Guardian, UK
Sept 6 2004

Putin warns of security backlash

Pressure for action rises

Jonathan Steele in Moscow
Monday September 6, 2004
The Guardian

Vladimir Putin’s solemn weekend broadcast to the Russian people struck
many popular chords and will have satisfied most of his compatriots,
but it left unclear what concrete changes in policy will come in the
wake of the catastrophe of Beslan.

The president appealed to nostalgic Soviet patriots and Russia’s
ancient sense of encirclement when he said the collapse of the USSR
left the country “without defences either to the east or west”. He
criticised the mistakes of the security forces, saying: “We could
have been more effective if we had acted professionally and at the
right moment.”

He conjured up a frightening external threat, indirectly accusing
the US of supporting terrorists and trying to disarm Russia as a
nuclear power and pull territory away from it. “Some would like to
cut a juicy piece of our pie. Others help them,” he said. “Terrorism
is just one instrument they use.”

He called for unity as the best form of strength because in the past
“we showed ourselves to be weak and the weak get beaten”.

Mr Putin signalled that he intends to re-establish control over
security across Russia. But how can he do it? He faces enormous
challenges in all areas of domestic, military and foreign policies.

Domestic

In putting all the blame on international terrorism, the president
avoided using the word “Chechnya” at all. The measures he talked
about in broad terms – to strengthen Russia’s unity, create a new
system of control over the northern Caucasus and set up an effective
anti-crisis management system – need to be fleshed out.

The speech also left the suspicion that Mr Putin was exploiting the
shock of Beslan to accelerate efforts to create a more authoritarian
and centralised form of rule, and using the notion of a terrorist war
on Russia to divert attention from rising social and economic tensions.

All the indicators show an increase in the gap between rich and poor,
as well as stubbornly high rates of joblessness, particularly in
parts of the northern Caucasus. The high world price for oil has given
the government a cushion at least to pay wages and pensions on time,
unlike a few years ago, but Mr Putin’s neo-liberal economic strategy
caused the biggest street protests of his presidency this summer.

Other shocks are in store, including a rise in the domestic price of
oil and gas, which will hit people’s utility bills. Medicine is being
privatised, leaving thousands defenceless. The closure of kindergartens
and even schools is hitting families hard in smaller towns, many in
the northern Caucasus – precisely the areas where tension can turn
to violence.

In central Russia discontent often turns to apathy. In Muslim regions
it can lead people to Islamism. The oddest line in the president’s
speech was his suggestion that Russians cannot “live in as carefree a
manner as before” – as though his compatriots have not endured some
of the harshest ordeals in Eu rope in the last century, including
civil war, dictatorship, foreign invasion, and the recent collapse
in living standards and security which he himself mentioned.

Military

Mr Putin has few options militarily. The war in Chechnya is going
badly, and Russian deaths continue at a rate of 15 a week. The
resistance fighters are not as strong as they were during the first
Chechen war but the struggle is essentially at a stalemate.

The president has gradually been restoring the power of the KGB,
now renamed the FSB. It was weakened under President Yeltsin, but Mr
Putin recently put the border guards back under FSB control. Handling
terrorism is in the hands of a dozen different ministries and he may
create a Russian version of the US department of home land security,
essentially a strengthened FSB.

Other ideas which were already under discussion before the Beslan
atrocity were to raise the profile of Russia’s security council.
Under Igor Ivanov it has little clout and the key discussions on
security take place weekly in what is sometimes called “the little
Politburo”. It is chaired by Mr Putin and includes all the “power”
ministers: defence, interior, foreign affairs, as well as the
prosecutor general.

Sergei Ivanov, the defence minister and a friend of the president,
who is tipped as his successor, might be appointed to chair the
security council. Other suggestions are that the job of vice-president
be re-established.

Mr Putin’s call for strengthening the unity of the country might
mean a further boost for the restoration of “vertical” rule. He has
already changed parliament’s upper house, the federation council, so
that regional governors and legislative leaders no longer sit in it.
Now there is talk of the president appointing governors, rather than
them being elected. This would bring Russia back towards the Soviet
system of hierarchical one-party rule from Moscow.

Foreign policy

The president’s emphasis on a powerful external threat will cut into
his foreign policy options. In the Caucasus, Russia’s bargaining
position has weakened over the last year. The new nationalist
government in Georgia is unlikely to help seal its frontier with Russia
when it is trying to remove the Russian troops from the disputed
territory of South Ossetia, which was within Georgia’s borders in
Soviet times.

Azerbaijan may be unwilling to help clamp down on its Chechen diaspora
while Russia has failed to get Armenian troops out of the large areas
of Azerbaijan which they occupy.

The US and Russia are struggling for influence in the southern
Caucasus, and Mr Putin will not want any American interference in
the northern Caucasus, including Chechnya, as well. His claim that
Washington is exploiting the disruption caused by terrorism is a
warning that, even though both sides claim to be allies against an
invisible international enemy, the rules of the game have strict
limits.