IN THIS ISSUE

* Russian defense ministry expresses optimism over military reform
* Counter-terrorist operation launched in Chechnya’s Achkhoi-Martan district
* Belarus slowly improves its ties with the European Union
** New in the Jamestown blog on Russia and Eurasia (http://www.jamestown.org/blog):
- Tbilisi’s Dilemma: Will Belarus Recognize Independence of the Occupied Georgian Territories?

“New Look” Russian Army Officially Formed

Roger McDermott

On November 17, an expanded session of the Russian defense ministry board met to review the results of the training year and consider future plans. The annual meeting, however, was dominated by the current reform of the armed forces and inevitably discussion gravitated towards reflecting on progress to date. Its participants included Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov, Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov, the Chief of the General Staff Army-General Nikolai Makarov, the Governor of Moscow region Boris Gromov, Director-General of Rostekhnologii Sergei Chemezov, Director of the Burevestnik Central Research Institute, General Designer in artillery weapons Georgy Zakamennykh, as well as other federal officials (Interfax, ITAR-TASS, November 17).

Reportedly, Serdyukov in his introductory remarks outlined key objectives such as improving mobility and combat readiness, and said these had already been achieved. He explained that the structural reorganization of the armed forces, including forming new brigades, and a three tiered command system (military district-operational command-brigade), was nearing its completion. The mass mobilization principle had been abandoned, while he reported significant progress towards abolishing the divisional structure in the army (while preserving this within the airborne forces –VDV) and forming a brigade-based table of organization. Serdyukov noted that all brigades have been formed and are mostly 100 percent manned, though some separate units are undermanned by 2 to 5 percent. It appeared that purely “technical issues” remain in order to declare this first stage of the reform, reached formally on December 1, as successful. “Of course, this does not mean that we are fully satisfied with the results of the work. We are only saying that the work to establish a new image of the army and the navy is progressing in the right direction,” Serdyukov admitted (Nezavisimoye Voyennoye Obozreniye, November 23). He intimated that next year the key focus will be placed on personnel and preparing a new generation of officers and NCO’s, and staging exercises in the eastern strategic direction.

This assessment was based, according to the defense minister, on a careful analysis of the main military exercises this year: Kavkaz, Lagoda and Zapad 2009, which concentrated on testing the new brigades and improving mobility and combat readiness levels. It appears that the defense ministry has highly estimated these exercises, and considers the performance of the units as an indication of success in the initial stage of the overall reform. Moreover, this was corroborated by General Makarov, who was the main speaker in the session. In fact, Makarov told the board that the time had been reduced in which permanent-readiness units and large units are able to deploy. He had first set such an objective during a lengthy press conference in Moscow on June 5. “Measures taken in 2009 have made it possible to create a new system of combat readiness of the armed forces, which is based on reducing the time within which permanent-readiness military units and large units get ready to carry out their designated objectives (from 24 hours) to one hour,” Makarov said (Kommersant, June 5; ITAR-TASS, November 17).

Serdyukov had also highlighted that all units are now outfitted with weapons and equipment. A spokesman for the Main Directorate of Combat Training explained how these forces are now able to deploy much more quickly: equipment, weapons, ammunition, and military hardware which were previously stored in depots are now kept with the units (ITAR-TASS, November 17).

While the atmosphere at the session of the defense ministry board seemed self-congratulatory, perhaps understandably so given the enormity of the task implemented this year, there were also realistic cautionary notes. The board suggested that the plan over the next three years was to progress toward possessing only permanent readiness units, which will enhance mobility and lethality. Equally, attention turned to the formation of NCO’s, rearmament as well as social issues such as housing for officers (Zvezda TV, November 17). However, it is significant that Makarov took center stage during this meeting, suggesting increased harmony between the defense ministry and the General Staff over the reforms, but highlighting his influential role.

In October, he turned 60, the retirement age for a senior officer. Any additional service would require a presidential order, most usually providing a one year extension. However, on October 13, Colonel Aleksey Kuznetsov, the acting head of the defense ministry’s press service and information directorate, confirmed that President Dmitry Medvedev had taken the unusual step of issuing a ukaz (presidential decree) to extend Makarov’s term of military service by three years: which means that he will remain in his post to oversee the most critical reform period (Interfax, October 13).

The seriousness attached to exercises and combat training, noted by Serdyukov, was largely overseen by Lieutenant-General Vladimir Shamanov when he was the head of the combat training directorate from November 2007 until May 2009. On May 26, Shamanov was appointed as the commander of the VDV and soon secured the preservation of its division-based structure. His replacement as head of the combat training directorate, Lieutenant-General Valery Yevnevich, is also a former paratrooper and decorated as a Hero of Russia (he served in an air assault brigade in the Soviet-Afghan war, and participated in storming the White House in 1993 during the standoff between President Boris Yeltsin and the Russian parliament). Yevnevich appears to be building on Shamanov’s more rigorous approach, underscoring the defense ministry’s aim to “drastically change its approach” to combat training in light of the lessons learned from the Russia-Georgia war in August 2008 (www.newsru.com, July 16, 2006; RIA Novosti, August 10). Taken together, it provides evidence that the VDV is playing a formative role in implementing and adapting the reform plans to suit operational requirements.

Vitaly Shlykov, a member of the foreign and defense policy council correctly observed: “This is essentially a totally different army, the foundation of which was laid this year. And this is the country’s organizational victory” (Gazeta, November 20). The defense ministry session on November 17 quietly marked the passing of the mass mobilization principle and realistically discussed the achievements, problems and challenges facing the new Russian army. As the reform unfolds, combat training and changes at unit level, including developing adequately trained NCO’s that suit Russian needs, will prove more critical than the machinations of the leaders of the reform. Its critics, however, now appear mostly marginalized.

Insurgent Violence Reported in Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan

The Jamestown Foundation

The Russian federal authorities today imposed a counter-terrorist operation regime on part of Chechnya’s Achkhoi-Martan district, with the aim of neutralizing a group of militants hiding out in a wooded mountainous area. The regime means that military and law enforcement personnel will have the right to search and demand ID’s from suspicious individuals, as well as inspect cars and other means of transport. The inhabitants of some areas within the designated area will be evacuated and, if necessary, vehicles will be seized (www.newsru.com, November 24).

Today’s announcement of a counter-terrorist operation launched in Achkhoi-Martan came against the backdrop of reported incidents of insurgent violence in other parts of Chechnya over the last several days. Yesterday (November 23), unidentified gunmen in the capital Grozny shot and killed Roza Almazova, the chief accountant for the Chechen branch of the Federal Service for Narcotics Control. The incident took place at the entrance to her apartment building in Grozny’s Leninsky district. A suspected militant was killed on November 22 in a shootout between security forces and a suspected group of rebels numbering at least ten people in a wooded area between the villages of Avtury and Serzhen-Yurt in Chechnya’s Shali district (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, November 23).

Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov told journalists today that the remains of Dokka Umarov, the Chechen rebel leader and “emir” of the Caucasus Emirate, were not found following an operation earlier this month on the outskirts of the village of Shalazhi in Chechnya’s Achkhoi-Martan district. Kadyrov had earlier speculated that Umarov’s remains were among those of some 20 militants killed during the operation by rockets fired from helicopters. However, a close associate of Umarov, Islam Uspakhadzhiev, was reportedly among the slain rebels, along with two other high-ranking militants, Rustam Akuev and Alakhazur Bashaev. Kadyrov said today that both Uspakhadzhiev and Umarov were known to have been in the area where the former was killed, which is why he suggested that Umarov might have also been killed. The Chechen leader said “the hunt for Umarov is currently being carried out in many directions,” adding that Umarov, “like a rat, is dug in somewhere in the mountains” with fewer and fewer fellow rebels “and he will hardly manage to survive the fall and winter, because they are hot on his heels” (www.newsru.com, November 24).

In neighboring Ingushetia, unidentified gunmen shot and killed Alikhan Buzurtanov, the head of the administration of the Nasyr-Kortovsky municipal district of the city of Nazran on November 23 (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, November 23). On November 21, an unidentified attacker fired a grenade launcher at a police post near Nazran, wounding one policeman. On November 20, unidentified attackers fired on a traffic police car traveling on the Kavkaz federal highway in Nazran. One policeman was wounded and subsequently died in the hospital (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, November 22).

In Dagestan, a policeman was wounded in the republican capital Makhachkala on November 22 as he was trying to remove an explosive device from the hood of his car. On November 21, a resident of Dagestan’s Buinaksk district, Khan Khadisov, was killed while he was trying to plant an explosive device on a road in the village of Durangi (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, November 22).

Meanwhile, a newly-published report by Thomas Hammerberg, the Council of Europe’s human rights commissioner, states that the number of terrorist acts, killings and abductions in Chechnya has increased this year compared to 2008, despite the fact that the Russian government officially earlier this year ended the counter-terrorist operation launched in the republic in 1999. Hammerberg called on the Russian authorities to clarify the legal norms governing zachistki, or counter-insurgency sweeps, in the republic, to guarantee the observation of human rights during such operations, to carry out independent investigations of violations and to put an end to abductions, extra-judicial killings and secret arrests.

Hammerberg noted that the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg has heard over 100 cases connected to counter-terrorist operations in Chechnya. According to the report: “in many cases the court has encountered violations of fundamental rights that are protected by the European Convention for Human Rights, including the right to life, and also violations of the prohibition on torture and inhumane treatment” (www.newsru.com, November 24).

European Union Disappointed with Lack of Change in Belarus

David Marples

A meeting of the European Union Council of foreign ministers in Brussels on November 16-17 opted to continue restrictions on travel by Belarusian government officials to its member states. However, to encourage the Belarusian side to improve its domestic situation, the ban was suspended for a further eleven months, expiring in October 2010.

The travel ban, which encompasses 36 Belarusian officials, was introduced after the flawed presidential elections and their violent aftermath in March 2006, and suspended in October 2008 following the freeing of some political prisoners by the Lukashenka regime. Since that time Belarus has joined the European Union’s Eastern Partnership Project and EU leaders have made a series of visits to Belarus, while Lukashenka and others have visited Lithuania, the Czech Republic, and other states.

The Council’s decision reflects the disappointment of the EU concerning the lack of real change in Belarus. Its official statement declared that it “deeply regrets” that its concerns regarding human rights and basic freedoms have not been addressed. It cited brutal dispersal of peaceful political demonstrations (most recently on October 16), failure to register political parties and NGO’s, and the creation of an independent media. Also, it addressed Belarus’ refusal to date to abolish the death penalty. The EU declared that Belarus’ electoral laws needed to be brought in line with international standards (www.naviny.by, November 16; Office for a Democratic Belarus, November 17).

Two other recent events illustrate the conflicting attitudes and responses to EU initiatives. The first was the convocation of the Belarusian European Forum, held in the Palace of Culture in the Minsk Auto Factory on November 14, organized by Alyaksandr Milinkevich of the Movement for Freedom and the Belarusian Independent Blocs and attended by 809 people, including deputies of the European Parliament and several ambassadors from EU countries. At the meeting, Milinkevich noted that the past policy of political isolation of the Lukashenka regime had proven unsuccessful and that he and his associates favored spreading contacts with Europe at all levels. They also support a political and economic dialogue with the Belarusian authorities, but only with firm conditions about democratization in Belarus and the provision of political, economic, and other “freedoms.” Milinkevich also discussed the 2011 presidential election. While not directly declaring his candidacy, he commented that the uniting of “ideologically close political forces” might be a more successful strategy than the 2006 policy of uniting all political groups behind a single candidate (Belorusy i Rynok, November 16-22).

The second event was a conference and discussion held by the largest daily newspaper Sovetskaya Belorussiya (Belarus’ Segodnya), which consisted of an open question and answer session with the chairperson of the Central Election Commission (CEC), Lidziya Yarmoshyna, one of the leaders still banned from traveling to Europe. In general she was noncommittal on the most sensitive questions about reforms to the electoral process. She answered questions exclusively in Russian, even though about half were posed in the Belarusian language, and the questioners appeared to include quite a large contingent of students (SB-Belarus’ Segodnya, November 18).

Among other issues, Yarmoshyna revealed her Russian and Ukrainian parentage, her support for then Prime Minister Vyacheslau Kebich in the 1994 election (won by Lukashenka), and the integrity of her commission, despite the president’s claim that the results of the 2006 election were fabricated to reduce his margin of victory. Asked whether there would be changes to the electoral law on Europe’s initiative or internally, she answered that the authorities would use those recommendations by European experts that they considered necessary. Moreover, she noted that changes to the electoral law would be in place before the current session of parliament ends, on December 18.

She also defended the anomaly of early voting, but agreed with one question concerning the procedural problems of collecting signatures for presidential candidates, stating that it will no longer be possible to add signatures from electors from various regions and districts on a single list. Foreign organizations will not be permitted to support candidates financially –the question referred to opposition figures– but the number of election observers may be extended (she did not specify whom this might include).

Astonishingly, in reply to a question about her opinion of the 12 conditions for improving democracy in Belarus advanced originally by the EU, she professed not to know about them, claiming that the document had not been circulated in the CEC.

On the one hand, the public forum with such a senior figure and the openness of the questions are positive signs. This is not the first such discussion on the pages of the presidential newspaper. On the other hand, there is little to indicate either that Yarmoshyna has mellowed or that any serious amendments to the electoral system are under consideration.

For the Europeans, there will be an opportunity to assess whether improvements will come during the local elections in spring 2010, a prequel to the anticipated presidential elections in 2011. Belarus intends to abolish tourist visas for EU citizens in the near future (www.news.tut.by, November 18) and some reciprocation may be anticipated. However, the decision to continue sanctions, albeit in suspended form, appears to be justified. The Belarusian side needs to do much more before it can be considered a viable partner.

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