IN THIS ISSUE

* Russian defense procurement plans skillfully divide NATO Alliance
* Another train attack in Dagestan
* Yanukovych downplays Russian intelligence operations in Ukraine
* Lukashenka signals possible alternative to new nuclear power plant
** Visit the Jamestown blog on Russia and Eurasia (http://www.jamestown.org/blog):
- Liberal Development: Georgian Response to Putin’s Agenda

Laissez Faire, Laissez Passer: NATO Takes Cue From French Warship Deal With Russia

Vladimir Socor

Russia’s military reform is geared to creating a mobile, rapidly deployable force, fully ready for operating in “near abroad” areas and potentially beyond (EDM, March 5). The proposed acquisition of French Mistral-class warships makes eminent sense for Russia in this context. The Russian Navy is certainly not preparing for such old-fashioned combat as artillery duels with other naval powers on the oceans. Mistral-class assault ships are designed for amphibious and airborne landings ashore, using the armored vehicles, helicopters, and marine infantry carried by warships of this class.

Russia’s near and medium-term intentions might be paraphrased as the big “known unknown” even in a moderately optimistic scenario. NATO’s Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, however, describes himself as an optimist in positing the best-case scenario. He says that he “takes it for granted” that Russia would not use these warships for purposes of aggression (Interfax, Reuters, Radio Free Europe, March 3, 5, 8).

The incontrovertible fact, however, is that the French sale would provide Russia with an offensive power-projection capability that Russia does not have and could not through its own means create. This capability is primarily relevant to Russia in the seas to which it is riparian. As Russian officials have repeatedly suggested in public discussions on this issue, the proposed number of Mistral-class ships in this transaction corresponds with Russia’s Black Sea, Baltic, Northern, and Pacific Fleets.

The NATO alliance is taking a number of hits with potential long-term consequences from this Franco-Russian transaction. The Mistral deal is turning NATO, de facto, into a laissez-faire alliance with regard to arms sales. Despite Russia’s conduct as an overtly revisionist power, key NATO officials have chosen to describe the Mistral sale as a bilateral Franco-Russian business, in which the Alliance has no business interfering (Interfax, Reuters, Radio Free Europe, March 3, 5, 8).

Thus, France and several other Allies, are quickly transitioning from “no business as usual” to business better than ever. Overruling any objections (public and non-public), NATO has given a green light from the top to arms sales to Russia (or any country). NATO is not commenting on the further arms sales, which came under discussion between several Allied countries and Russia promptly after the warship sale was announced.

Russia continues negotiating with the Netherlands and Spain for procurement of warships similar to the Mistral class (hedging against a failure of negotiations with France and implicitly pressuring Paris).

Russia has opened discussions with several (unspecified) Western countries for acquiring “a wide variety (vsevozmozhnyie) of targeting devices and night-vision equipment,” according to Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov (Rossiya TV cited by Interfax, March 5).

Moscow is negotiating with the Italian company IVECO Defense Vehicles to procure a “large consignment” of armored personnel carriers (APC’s) of the IVECO M65 LMV type. These have already been tested in Russia and assessed positively. Discussions are ongoing about the price and other terms of sale. Russia’s Defense Ministry apparently considers buying as many as 1,000 APC’s of this type (Interfax, March 9).

Moscow is also discussing the procurement of VBL light amphibious armored vehicles from the French Panhard General Defense company (Kommersant, February 16; AFP, February 25). Moscow considers using these vehicles for its interior ministry troops and “peacekeeping” missions by the Russian ground forces. It is also negotiating an upgrade of dual-use helicopter engines for the Russian Ka-62 (civilian version of the Ka-60 combat helicopter) by Turbomeca of France (Interfax, February 25; Liberation [Paris], March 9; EDM, February 11).

Ahead of all NATO countries, France has rushed to become the first commercial beneficiary of Russia’s military modernization program. By the same token, Paris has created a precedent that other NATO countries are in their turn rushing to follow. A scramble seems to be developing for the Russian arms market. This rush does not seem to be restrained by NATO consultations and procedures. It only seems limited by Russia’s ability to pay for Western-made armaments. Moscow is even fanning competition among Western arms manufacturers by hinting at parallel negotiations with several of them for the same item, as in the case of the warships.

Russia’s foreign ministry values the naval deal with France not only for its intrinsic value to Russia, but also for its precedent-setting merit. According to that ministry’s officials, “it is important to demonstrate that Russia is purchasing arms from a NATO country” (Vedomosti, March 1; Politkom.ru, March 2). Whether or not the Mistral sale goes ahead, and regardless of its commercial terms, it seems already to have broken NATO discipline, potentially unleashing a series of arms sales to Russia, outside the Alliance’s control and consultative procedures.

Insurgent Violence Reported in Dagestan, Ingushetia, Chechnya and Kabardino-Balkaria

The Jamestown Foundation

An empty freight train was bombed and derailed on the outskirts of Dagestan’s capital Makhachkala on the evening of March 11. A source in the transport police department of the North Caucasus branch of Russian Railways told ITAR-TASS that the blast left a crater about 30 centimeters (11.8 inches) deep and damaged a small section of railway. No one was hurt in the incident (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, ITAR-TASS, March 12).

On March 10, the body of a teacher at a local madrassa in the Dagestani village of Yasnaya Polyana was found with two bullet wounds in the head. This was just the latest murder of clergy in Dagestan this year: on January 12, the imam of a local mosque in the village of Buglen in Dagestan’s Buinaksk district, Nazim Magomedov, was shot to death, while on January 11, the deputy imam for a local mosque in Kizlyar, Akhmed Ibragimov, was murdered. As the Kavkazsky Uzel website noted, there were also several attacks on religious figures in Dagestan last year.

Meanwhile, on March 9, personnel of the Dagestani branch of the Federal Security Service (FSB) and interior ministry jointly carried out an operation in which weapons and ammunition were seized in the city of Khasavyurt. Two people were arrested in the operation, during which two automatic rifles, a pistol, silencers and ammunition were confiscated. On March 8, unidentified attackers fired from a car at a shop along the Babayurt-Khasavyurt road. No one was hurt in the incident. On March 7, bomb disposal experts defused an improvised explosive device (IED) that was discovered in a utility room on the grounds of a cemetery in the Dagestani village of Novomekhelta. On March 6, a suspected militant was killed during a special operation in the Dagestani city of Derbent. The slain militant was identified as 22-year-old Islamudin Alikuliev (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, March 10, 11; Interfax, March 9).

On March 11, two servicemen were slightly wounded when unidentified attackers fired automatic rifles and a grenade launcher at the Volga-16 police checkpoint, located on the Kavkaz federal highway on the outskirts of the village of Yandare in Ingushetia’s Nazran district. That same day, unidentified attackers fired automatic weapons at a gas station in the Ingush town of Karabulak. No one was hurt in that incident. On March 10, gunmen fired a grenade launcher at the home of Khavadzha Sapralieva, the head of administration of the village of Ekazhevo in Ingushetia’s Nazran district. No one was hurt in that attack (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, March 12).

A suspected militant was killed in a shootout with police in Nalchik, the capital of Kabardino-Balkaria, on March 9 after police officers attempted to detain him near a student café. A policeman and a passerby were wounded in the shooting. ITAR-TASS quoted an unnamed investigator with the republican prosecutor’s office as identifying the slain alleged militant as 28-year-old Valery Esezov, a resident of the village of Khasanya (www.newsru.com, March 8). On March 5, police discovered and destroyed an IED on the outskirts of the village of Nartan in Kabardino-Balkaria. They also found an antitank grenade and 5.45 millimeter cartridges nearby (ITAR-TASS, March 6).

Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov told journalists on March 11 that four militants were killed during a special police operation near the village of Nokhtch-Keloi in Chechnya’s Shatoi district. Kadyrov said three of the slain militants had already been identified and that no police or law-enforcement personnel were injured in the operation (RIA Novosti, March 11). That same day, in the Chechen town of Argun, a bomb exploded in a car belonging to Akhyad Musanigov, the head of the territorial district police, as he was getting into the vehicle. Musanigov was hospitalized with shrapnel wounds (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, March 11).

In an interview with the Interfax news agency on March 7, Kadyrov called the killing of rebel ideologist Aleksandr Tikhomirov, aka Sheikh Said Buryatsky, an “exclusively good sign.” Kadyrov added that there is “every reason to be certain that Umarov’s turn has come” – a reference to Doku Umarov, the Chechen rebel leader and “emir” of the Caucasus Emirate.

In the Interfax interview, Kadyrov also claimed that Buryatsky was an agent of Western intelligence services. “Aleksandr Tikhomirov was a religiously well-trained worker of Western special services, and was also a psychologist whose task was to influence a certain part of youth not only in the North Caucasus, but also, via the internet, in all of Russia,” the Chechen leader said (www.newsru.com, March 7).

Yanukovych Will Ignore Russian Espionage Against Ukraine

Taras Kuzio

The election of the Party of Regions leader Viktor Yanukovych as Ukraine’s president presents a fundamental shift in the country’s national security culture as outlined by his three presidential predecessors. The most important revision will be Yanukovych’s, and the Party of Regions, view of Russia as not constituting a threat to Ukraine’s national security, sovereignty and territorial integrity. There are no national security experts advising Yanukovych of the caliber of Volodymyr Horbulin and Yevhen Marchuk, who headed the National Security and Defense Council (NRBO) from 1994-1999 and 1999-2003 respectively, under President Leonid Kuchma. Horbulin is the co-author of numerous legislative acts pertaining to Ukraine’s national security that are pro-NATO and see Russia as a potential threat, including the 2003 law “On Fundamentals of National Security of Ukraine.”

Following the 2008 Russian invasion of Georgia, Horbulin continued to warn about the growing Russian threat to Ukraine, threats which Yanukovych and Prime Minister Nikolai Azarov dismiss. The two approaches reflect different regional political cultures (Dnipropetrovsk and Donetsk respectively), social classes and educational levels (Soviet nomenklatura, working class) and competing ethno-cultural allegiances (Ukrainian, neo-Soviet).

One case in point is their different approaches to Russian espionage and subversion in Ukraine. CIS agreements in 1992 banned conducting espionage between member states, an agreement, like most CIS agreements, that is not adhered to. Unlike Ukraine’s three former presidents, Yanukovych and Azarov will likely downplay and ignore Russian espionage activities. An additional factor is Russian military bases. Former President, Viktor Yushchenko, unequivocally saw the Black Sea Fleet (BSF) as a source of destabilization in Ukraine (Ukrayinska Pravda, December 1, 2009). In 2005, Yushchenko and Prime Minister, Yulia Tymoshenko, sought negotiations with Russia to prepare for the withdrawal of the BSF in 2017 (EDM, April 19, 2005).

A recent espionage scandal in Ukraine, and the expulsion of two Russian diplomats last summer (EDM, July 31, August 17, 2009), proved Yushchenko’s point and as the Ukrainian newspaper Chas Rukhu noted, it “should lead us to think again about whether it is prudent to have Russian military forces on the territory of Ukraine” (Chas Rukhu, February 23).

Yanukovych and Azarov do not view the BSF as a source of destabilization, and Yanukovych has repeatedly said over the past five years that he supports the extension of the BSF base in Sevastopol. That this would contradict his 2010 election program of seeking Ukraine’s neutrality is presumably, like with Russia infringing CIS agreements, nothing new as Yanukovych’s foreign policy has always been duplicitous (EDM, November 12, 2004).

Implementing stricter security policies ordered by Yushchenko, the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) began adopting a tougher approach towards Russian intelligence activities in the Crimea and Sevastopol. Responding to these clandestine activities in southern Ukraine, the Federal Security Service (FSB) in the BSF was ordered to leave Ukraine by December 2009, an order with which they complied (EDM, July 14, 2009). Moscow has demanded that the new Ukrainian president re-admit the FSB back to the BSF and “end all cooperation with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)” (Kommersant Vlast, February 22).

Russian intelligence activities against Ukraine have continued from bases located near Ukraine’s borders. On January 27, four FSB officers were detained in Odessa by the SBU after they attempted to obtain secret military information from a Ukrainian citizen. Another three FSB officers provided support to the operation, while a fourth was an officer from the Operational Group of Russian Forces in Moldova (OGRF). One FSB officer was subsequently charged with espionage, while the remainder were deported on January 30 (www.sbu.gov.ua, February 3).

The Ukrainian citizen was an undercover officer in Ukrainian military intelligence (“Ruslan Pylypenko”) who was forcibly recruited during an October 29, 2009 visit to Tiraspol in the Trans-Dniester enclave where the FSB claimed he had been undertaking an intelligence mission. “Pylypenko” was illegally arrested, hooded and taken to a Russian base where his life was threatened in order to compel his cooperation with the FSB (www.ukranews.com, February 3). The threat was accompanied by “Pylypenko” being shown FSB photographs of his family and himself in Odessa taken by Russian intelligence.

“Pylypenko,” an officer of Ukrainian military intelligence, had played along and arranged a meeting in Odessa on January 27 to hand over secret materials of Ukrainian intelligence operations against Russia (Radio Ukraine, February 3). How seriously Moscow considered the operation was evident when it dispatched the head of the FSB in the OGRV, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel, to personally oversee the Odessa operation. After the SBU arrested the Russian officers, he fled to the Trans-Dniestr. Another senior FSB officer, “Vladimir Alexandrov,” had flown in from Moscow to help coordinate the operation. During the arrest the SBU found ‘a whole arsenal of espionage equipment’ that included digital microphones, a mini video camera built inside a pen, a miniature container for storing digital data with instructions for “Pylypenko,” a holder for flash drives, and $2,000 (Infotag, February 4). A mobile telephone memory card belonging to FSB Lieutenant Andriy Khort contained photocopies of classified Russian instructions for informants.

The reaction of the Party of Regions to the espionage scandal was the same as when President Dmitry Medvedev sent an inflammatory letter to Yushchenko in August 2009; on both occasions it supported Russia and blamed the Ukrainian side. Prime Minister Azarov accused President Yushchenko of provoking the scandal and thereby adding to the already poor state of Ukrainian-Russian relations (Ukrayinska Pravda, February 2, 4). “We categorically condemn such unfounded accusations,” Azarov said (www.proua.com, February 3).

The deported FSB officers were banned from entering Ukraine for five years. This followed the practice of placing civilian Russians, such as Moscow’s Mayor, Yury Luzkov, banned from entering Ukraine since May 2008, on blacklists because of their subversive activities directed against Ukraine’s territorial integrity.

Senior Party of Regions deputy, Aleksandr Yefremov, described this as a “stupid practice” and vouched for Luzkov as someone whom “I respect very much” (www.ukranews.com, February 17). Luzkov has been the most vocal Russian supporter of Russian sovereignty over Sevastopol and he attended and gave a keynote speech in support of Eastern Ukrainian separatism at a rally organized by presidential candidate Yanukovych in Severodonetsk in November 2004 (EDM, November 29, 2004 and June 24, 2005).

Yanukovych’s election signifies a fundamental revision of how Ukraine defines its national security. An unwillingness to see Russia as any form of threat will have profound implications for Ukraine’s foreign policy and could undermine its territorial integrity.

Will Belarus Build its Nuclear Plant?

David Marples

Over the past three years, there have been numerous discussions about the future Belarusian nuclear power station. Various sites have been studied and canvassed and in December 2008, President Alyaksandr Lukashenka announced that the station would be located in the Astravets district of Hrodna region, some ten miles from the Lithuanian border (EDM, April 20, 2009). However, there are increasing signs, not only that the station will be well behind the planned schedule of completion for the first two reactors (in 2016 and 2018 respectively), but also that it may not be built at all. The confusing reports stem from contradictory signals by the main partners, Belarus and Russia, and particularly from comments made by the Belarusian president.

Last May, Belarus and Russia signed a document on cooperation between the two countries on the peaceful uses of atomic energy. At this time, they agreed to work together to complete the construction of the Belarusian nuclear power plant. Belarusian Deputy Energy Minister, Mikalay Mikhalyuk, reported that an official agreement would be signed by the end of the first quarter of 2010 (Belarusian Telegraph Agency, February 9). Last December, a government commission resolved the question of location, stipulating that the plant would be built near the village of Mikhalishki, 12 miles from Astravets, and that when completed, the station would provide up to 30 percent of Belarus’ electricity output (Belapan, March 5).

In some respects, matters appear to be proceeding normally. For example, at a workshop for government officials held in Minsk on February 9, Director of the Department of Nuclear Energy at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Jong Kyun Park, declared that he and his colleagues were ready to assist the Belarusians to build a plant that would reach 2.4 megawatts in capacity (Belarusian Telegraph Agency, February 9). Belarus must now hold discussions about the environmental feasibility of the plant with neighboring countries and Austria, with key talks taking place with the governments of Lithuania and Ukraine, according to Belarusian First Deputy Minister of Environmental Protection, Vital Kulik, in early March (Belapan, March 5).

However, in other respects, total confusion reigns. Noisy demonstrators interrupted talks on the potential environmental impact of the station in Vilnius (www.naviny.by, March 5). Critics note that the Neris River will provide the water supply for the station, which will likely lead to contamination of its waters, thereby threatening the extinction of the river’s salmon. They also highlighted that there is no immediate provision for a recycling plant for the reactors’ nuclear waste, meaning that the burial of radioactive products will take place very close to the Lithuanian border. Opponents of the plant’s construction in Belarus are thus placing their hopes on Lithuania to highlight these potential problems at future meetings of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) (The Baltic Course, March 7).

However, it is the partnership with Russia that elicits the most intriguing questions. In late February, Russian government officials attended the ceremonial laying of the first public stone of the Baltic nuclear power plant in Kaliningrad. Moscow is to provide financing for 49 percent of this station, with the rest open to foreign capital. Germany has reportedly expressed interest in becoming an investor. The timetable for the completion of this structure is identical to that proposed for the Astravets station, (completion of the first reactor by 2016 and the second by 2018) (Bellona, March 1). The difference is that construction work is already under way in Kaliningrad, which raises the question as to whether Moscow would be prepared to invest in a second, foreign station, when a domestic one will be completed just as quickly.

On February 25, Mikhalyuk stated that preparatory work on Astravets would entail the expenditure of 350 billion Belarusian rubles ($119 million). The first houses for workers have been built and a road and railway are under construction. The Belarusians are dependent on support from Russia for this infrastructure, but nothing has been forthcoming from Moscow. No contract has been signed with Atomstroieksport, the anticipated Russian builder. Moreover, Aleksandr Surikov, the Russian Ambassador to Belarus, stated that his country was prepared to pay only for buildings at the plant site itself. Everything else must be covered by Minsk (Belarusy i Rynok, March 1).

His apparent reticence becomes more readily understandable if one recalls comments made by Lukashenka in late December 2009. The Belarusian president noted that construction of the Astravets plant was hardly in the financial interests of Europe and perhaps not for the Russians either. Instead, “[our] competitors are ready to pay us not to construct it and purchase their energy instead” (Belorusy i Rynok, March 1). Could the station then be simply a ruse to gain more loans from Russia, and possibly from Lithuania, which is another likely recipient of nuclear-generated electricity from Kaliningrad? Lukashenka has often demonstrated such wiles in the past, but given the time and expense already invested in Astravets, this would be a major ruse indeed.

Whatever his possible machinations, the fact is that the project is behind schedule, of secondary interest to the main partner, builder, and financier Russia, and raises significant questions and concerns in Lithuania, as well as among the anti-nuclear community in Belarus. Evidently, the community in Astravets would welcome the plethora of new jobs at the plant site, but, who is going to pay them? As yet there are no clear answers.

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