsletter Foreign Report, to be published in London today. The government's dissatisfaction with Moscow's unreadiness to block leaks of weapons technologies to Iran has led to a chill in defense relations between Israel and Russia, defense sources said.."
NewsMax 3/12/99 Christopher Ruddy "…During the past year, my concerns about Russia have been greatly increased as a result of an interview I conducted with Jeffrey Nyquist -- an independent researcher on Russia and author of The Origins of the Fourth World War…. In early 1998, Nyquist predicted that authorities in Russia would deliberately implode their own economy to advance their political and military agendas…. Nyquist also predicted that Russia would ally with China…. Finally, Nyquist predicted that Russia would stockpile huge quantities of food and other supplies for war, and begin moving their nuclear weapons on to their naval ships where they are much more difficult to monitor and deter. All of this has occurred…."
NewsMax 3/12/99 Christopher Ruddy "…SPY WARNS OF RUSSIAN WAR PLANS Nyquist is not the only astute observer of Russia who believes Russia may be preparing for war against the US. Stanislav Lunev -- the highest-ranking GRU (Russian military intelligence) officer ever to defect from Russia -- also warns that Russia is preparing for war against the United States. Lunev's book Through the Eyes of the Enemy (published last summer by Regnery) states categorically that the Cold War is not over and that Russia continues to plan for a nuclear war…. Lunev explains war would begin with the infiltration of Russian special operations troops into the US, who would kill top political and military leaders. Lunev also warns that Russian GRU (military intelligence) agents have already deposited, near key water reservoirs, deadly poisons and toxins which would result in millions of civilians being ravaged by disease… Another part of Russia's plan, according to Lunev, is to deploy suitcase nuclear bombs at strategic points throughout the US….. "
NewsMax 3/12/99 Christopher Ruddy "…RUSSIA'S ECONOMIC COLLAPSE INCREASES RISK OF WAR …Victor Olove, director of Moscow's Center for Policy Studies, told the Los Angeles Times, "People who have nuclear warheads in their hands have not gotten their salaries for three or four months and are literally hungry." Some press reports show how close to war we have already come. Britain's Panorama news program reported that in 1995 the Yeltsin government came within minutes of a full nuclear attack on the United States after Russian defense systems failed…."
NewsMax 3/12/99 Christopher Ruddy "…"USE IT OT LOSE IT" Like America's nuclear arsenal, Russia's is degrading as it gets older and requires expensive, periodical servicing…. Indeed, Bruce Blair, a well-known liberal from the Brookings Institution, stated last summer in The National Interest, "Russia's conventional forces have declined ... and into this vacuum has rushed a growing reliance on nuclear weapons -- including their first use in any serious conventional conflict." Recognizing the limited shelf-life of Russia's nuclear arsenal, Blair adds, "The nuclear forces themselves have become vulnerable.... Consequently Russia today faces far stronger pressures to "use or lose' its nuclear arsenal than at any time since the early 1960s." …"
NewsMax 3/12/99 Christopher Ruddy "…Y2K BUG MAY BE "TRIPWIRE" FOR WAR… It sounds minor, but this computer glitch could lead to widespread failure of many high-tech weapons systems, including nuclear weapons, aircraft carriers, radar and even tanks. Even worse, the millennium bug is in billions of "embedded" microprocessors buried deep inside missiles, tanks, satellites, and nuclear reactors. (Imagine the cost of taking a satellite "into the shop" for repairs or sending someone inside a nuclear reactor to locate a defective chip!) … Most people in the West don't realize it, but Russia has long had a "doomsday defense system." This system is designed to enable Russia to survive a US nuclear first strike and to launch a devastating retaliation even if no commanders are left alive in Russia to issue the orders. This system is designed to automatically launch nuclear missiles at the US if an event occurs that the computer interprets as a Western attack -- such as a loss of satellite and radar systems. The default target of thousands of Russian strategic missiles are cities in the United States and Europe. Well aware of this problem, US military officials have recommended that the US and Russia place observers in each others' nuclear control rooms next December, to prevent an accidental launch…."
NewsMax 3/12/99 Christopher Ruddy "…RUSSIA PREPARES FOR A FIRST STRIKE … Thus, in an extremely ominous sign, on December 17, 1997, President Yeltsin, issued a 37-page policy statement, reneging on previous pledges not to use nuclear weapons first. …"
INSIGHT Magazine 4/5/99 J Michael Waller Freeper Stand Watch Listen "…In a yearlong investigation, the General Accounting Office, or GAO, found the $63 million emergency program to be directionless, wasteful and riddled with abuse. Even more, the GAO reported that the program, Initiatives for Proliferation Prevention, or IPP, actually has paid the salaries of personnel working on Russia's nuclear-weapons modernization and development of its clandestine and illegal chemical and biological weapons.....American tax dollars are paying Russian personnel as they modernize nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. And the GAO got some of this information from the Russians themselves. ....While GAO was conducting its probe, Vice President Al Gore was hammering out a deal to expand the concept tenfold. His $600 million Nuclear Cities Initiative would fund Russian scientists who produce their weapons of mass destruction and set up commercial projects in the secret "nuclear cities" through 2007…"
STRATFOR's Global Intelligence Update 3/31/99 "…Thus, a report from the IBC from Baghdad, claiming that Iraq is distributing advanced radar guidance systems for the SAM-6 surface-to-air missile system, is particularly significant. According to the report, Iraq is intensely engaged in upgrading its anti-air missile grid. Abed Hameed Hmoud, special secretary to Saddam and a member of the Presidential Council, is said to be personally supervising the installations of the systems at the Presidential Palaces, air bases and other critical installations. The article further states that both the Northern and Southern Corps of the Republican Guards are receiving new computing equipment and small, advanced Russian-made radar units as well as technicians. If these reports are true, and we think that to be likely, the Russians are now engaged in a dramatic re-supply of equipment to the Iraqis. There have been numerous reports from sources in Russia about such a re-supply, and the IBC report is merely confirming the arrival and deployment of this equipment. The upgrading of the Iraqi air defense grid has the potential of posing serious problems for allied pilots on missions in Iraq, particularly if new systems have been distributed inside the no- fly zones where routine air patrols are carried out. We note, however, that we can find no evidence of any U.S. or allied air strikes in Iraq at this time. This indicates that both sides are lying low for the moment…."
AP World News via NewsEdge Corporation Freeper Thanatos "… Russia will supply India with several T-90 tanks this summer for testing and New Delhi is considering purchasing up to 300 of the advanced weapons, the Interfax news agency reported Wednesday. A deal to supply T-90s in June for testing was confirmed during the visit of Russian Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev to India earlier this week, the agency said, citing unidentified Defense Ministry sources. The Indian army will test the T-90 to determine if the tank suits its needs…."
AP 3/25/99 Barry Schweid "…President Clinton's advisers undertook a salvage operation Thursday to try to repair a major rift with Russia over NATO's bombing of Kosovo. Clinton, meanwhile, cautioned Moscow not to take steps to lift the U.N. arms embargo against the Serbs…. Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov hinted that his government may try to break the U.N. embargo on arms deliveries to the Serbs. And Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov, whose party dominates Russia's parliament, said Russia should provide arms to Yugoslavia…..The administration also is checking reports the Russians were already providing Belgrade with weapons to resist the NATO cruise missile and bombing attack…."
Sacramento Bee 3/28/99 Nando Media/Reuters "…The New Yorker magazine reported on Sunday that Western intelligence officials believe Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov took a payoff from Iraq in exchange for strategic materials from Moscow to build up its nuclear weapons stockpile. Pulitzer-Prize winning investigative reporter Seymour Hersh quoted high-level American intelligence sources as saying Primakov received $800,000 in a wire transfer in November 1997. The New Yorker said a spokesman at the Russian embassy in Washington denied all charges of corruption against Primakov. National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, asked about the report during an appearance on ABC's "This Week," said that while he had not read the whole article and had just seen it, "I have no evidence to support that, no. I don't know whether Mr. Hersh has." In the report, Hersh quoted one unidentified source as saying, "A payment was made." "This is rock solid - like (now-jailed Mafia boss) John Gotti ordering a whack on the telephone. Ironclad." The weekly magazine, which goes on sale on Monday, said a British signals-intelligence unit intercept produced evidence of the transfer. It quoted a second unidentified U.S. official as saying, "There was a wire transfer to an account of $800,000." …"Russia is hopeless now," Rolf Ekeus, the first head of the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) in charge of dismantling Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, was quoted in the New Yorker as saying. "It is clear that Russia is making a serious effort to control events. Saddam will get a bomb, because these materials are floating in. Every day, they are more advanced." …."
http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/1999/19990413.dc2637.html 4/13/99 Freeper Thanatos "...Says Ratification of SALT II Deferred Due to Balkan Crisis; Commission Concludes General Exchange of Views for Current Session However noble the goal, one-sided unilateral steps carried out in disregard of the United Nations -- such as the attempt by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to impose its will through military force on a sovereign country -- could only have n egative effects on disarmament as well, the representative of the Russian Federation told the Disarmament Commission this afternoon, as it concluded its general exchange of views for the current substantive session. Given the events in the Balkans, he said that the State Duma, which is one of the two Chambers of the national legislature, had deferred ratification of the 1993 Treaty on the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms -- START II -- in favour of a continued active and balanced disarmament process. Peace could not be built on the sufferings of a totally innocent people...."
4/8/99 Itar-Tass Freeper DonMorgan "...State Duma speaker Gennady Seleznyov said on Thursday Moscow will have to provide military assistance and support to Yugoslavia if peace initiatives by Moscow and Belgrade are not listened to. Seleznyov was speaking at a briefing after his visit to Belgrade where he had held talks with Yugoslav leaders. "The Yugoslav army is equipped with Soviet and Russian weaponry, and, since we supply it, we must continue to keep it in normal combat shape," he said. In his view, if Yugoslavia had modern air defense system, "NATO would never have poked its nose there." However, he added that military supplies to Yugoslavia require careful consideration. "I would very much like us to be able to spell out to NATO: do not push us into providing military help to Yugoslavia," he stated. Russia will seek peaceful negotiations between the parties, it does not want to be drawn into the war, but if escalation continues, it will have to do it,..."
Drudge 4/8/99 Freeper DonMorgan AFP "...Russia by next Monday will send three more warships from its Black Sea Fleet to the Mediterranean to monitor NATO strikes against Yugoslavia, military sources told AFP on Wednesday."Three warships of the Black Sea Fleet will, either on April 10 or 12, leave for the Mediterranean to collect full and detailed information on the Balkan region," a source in the Black Sea Fleet's press service said."We have asked (Turkey) for permission to pass through the Bosphorus on April 12," the source added on condition of anonymity."All other Black Sea Fleet warships are on a state of alert and waiting for orders from Moscow," the source said.A Russian spy ship left this Black Sea port for the Adriatic on April 2 to monitor the deepening Yugoslav crisis...."
NewsMax 4/8/99 J R Nyquist Christopher Ruddy "...Bill Clinton's use of NATO forces to bomb Yugoslavia could trigger global war. Over the weekend, Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji hinted that the crisis in Kosovo could lead to a world war. At the same time, Russia -- a long-time ally of the Serbs -- has begun a large-scale mobilization of its military forces. While NATO countries are engaging in military operations, not one Western country is mobilizing for a larger war, as is Russia.... NATO's soporific reaction to Russia's mobilization should also be viewed, not in the context of the Yugoslavia bombing, but in the broader context of the new China-Russia relationship -- one that has dramatically altered the balance of power in the world. In November 1998, Russia and China officially formed a "strategic partnership." According to the official Chinese news agency, this partnership is meant to challenge the "perceived global dominance of the U.S." In plain English, the primary enemy Russia and China plan to fight is the United States and its allies. Together, Russia and China have the world's most powerful military, including over 30,000 nuclear weapons, armies of 6 million men with hundreds of battle-ready combat divisions, and thousands of tanks. Their new alliance should have rung warning bells throughout the world. Instead the Western media, Clinton and other Western leaders have ignored it, continuing to insist that Russia and China are our "friends." ....There are strong indications that the Russia-China alliance also includes other sworn enemies of the West, including the North Korean military dictatorship. During the Korean War, tens of thousands of Chinese troops fought against the US in support of the North Korean dictatorship, and China continues to be North Korea's principal ally. It is virtually unthinkable that the North Koreans would launch a new war against South Korea or the West without Chinese approval and support. ....The sentiment expressed by Russian war protesters isn't just the opinion of a few extremists. A recent opinion survey found that in the wake NATO bombing of their traditional allies, the Serbs, an incredible 64% of all Russians now believe that NATO intends to attack Russia..... Obsessed with the carnage in Kosovo, NATO appears to be oblivious to the fact Russia has been engaging in a massive military mobilization. In the two weeks since NATO launched their offensive against Yugoslavia: The Russian Defense Ministry began an enlarged draft, calling up 168,776 men from the ages of 18 to 27. Recruited over 60,000 Russian "volunteers" to fight NATO troops in Serbia. On 6 April the first Russian volunteers arrived in the Serbian town of Novi Sad. Threatened to move tactical nuclear weapons and heavy bombers forward into Belarus -- Russia's highway to NATO. Dispatched key elements of their Northern fleet, including the aircraft cruiser, Admiral Kuznetsov, and the newly commissioned Peter the Great, the largest ballistic missile cruiser ever built. ...."
stratfor.com 4/8/99 Freeper henbane "…2100 GMT, 990408 Despite NATO's warning that it would not stop the attacks, the Tanjug news agency has reported that thousands of Serbs are massing on bridges in Belgrade and Novi Sad tonight…"
The New York Times 4/8/99 Edmund L. Andrews Freeper Cicero "…By dropping bridges into the Danube, NATO has managed to cut one of Europe's main arteries of trade, effecting Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Bulgaria. Kind of like dropping a bridge into the Mississippi around St. Louis…."
Associated Press 4/12/99 Nicole Winfield "...Russia asked the International Court of Justice on Monday to determine the legal consequences of NATO airstrikes on Yugoslavia. Moscow has argued that NATO action over the Kosovo dispute is illegal because the U.N. Security Council didn't explicitly authorize it. Russia also says the strikes against its Serb allies violate the fundamental goal of the United Nations, which is to maintain peace in the world. The draft request doesn't mention Kosovo, NATO or Yugoslavia by name, but diplomats said the intent of the resolution was clear: to give Russia another chance to formally object to the NATO assault on its allies in Belgrade. The draft cites the U.N. Charter in saying individual nations and regional organizations cannot use force against sovereign states without the authorization of the Security Council. "No considerations, whether political, economic, military or of any other kind, may be used to justify the threat or use of force in violation of the Charter of the United Nations,'' it says...."
Associated Press 4/9/99 Barry Renfrew Freeper Brian Mosely "...MOSCOW (AP) - Almost a decade after the Soviet Union collapsed, Russia is resounding with Cold War rhetoric and gestures as politicians, officials and journalists denounce NATO attacks on Yugoslavia as an imperialist plot...."
Business Week 4/19/99 Patricia Kranz Freeper Stand Watch Listen "....EXCERPTS "Indeed, the crisis is dividing the U.S. and Russia like no other issue since the height of the cold war. And how the Kosovo war is resolved could have a huge impact both on domestic Russian politics and on the tenor of U.S.-Russian relations for years to come. The NATO strikes are fanning anti-American sentiment in Russia, giving a boost to President Boris N. Yeltsin's hard-line opponents, and undermining support for arms control. That's why, as a friend of Serbia, Primakov is scrambling to act as mediator in the conflict. If he can negotiate a cease-fire, he could be acclaimed for bringing peace and restoring Russia's prestige on the international stage. And he would become the leading contender to succeed Yeltsin as President in elections set for June 2000. "..."
Reuters 4/9/99 "...Russia locked horns with the West over Kosovo Friday, reportedly ordering its strategic missiles to be aimed at countries bombing Yugoslavia and warning that it would not allow NATO to launch a ground war. Parliamentary speaker Gennady Seleznyov also declared in Moscow that Russian troops would be stationed in Yugoslavia if a political union between Belgrade, Belarus and Russia went ahead and that ``our navy would be in the appropriate seas.'' Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said later he was not aware of any presidential order to target nuclear missiles on NATO countries involved in bombing Yugoslavia....``As far as the Foreign Ministry is aware, no orders regarding missiles have been issued,'' he told a news conference. ``Russia will stand by all international commitments, including those regarding arms.'' ..."
Russia Today 4/10/99 AGP "…Russia's Communist parliament speaker Gennady Seleznyov said Friday that President Boris Yeltsin had thrown his weight behind plans to create a three-country "union" of Russia, Belarus and Yugoslavia. After talks with the head of state following his trip to Belgrade earlier this week, Seleznyov told the State Duma lower house of parliament that officials would now start drafting a statement on the proposed union, Russian television reported. "He (Yeltsin) supported the proposal," Seleznyov said to mild applause from the chamber, "and called (Belarus President) Alexander Lukashenko who also actively supports the idea."…"
Christian Science Monitor 4/12/99 Judith Matloff Freeper Stand Watch Listen "...Russia's resolve to stay out of the Kosovo conflict may weaken if a political crisis at home continues to spin out of control. Observers say Russia could be the victim of its own escalating rhetoric if NATO ground troops are deployed in Kosovo, forcing Moscow to act on threats it doesn't really want to carry out. The hard-line opposition has made repeated calls for military aid to Slav ally Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic in what is clearly electioneering for parliamentary and presidential polls due in the next 15 months. This puts pressure on President Boris Yeltsin, whose leadership has never been weaker amid a looming impeachment vote, illness, and a corruption probe. Past experience has shown that when the impulsive Mr. Yeltsin feels cornered he lashes out, and Kremlin watchers say he is not above firing a few Cabinet officials - which would contribute to the political turmoil - or making bellicose remarks that could pull Russia closer to the war....."
STRATFOR's Global Intelligence Update 4/14/99 "....Russia's Interfax news agency has cited Azerbaijani presidential administration sources as saying that Azerbaijani President Haidar Aliyev received personal messages on April 14 from U.S. President Bill Clinton and U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. According to Interfax, the message from Clinton "contains a proposal on settling the Karabakh conflict," while Albright invited Aliyev to attend NATO's anniversary celebration later in April. Azerbaijan has been eagerly pursuing a relationship with -- if not membership in -- NATO, a campaign matched by the growing strategic alliance between Russia and Armenia. But while this strategic positioning is well underway, it is surprising that Clinton and Albright would personally fuel this standoff just now. Relations between NATO and Russia have been shattered by the Kosovo crisis, and efforts to mend those relations and find a solution to the crisis can only be hurt by increasing tension in the Caucasus...."
http://www.interfax.ru/freshnews/enews1312.htm 4/14/99 Interfax Freeper Thanatos "...Russia's Security Council plans to hold a session under President Boris Yeltsin's chairmanship on April 27 to discuss "the development of the nuclear weapons complex," Security Council Secretary and Director of the Federal Security Service Vladimir Putin told Interfax after talks with Yeltsin. "This is in no way connected with the situation in the Balkans," he said. He added that the discussion had been scheduled for March, but was postponed due to former head of the presidential administration Nikolai Bordyuzha's illness...."
Reuters 4/23/99 "... Russia is planning to supply Libya with its S-300 air defense missile complexes, the head of the company that makes them said in a newspaper interview published Friday. ``I won't make any secrets...Now that the United Nations' sanctions against Tripoli are gone Libya will be the first on our list,'' Yuri Rodin-Sova, head of S-300 maker Defense Systems, told Nezavisimaya Gazeta daily. ``We will propose setting up an air defense infrastructure in Libya, based on S-300PMU1 and S-300PMU2. The system will also have modernized older versions of Russian air defense complexes as its elements. It will be cheaper for Libya.'' .Earlier this month the U.N. suspended seven-year-old sanctions against the North African state after Libya turned over two suspects in the 1988 bombing of a passenger jetliner over Scotland for trial in the Netherlands. ..."
AP 4/30/99 "...The Russian navy is building a new advanced submarine that could generate large international sales as navies around the world upgrade their forces, a news agency reported today. The Amur class submarine will be equipped with an electric chemical generator that will allow the vessel to stay submerged for up to 40 days, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported. Rosvooruzheniye, the country's arms exporter, predicts there will be a demand for up to 120 diesel-electric submarines on world markets during the next 10 years and believes the Amur could meet that demand, the report said...."
4/29/99 Startfor.com "...1507 GMT, 990429 - Russia President Boris Yeltsin has confirmed that Russia has adopted a "top secret" document as re-affirming the country's commitment to nuclear weapons for the country's future national security. "Nuclear forces have and will remain the key element in securing our national security and military might," Yeltsin said on opening his first session of the military decision-making Security Council since June last year. The meeting was also attended by Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov, Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev and Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov. Yeltsin warned those present that nuclear defense remained such a sensitive issue that "everyone, including the president, will answer with his head if any of this information is leaked. "Nuclear weapons are a field where we can afford no mistakes, because even the smallest one can turn tragic both for Russia and the whole world." The meeting ended after about hour, with Security Council secretary Vladimir Putin reporting that three strategic documents were approved, including one that dealt with "top secret problems." The other two papers, "in broad terms", deal with Russia's plans to future nuclear development and tactical weapons, the news agency said. ..."
Defense News 5/3/99 Simon Saradzhyan Freeper Stand Watch Listen "...A unique antihelicopter mine being developed by one of the Russian government's research centers is attracting a lot of international attention, with several countries and companies seeking to develop similar technology. Researchers and Russian government officials here said they already have received inquiries about possible sales of the system, which functions as combination mine and munition...."
ASSOCIATED PRESS 5/5/99 "....Russia has developed a new anti-aircraft defense system capable of hitting targets up to 250 miles away and engaging stealth aircraft, according to a report Wednesday. The journal Military Parade, a respected source on the Russian military, provided details of the new S-400 system of missiles and radar, saying it could hit advanced warplanes and cruise missiles. It can also engage and shoot down stealth aircraft, built to avoid normal radar detection, the report said....Vladimir Svetlov, designer of the system, said it was more advanced than comparable Western air defense systems, including the U.S. Patriot missile, the report said. Russia is hoping there will be strong international demand for the S-400, the report said. Russia's cash-strapped military can afford few new weapons and its defense industry depends on foreign orders for much of its business...."
London Electronic Telegraph 5/7/99 Nick Holdsworth Freeper dirtboy "...MISSILES which can strike battlefield targets with low-yield nuclear warheads are being developed by Russia to bolster its impoverished conventional forces in the face of Nato expansion. The project to perfect such "pinpoint" weapons is being carried out by the Atomic Energy Ministry, whose chief says that Russia needs to regain its superpower status without bankrupting the country. Missiles armed with warheads ranging in explosive force from a few dozen to hundreds of tons of TNT could be used to knock out tanks, divisional headquarters and other targets. "Pinpoint nuclear attacks won't start a global nuclear war," Viktor Mikhailkov, the Atomic Energy Minister, told the Moscow daily newspaper Sevodnya. Developing such weapons would not cost very much, said Pavel Felgenhauer, a Moscow-based defence expert. He said Nato expansion and the bombing of Yugoslavia had spurred official sanction for the project...."
Itar TASS 5/14/99 Freeper Ymani Cricket "An Uzbek national was arrested by security agents in Kyrgyzstan when he attempted to smuggle radioactive plutonium on a flight to the United Arab Emirates,a news report said Friday...."
CBN News 5/17/99 Dale Hurd "...During the Cold War, it seemed that the world was just a moment away from nuclear annihilation. But its actually in the post cold war world that the real dangers have been unleashed, from a Russia that has lost control of its weapons stockpile...a stockpile that includes deadly biological agents; a weapon so tiny, just grams of it have he killing power of a nuclear bomb. Ken Alibek knows the danger of the Russian program. Before he changed his name, Kanatjan Alibekov was the number two man in the Soviet Union's Biological Warfare program. Alibek directed the research that perfected an anthrax agent four times more deadly than before-genetically altered, antibiotic resistant. Alibek defected in 1992, and is the author of the book, Biohazard.!" "We were told that the United States was developing such weapons and Great Britain," says Alibek, "and that our weapons were a response to the United States threat." But the Soviet program dwarfed anything in the west. The Russians developed the capacity to produce hundreds of tons of anthrax, plague, and smallpox--More than enough to kill everyone on the planet.!" Alibek explains the destructive power of just "a medium range plane with two spray tanks; each spray tank, a 2- ton capacity. And just this two tank, medium range plane could cover from 4 to 5 thousand square kilometers. You would never find a nuclear bomb with such capability." And Alibek alleges that despite Moscow's denials, Russia's Biological Weapons program is still going.!" "When we are talking about the Ministry of Defense, it still has 4 top secret facilities. All of them were involved in developing and manufacturing biological weapons. It seems to me they are trying just to maintain this program in any form. What form? Of course, we cannot answer this question until we see these facilities opened." Alibek also says that, during the Cold War, Mikhail Gorbachev ordered preparations for the arming of SS-18 intercontinental ballistic missiles with biological weapons, to be aimed at American cities. Today the danger is not what the Russians have pointed at us, but what they have likely already sold to some of the most dangerous states in the world....At least 12 nations are suspected of having biological weapons programs, at least some of them, thanks to Russian help. Iran has been recruiting Russian Biological weapons scientists, offering them 5-thousand dollars a month. That's more than some might be paid in a year in Russia. The recruiting has worked. "The odds increase with each passing day that a weapon...will reach the wrong hands and will ultimately be used against the United States or its friends," according to Goble ...."
AP 5/27/99 "...Russia has developed a powerful new anti-ship cruise missile, apparently designed for Western navies, and hopes to market it soon, a news agency reported Wednesday. The new missile ``will shortly revolutionize the nature of a naval battle,'' boasted one of its designers, Vyacheslav Gorbarenko, according to the ITAR-Tass news agency. Gorbarenko, a designer with the Novator Experimental Design Bureau in the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg, said the missile is 6.2 meters (20.3 feet) long, the length of the standard torpedo tube used by Western navies. He said the missile, known as the ZM-54E1, could hit any target within 300 kilometers (186 miles), and will carry a powerful 450-kilogram (1,000-pound) warhead, sufficient to destroy very large surface ships. ``The testing of the new weapon is practically over and the missile can be delivered to a foreign client within a year after a corresponding contract is signed,'' Gorbarenko said, according to ITAR-Tass...."
Salon 5/28/99 David Horowitz "....Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., chairman of the national security subcommittee on military research and development, has characterized the six years of Clinton's administration as "the worst period in our history in terms of undermining our national security." In May, Weldon traveled to Russia, in company with 10 other congressmen. On that trip, in his presence, a Russian general threatened the assembled congressman, warning that if the United States put ground troops in Kosovo, Russia "could" detonate a nuclear device in the lower atmosphere off the eastern United States. The resulting magnetic pulses would "fry" every computer chip in the country, shutting down phones, airplanes, electrical grids and so on until the country was thrown into absolute chaos. This threat was not made during the Cold War by a ruler of the former Soviet Union, but by a Russian general within the last month...."
Freeper Jolly reporting 6/1/99 on the new book Biohazard : The Chilling True Story of the Largest Covert Biological Weapons Program in the World-Told from the Inside by the Man Who Ran It by Ken Alibek, Stephen Handelman "...Imagine a hot zone in which Ebola is being spliced--using the latest techniques of genetic engineering--with smallpox, the most infectious disease known to man. Now imagine that cocktail is meant for you. For fifty years, while the world stood in terror of a nuclear war, Russian scientists hidden in heavily guarded secret cities refined and stockpiled a new kind of weapon of mass destruction--an invisible weapon that would strike in silence and could not be traced. It would leave hundreds of thousands dead in its wake and would continue to spread devastation long after its release. The scientists were bioweaponeers, working to perfect the tools of a biological Armageddon. They called it their Manhattan Project. It was the deadliest and darkest secret of the cold war. What you are about to read has never before been made public. Ken Alibek began his career as a doctor wanting to save lives and ended up running the Soviet biological weapons program--a secret military empire masquerading as a pharmaceutical company.....The true story of the largest covert biological weapons program in the world--written by the man who ran it--"Biohazard" tells a terrifying tale: a fast-paced account of accidents and disasters in the labs and KGB threats and assassinations--all in chilling detail...."
New York Times 6/2/99 Judith Miller "...In the spring of 1988, germ scientists 850 miles east of Moscow were ordered to undertake their most critical mission. Working in great haste and total secrecy, the scientists in the city of Sverdlovsk transferred hundreds of tons of anthrax bacteria -- enough to destroy the world many times over -- into giant stainless-steel canisters, poured bleach into them to decontaminate the deadly pink powder, packed the canisters onto a train two dozen cars long and sent the illicit cargo almost a thousand miles across Russia and Kazakhstan to this remote island in the heart of the inland Aral Sea, American and Central Asian officials say. Here Russian soldiers dug huge pits and poured the sludge into the ground, burying the germs and, Moscow hoped, a grave political threat. While Mikhail S. Gorbachev was pressing his glasnost and perestroika campaign and warming ties with the West, intelligence evidence was mounting in Washington that the Soviet Union, contrary to its treaty pledges, was producing tons of deadly germs for weapons that the world had banned. The stockpile had to be destroyed in case the United States and Britain demanded an inspection, Russian scientists close to the program said...... For the United States, it is an intelligence gold mine. At the invitation of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, American military scientists and intelligence experts have secretly been traveling here for the past four years -- most recently last October -- to survey the island and take samples of the buried bacteria, according to senior Uzbek and American officials. What they have found is stunning, the experts say. Tests of soil samples from six of 11 vast burial pits show that, although the anthrax was soaked in bleach at least twice, once inside the 66-gallon containers and again after it was dumped into the sandy pits and buried for a decade under 3-to-5 feet of sand, some of the spores are still alive -- and potentially deadly...... "We have always known that anthrax is hard to kill," said one military expert, who would only discuss this highly classified activity if he were not identified. "But this strain has proven especially durable, and this wasn't even the most powerful strains the Soviets made." .....In his book, "Biohazard" (Random House, 1999), Alibek does not disclose either that anthrax was buried on the island or what he told American officials during his debriefing. But he does report that such germ weapons as tularemia, Q-fever, brucellosis, glanders and plague were tested on Vozrozhdeniye beginning in the 1970s. In 1986 and 1987, he added in an interview, a strain of plague that was resistant to standard antibiotics was tested. In 1987, the book states, Alibek's scientists tested the powerful anthrax that he had developed at Stepnogorsk....."
'Betrayal' by Bill Gertz 6/01/99 By Newsman "... according to author Bill Gertz's Betrayal: How the Clinton Administration Undermined American Security. For, contrary to the rosy picture Clinton paints of our relations with them, the Russians are still our most dangerous enemy. And - also contrary to the president's assurance - the Russians never got rid of their nuclear arsenal, as they promised under the terms of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. Moreover, they still have their siloed missiles aimed at us. Indeed, writes Gertz, "Russia is engaged in a major strategic arms buildup that includes new long-range land-based missiles and a new class of long-range ballistic missile submarines, as well as continued development of a massive underground strategic defense program of secret bunkers and command centers for waging nuclear war. . . . In other words, Russia is embarked on a major strategic nuclear modernization program while, at the same time, the United States is sending over $1 billion to help the Russians 'dismantle' nuclear weapons. This buildup has gone on without any effort by President Clinton to discourage the Russians from spending millions on weapons that directly threaten the United States."....And, oh me, I forgot to mention that the Russians still have their "Suitcase Bombs." At one time they had 250 of these "portable nuclear bombs," with the exploding power of 1,000 tons of TNT, which can be set off by saboteurs to block communications or wreak great havoc on our cities. More than 100 of these 250 suitcase bombs, according to testimony before Congress, have fallen into unknown hands. But that still leaves Russia with about 150. And what is Clinton's reaction to this threat? "As if by reflex," says Gertz, "the Clinton administration's response was to play down the alarming claims. Once again, the White House did not want to paint Russia in a dangerous light because of its efforts to woo Moscow and pretend that post-Soviet Russia had become an ally."...."
Los Angeles Times 6/04/99 Robert Hunter "...The Kosovo peace plan accepted on Thursday by the Serbian parliament was the product of intense bargaining between NATO--represented by the United States--and Russia's Viktor S. Chernomyrdin. Major elements of the plan still need to be worked out before peace can come. But one thing is already clear: NATO's putting Russia front and center in Kosovo diplomacy will have long-term consequences for the Atlantic alliance. It marks the limit of NATO's willingness to pay the costs of its security ambitions The decision to engage Chernomyrdin as lead negotiator with Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic grew out of a simple fact: Neither the U.S. nor its allies were ready to risk the casualties of a ground campaign...."
United Press International 6/3/99 "...Unexpected discontent over the terms of the draft peace plan accepted by the Yugoslav government was expressed by a top Russian general on his return to Moscow from talks in Belgrade. And the nationalist State Duma, the lower house of parliament, voiced concern that Russia's special envoy on Yugoslavia, Viktor Chernomyrdin may have misrepresented Moscow at the talks, caving in to NATO demands,and summoned senior ministers to explain the situation. Col.-Gen. Leonid Ivashov, the head of the Russian Defense Ministry's department of military cooperation, told reporters today that Russia's military is not entirely happy with the terms of the plan. Ivashov, who, together with Chernomyrdin took part in the latest round of talks with Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, said on return to Moscow that his team "is not quite satisfied with the role of NATO that is being imposed and the diminished position of Russia in regulating the conflict." The general said he made this clear during the discussion, which was also attended by Yugoslavia's top brass...."
Drudge Report 6/4/99 Itar-Tass "... A Russian contingent can be sent to Yugoslavia but not under the NATO command, First Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Avdeyev said after a closed-door plenary meeting of the State Duma on Friday. "We will not go (there) under the NATO command," he said. The meeting focused on the Yugoslav settlement in the light of the negotiations in Bonn and Belgrade attended by special envoy for the Yugoslav settlement Viktor Chernomyrdin...."
6/4/99 AFP Freeper Thanatos "...Russia may contribute 5,000 to 10,000 soldiers to a Kosovo peacekeeping force, Moscow's Balkans envoy Viktor Chernomyrdin was quoted as saying by Interfax news agency on Friday. Chernomyrdin added that Moscow would fully finance the force on its own. "The price is not small, considering that the peacekeeping operation will probably last for a year," said the presidential envoy who helped broker a 10-point Kosovo peace deal signed by Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic on Thursday...."
6/4/99 Nando Media/AP ANGELA CHARLTON "...To gain support from a crime-weary public, Boris Yeltsin cranked up Russia's execution rate in 1996. On Thursday, he reversed himself and commuted every last death sentence in Russia. Yeltsin's decree spares all 716 of the country's death-row inmates, completing a turnaround that has earned him accolades from international human rights groups - and the ire of Russians gripped by fears of violence, which has soared since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union...."
6/3/99 UPI "...Russia has test-fired a Topol-M intercontinental ballistic missile from the Plisetsk missile range in northwest Russia, the Itar-Tass news agency reports. The missile, a new-generation weapon that will eventually replace Russia's older, heavier missiles, flew across northern Russia, hitting its designated target in a remote area of the Kamchatka peninsula in Russia's Far East...."
http://www.fas.org/irp/world/china/index.html "... The Russian Federation has a significant intelligence capability that it inherited from the former Soviet Union. Much of this intelligence collection infrastructure continues to focus on collecting information concerning the United States. Russia has the ability to use IMINT, SIGINT, HUMINT, MASINT, and open source analysis to develop all source intelligence products for Russian political leaders, military planners, and industrial concerns. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Russian intelligence operations against the United States have increased in sophistication, scope, and number, and are likely to remain at a high level for the foreseeable future.[3] Russia has three bodies with foreign intelligence functions designated by law: the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff (GRU), and the Federal Agency for Government Communications and Information (FAPSI)...."
http://www.fas.org/irp/world/china/index.html "... The SVR, the successor to the First Chief Directorate of the KGB, is responsible for collecting foreign intelligence..... The GRU is responsible for providing strategic, operational, and tactical intelligence for the Russian armed forces. Principle missions include the collection of indications and warning intelligence, data on advanced military technologies, and specific information on the intentions and military capabilities of potential adversaries. Collection techniques include gathering open source information, acquiring overt and clandestine HUMINT, conducting satellite and aircraft imagery reconnaissance, and collecting SIGINT from various platforms (ships, aircraft, satellites and ground stations).[7] .....The FAPSI was created in October 1991 by Presidential decree. It is the newest of the Russian intelligence agencies, and relatively little information is available on its organizational structure and activities. The FAPSI is responsible for both communications security for the Russian Federation, and SIGINT operations against targeted foreign activities. It has also been given responsibility for the development and maintenance of databases and communications systems to support Russian intelligence and law enforcement activities....."
Freeper Anochka remembers 6/7/99 "..."...and it looked like world peace was a real possibility just 6 years ago." I think of that every single day in my work... And what was killing me for a long, long time was the slow, uncomfortable realization that the Clintons never gave it a thought all those years ago -- not once -- the collapse of the USSR was simply a political opportunity for them to exploit, and the poor Russkies who trusted and admired us and looked to the US as a guiding light, well - boy, did they get screwed....."
AFP 6/8/99 Freeper PrinceOfCups "...Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov on Tuesday warned Russia would only vote for a UN resolution on Kosovo once NATO air strikes against Moscow's Balkans ally Yugoslavia had stopped, Interfax reported...."
South China Morning Post 6/9/99 Oliver Chou "...The visit of a high-level PLA delegation to Russia is a strong signal from Beijing to Washington over the US-led Nato bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, according to analysts. General Zhang Wannian, vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission, led a delegation to Moscow on Monday. Analysts said the seniority of delegation members was unusual. General Zhang took with him a selection of PLA generals in charge of military intelligence, armaments, the navy and air force, as well as the regional commander of areas close to Russia. One military analyst said: "Beijing has kept a busy schedule for military exchanges in the past month, but none involves a Western power, except for the visit of the Australian Defence Minister. The Russian navy commander and deputy chief of staff were in the Chinese capital in the past two weeks." Another analyst added: "It is by far the most vocal gesture Beijing has sent to Washington since it suspended military exchanges with the United States after the embassy bombing...."
ITAR-TASS News Agency 6/9/99 "...Russian President Boris Yeltsin will hold a telephone conversation with Zhang Wannian, Deputy Chairman of the Central Military Council of the People's Republic of China (PRC), who is currently here on a visit, Presidential Chief of Staff Alexander Voloshin announced here on Wednesday before his meeting in the Kremlin with the high-ranking Chinese military leader. Voloshin pointed out that the Russian side regards Zhang's visit to Moscow "as yet another important step in implementation of the strategic partnership and cooperation policy worked out by the Heads of the State" of the two countries. The Presidential chief of staff said that during a telephone conversation on Tuesday, the leaders of Russia and the PRC "emphasised an immense importance of the development of military-technical cooperation between the two countries within the overall context of the strengthening of Sino-Russian relations, particularly considering the situation that has taken shape in the world"....."
ITAR-TASS 6/9/99 "..."Stepashin reminded Zhang Wannian that China was his historic homeland, because he was born at Port Arthur and lived there until the age of three. He noted that he had very good reminiscences of the Chinese people, adding with a smile that "probably none of the other foreign premiers was born in China". Taking part in the negotiations between Sergei Stepashin and Zhang Wannian is Vice-Premier Ilya Klebanov, who is in charge of the military-industrial complex in the government, and Defence Minister Igor Sergeyev. ..."
ITAR-TASS 6/9/99 Freeper Jolly "...Russian President Boris Yeltsin on Wednesday had a 30-minute telephone conversation with deputy chairman of China's Central Military Council, Zhang Wannian, who is in Moscow on a visit. "During this conversation I felt great sympathy for us. I was deeply touched by this conversation," Zhang said...."
AP 6/9/99 "...Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin said Wednesday that building close ties with China was one of Russia's top foreign policy goals and the two nations want a strong strategic partnership. Stepashin made the remarks at the start of talks with a visiting Chinese official, Zhang Wannian, deputy head of the Central Military Commission. Russian Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev also attended the meeting, which focused on military cooperation. ''The Russian government will spare no effort for strengthening relations between Russia and China. We should jointly implement the policy of strategic partnership, outlined by Russian President Boris Yeltsin and (President) of the People's Republic of China Jiang Zemin,'' Stepashin said. Russia and China have been working to improve ties in recent years. Both nations resent what they see as the global domination of the United States and favor some form of alliance to counter Washington....."
AFP 6/9/99 "....Russian Security Council Secretary Vladimir Putin welcomed Chinese General Zhang Wannian to Moscow on Wednesday, saying the strategic interests of their two countries "coincide." "The global situation is changing at lightning speed and in these new conditions the interests of Russia and China coincide a great deal," Putin said. Zhang, vice president of the Chinese government's Central Military Commission, emphasized that "relations between China and Russia have a strategic character and are based on the concept of a multi-polar world.".... "This strategic cooperation confirmed by the Russian and Chinese presidents proves very well that Russian-Chinese links are at a high level of development. "One example (of this) is our cooperation on the Kosovo crisis," Putin said...."
ITAR-TASS News Agency 6/9/99 Vyacheslav Bantin "...Our relations, Putin said, "are based on the principles of the UN Charter and are not aimed against third countries. They proceed from the multi-polar world concept and are being built so as to extract the maximum favourable benefit from multilateral relations, taking into consideration the extension of the joint border and joint interests," he added...... He also emphasized that the Russian side is well aware of "the considerable role" the Central Military Council plays "in the activity of Chinese military organisations". He expressed hope that the visit to Moscow by a top-ranking Chinese military man will give a boost to military cooperation between Russia and China.......He also expressed the opinion that it would be expedient for the two states to "establish constant and effective communication channels for a quick exchange of information, as well as for coordinating positions and making decisions on coordinated or joint actions by Russia and China....."
http://news.excite.com/news/r/990608/08/science-ukraine-space 6/8/99 Reuters Freeper Thanatos "... Ukraine plans to launch its Zenit booster rocket later this summer in a bid to improve confidence in its space technology following a crash last year, a senior security official said Tuesday. Volodymyr Horbulin, head of the ex-Soviet state's Security and Defense Council, told Reuters the booster would be launched from the Baikonur launching site in Kazakhstan. A computer fault caused a Zenit-2 rocket to crash last September, destroying 12 satellites belonging to U.S. company Globalstar worth a total of $180 million. The crash of the rocket, made by Ukrainian firm Yuzhnoye from a converted Soviet ballistic missile, threatened further commercial launches...."
Front Page Magazine 6/1/99 David Horowitz "...Pennsylvania representative Curt Weldon, who is chair of the National Security subcommittee on military research and development, and is fluent in Russian, and who took the care to tabulate the presidential lies mentioned at the top of this article, has characterized the six years of Clinton's Administration as "the worst period in our history in terms of undermining our national security." In May, Weldon traveled to Russia, in company with ten other congressmen. On that trip, in his presence, a Russian General threatened the assembled congressman, warning that if the United States put ground troops in Kosovo, Russia "could" detonate a nuclear device in the lower atmosphere off the eastern United States. The resulting magnetic pulses would "fry" every computer chip in the country, shutting down phones, airplanes, electrical grids, and so on until the country was thrown into absolute chaos. This threat was not made during the Cold War by a ruler of the former Soviet Union. It was made by a Russian General, within the last month...."
The Daily Republican 6/10/99 Jan Oberg "...A new Cold War is approaching.And there is a larger framework. The Ukrainian parliament has voted unanimously to revert the country to its former nuclear status. On April 30, a meeting of the Russian National Security Council approved the modernisation of all strategic and tactical nuclear warheads. It decided to develop strategic low-yield nuclear missiles capable of pin-point strikes anywhere in the world. The defence ministry authorised a change in nuclear doctrine. Thus Russians feel humiliated through the 1990s, but go along with most US/Western demands because of its frail leadership, its economic weakness - it can hardly pay for its own troops to be deployed in Kosovo for years ahead - and its dependence on the West. And in Beijing, the bombing of the Chinese Belgrade embassy has resulted in a shift away from the no-first-strike principle. Add the spy accusation, human rights policies and WTO negotiations and we begin to see the contours of a new Cold War. Russia, China and India - and others - have learnt not to trust the stated peaceful aims of the West. Many countries with secessionist minorities are likely to anxiously wonder when they will get the treatment Yugoslavia did...."
UPI Spotlight 6/11/99 "...Following his nationally televised address on the Kosovo conflict, President Clinton headed (Thursday evening) to a Democratic party fund-raising dinner, where he told donors, "This is a night you can be proud of your country." Clinton also promised more such actions around the world in places where people are attacked for their racial, ethnic or religious background, saying, "If we can stop it, we intend to stop it."..."
Reuters 6/11/99 Freeper jimbo123 "...Itar-Tass news agency said U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott was rushing back to Moscow shortly after leaving it Friday amid concern over the fate of U.S.-Russian talks on an international force for Kosovo. The U.S. embassy in Moscow declined to comment on the report. Talks between the United States and Russia over the role of Moscow's troops in Kosovo had stalled Friday, even as Russian armored vehicles rolled into Serbia from neighboring Bosnia to prepare for deployment in the rebel province...."
Itar-Tass 6/11/99 "...The negotiations of Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and U.S. Deputy State Secretary Stroub Talbott have grown complicated, Foreign Ministry spokesman Vladimir Rakhmanin said on Friday..... The negotiations began in an expanded format and continued as a tete-a-tete conversation, Rakhmanin said. It seems the talks will go on for long. "There is an active work to find mutually acceptable compromises," Rakhmanin said. Stroub Talbott left Moscow for Brussels on Friday after a two-day visit but returned after being informed on the movement of Russian paratroopers from Bosnia to Belgrade...."
6/11/99 Itar-Tass "...Russian must take an active part in peacekeeping forces in Kosovo, chairman of the State Duma foreign affairs committee Vladimir Lukin told Itar-Tass on Friday. "So far, I have never heard that the aggressor states are willing to give their consent to this variant," he said. According to Lukin, the deployment of a Russian contingent in Kosovo is the subject of very uneasy talks. "It is the Americans and NATO states that breed difficulties, and we are acting in conformity with the U.N. Security Council resolution clearly saying that security forces that are being created would have a joint command but not a NATO command," Lukin said. "We are absolutely right in our actions."...."
6/11/99 Reuters Freeper Thanatos "...U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott abruptly turned his plane around in mid-air and headed back to Moscow Friday to resume talks on the planned Kosovo peace force, U.S. officials said. Talbott had been on his way to Brussels after talks in Moscow were suspended earlier in the day with no sign of a breakthrough. He turned back after Russian troops started moving through Serbia toward Kosovo, its southernmost province. Washington expressed surprise at the troop movements but it said Moscow had given assurances its forces would not move into Kosovo unilaterally..."
Russia Today 6/11/99 Reuters "...President Boris Yeltsin said on Friday Russia's ties with NATO remained frozen despite the suspension of the alliance's Yugoslavia bombing campaign, but he did not rule out an improvement, Russian news agencies said. "Relations with NATO are frozen for the time being. As for the future, let's wait and see," RIA news agency quoted Yeltsin as saying ahead of a meeting in the Kremlin with Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov...."We must all draw lessons from the Yugoslav crisis. The world had truly been on the verge of a catastrophe," Interfax news agency quoted Yeltsin as saying....During the 11-week bombing campaign Yeltsin often warned of the damage being wreaked on the system of international law. Russia was particularly incensed that NATO had acted in Yugoslavia without the consent of the U.N. Security Council, where Moscow has the right of veto as a permanent member....."
Cato Institute 6/11/99 Gary Dempsey "... Paul Begala, former Clinton aide turned political commentator, proclaimed, "By God, [the air war's critics] were wrong." Such gloating proved premature; negotiations are now tenuous. Furthermore, the truth of the matter is that Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic is not giving in to NATO's bombs. Milosevic achieved his political and strategic goals weeks ago: He secured his grip on power inside Yugoslavia and pushed ethnic Albanians out of a huge swath of Kosovo. His latest diplomatic actions are aimed at buying more time and eventually locking in his gains. Moreover, Milosevic gets a better deal under the G-8 framework than under the peace plan that Western powers tried to prod Belgrade into signing last March in Rambouillet, France. Look closely at the G-8 framework endorsed by the Yugoslav government. Three of the provisions that made the Rambouillet plan unacceptable to Belgrade are gone. First, the Rambouillet agreement stipulated that NATO troops would not be limited to the province of Kosovo but could deploy anywhere in Yugoslavia..... Second, the Rambouillet agreement would have guaranteed that Kosovo's population, which is overwhelmingly non-Serb, could vote to secede from Yugoslavia after three years of interim administration....Third, the Rambouillet agreement would have mandated the deployment of NATO troops on a NATO mission. The G-8 agreement, however, refers to an "international security presence, with substantial NATO participation," that will operate "under UN auspices, . . . acting as may be decided under Chapter VII of the Charter." Authority for the Kosovo operation will be shifted to the United Nations, where Yugoslavia has two key allies in the Security Council, Russia and China. What's more, a footnote to the G-8 agreement states, "It is understood that Russia's position is that the Russian contingent [to the Kosovo peacekeeping mission] will not be under NATO command and its relationship to the international presence will be governed by relevant additional agreements." Under the G-8 plan, Russia could have its own administrative sector in Kosovo. Given the cultural and historical ties between Russians and Serbs, ethnic Albanian refugees are unlikely to return to a Russian sector. The result would be the de facto partition of Kosovo, something Milosevic probably desired from the outset......U.S.-Russian relations are at a post Cold War low, and the prospects for pro-Western candidates in this winter's Russian parliamentary elections are bleak. Russia still has more than 6,000 aging nuclear missiles; the election of anti-Western forces could doom the START II arms control agreement. This Clinton "victory" also means deploying U.S. troops for yet another multi-billion-dollar, open-ended military commitment. Beyond that, U.S. soldiers involved in the operation will be obligated under the G-8 agreement to disarm the Kosovo Liberation Army, which still seeks an independent Kosovo. Thanks to the Clinton administration, Milosevic may get the last laugh, as Belgrade's headache becomes Washington's headache...."
stratfor.com 6/12/99 "...0107 GMT, 990612 ...The latest reports from Moscow indicate to us that a major power struggle has erupted in Moscow. The orders issued to Russian troops clearly were not generated accidentally. It is equally clear that they were not generated by the Russian foreign ministry, unless Foreign Minister Ivanov is being totally duplicitous. Obviously, the Russian military has been bitterly angry at the Yeltsin government in general and at the handling of the Kosovo crisis by Viktor Chernomyrdin in particular. Someone ordered those troops to move. We believe it was the Russian military itself. If our interpretation is correct, then far more important things are happening than the occupation of Kosovo or even the deadlock between Russia and NATO. A power struggle has clearly broken out in Moscow, between the military - undoubtedly supported by hard-liners in the Duma, and the moderates - who have been in charge of Moscow's Kosovo policy. Now it is possible that Ivanov is simply lying when he expressed his bewilderment about Russian troop movements, but we think that the Russian military has asserted itself....."
NY TIMES 6/12/99 Michael Gordon "...The arrival of Russian troops in Pristina before dawn Saturday raises disturbing questions about the Kremlin's control of the military. After the troops moved into Yugoslavia on Friday, Foreign Minister Igor S. Ivanov assured the Clinton Administration that the force would not enter Kosovo until Russia had reached an understanding with NATO. Just hours later, however, Ivanov was reading a statement at dawn on the Cable News Network that said that the Kosovo deployment was a colossal mistake and announcing that the troops would be immediately withdrawn. Since the end of the cold war, Russian troops have been bedraggled, dispirited but obedient...... But after the NATO air raids against Yugoslavia, senior Russian military officials increasingly seem to have had their own foreign policy....."
Stratfor 6/12/99 "...800 GMT, 990612 - A Russian military source told Itar-Tass on June 12 that U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott "played for time by dodging the concrete question of Russian participation in the KFOR operation" in the overnight talks in Moscow. The U. S. generals "insistently tried to convince" Russians NATO was not going to enter Kosovo earlier than Saturday evening, the source said. Reportedly, the Russian Defense Ministry had received information from a trusted source by 2200 GMT on June 11 that the alliance had launched the KFOR operation. "In this situation, we could no longer trust our partners and decided to send a forward unit of Russian paratroopers into Kosovo, " the source said...."
6/12/99 Itar-Tass NewsEdge Corporation Freeper Thanatos "...China's deputy chairman of the Central Military Council, Colonel-General Zhang Wanyang, who is on a visit in Russia, on Saturday visited a division of Russian Strategic Troops near Novosibirsk. He is the first Chinese high-ranking military official to visit a division of Russia's nuclear forces. A Russian Defense Ministry spokesman told Itar-Tass that the Chinese military delegation was shown the Topol missile and explained its possibilities in overcoming the air defense of a "potential foe"...."
New York Post 6/13/99 Uri Dan and Brian Blomquist "....The surprise early arrival of Russian troops inside war-town Kosovo - ahead of NATO peacekeepers - was no mistake, a high-ranking Russian military officer on the scene told The Post. "We got an order to arrive in Pristina before NATO and the Americans," said the captain of an elite Russian paratrooper unit. "We really arrived first because the Russians are always first."..."
6/13/99 Itar-Tass "....Russia proceeds from a principle of no direct subordination to NATO in the deployment of its contingent in Kosovo, First Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Avdeyev said in the RTR Zerkalo television program on Sunday. "The most complicated diplomatic work is behind a possible agreement to deploy the Russian contingent," he noted. It is necessary to achieve at the diplomatic level worthy conditions for the Russian contingent in Kosovo. "The worthy conditions are not only the maintenance but also the political significance that must be attached to the introduction of our troops," he said....."
Xinhua News Agency 6/13/99 "....Russia on Sunday accused NATO of not observing the provisions of the UN Security Council resolution on Kosovo or the military technical agreements with the Yugoslav military leadership. A high-ranking Defense Ministry official said NATO does not observe the provision "on the impermissibility of security vacuum and the disarmament of the Kosovo Liberation Army," the Interfax news agency reported. The ministry believes that such a violation of obligations "is creating an explosive situation and threatening the lives of Russian troops that entered Pristina." ..."
6/13/99 Nando Media/AP "....U.S. government officials say Russia, Iraq and North Korea are probably concealing the deadly smallpox virus for military use, The New York Times reported Sunday. A secret federal intelligence assessment was completed late last year. It was based on evidence that includes disclosures by a senior Soviet defector, blood samples from the North Korean soldiers that show smallpox vaccinations and the fairly recent manufacture of smallpox vaccine by Iraq, according to the report. Officials told the Times that the assessment was an important factor in President Clinton's recent decision to reverse course and forgo destruction of American stockpiles of the virus...."
ITAR-TASS 6/12/99 Mikhail Shevtsov "...China's deputy chairman of the Central Military Council, Colonel-General Zhang Wannian, who is on a visit in Russia, on Saturday visited a division of Russian Missile Strategic Troops near Novosibirsk. He is the first Chinese high-ranking military official to visit a division of Russia's nuclear forces. A Russian Defense Ministry spokesman told Itar-Tass that the Chinese military delegation was shown the Topol missile and explained its possibilities in overcoming the air defense of a "potential foe"...."
Itar-Tass 6/12/99 "...U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott "played for time by dodging the concrete question of Russian participation in the KFOR operation," a source said on Saturday, commenting on the overnight talks between the American envoy and generals and their Russian colleagues. The U.S. generals "insistently tried to convince" their Russian partners that NATO was not going to enter Kosovo earlier than Saturday evening. However, Russian military officials said it was nothing but misinformation. The Russian Defence Ministry had received creditable information by 2.00 a.m. Saturday (2200 GMT Friday) that the Alliance had begun the KFOR operation. NATO troops had begun moving towards Kosovo, while special units were already there. "In this situation, we could no longer trust our partners and decided to send a forward unit of Russian paratroopers into Kosovo," the source said...."
Sky News 6/15/99 "...Tension over the Russian presence in Kosovo is growing, with reports that more paratroops are on the way. One news agency reported that as many as 7,000 more Russian soldiers could join the token force of 200 or so Russian special forces already there. The RIA news agency quoted "Serb sources in Pristina" as saying between 5,000 and 7,000 Russian paratroops would be flown to Pristina in the next four days. Officials in Moscow could not confirm the RIA report....."
Itar-Tass 6/15/99 "..... Russia has a priority right to discuss the location of its peacemakers in Kosovo, Chairman of the Duma Committee on Nationalities Vladimir Zorin told Itar-Tass on Tuesday. "Being an active participant in the peacemaking process, Russia has the priority right to negotiations with all parties to the conflict, both NATO and Yugoslavia, on the location of its peacemaking contingent in Kosovo," the Duma deputy said...."
The Washington Times/Drudge Report 6/15/99 Bill Gertz "... "Either this is a covert operation by the Russians, or the civilian leadership can't control the military. Neither one of those is good for the West." Pentagon officials said the pro-Serbian Russians have complicated the peace deal in a major way. For example, they said if the Serbs were to refuse to pull out their troops from Kosovo on schedule, resuming the NATO bombing with even a small Russian presence in the province would not be possible. entagon officials explain privately that, adding to concern about tension within Russia's military and control over the nuclear arsenal, is confusion over who is calling the shots in Kosovo, the military in Russia or Russian President Boris Yeltsin and his advisers. A U.S. intelligence official familiar with the standoff over the Russians in Kosovo said yesterday there are no signs Russian nuclear forces went on a high-alert status -- a move that would have signaled heightened tensions with the West....Reports from Russia indicate military units have been forced to sell off weapons and equipment to earn cash. Even food is in short supply.....Military preparedness is also declining sharply because of a lack of money for operations and maintenance and the failure to replace old equipment. And as a further result of funding shortfalls, the military has combined some elements and discharged several hundred thousand people. A 1996 CIA report that looked at the unauthorized use of nuclear weapons by the Russian strategic forces stated that the military is "demoralized and corrupted." It raised the prospect that civilian leaders could lose control of the nuclear arsenal to the military, which continues to view the United States as its "main enemy." .....Clinton administration officials have sought to play down the dangers with the Russian nuclear arsenal. They insist Moscow retains control over the thousands of strategic nuclear missiles, bombers and submarines. But there have been other signs reported in intelligence channels over the past two months, showing that Russia's military is adopting a new hard line against the West because of the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia...... As analysts see it, a worst-case scenario is that Moscow planned all along to upset NATO's peacekeeping operation by sending the troops and intentionally to mislead U.S. leaders and the world as part of the plan...."
Associated Press 6/15/99 Judith Ingram "...A second column of Russian troops arrived in Kosovo on Tuesday, increasing pressure on NATO to resolve the impasse over Moscow's role in peacekeeping. The deployment came as Russia's top military commander and chief diplomat prepared for tough talks with their U.S. counterparts, who are negotiating on behalf of the alliance. Russia wants its own sector of authority and for its troops not to be placed under NATO command. Though the second column was small - just 29 soldiers, according to NATO - it was large enough to dramatize those demands...."
Stratfor 6/15/99 "...1554 GMT, 990615...Russian President Boris Yeltsin has reportedly approved agreements reached at the meeting of the Russian Security Council, which state that the Foreign Ministry will coordinate all of Russia's future Kosovo activities with other government offices. According to Russian Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin, "Synchronization of the performance of the Foreign Ministry, the military, and the government is the rigid algorithm whose performance started today." First, this is a very public, clear, and appalling admission on the part of Stepashin and Yeltsin that a massive rift opened inside the Kremlin over Russian foreign policy. Despite the personal assurances of Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov that Russian troops would not enter Kosovo without first coordinating with NATO, Russian troops did just that, sweeping in ahead of NATO forces and seizing Slatina airbase near Pristina...."
Agence France Presse 6/14/99 "...The Kosovo conflict has prompted Russia to seek "strategic partners" in the form of China and India, Russian First Deputy Defense Minister Nikolai Mikhailov here Monday. Mikhailov made the comment during a visit to this far eastern port city by Chinese General Zhang Wannian, vice president of China's Central Military Commission. "The events in Yugoslavia have inevitably forced us to take steps to strengthen Russia's defensive capacity and find strategic partners," Mikhailov said noting that "these partners are China and India." .....China plans to continue buying the most up-to-date Russian military equipment, notably in the aviation and radar sectors, according to sources in the Russian defense ministry quoted by the Interfax news agency. Beijing could also purchase submarines, ships and cruise missiles from Moscow. The two countries plan to spend an estimated five to six billion dollars through 2005 in joint research and development projects in the military sector, Interfax reported. ..."
ITAR-TASS 6/14/99 Yevgenia Lenz "...Colonel-General Zhang Wannian, Deputy Chairman of the Central MIlitary Council of the People's Republic of China (PRC), who has stayed at the main base of Russia's Pacific Fleet since June 12, is due to arrive in Komsomolsk on Amur on Monday. Over there, he is to tour a number of defence plants which will probably fill orders to be placed by the Chinese army as well. Meanwhile, a source at the Pacific Fleet headquarters has told Itar-Tass that during meetings between General Zhang and Admiral Mikhail Zakharenko, Commander of the Pacific Fleet, the sides "achieved full mutual understanding on problems of mutual concern". In the second half of this year, a naval squadron of Pacific Fleet ships is to pay an official visit to one of the ports of the PRC...."
ITAR-TASS 6/14/99 Monday Yevgenia Lenz "...Nikolai Mikhailov, Russia's First Deputy Minister of Defence and State Secretary, in his remarks during talks between Colonel-General Zhang Wannian, Deputy Chairman of the Central Military Council of the People's Republic of China, and the Command of Russia's Pacific Fleet, has stated that "Russia's strategic cooperation with China and India will rise to a qualitatively new level soon". The Russian Defence Ministry official pointed out that "the events in Yugoslavia prompted the adoption of necessary measures in the strengthening of Russia's defence capability and in a quest for strategic partners in accomplishment of this important task. China and India are such partners now"...."
ITAR-TASS 6/15/99 Boris Savelyev "....Moscow and Beijing considered military cooperation issues at a Tuesday meeting between commanders of Russia's far eastern military district and a Chinese delegation led by Deputy Chairman of China's Central Military Council Col. Gen. Zhang Wannian..... The visiting Chinese delegation has been guided through the Komsomolsk company which is ready to complete a large order for modern warplanes. Although no contract has been signed yet, the company already has six aircraft on assembly line. Ishayev told reporters that in his view, "the modern world should be either multi-polar or at least bi-polar, in order to oppose the powerful NATO bloc from the deterrent standpoint, because NATO is seeking to replace the UN Security Council and other UN bodies. " ...."
Stratfor 6/14/99 "...NATO and the United States have been dealing with men like Viktor Chernomyrdin.... Their credibility there [in Russia] is nil. In negotiating with the West, they operate from two imperatives. First, they are seeking whatever economic concessions they can secure in the hope of sparking an economic miracle. Second, like Gorbachev before them, they have more credibility with the people with whom they are negotiating than the people they are negotiating for. That tends to make them malleable. NATO has been confusing the malleability of a declining cadre of Russian leaders with the genuine condition inside of Russia. Clearly, Albright, Berger, Talbott, and Clinton decided that they could roll Ivanov and Chernomyrdrin into whatever agreement they wanted. In that they were right. Where they were terribly wrong was about the men they were not negotiating with, but whose power and credibility was growing daily. These faceless hard-liners in the military finally snapped at the humiliation NATO inflicted on their public leaders.....Machiavelli teaches the importance of never wounding your adversaries. It is much better to kill them. Wounding them and then ridiculing and tormenting them is the worst possible strategy. Russia is certainly wounded. It is far from dead. NATO's strategy in Kosovo has been to goad a wounded bear. That is not smart unless you are preparing to slay him. Since no one in NATO wants to go bear hunting, treating Russia with the breathtaking contempt that NATO has shown it in the past few weeks is not wise. It seems to us that Clinton and Blair are so intent on the very minor matter of Kosovo that they have actually been oblivious to the effect their behavior is having in Moscow. They just can't get it into their heads that it's not about Kosovo. It is not about humanitarianism or making ourselves the kind of people we want to be. It's about the Russians, stupid! And about China and about the global balance of power...."
Unclassified Statement for the Record by Special Assistant to the DCI for Nonproliferation John A. Lauder on the Worldwide WMD Threat to the Commission to Assess the Organization of the Federal Government to Combat the Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction As Prepared for Delivery on 29 April 1999 … Looking at the supply-side first: Russian and Chinese assistance to proliferant countries has merited particular attention for several years. Last year, Russia announced new controls on transfers of missile-related technology. There were some positive signs in Russia's performance early last year but, unfortunately, there has not been a sustained improvement. Expertise and materiel from Russia has continued to assist the progress of several states. For example, Russian entities have helped the Iranian missile effort in areas ranging from training, to testing, to components. This assistance is continuing as we speak, and is playing a crucial role in Iran's ability to develop more sophisticated and longer-range missiles.
Making matters worse, societal and economic stress in Russia seems likely to grow, raising even more concerns about the security of nuclear weapons and fissile material. Although we have not had recent reports that weapons-usable nuclear material is missing in Russia, what we have noticed are reports of strikes, lax discipline, poor morale, and criminal activity at nuclear facilities. These are alarm bells that warrant our closest attention and concern. Moreover, these same stresses are propagating a "brain drain" in which WMD-related technologies--particularly those relating to biological weapons (BW) and chemical weapons (CW)--are for sale by Russian individuals to proliferant states. As you know, plugging this brain drain and helping provide alternative courses for the former Soviet Union's WMD infrastructure are key goals of US nonproliferation policy, as well as a variety of US and international cooperation programs with Russia and other former Soviet states…."
Toronto Sun 6/20/99 Eric Margolis "...U.S. and European intelligence agencies are reporting mounting evidence that Russia and China have massively violated the 1972 Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention and subsequent international and bilateral agreements to control biowarfare weapons. The convention, signed by 169 nations, prohibits the development, production, acquisition, stockpiling, transfer or use of chemical and biological weapons. All signatories with biowarfare arsenals pledged to eliminate such weapons over 10 years. While Russia and China appear to have ceased adding to their huge stockpiles of chemical weapons, both are developing new strains of highly lethal biological toxins. According to Ken Alibek, a former deputy director of the top secret Soviet-era biowarfare program, who defected to the West, Moscow never ended its offensive biological warfare research. Alibek claims Russia has stockpiled many hundreds of tons of anthrax and plague, as well as smaller quantities of smallpox, Ebola and Marburg virus, and toxins designed to attack plants and animals. Russia is also developing a new strain of "invisible" biowarfare agents, known as bioregulators, that destroy the body's immune or neurological systems. The highest-ranking defector from Russia's biowarfare program ever to come West also claims that in 1985 former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev secretly authorized a five-year program to develop weaponized germs and viruses, some of which were mounted on multiple warheads of the large SS-18 ICBMs targeted at North America. Alibek also says China, which claims to have abandoned biowarfare production and eliminated stockpiles, is producing haemorrhagic viruses at Lop Nor in Central Asia, and suffered two major accidents in the late 1980s that killed hundreds of people. ....Some of the 60,000 scientists and technicians formerly employed in the Soviet biological warfare establishment have reportedly been employed by Iraq, Israel, Iran, Syria and Serbia - all of which have extensive biowarfare arsenals. India may also have received substantial Russian aid to develop its growing biowarfare capabilities. Alibek testified before the U.S. Congress that he defected after learning that while the West had virtually eliminated its toxic arsenals, Russia was not only continuing Soviet biowarfare programs but accelerating them, with 2,000 scientists alone working on new, genetically engineered strains of anthrax at a top secret island base in the Aral Sea. He claims such toxic agents have little tactical military value and are of use only as mass terror weapons designed to compensate for Russia's and China's relative backwardness in conventional military systems....."
American Spectator 7/99 Kenneth Timmerman "…Since 1994, the Clinton administration has been spending taxpayer dollars to employ Russian nuclear scientists and weapons designers in civilian projects, with the laudable goal of seeking to prevent them from selling their talents to rogue states such as Iran, Iraq, North Korea, and Libya. But a recent review by the General Accounting Office (GAO) found that some of the money has helped the Russians develop better nuclear weapons, missiles, and biological weapons--and that many civilian projects financed with U.S. taxpayer money have direct military applications. Even worse: Some of the U.S. -funded scientists and institutes are developing weapons for Iran and Libya. Despite these warnings, the Clinton administration now proposes to spend an additional $600 million to launch a massive public works project in ten Russian "nuclear cities." Although these sites are ostensibly closed to outsiders, Iranian visitors have in the last five years been spotted at some of Russia's most sensitive weapons labs, including Vector and Obolensk, where scientists have genetically engineered human and animal viruses to produce the most deadly biological weapons known to mankind…… Heading the Nuclear Cities program at DOE is Assistant Secretary of Energy Rose Gottemoeller, the same official who fired the department's head of security programs because she suspected him of leaking information to Congress on the disastrous state of security at DOE nuclear storage plants and at the national labs ("Nuclear Security Meltdown," TAS, June 1999). In her academic writings, Ms. Gottemoeller has urged the U.S. to abandon its long-standing policy of strategic ambiguity by declaring publicly that the U. S. will not be the first to use nuclear weapons. But Rose Gottemoeller is not just any anti-nuclear academic: In 1993 she became National Security Council director for Russia and the other Soviet successor states. Since then, she has presided over policies that advanced the career of former KGB Director Yevgeni Primakov, turned a blind eye to Russia's nuclear and missile transfers to Iran, and supported President Boris Yeltsin at the expense of democratic reformers, plying him with political favors and cash that went directly into offshore bank accounts. Although she has no hands-on managerial experience, Gottemoeller inherits a program crippled by poor management and lack of oversight, which seems destined to have precisely the opposite effect of its stated intention of helping wean Russia away from nuclear weapons…."
AP 7/19/99 "....A top Russian general on Monday denied a Norwegian newspaper's claim that Russia had a secret chemical weapons depot above the Arctic Circle and near Norway's border. Verdens Gang, Norway's largest newspaper, recently published a report about what it said was a secret chemical weapons storage facility near Severomosk on the Kola Peninsula...."
7/21/99 AFP "....The Russian arms giant Almaz is currently designing parts of defense systems for Chinese and South Korean buyers, Interfax reported Tuesday. Spokesmen for the Moscow-based arms designers said the technology of the parts ordered by Asia is below the company's capabilities and the parts are being designed under the supervision of the Russian government...."
Softwar 7/26/99 "...In 1997, USAF RC-135 "Cobra Ball" aircraft observed the successful test firings of the SS-27 (TOPOL-M).... The first deployment was reported to be in a SS-19 silo complex located at Tatishchevo in January of 1998..... The TOPOL is manufactured by the Moscow Institute for Thermal Technology. The new, truck mobile, SS-27 is reported by Russian officials to have Maneuverable Re-entry Vehicle (MARV) capability designed to defeat any expected US deployment of anti-ballistic missile systems.....The mobile Russian SS-27 also raises serious proliferation questions since the Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology is providing the SS-27 design to China. China intends to produce the TOPOL-M missile under the designation "Dong Feng" (East Wind) DF-41. ...."
Financial Times 8/3/99 John Thornhill "...Russia has developed a new short-range "miracle rocket system" that it is targeting at the international arms market, local newswires reported yesterday. The rocket, called the Iskander-E, is said to be an accurate, mobile, powerful artillery system, which can be used by infantry. Defence ministry experts said the rocket system was so advanced that it would not have competitors on the international arms market for 25 years. Russia's willingness to export advanced weapons systems has alarmed the US and Israel..."
Reuters-Russia Today 8/6/99 "...Russian state arms dealer Rosvooruzheniye has a deal to sell China Sukhoi fighter aircraft worth about $2.0 billion, the governor of the region where the planes are made was quoted as saying on Friday. Russia's Kommersant business daily quoted Khabarovsk Governor Viktor Ishaev as saying a deal for 60 SU-30 planes had been sealed after nearly four years of negotiations. Kommersant quoted unnamed sources as saying the deal was preliminary. ..."