IN THIS ISSUE

* Kremlin links tactical nuclear weapons to Eurasian security
* Putin seduces Croatia with South Stream project
* Rebel ideologist reportedly slain in Ingushetia
* President Medvedev acknowledges that militants are his chief concern
** New in the Jamestown blog on Russia and Eurasia (http://www.jamestown.org/blog):
- Russian Leader Meets Burjanadze: What is on Putin’s Mind?

Russia’s Tactical Nuclear Weapons and Eurasian Security

Jacob W. Kipp

Presidents Barrack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev have pledged to accelerate the negotiation of the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START). The new agreement would replace the treaty that lapsed on December 5, 2009. Progress in the US-Russian negotiations has been significant with the working numbers for reduced offensive arsenals in the range of 1500-1675 for warheads and 500-1100 for strategic delivery systems. These numbers are much lower than those contained in the expired START regime. Both Presidents Obama and Medvedev have spoken of this measure as a means to increase strategic security and stability and strengthen the existing Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

The issues that remain to be resolved before the Obama-Medvedev summit are not seen as precluding the signing of the treaty. Current discussions suggest it may be signed in late March or April, with the ceremony held possibly in Prague. The Chief of the General Staff Army-General Nikolai Makarov, confirmed the Russian military’s support for the treaty, saying “The talks on the treaty are very difficult, but we have reached an understanding that the parties should take in to account each other’s interests and should not infringe upon each other’s defense capabilities in any way,” adding: “The treaty will be ready soon, and it will not infringe upon Russia’s interests.” Unlike the May 2002 US-Russia Strategic Offensive Reduction Treaty, signed by Presidents Bush and Putin, the new agreement will include verification measures based on earlier START agreements (ITAR-TASS, February 24).

The choice of Prague as a possible venue represents Washington’s desire to link this agreement with President Obama’s proclaimed goal of eliminating nuclear weapons in the twenty first century, which he delivered there in April 2009. Obama referred to nuclear weapons in general and presented the problem of nuclear proliferation as a global issue. Progress on START has made the global connections of the various nuclear arsenals more apparent and the problems associated with them much more immediate. This was apparent in the prominence given to reducing nuclear weapons at the 46th annual International Conference on Security recently held in Munich. The US and Russian delegations agreed that reducing global nuclear arsenals to zero was possible, but it would take time. Deputy Prime Minister, Sergei Ivanov, the senior Russian delegate in Munich, addressed the issue as imperative: “Although nuclear armament remains the backbone of the strategic deterrence system, it cannot be viewed as a panacea against all threats and challenges. It can and should be liquidated.” Ivanov raised Moscow’s concern over the recently announced US decision to deploy missile defense systems in Romania. Ivanov stated that the signing of the START agreement would in all probability lead to pressure to reduce US and Russian tactical nuclear arsenals. Ivanov pointed to the decision of Russia in the early 1990's to withdraw such systems from combat units and to place them in central repositories, and noted that the US had not reciprocated (Rossiyskaya Gazeta, February 8).

As Ivanov predicted, calls for reductions in tactical nuclear arsenals in Europe were quickly forthcoming. The Foreign Ministers of Sweden and Poland, Karl Bildt and Radek Sikorski, appealed to Moscow and Washington to quickly and radically reduce tactical nuclear weapons in Europe. Their proposal had a Baltic-Scandinavian focus, regarding Russian tactical weapons in Kaliningrad Oblast and the Kola Peninsula. The Russian response was to express surprise at the uneven treatment of the US and Russian arsenals. Russia has already withdrawn its tactical nuclear weapons to central repositories and deploys no such weapons in Kaliningrad Oblast. Unnamed Russian generals were cited as stating that Russia in recent years has removed tactical nuclear weapons from the ground forces, reduced the tactical nuclear arsenal for the air force and air defense forces by 60 percent, and on submarines by 30 percent. As far as the Kola Peninsula is concerned, Russian commentators noted that it was the base of the Northern Fleet, which included naval units involved in Russia's strategic triad. They stated that tactical nuclear systems there were kept in secure facilities and that Russia had no intention of withdrawing them. However, Moscow has not excluded the possibility of negotiating a reduction in tactical nuclear arsenals. According to Colonel-General Vladimir Verkhovtsev, Chief of the 12th Directorate of the Ministry of Defense, which has oversight of Russia's nuclear arsenal, it will seek to have the negotiations broadened to include British and French arsenals, and take into account Russia’s distinct situation in Eurasia (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, February 5).

Verkhovtsev’s point about tactical nuclear weapons being part of Russia’s deterrent is an explicit part of the new military doctrine. While that document did not embrace the long-discussed notion of “preventive nuclear strike,” it did endorse first use under certain conditions, including deterrence of nuclear strikes and attacks by other means of mass destruction against Russia and its allies and in the case of conventional aggression, which would pose a threat to the existence of the Russian state. Dmitry Litovkin addressed the issue of Russia's claim to the right of a nuclear first strike in the context of the 2000 version of Russia's military doctrine which claimed a similar right against Russia's declared primary threat, i.e., the US and NATO. But the context today is different, Litovkin points to Russian declaratory policy on nuclear weapons to be a direct manifestation of the weakness of its conventional military power and questions whether the new military doctrine actually supports to the efforts to give the armed forces a “new look” (Izvestiya, February 8).

While the US and NATO expansion is once again declared to be the primary concerns in the new military doctrine, they are identified as opasnosti (dangers) and not ugrozy (threats). Moreover, a new concern has appeared among the top four: “territorial claims against the Russian Federation and its allies, intervention in their internal affairs” (Voyenno Promyshlennyy Kuryer, February 17). These are direct threats to Russia and its allies and can directly result in military aggression against the Russian state, as opposed to moves which might marginally affect the balance of forces. The Russian elite avoid speaking about a threat or danger from China, but there are analysts who see the People’s Republic of China as a possible threat to which Russia could respond only with nuclear weapons. For the last two decades Russia has treated China as a strategic partner, engaging in large-scale weapons sales. Yet, now Russian arms producers warn that in the area of aviation technology China acts like a pirate state, counterfeiting Russian designs like the MiG-29 and the Sukhoi-27 and selling these copies (Izvestiya, February 17). Other Russian authors have noted the deteriorating relations between the United States and China and are concerned that Russia might be drawn into a conflict which would not be in its interests. Aleksandr Khramchikhin recently presented to his readers a scenario for a “Second Korean War,” resulting from tensions between North and South Korea and leading to the intervention of the United States and China, in which Beijing would be the only possible winner. Khramchikhin avoided discussing explicitly the implications of such a conflict for Russia, but it is not difficult to imagine its consequences, where China would expect and demand that Russia provide logistical and other support as a result of Russia’s strategic weakness in the Far East (Nezavisimoe Voennoe Obozrenie, February 4). Valentina Maltseva addressed the new military doctrine’s treatment of nuclear weapons and called the statement on the use of nuclear weapons against large-scale conventional aggression as a sign that Russia will defend itself with the weapons that it has. “This thesis many consider to be a manifestation of aggression by Russia “rising from its knees.” The author does not state who the “many” might be, but the locale suggests an eastern focus (Sovetskaia Sibir, February 11).

As NATO members debate among themselves the issue of reducing tactical nuclear weapons in Europe, Russia's Eurasian landscape may demand a broader focus for such discussions on this part of the nuclear equation because of the emerging explicit connections. The Almaty-based Eurasian Media Forum reported on February 25 that “Russia is ready to protect other participants of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), including with application of nuclear weapons.” The CSTO Secretary-General, Nikolai Bordyuzha, made these remarks in a television interview. Moscow has been calling for closer ties between NATO and the CSTO, but there has been little interest in this in Brussels or Washington. Both see the CSTO as a manifestation of a Russian “sphere of privileged influence.” One cannot construe a nuclear response to terrorism or to NATO as being at the heart of Bordyuzha’s declaration, its source lies further east. Moreover, by explicitly invoking the nuclear arsenal as part of Moscow's commitment to other CSTO members, Bordyuzha has made the issue of Russia’s tactical nuclear weapons explicitly into a Eurasian security problem (Eurasian Media Forum, February 25).

Croatia Joins Gazprom’s South Stream Project

Vladimir Socor

On March 2, in Moscow, Prime Ministers Vladimir Putin of Russia and Jadranka Kosor of Croatia opened the way for Russian state companies’ expansion into that country and to the Adriatic coast. The Moscow talks covered oil, natural gas, and shipbuilding. Croatia’s energy sector was almost entirely free of a Russian presence until now.

Putin and Kosor witnessed the signing of an agreement of intent whereby Croatia would be included in Gazprom’s South Stream pipeline project, albeit as an ordinary importing country, rather than a transit country. Signed by Russian Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko and Croatian Economy Minister Djuro Popijac, the agreement envisages the creation of a 50 percent - 50 percent joint company to design, build, and operate a branch-off line from the South Stream trunk line on Croatia’s territory.

The agreement does not establish a project company. It fails to mention whether the branch-off would enter Croatia from Serbia, from Hungary or Slovenia (all of which have already joined the South Stream project). Consequently, the choice of a route through Croatian territory is also left in abeyance. The route, throughput capacity, and financing of the Croatian line are to be discussed in the context of Gazprom’s feasibility study for the overall South Stream project. Moscow envisions completing that overall study during the current year (Interfax, March 2; HINA, March 2, 3).

This agreement of intent is to be followed up by a Russian-Croatian inter-governmental agreement. As is usually the case when discussing South Stream with potential customer countries, the Russian side did not identify gas reserves in Russia or elsewhere that would support the South Stream project.

Meanwhile, the Croatian government seeks an increase in Russian gas supplies through existing pipelines to Croatia. Gazprom’s delivery volumes have not kept pace with Croatia’s rising gas consumption in recent years, resulting in a tight supply situation in this country. Croatia reportedly consumes 3.2 billion cubic meters (bcm) annually, some 60 percent of it being covered from the country’s meager gas fields and the remaining 40 percent is imported from Russia. Natural gas of Russian provenance enters Croatia mainly from Slovenia (after traveling from Russia via the Ukrainian, Slovakian, Austrian, and Slovenian transit pipelines). Croatia’s current supply contract with Gazprom is due to expire at the end of 2010. The Croatian government is interested in more than doubling the supply volume, from the current 1.2 bcm to 2.7 bcm per year (RIA Novosti, HINA, March 2; Poslovni Dnevnik, March 4).

The previous Croatian government (in office until mid-2009) had sought a supply increase of comparable magnitude from Russia. The Russian side, however, set the condition that Croatia must join South Stream. It seems likely that Moscow maintains that conditionality vis-à-vis the present Croatian government, as it also does toward other countries along the South Stream route.

Late-comers to the South Stream project, Croatia and neighboring Slovenia look like true believers in the project at this stage. Other countries such as Hungary and Bulgaria went through a phase of South Stream enthusiasm around 2007-2008, under socialist governments friendly to Moscow (and tolerant of corrupt Russian business in their own countries) at that time. The intervening experience has, however, turned those countries into South Stream skeptics, re-ordering their priorities in favor of the European Union-backed projects (Nabucco) and LNG. In Croatia, meanwhile, the political atmosphere is one of band-waggoning with South Stream.

This issue has surged to the top of Croatia’s political agenda in the last few months. Some influential politicians and commentators feel in retrospect that Croatia should have joined South Stream from its inception in 2007. Ironically, it was in Zagreb that Putin unveiled this project to the world for the first time. With hindsight, many feel that Croatia joined this project too late, missed the opportunity to become a transit country, and must now content itself with the status of an ordinary importer country, at the tail end of a supply line. This means forfeiting both transit revenue and bargaining leverage. However, Croatia’s geographic location relative to the South Stream route would seem in any case to place Croatia at a line’s end, regardless of the timing of its accession to the project.

Moscow claims that countries joining South Stream would no longer depend on the transit of Russian gas through Ukraine. Some in Croatia and elsewhere seem to accept this argument at face value. However, Moscow undermines its own argument by attempting to gain control of Ukraine’s gas transit system. Should Moscow obtain the desired control, it would undoubtedly claim that the Ukrainian system has become fully reliable, obviating any need for the estimated $25 billion investment in the overall South Stream project (compared with the estimated $3 billion cost of upgrading the Ukrainian transit system).

The proposed LNG terminal on the Adriatic coast retains the support of the Croatian government and local experts. The government reaffirmed that support at the February 24, region-wide energy summit in Budapest; and the US State Department’s Special Envoy for Energy Affairs, Richard Morningstar, underscored the LNG Adria project’s region-wide importance, in a follow-up meeting with Kosor in Zagreb, just ahead of Kosor’s Moscow visit (Poslovni Dnevnik, March 2; EDM, March 3).

In Moscow, Kosor reiterated her support for LNG Adria in response to Croatian journalists’ questions. She dismissed media conjectures that Moscow had asked Croatia to abandon that project as a condition to joining South Stream. However, Gazprom has made clear its view that South Stream and LNG Adria cannot coexist in the same market. Although South Stream looks implausible, the mere deployment of this virtual project can inhibit LNG Adria or Nabucco. In this sense, South Stream is not a real supply project, but essentially an anti-diversification project.

Said Buryatsky Reported to be Among Six Militants Killed in Ingushetia

The Jamestown Foundation

Russian news agencies reported today (March 5) that Aleksandr Tikhomirov, aka, Sheik Said Buryatsky, the Muslim convert from eastern Siberia’s Buryat republic who became the main ideologist of the North Caucasus insurgency, was among six rebels killed in a special operation in the village of Ekazhevo in Ingushetia on March 2-3. Born in the city of Ulan-Ude of a mother of Buryat nationality and a Russian father, Buryatsky later studied Islam in Egypt and joined the North Caucasus insurgency in the summer of 2008 (see North Caucasus Analysis, March 13, 2009; December 18, 2008; July 11, 2008).

ITAR-TASS quoted a high-level Russian law-enforcement source as saying that two passports, one Russian and one “international,” issued for Aleksandr Tikhomirov and with photos of him, were found on the body of one of the militants killed during the Ekazhevo operation. However, the source also noted that the head of the slain rebel was “severely damaged, practically absent” and that forensic identification procedures could take several weeks or even several months. The source also noted that Buryatsky had feigned his death reportedly on several occasions before (ITAR-TASS, March 5). However, the Kavkazsky Uzel website quoted a source in Chechnya’s interior ministry as saying that Buryatsky’s body was positively identified last night (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, March 5).

It is worth noting that rebel websites last August claimed Buryatsky had personally driven the explosive-laden minivan that destroyed a police compound in Nazran, Ingushetia, killing more than 20 policemen and himself. However, the claim was later retracted (EDM, September 16, 2009).

The rebel Kavkaz-Center website yesterday (March 4) quoted “occupation sources” as reporting that Buryatsky had been killed in fighting in Ekazhevo on March 2, but that his body was only identified last night. However, the report noted that there had been no confirmation from the “mujahideen command” that Buryatsky had become a shaheed, or martyr (www.kavkazcenter.com, March 4).

Russian news sources reported that in addition to the six militants killed during the operation in Ekazhevo, 16 were captured, five of whom were current members of Ingushetia’s police force. Security sources were quoted as saying that the group of militants had planned to carry out attacks while Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Aleksandr Khloponin, the Russian presidential envoy to the North Caucasus Federal District, were visiting Ingushetia on March 1. Four of the captured rebels – identified as the three Kartoev brothers and Yakub Aushev – were reportedly sent to Moscow, where they will be investigated for alleged involvement in last November’s bombing of the Nevsky Express high speed train travelling between Moscow and St. Petersburg, which killed dozens of passengers (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, March 5).

An investigator with the Investigative Committee of the Prosecutor General’s Office and an OMON police commando were reportedly killed yesterday (March 4) while inspecting the basement of a destroyed home in Ekazhevo, when a suspected rebel who was hiding in the basement opened fire on them (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, March 4).

On February 27, a court bailiff, Magomed Buzurtanov, was shot to death in Nazran (www.newsru.com, February 27).

In neighboring Chechnya, a Russian interior ministry internal troops serviceman was severely wounded on March 2, when an improvised explosive device (IED) went off during a reconnaissance operation in a wooded area several kilometers from the village of Tangi-Chu in the republic’s Urus-Martan district. The serviceman later died of his wounds. On March 1, another serviceman was wounded by an IED explosion in Chechnya. On February 27, a policeman was wounded in the Chechen capital Grozny when an explosive device went off as a police patrol was passing by. On February 24, an interior ministry internal troops bomb disposal expert was wounded in Grozny when an explosive device he was attempting to defuse went off (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, March 3).

In Dagestan, a suspected militant was killed yesterday (March 4) in a shootout in the republic’s Derbent district. The militant was believed to have been involved in an incident the previous day, when police attempted to stop a car in which suspected rebels were traveling on the Kavkaz federal highway near the village Mamedkala and those inside opened fire, wounding two policemen. The gunmen fled, but one was reportedly found and killed in a shootout (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, March 4).

Meanwhile, the Investigative Committee head Aleksandr Bastrykin yesterday called for the mandatory registration of fingerprints and DNA analysis of all of the people living in the North Caucasus Federal District. He also said that all vehicles in the region should be re-registered and given new license plates.

The measure was denounced as discriminatory by leading human rights activists, including Memorial head Oleg Orlov and Moscow Helsinki Group Chairwoman Lyudmila Alekseyeva. Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov’s press secretary, Alvi Karimov, said the idea was technically feasible, especially if it is sufficiently financed, but said that residents of the North Caucasus Federal District would react negatively to being seen as “untrustworthy” citizens. “If it were announced that fingerprint registration was being carried out throughout all of Russia , it would not arouse any negative reaction,” Karimov said. “We have one constitution for all citizens” (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, March 4).

Russia’s President Visits North Caucasus Offering No Real Solution to its Main Problem

Mairbek Vatchagaev

In the eleventh year of conflict in the North Caucasus, the Russian leadership intends (yet again) to radically change the situation to its advantage. With this intent, on February 27, President Dmitry Medvedev unexpectedly arrived in Nalchik (the capital of Kabardino-Balkaria) (www.rian.ru, February 27).

Perhaps the president’s arrival explains why Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov rapidly returned from Libya, where he was invited by the Libyan head of state Muammar Qaddafi to celebrate the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad. All the regional leaders of the North Caucasus Federal District (Chechnya, Dagestan, Ossetia, Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachay-Cherkessia and Stavropol Krai) were in attendance.

The most important part of Medvedev’s visit took place at the North Caucasus development conference, where the Russian President highlighted three main points that, in his view, interfere with the region’s development: unemployment, corruption in government and the ongoing insurgency. However, on the same day, February 27, the focus shifted. At the opening of a new Kabardino-Balkaria Federal Security Service (FSB) building in Nalchik, Medvedev stated that the main problems of the region are continued “radicalism,” “extremism” and the “bandit underground” (www.1tv.ru, February 27). This means that all the statements about fighting corruption and investing in the region are no more than an ideological veil. As in the past, the primary cause of concern for Russian officials is the expanding militant underground of the North Caucasus. Continuing to ignore this underground, to contain it within Chechnya’s borders, and to pretend that nothing is happening is becoming more and more difficult with each passing day.

Today, the armed underground, with a united core and affiliated branches all over the region, does not allow subversive actions conducted against the government and its religious supporters to be hidden. It is hard to say whether the situation has become more difficult in Chechnya, Ingushetia or Dagestan. Counter-insurgency operations are underway everywhere, along with an effort to pretend that everything is going well. It is worth remembering that all this is taking place in a region adjacent to Sochi, the site of the 2014 Winter Olympic Games where Prime Minister Vladimir Putin plans to undertake the ambitious project of hosting a winter sporting event in a subtropical climate. The selected location is very inauspicious; Putin obviously counted on not having any problems with separatism in the region as the Olympic Games approached. In reality, as the games draw near, the Circassian peoples (Adygei, Kabardin, Cherkess) will have more reasons to support the separatists, since the games will be conducted on the lands of the Circassian peoples annihilated during the Russian occupation.

The areas that make up Sochi and its vicinity are the lands of the Shapsugs, only several thousand of whom remain in the region (several hundred thousand reside in Turkey). These are the lands of the 2,000 remaining Ubykhs, who lost their language and script, and the majority of whom were wiped out in the course of the conquest of the Caucasus in the first half of the nineteenth century.

Therefore, it is no surprise that the multi-million-strong Circassian diaspora (in Turkey, Jordan, Europe, United States, and Canada) demands that the decision to conduct the games in their historic homeland be rescinded. Such actions as “No Sochi 2014” are becoming popular for patriotic Circassians all over the world. Recent demonstrations in Vancouver were organized by Circassian activists from the United States and other countries, who traveled to Canada to protest against Russian plans to conduct the games on their historic lands (www.emiratkavkaz.hiblogger.net, February 15). As the countdown for the Sochi Games begins, the situation may become increasingly heated and will increase in its scope. President Medvedev’s plans for regional investment to curb unemployment and improve the overall situation are removed from reality: unemployment and corruption are not the problem. Both of these exist in other regions of Russia, but they do not result in armed resistance movements. That exists today only in the North Caucasus, because of the mentality and historic memory of the actions Russia took in the North Caucasus during the nineteenth century. Moscow’s unwillingness to acknowledge its past crimes is why its governance continues to be rejected to this day.

The Kremlin does not want to comprehend reality – the armed underground of the North Caucasus is a response to Moscow’s political actions toward the region’s indigenous peoples. The disregard for the culture, religion, customs, and traditions of the North Caucasus’ inhabitants increases the ranks of the dissatisfied. Yet Moscow thinks that the local populace can be enticed by the grandiose construction of religious centers. After Chechnya, Ingushetia is next in line for an Islamic cultural center to be built. This center will be taller than the Grozny Mosque (although it will not be able to hold as many visitors). According to Ingushetia’s president, Yunus-bek Yevkurov, this is exactly what will unite the Ingush people (www.regnum.ru, February 27). However, as it turns out, an opulent Islamic center, where mullahs and imams appointed by the government will read sermons about the necessity of submission to the authorities, will suffice to bring an end to the daily bombings in the republic.

The Russian president’s visit to the North Caucasus did not go without powerful actions from the militants. An explosion in the center of Grozny, on Pervomaiskaya Street near the “Raikhana” trading center, wounded a police officer (www.gazeta.ru, February27). The blast was triggered by a remote control device. Another incident took place in the Leninsky district of the city, where a bomb exploded along the route of a police patrol, according to a representative of the regional investigative committee of the Russian Prosecutor-General’s office (www.kp.ru, February 27).

Meanwhile, the Ingush interior ministry reported that on the evening of same day, February 27, a local bailiff, Magomed-Bashir Buzurtanov, was killed in the Ingush city of Nazran and the perpetrators escaped (www.ingushetia.org, February 27). In addition, one person was reportedly killed and another wounded in a small arms attack on a storefront in Nazran that same evening (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, February 27).

Acknowledging the complexity of the situation, Moscow is willing to take risks and undertake various initiatives that, according to its plans, will help alleviate the intensity of the armed resistance. But the focus is on physical elimination, rather than seeking an understanding of what motivates the armed resistance that is engulfing most of the North Caucasus.

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