Written by Elizabeth Teague

Russia in 2002

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Written by Elizabeth Teague

Foreign and Defense Policy

The year saw the continuation of the trend toward warmer relations with the West that began with President Putin’s election to office and that received a further boost when Russia joined the U.S.-led antiterror coalition after Sept. 11, 2001. Putin told foreign ambassadors in Moscow in July that for Russia the period of confrontation in international relations was past. Russia, he said, wanted to be seen by the rest of the world not just as a partner but as an ally. Moscow reacted calmly not only when the U.S. abandoned the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty but also when it established temporary military bases in several of the former Soviet states in Central Asia and dispatched special forces on a training mission to Georgia. While Moscow continued to express unhappiness at the prospect that the three Baltic states would be invited to join NATO at the alliance’s meeting in Prague in November, Russian leaders publicly acknowledged the right of those states to decide for themselves which international alliances they should join.

Analysts spoke of a fundamental shift in Russian foreign policy when, at a NATO summit in Rome in late May, East-West rapprochement was cemented by the establishment of the NATO-Russia Council. The new body, on which Russia was to sit as an equal alongside NATO’s 19 member-states, gave Moscow a voice in NATO security matters without granting it a veto over NATO decisions. The council would focus on issues ranging from counterterrorism to nonproliferation and civil emergencies. Also in May, Putin and U.S. Pres. George W. Bush signed the Moscow Treaty, according to which Russia and the U.S. would both, by the end of 2012, cut the number of operationally deployed strategic nuclear warheads by two-thirds (that is, to between 1,700 and 2,200 warheads from current levels of between 5,000 and 6,000). Each side retained the right to hold warheads in reserve and to continue to produce nuclear weapons. A bilateral commission was established to ensure a transparent inspection process, including on-site inspections.

Putin made it clear that Russia would remain in the U.S.-led antiterror coalition, since it saw participation as in its own interests. On the other hand, he expressed Russia’s disquiet with Washington’s switch of focus from Afghanistan to three other countries—Iran, Iraq, and North Korea—with which Russia had close relations. Moscow warned that it would oppose any move made by Washington to oust Saddam Hussein without UN sanction. Among broader concerns, Russia was eager both to ensure that Iraq repaid the billions of dollars it owed to Russia and to protect its substantial investments in Iran’s oil industry. Russia’s relations with Iran were, as in previous years, another source of tension between Moscow and Washington. Russia continued to help Iran to build a nuclear reactor at Bushehr. Russia was unwilling to cut its ties with Iran, seeing the country as an important market and a reliable ally against the threat of militant Islamism from Russia’s south. Russia expressed concern throughout the year that the anticipated enlargement of the European Union (EU) to include Poland and Lithuania would cut off the population of Russia’s Baltic exclave, Kaliningrad, from the rest of Russia. A compromise was worked out in November that satisfied both sides by introducing controls over travelers between Kaliningrad and mainland Russia but avoiding the use of the term “visa regime.” Putin had the opportunity to size up China’s new leadership when, in December, he was the first major world leader to visit Beijing and meet new Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Hu Jintao.

Russia continued its efforts to pacify its breakaway republic, Chechnya. Moscow declared that the military phase of the campaign was over, but casualties remained high. The ranks of the rebels were much weakened, yet they refused to give up the fight. Human rights groups complained about the violation of human rights by Russian forces, but Moscow continued to insist that it would not negotiate with the rebels and would accept only their surrender. Opinion polls indicated that 90% of the Russian population supported this position and that one-third favoured even tougher methods. The Moscow-installed government worked on a new constitution for the ravaged republic. The seizure of more than 800 hostages in a Moscow theatre by a group of armed Chechens on October 23–26 led many to predict an even tougher Russian policy toward Chechnya. Of the hostages, 129 died during the incident, 5 from gunfire and the rest as a result of inhaling gas released by the security forces in order to subdue the terrorists. The authorities’ initial refusal to identify what turned out to have been a potentially lethal gas provoked controversy. The authorities said 50 hostage-takers—18 of them women—were killed during the storming of the building.

Tension rose between Russia and Georgia following Russian complaints that Georgia was sheltering Chechen guerrillas in the Pankisi Gorge, a mountainous area in northeastern Georgia adjoining the border with Chechnya. Moscow called on Tbilisi to crack down on the rebels. Tempers cooled in October after Moscow and Tbilisi agreed jointly to monitor their common border.

In November, Defense Minister Sergey Ivanov promised to relaunch reforms of the armed forces that had run aground amid strong opposition within the military establishment. Though precise figures were elusive, the Russian army remained somewhere in excess of one million soldiers. Senior officers argued against a hasty transition to a professional army, claiming that such a transition would be prohibitively expensive. Some limited experiments were launched, however, including the transfer of one airborne division to a professional-contract basis. If successful, the measure was expected to speed the transformation of other army units. June saw the adoption for the first time in Russia of a law on alternative military service. This allowed conscripts to opt for civilian service in hospitals, prisons, or orphanages in place of the normally obligatory military service. The law was criticized by the military establishment, which considered it too lenient, and by the human rights lobby, which viewed the conditions for alternative service as too harsh.

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