IN THIS ISSUE

* Terrorist train attack rattles the Russian establishment.
* Will Moscow use force to halt the spread of Circassian nationalism in the Northwest Caucasus?
* Uzbekistan announces its withdrawal from Central Asian power grid.
**New in the Jamestown blog on Russia and Eurasia (http://www.jamestown.org/blog):
- EU Supports “Authoritarian” President Tymoshenko?

Terrorists Attack the St. Petersburg-Connected Elite

Pavel Felgenhauer

The bombing of the Nevsky Express, en route from Moscow to St. Petersburg, caused a crash that killed 26 people and injured more than one hundred. The alleged blast ruptured the tracks under the locomotive as the train was traveling at approximately 200 kilometers per hour with over 600 passengers onboard. Only the two last carriages derailed, where all the fatalities and most of the injuries happened (Kommersant, November 30).

The authorities announced that traces of explosives were found at the site of the crash. Russian bloggers questioned the terrorist-connected train crash assumption (www.lenta.ru, November 30). But on November 28 –the next day after the crash– a second bomb exploded near the site of the first, aimed apparently at the investigators, led by the chairman of the Investigative Committee of the Prosecutor’s office Alexander Bastrikin, who arrived at the scene by helicopter from Moscow. It was first reported that the second explosion did not injure anyone (Kommersant, November 30). It was later disclosed that Bastrikin was admitted to hospital in St. Petersburg and diagnosed as having sustained “a head injury and concussion” (RIA Novosti, December 2). Apparently, the bombing of the Nevsky Express was a sophisticated terrorist attack, and calculated to intimidate the St. Petersburg-connected establishment.

Russia is today ruled by a KGB-connected group from St. Petersburg led by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev. This St. Petersburg clan maintains close connections with their home city. The luxury Nevsky Express is popular among officials and business commuters: it leaves Moscow just after business hours and travels at 200 km/h, arriving in central St. Petersburg before midnight. Two top officials commuting from Moscow for the weekend to St. Petersburg were among the 26 killed on the Nevsky Express on November 27.

Sergei Tarasov, 50, the former deputy governor of St. Petersburg and federal senator representing the city, at the time of death was the chief of the state-owned monopoly Rosavtodor that builds and operates Russia’s federal highways. Last week Rosavtodor announced a scheme, highly unpopular with citizens, to use some $30 billion from the public budget to build toll highways and then use the collected charges as profit (Vedomosti, November 30).

Boris Yevstratikov, 51, was the chief of the secretive Rosrezerv federal agency. Yevstratikov served for 26 years in the KGB and its successor, the Federal Security Service (FSB). Rosrezerv is an organization of Cold War origin that stockpiles in regional centers essential food supplies, blankets, different commodities, trucks, tractors, armor to make tanks –everything that is needed to supply the entire nation and its essential defense industry to function for 90 days in the event of all-out nuclear war with the U.S. or some massive natural disaster. The emergency supplies of Rosrezerv are reported to be of the best quality and are constantly renewed, while outdated equipment and goods are either given away as humanitarian aid, or sold at hefty discounts. The massive financial operations of Rosrezerv to buy and dispose of supplies, commodities and equipment are classified as a top military state secret (www.nakanune.ru, August, 7, 2006). The combination of state secrecy and huge trading operations are fertile grounds for massive corruption. Tarasov and Yevstratikov were buried in St. Petersburg on December 1, with state honors.

Putin and Medvedev have moved the Constitutional Court from Moscow to St. Petersburg and plan to move the Navy headquarters and other governmental institutions to create a “two capital” system, restoring their home city’s former imperial glamour. The Nevsky Express bombing has clearly undermined this strategic goal by exposing the security threat posed to the drastically increasing regular intercity commuting by top officials.

The attack by unknown terrorists on the Nevsky Express and the ineptitude of the Russian security agencies has unnerved the Kremlin. Explosives experts had not secured the scene of the crime in time and only a coincidence –the homemade second bomb going off partially– saved Bastrikin and other top brass. Security officials assume that a terrorist was in fact waiting for many hours somewhere in the countryside, within visual distance of the scene of the train crash after the first explosion for Bastrikin to arrive. The unknown terrorist activated a second radio-controlled bomb and safely disappeared (RIA Novosti, December 2).

The ruling United Russia party organized rallies in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Official speakers declared the Nevsky Express bombing an attack aimed at destroying the Russian state and demanded that “the terrorist rats are sent to hell” by the security services (www.newsru.com, December 2). A governmental commission chaired by First Deputy Prime Minister Victor Zubkov has been formed to deal with the attack. On his way to Rome, Medvedev chaired a special security meeting in a Moscow airport and demanded swift action. Bastrikin and the FSB Director Alexander Bortnikov told Medvedev that they are following leads (RIA Novosti, December 2). In fact, the authorities do not seem to know who the terrorists are. A little known Russian nationalist group Combat-18 Nevagrad claimed responsibility as well as Islamists of the “Caucasian Mujahedeen” connected to the Chechen warlord Doku Umarov, but there is no proof that the claims are genuine (EDM, December 2).

However, confusion is overwhelming. St. Petersburg emergency chief Major-General Leonid Belayev told the St. Petersburg legislature: “The terrorists were planning to derail with the same bomb another high speed ER-200 train that was scheduled to pass the explosion spot at the same time in the opposite direction, but that mega disaster was avoided because the Nevsky Express was one minute off schedule.” Belyayev added that this was his personal theory (Interfax, December 2). In fact both ER-200 trains have been decommissioned earlier this year and there was no other incoming express (www.newsru.com, December 2). General Belayev was publicly daydreaming, apparently inundated by events. With such a security organization, no one in the Kremlin or within government is safe.

Support for Circassian Nationalism Grows in the North Caucasus

Fatima Tlisova

Rising tensions in Kabardino-Balkaria (KBR) involving two neighbouring republics Karachaevo-Cherkessia (KChR) and Adygeya (EDM, November 25) have led to violence. On December 1, the headquarters of the “Khasa” Circassian in Nalchik was attacked by a group of 50 people described as well-built sportsmen. The attack happened the day after the “Khasa” released a declaration of its goal to unite the Circassian republics and create an independent state (www.lenta.ru, December 1).

The young leader of the Circassian Congress of the KBR, the scholar and political activist Ruslan Keshev, who is known for his public resistance against the Sochi Olympics and his aspiration for recognition of the Circassian genocide, was hospitalized with multiple injuries after being brutally beaten. In the statement released immediately after the December 1 attack, “Khasa” gave details of the incident. According to the statement, the attackers’ goal was to neutralize physically the Circassian leaders in order to prevent them from holding a national meeting set to take place in Nalchik on December 5 (www.elot.ru, December 1).

On November 26, four days prior to the attack on the Circassian leader in Nalchik, a national protest demonstration took place in the neighbouring republic of Karachaevo-Cherkessia. More than 3,000 young Circassian and Abaza people (ethnic cousins of the Abkhaz) attended the demonstration, which took place in Cherkessk, the KChR capital. Approximately 200 Circassians from Kabardino-Balkaria, led by Ibragim Yaganov and Ruslan Keshev, drove from Nalchik to participate in the protest. The group was blocked at a checkpoint by the Stavropol Krai police. The Circassian delegates were told to leave their vehicles and walk to Cherkessk if they really intended to join the demonstration. Given that the distance from the checkpoint to Cherkessk is more than 35 miles, the suggestion to walk made by the police was not a serious one. However, the Circassians left their cars at the checkpoint and marched four miles on the highway holding Circassian flags until forty vehicles sent from Cherkessk arrived to pick them up (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlIN83Vn1EA).

The demonstration in Cherkessk declared a need for an emergency national meeting to discuss and decide on immediate steps the Circassians need to take in order to survive in the Motherland. On November 28, two days prior to the attack on the Circassian leaders, a public meeting took place in the KBR capital, Nalchik, in which a group of the people known to be part of the team of the president of the republic, Arsen Kanokov, made a public statement about the political activities of the “Khasa” and the Circassian congress. The leaders of both organizations were described as public enemies, agents of the ChRI (the separatist Chechen Republic of Ichkeria) and provocateurs trying to destabilize the situation in Kabardino-Balkaria (www.elot.ru, November 28).

On November 1, the parliament of the Republic of Karachaevo-Cherkessia lodged a complaint with the Russian prosecutor-general against the Circassian movement in the KChR, accusing its leaders of crimes under articles 280 and 282 of the Russian criminal code (www.skynews.ru, November 26).

Article 280 defines crimes falling under the category “public calls to overthrow the constitutional regime of the Russian Federation.” Article 282 defines crimes “inciting ethnical, racial and religious hatred” (http://ukrf.narod.ru/glavy/g29.htm). It is quite likely that the meeting in Nalchik to accuse the Circassian leaders of having relationships with Western intelligence agencies and acting against the interests of the state, and the appeal to the prosecutor-general issued by the parliament in Cherkessk, are inter-connected and were even initiated by the same behind-the-scenes power. This is the technique used by Moscow to humiliate the opposition: first, marginalize the leaders in the eyes of public opinion; second, accuse them of the most serious crimes.

This policy, combined with physical elimination when necessary, proved to be effective when used against all types of opposition in the USSR, as well as during last 10 years of Russia’s “special type” of democracy. Studying the history of both the Circassian resistance against Russian power since the period of colonization and the Kremlin’s typical responses to resistance helps to reach a better understanding of the current situation. According to the chronology listed in the Circassian Encyclopaedia, 17 officially recorded mass insurrections took place on the territory of historical Circassia. The invariable response from the Russian state, no matter what regime was in power, was to send it troops to carry out merciless repression (The Circassian Encyclopaedia, Moscow 2006, pp. 1130-1138).

The most recent example was the insurrection in Nalchik in October 2005. It might be one of the very rare battles in which no rebel was left injured, and assassinations of the helpless wounded continued after the battle was over (Novaya Gazeta, December 22, 2005). It is possible that Moscow may once again consider using military force to solve the problem if the protests in Circassia turn into mass protests.

An escalation of the situation in the Caucasus, however, strengthens the ties between the Circassian Diaspora and their homeland in the Northwest Caucasus. Diaspora Circassians are expressing their deep concern about the events in the Caucasus. At the end of November, the leaders of Circassian organisations in Israel, Jordan and Turkey made public statements in support of the Motherland. Two meetings of Circassian organizations are set to take place on December 4 and 6 in Turkey and Jordan. Recent developments in the Northwest Caucasus will be a major subject of focus during these discussions (http://www.natpress.net/stat.php?id=4550).

Uzbekistan Damages Regional Electricity Network

Erica Marat

Uzbekistan recently officially announced that it will quit the Central Asia power system. Tashkent’s decision affects all countries in the region, with Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan suffering the most. The recent policy shift reflects the predicaments of Soviet period planning of energy supplies in the Central Asian region when –in general terms– upstream and downstream countries were presupposed to trade water for fissile fuel.

Uzbekistan will now use its new Guzar-Surkhan transmission lines that provide electricity from its domestic thermal power plants (TPP) to Surkhandarya oblast (www.stoletie.ru, December 2). While every Central Asian country wishes to separate from the Soviet-inherited regional electricity transmission network, the costs remain too high. Tashkent’s decision was mostly political and Uzbek TPP’s will experience severe problems in the delivery of the necessary amount of electricity during peak and non-peak hours. Unlike TPPs, hydropower plants in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan are better able to regulate electricity supplies during daily fluctuations in the electricity demand.

During the Soviet period Tashkent was in charge of controlling the Central Asian electricity network. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Central Asian countries were exposed to market economic conditions and each state had to survive on its own to secure sufficient energy. Upstream Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan have most of the region’s water resources, while downstream Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan enjoy natural gas and oil reserves.

Experts from the Soviet era still work in Tashkent and are able to consult the government on how to better separate national energy production from the regional network and thus gain more energy independence. Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, however, are more vulnerable and need to put greater effort into managing domestic energy security (www.prime-tass.ru, December 1). Turkmenistan, by contrast, was able to leave the regional energy network in 2003.

Tashkent has been warning its neighbors of its decision to separate from the regional network since it began the construction of several transmission lines several years ago. But real threats to cut the transmission lines were voiced only as late as the end of last summer: Tashkent warned Bishkek that it would also cut transmission lines (EDM, October 15).

Unlike most regional experts’ perceptions, Tajikistan will be unable to control water flow to Uzbekistan during the summer period, and is thus deprived of political leverage over Tashkent. Tajikistan’s Nurek dam’s storage capacity is not enough to keep more than one-third of the water flowing through Vakhsh River while other Amudarya tributary –the Panj River is not regulated at all.

Both Tajikistan and Uzbekistan have been seeking to increase independence from each other for several years. Both countries pursued the construction of high voltage transmission lines and substations. Dushanbe has also shown a clear determination to construct the Rogun dam on the Vakhsh River and, to Tashkent’s disadvantage, increase its own ability to generate power and increase control of water flows to Uzbekistan.

Tajikistan produces power in the south and used to transmit electricity to its industrial north through the Uzbek transmission system. Despite Tajikistan completing the South-North line Dushanbe still needs to connect its northern load centers to the new substation in Khodjent using 220 kV transmission lines to secure greater independence from Tashkent. Chinese investors are currently in the process of constructing these lines. Indeed, Tajikistan will experience electricity shortages this winter as earlier contracts on energy supplies with Turkmenistan through the territory of Uzbekistan are now undermined by Tashkent.

Meanwhile, Kyrgyzstan has reached an agreement with Kazakhstan on improving the reliability of its energy supplies (www.akipress.kg, December 2). Astana will supply Kyrgyzstan with humanitarian aid to buy coal from Kazakhstan in return for cheaper electricity and other business benefits. However, this agreement is rather short term. It will allow Kyrgyzstan to obtain sufficient amounts of coal for the Bishkek TPP, but not solve the country’s overall energy dependence issues.

As one expert from Tajikistan told Jamestown, “while being unable to regulate supplies of electricity during peak and non-peak hours, Uzbekistan will still manage the imperfect energy system by coercively cutting energy to its population during peak hours. Entire oblasts and cities might suffer from energy shortages” (December 2). Overall, the excess of electricity during non-peak hours and shortages during peak hours will negatively affect the entire electricity system.

However, Tajikistan has been trying to use maximum energy levels in the regional network thus provoking Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan to take swift action, while at the same time building its own lines and substations (www.ca-news.org, November 20). Unlike Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan has done virtually nothing to provide its own energy independence. Kyrgyzstan was unable to construct the Datka substation in the south, in order to increase independence from the Uzbek network. The delay in construction is caused by corruption and poor management of the energy sector, which usually relies on short term solutions.

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