IN THIS ISSUE

* UN takes major step to recognize CSTO
* Russian armed forces refocus on combat readiness
* Kadyrov says leading Arab militant killed in Chechnya
* Chechnya demands that policemen from other regions no longer be sent to the republic
** Visit the Jamestown blog on Russia and Eurasia (http://www.jamestown.org/blog):
- A New Russian Invasion of Georgia: is it so Unrealistic?

The UN Accepts CSTO as a Regional Security Organization

Vladimir Socor

On March 18, in Moscow, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the Collective Security Treaty Organization’s (CSTO) Secretary-General, Nikolay Bordyuzha, signed a declaration on cooperation between the two secretariats. The document, and the UN’s steps preceding it, can be interpreted as UN recognition of this Russian-led bloc in the “post-Soviet space.” The Russian side will doubtlessly construe the UN’s blessing as a full and unambiguous recognition of the CSTO (Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan).

Bordyuzha introduced the declaration as UN “recognition of our organization’s authority.” Ban Ki-moon termed the document “a very big step to strengthen the UN’s cooperation with regional organizations” (ITAR-TASS, March 18) – a formula placing the CSTO on the same footing as genuine alliances such as NATO that exist outside the CSTO-claimed area of responsibility.

The joint declaration enumerates “possible” objects for UN-CSTO cooperation such as: “conflict prevention and conflict resolution [and] combating terrorism, transnational criminality, illegal arms trafficking,” in that order of priorities. The sides shall further broaden their cooperation, “taking into account the respective spheres of competence and procedures of either organization” (Interfax, March 18).

In an accompanying press conference, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov reminded the UN that Moscow attaches high priority to interdicting the drug trafficking from Afghanistan, and wants international organizations to work with the CSTO in Central Asia toward that end. Bordyuzha took the opportunity to air Moscow’s standard complaint that NATO refuses to interact with the CSTO in ways that would imply recognition of this grouping. NATO “evidently does not wish to support integration processes in the post-Soviet space,” Bordyuzha complained (Vremya Novostei, March 18).

The issue of CSTO recognition constitutes a political layer at the surface of this debate.

The core issue, however, is that of a de facto division of responsibilities for conducting peacekeeping operations and authorizing military intervention. Moscow seeks to carve out a zone of responsibility for itself in Eurasia, under the flag of the CSTO, its political mechanism, and its collective forces. In such a zone, Russia (acting either through the CSTO, the latter’s regional subgroups, or unilaterally) would initiate and lead peacekeeping, military, or “anti-terrorism” operations.

Russia would not have to await an international mandate from the UN or some other organization for such operations. It would, however, welcome any form of endorsement to legitimize its initiatives, even short of an international mandate (which it cannot realistically expect from the UN in the foreseeable future). The declaration just signed is a significant step in that direction.

Russian officials discussing CSTO issues routinely differentiate between, on one hand, operations in the member countries’ territories, necessitating internal CSTO decisions, and on the other, CSTO countries’ possible participation in UN-mandated operations beyond the CSTO’s presumed zone of responsibility.

Moscow declares itself willing to contribute troops to UN-mandated peacekeeping and related operations in the rest of the world on a selective basis (definitely not in Afghanistan). Moscow reaffirmed that often-stated willingness to Ban Ki-moon during his visit. According to Bordyuzha, CSTO-flagged peacekeeping troops may be deployed in various parts of the world at the UN’s request, “beyond the zone of applicability of the Collective Security Treaty” (Vremya Novostei, March 18).

However, Russia insists on a “peacekeeping” monopoly in CSTO territory and even in the “post-Soviet space” beyond the CSTO, such as Moldova. CSTO documents stipulate that any troop deployments and operations are triggered by decisions of the CSTO’s Collective Security Council (the top political authority in the CSTO), rather than by UN mandates (EDM, February 5, 6, June 16, 2009). Bordyuzha clearly stated that CSTO documents will not be amended after the UN-CSTO declaration’s signing.

Just three days before the declaration’s signing, CSTO spokesman Vitaly Strugovets announced that "the United Nations [presumably, the secretariat] has completed the procedure of registering the CSTO agreement regarding the CSTO's peacekeeping activities." Such registration is also a form of de facto recognition. According to the spokesman’s summary, that CSTO agreement envisages the creation of standing CSTO “peacekeeping” forces. Thus, “the CSTO’s collective forces may now participate in peacekeeping operations on the territories of CSTO member countries and also, by a UN Security Council decision, in other regions” (Interfax, March 15). The statement is consistent with Moscow’s policy of setting a Russian (or “CSTO”) zone of peacekeeping responsibility apart from the rest of the world, albeit in a cooperative arrangement with the UN that would legitimize such arrangements.

The CSTO received observer status at the UN General Assembly in 2004. That did not imply recognition. On March 2, 2010, the UN General Assembly adopted without opposition a resolution on “cooperation between the UN and the CSTO.” Russia and the CSTO member countries initiated the resolution to show support for the UN Secretariat’s steps toward the recognition of the CSTO. According to the Russian permanent representative to the UN, Vitaly Churkin, this step and the Moscow Declaration-in-waiting (now signed) completes the formation of a legal basis for UN-CSTO cooperation (Rossiyskaya Gazeta, March 4; Kommersant, March 17).

During Ban Ki-moon’s visit, Moscow and the UN downplayed the fundamental issue of a potential carve-out of zones of responsibility for security. However, this issue will undoubtedly continue to fester particularly if it remains unaddressed and unresolved.

Russia Looks East and Sees Storm Clouds

Jacob W. Kipp

(Part Two)

Attention to both combat capabilities and combat-readiness by senior officers in Russian military forces echoes comments made by retired Army-General Makhmut Gareev in early March during a conference organized by the Academy of Military Sciences on the lessons of the Great Patriotic War and their relevance to current defense and security issues. Gareev delivered the main report in the presence of the Chief of the General Staff, Army-General Nikolai Makarov, and other senior military leaders. Gareev speaks with great authority on this issue, having served as a young officer when the war began. Speaking to officers born after that war, Gareev faced the daunting task of convincing them of the relevance of that war’s lessons for contemporary defense and security problems. He began by referring to Prime Minister Putin’s admonition to not forget Russian military traditions, because the experience of many generations of officers can assist in solving contemporary military tasks.

In the context of the creation of the “new look” army, the transition to brigade-based formations and the development of network-centric warfare, Gareev focused on the relationship between the military and civilian leadership at critical times, specifically during the immediate pre-war period. Gareev criticized Stalin's leadership prior to the German assault. On the one hand, he wanted to avoid war at all costs that summer. On the other hand, every indication suggested that war was imminent. Stalin chose to accept the covert mobilization of Soviet forces in some military districts, and kept the frontier districts in a peacetime regime of summer training. Soviet mass media continued to stress the peaceful relations between Moscow and Berlin in the days before the attack. Regarding his famous press release, in which the Soviet government declared that it had no intention to attack Germany and was not engaged in any mobilization activities, and asked Berlin to clarify the intent of its deployments along the Soviet border, Gareev said that diplomats might have seen the statement as a ploy to force Germany to reveal its hand, but he warned that a critical aspect was missing. The foreign ministry and the General Staff never had any classified discussions about this issue and so the military districts and the navy were not warned about the imminence of war until after the first blow was struck. This is relevant in any situation when war is imminent, but it addresses the larger issues of civil-military relations. Gareev understands that Stalin would not have tolerated any such discussions between a foreign minister and the General Staff. Stalin controlled all channels of communication, which ran through his party-state apparatus. His basic point, however, is that the General Staff has every right to expect precise political guidance in order to make sound strategic decisions. This requires the political leadership understanding the impact of the tasks assigned upon operational military decisions.

Gareev highlighted two other war-imminent situations. He stated that Marshal Nikolai Ogarkov, the Chief of the General Staff, opposed military intervention in Afghanistan in 1979 at a session of the Politburo. In response, Yuri Andropov, the then-head of the KGB and a member of the Politburo, told the Marshal: “We here make policy. Your job is to accomplish the military tasks assigned.” Political direction was no better at the start of the first Chechen War, when the government set the task for deploying forces to disarm bandit formations. What transpired was the bloody first battle for Grozny, where hastily-assembled composite units were surrounded and suffered heavy casualties. In both Afghanistan and Chechnya, the governments blundered into wars that they did not want, because they failed to understand the implied tasks that followed from the initial order, and failed in their political guidance to take into account the real situation on the ground.

Turning to the current Russian National Security Strategy, Gareev noted that it addresses the primacy of non-military means in resolving Russia's national security problems, but points out that there is really no effective central control of these means and the result is uncoordinated policy. This might leave the military with the task of salvaging a bad situation. In this context Gareev considered the issue of combat capability and combat readiness. The current military reform program is intended to achieve greater combat-capability (boesposobnost'). However, scant attention has been paid to combat-readiness (boegotovnost'). The first relates to arming, organizing, and training the forces for combat. The second concerns their readiness for actual combat, which means the capacity to respond to attack and go directly into combat. In 1941, the Soviet armed forces were undertaking measures to increase their combat capabilities, but they were not ready for the immediate conduct of combat operations, and forward deployed forces paid for that oversight. A similar situation existed in 1994 during the initial military intervention in Chechnya. Competent intelligence can provide some warning of possible attack, and in that context the investment in combat readiness pays its highest dividends in the initial period of war.

He also commented on the nature of future war. Admitting the difficulties associated with this task, he made a number of observations relevant to the current direction of the reforms associated with the “new look” armed forces. First, Gareev took to task those who depicted future conflicts as being “non-contact warfare,” a term used by the late Major-General, Vladimir Slipchenko, to describe sixth generation warfare dominated by precision-strikes, electronic warfare, and information technology. To those who criticized Russian operations during the Russia-Georgia War in August 2008 for not being a “non-contact war,” he states that the means used complemented the political and military context of the war and suggested this was based on achieving military and political goals without triggering foreign intervention. Reflecting on Soviet military theory in the 1930’s, Gareev noted the positive development of both the deep operations concept and the creation of the industrial base to provide the means to arm such forces. “If we speak about the operational strategic dimension, then we have to admit that our theory and practice has a completely confused understanding of the initial period of war and how troops should act in the case of surprise attack by the enemy” (Nezavisimoe Voennoe Obozrenie, March 9).

Gareev noted the progressive nature of the development of the concept and capabilities associated with network-centric warfare, but warned that Russia does not yet have the means to conduct such operations. He also warns against seeing network-centric operations as a substitute for the conduct of ground combat. Russia fought the war that it did in Georgia, because it matched both the strategic circumstances and its political goals. New concepts do not negate that necessity.

Moreover, he said that the new Russian military doctrine refers to the use of forces in local wars, armed conflict, and anti-terrorist operations, but he warns that such conflicts will not be limited. They can evolve into large-scale regional wars in terms of forces deployed, and the areas involved in such conflicts. He warns that a serious gap exists in how we think about future war in theory and the actual technical basis to conduct such warfare. In part, this is a consequence of the lessons derived from looking at operations in Yugoslavia, Iraq, and Afghanistan, as models for future conflicts. These were one-sided conflicts, where only one combatant possessed modern means. Future wars are more likely to involve both sides deploying such means. That places before the Russian state and its military key tasks, which Gareev describes in the following manner:

“In our view, the most important task for the Russian armed forces is to create its own precision-strike weapons and the necessary technological base to support the conduct of network-centric warfare. Similarly, we must work out and implement more active and decisive methods of strategic and operational-tactical action to impose upon the enemy those actions, including contact warfare, which he most seeks to avoid” (Nezavisimoe Voennoe Obozrenie, March 9).

While this appears to describe a conflict with the United States, and its NATO allies, Chinese military modernization makes it also relevant for defense in the east. On March 5, addressing the defense ministry collegium, President Dmitry Medvedev, set the training focus for 2010. He spoke of increasing the combat readiness of the conventional forces in their new organizational structure, which will require the creation of multi-service groupings. He also said that he will personally observe Vostok 2010, conducted this summer by the Siberian and Far Eastern Military Districts (Vedomosti, March 9).

Taken together, this focus on the eastern strategic direction and the attention to combat readiness suggests both progress in military reform, and increasing concern over the possibility of hostilities from that direction.

Top Arab Militants and Police Reportedly Killed in Vedeno Battle

The Jamestown Foundation

Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov reported on March 18 that one of six suspected militants killed in a special operation in the village of Khazhi-Yurt in Chechnya’s Vedeno district was the Arab militant Abu Khaled, who was in charge of providing security for Doku Umarov, the Chechen rebel leader and “emir” of the self-proclaimed Caucasus Emirate.

The slain militants were part of a group that was surrounded by security forces during the operation, which began on March 17. Russian news sources, citing “operational information,” reported that Abu Khaled had arrived in Chechnya 13 years ago and was involved in “technical and psychological training of terrorists.” Kadyrov, who briefed reporters from the site of the operation in Vedeno, said of Abu Khaled: “Having special training, he managed to hide in the mountains for many years.” Kadyrov called the killing of Abu Khaled a “big result,” adding that in recent years, Abu Khaled and two other apparent Arab fighters, Mukhanad and Yasir, had played the main role in “preparing terrorist acts.” Kadyrov said measures are now being taken to “liquidate” Mukhanad and Yasir. The Chechen president had said earlier in the day that the rebels blockaded in Vedeno, estimated to number up to 20, were part of a group led by Mukhanad, which he described as a “representative of al-Qaeda.”

Russian media reported that a rebel explosives expert, Ismail Kusaev, was also killed during the Vedeno district special operation. Again citing “operational information,” Russian news sources reported that Kusaev had gone through rebel training camps and was a bodyguard of the “Arab mercenary” Yasir. In addition, documents in the name of another militant slain during the special operation, Shamil Saltakhanov, were found at the scene of the operation.

The operation in Vedeno is reportedly ongoing and being conducted by the No. 2 police special tasks regiment of the Chechen interior ministry, supported by policemen from the Kurchaloi, Vedeno and Shali police departments and servicemen of Yug battalion of the Russian interior ministry’s internal troops. Chechen Deputy Prime Minister Magomed Daudov and Chechen Interior Minister Ruslan Alkhanov are on the scene, but the field commander directly in charge of the operation is the commander of the Police Special Tasks Regiment (PMSN) No. 2, Vakhit Usmaev. The security forces have employed helicopter gunships during the operation and the area where the militants are believed to have been hiding came under artillery fire (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, March 18).

The operation is part of a broader offensive that Kadyrov launched in January with the aim of killing Doku Umarov.

For its part, the rebel Kavkaz Center website claimed that the “mujahideen” involved in the fighting in Vedeno killed 7-10 “Kadyrovite murtads [apostates] and Russian kafirs [infidels]” and wounded many more “occupiers and puppets. The rebel website also reported that security forces were using helicopters and artillery, but said that only two “mujahideen” were killed, not six, as claimed by Kadyrov and other officials (www.kavkazcenter.com, March 18).

RIA Novosti reported on March 18 that three policemen were killed on the previous day, marking the start of the special operation in Vedeno. The news agency quoted an unnamed police source as saying that the first shootout took place near the village of Khazhi-Yurt on the afternoon of March 17. “A police officer was killed and another injured,” the source was quoted as saying, adding, “One of the militants was killed when police returned fire.” In a second shootout five hours later, two policemen were shot dead and a contract soldier was wounded.

A Russian interior ministry internal troops serviceman was wounded by an explosion while conducting a reconnaissance and search operation in the village of Bamut in Chechnya’s Achkhoi-Martan district on March 15. On the same day, a policeman was wounded when the car in which he and other officers were traveling in the village of Yandi-Kotar, also in Achkhoi-Martan district, came under fire (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, March 16).

Two members of an interior ministry internal troops special tasks unit from Ufa, the capital of Bashkortostan, were shot by suspected militants while conducting a security operation in a mountainous wooded area near the Chechen town of Bamut on March 14. One of the officers reportedly died instantly while the other died on the way to the hospital. Four other members of the interior ministry internal troops special tasks unit were killed in a shootout with militants in Chechnya’s Urus-Martan district in February (Interfax, March 15; EDM, February 11).

Meanwhile, violence continues in other republics of the North Caucasus. A police investigator was killed in Dagestan on March 18. The investigator, identified as Senior Lieutenant Vagap Shekhabov, was shot as he was returning to his home in the village of Batayurt in the republic’s Khasavyurt district (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, March 19).

Four suspected militants were killed in the Dagestani village of Zubutli-Miatli on March 13 (ITAR-TASS, March 13).

In Ingushetia, three policemen were wounded when their post, located on the Kavkaz federal highway in Nazran, came under fire on March 18 (www.newsru.com, March 19). On March 15, a police officer identified as Girikhan Nalgiev was injured when his car was blown up in the village of Ordzhonikidzevskaya.

Kadyrov Refuses Police Units From Regions Beyond Chechnya

Mairbek Vatchagaev

Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov has refused the services of policemen assigned to Chechnya (www.kp.ru, March 14). It is his first truly significant move since the counter-terrorist operation (CTO) in Chechnya officially ended on April 16, 2009 (www.rosbalt.ru, April 16, 2009). Kadyrov would not have announced that he no longer wanted policemen from other regions sent to the republic had he not received Moscow’s approval to do so. According to Kadyrov, special operations and OMON units summoned from all corners of Russia are bringing nothing to the republic other than problems. Their efforts to detain militants are fruitless. Generally, they are positioned in such a way that they would not be attacked by the militants; one has to protect them from possible militant assaults.

It is worth noting that those forces are stationed along the major highways of the republic, which makes one think that nothing has changed in the republic after the official ending of the CTO. For Kadyrov, who is trying to create the illusion of a paradise in Chechnya, roadblocks create a bad image. It is also worth noting that not a single militant was detained at such roadblocks since the beginning of the second Chechen War in the fall of 1999. They put psychological pressure more on the local population than on the militants. Very few militants thought of using the republic’s highways for fear of being caught at Russian roadblocks.

The tradition of units from other Russian regions being sent to Chechnya dates back to the first Chechen War. In reality, this practice meant two things: distrust of the local authorities, and an attempt to control the situation in the republic in a way that bypasses Chechnya’s police forces. These units were sent to Chechnya literally from all parts of Russia: Khabarovsk, the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Vladivostok, Kaliningrad, St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kazan, Omsk, etc. Each region, krai or republic had to send its detached battalion to police Chechnya for six months twice annually.

Large federal regions like Tatarstan or Moscow were tasked with sending several detachments. The total number of such detachments is kept secret, but it is likely that thousands of policemen arrive in Chechnya knowing virtually nothing about the customs and traditions of the Chechen people. However, it is profitable for the policemen who are sent, because each day counts as three in terms of salary.

Kadyrov intends to make a request to the Russian interior ministry to stop sending the detachments from other regions and spend the money saved on increasing the staff of Chechnya’s interior ministry (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, March 14). His idea to increase the size of the staff of the Chechen interior ministry is unlikely to be rejected; even though the number of Chechen policemen varies from 17,000 to 27,000, it looks like Moscow will approve Kadyrov’s request. After increasing its police staff by perhaps two thousand, Chechnya will become a republic where policing will be one of the major occupations. It is unlikely that any other profession in the republic has such a large number of people.

Not everyone agrees with Kadyrov on the need to end sending police units from other regions to Chechnya. According to Mikhail Grishankov, the first deputy head of the State Duma’s Security Committee, it is premature to end the deployment of policemen from various regions to Chechnya (Ekho Moskvy, March 13).

Meanwhile, the security situation in Chechnya has not changed dramatically. Kadyrov, not for the first time, has called for a “decisive approach” to the militants. The first time the Chechen authorities made such a call was in May 2009 when, in a bid to catch armed underground leader Doku Umarov, the Chechen and Ingush siloviki conducted operations along the administrative border of Chechnya and Ingushetia. The Ingush government apparently got tired of the shameless interference of their Chechen neighbors. This time the Ingush authorities said “Thank you. We can handle it ourselves.” In response, Kadyrov publicly criticized Ingushetia’s President Yunus-bek Yevkurov (www.chechnya.gov.ru, September 29, 2009).

Kadyrov’s latest attacks on the militants are absolutely identical to his previous efforts, replete with dead bodies of alleged terrorists and detentions of alleged militants and their supporters, all conducted in front of the television cameras and with obligatory expressions of gratitude to Kadyrov for personally leading the operation. In recent years, such scenes have become a trademark of Chechen television.

On March 11, four alleged militants were killed during a special operation conducted in the mountainous part of Chechnya. It appears that police stumbled upon a group of militants in the vicinity of the Shatoi district settlement of Nokhch-Keloi. Otherwise, it is hard to explain how the policemen (who, as they themselves admit, generally do not go deep into the woods) managed to come across the militants. According to them, it is a game of who shoots first. This view, expressed by one of the participants in that operation shows that Kadyrov’s decisiveness and the policemen’s desire to fight are two different things (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, March 12).

The siloviki, who themselves take part in operations, say that they do not risk going deep into the woods where the militants’ main bases are located. They prefer to wait for the militants for several weeks until they accidentally run into them.

In Chechnya, two servicemen with a special unit of the Russian interior ministry from Ufa were killed during an operation. They were identified as Corporal Malofeyev and warrant officer Giyarov (Interfax, March 14). The incident occurred on the administrative border of Chechnya and Ingushetia, in the vicinity of the settlement of Bamut. This is the second case in the last month in which this unit has endured losses; in February, four other members of this brigade died under similar circumstances.

All of these recent events provide a clear picture of the real Chechnya, without retouching. They also muffle the rapturous cries about reconstructed Grozny. This means that there will be a third, fourth and even more “decisive attacks” on the militants by the authorities, but the result will be the same as after the first and the second Chechen wars.

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