Moscow Times April 9, 1999 NATO Troops Could Defeat Yeltsin By Natalya Shulyakovskaya Staff Writer
If NATO deploys ground troops in Yugoslavia - an increasingly likely possibility - President Boris Yeltsin could have trouble holding back the groundswell of calls for Russia to help the Serbs.
Although Yeltsin on Thursday repeated his firm assertion that Moscow has no intention of getting militarily involved in the conflict or arming the Serbs, he is under pressure to do so from all sides.
The State Duma, dominated by his Communist and nationalist opponents, voted 279 to 34 on Wednesday to demand that the government supply weapons and military advisers to Yugoslavia.
The president also must contend with the public's anti-American rage and calls to restore Russia's pride, and he faces military leaders whose pronouncements have sounded increasingly threatening and independent as NATO has escalated its air raids.
The clashing views between the government and the military burst into the open Thursday with a Kremlin warning to the top brass.
Alexander Voloshin, the Kremlin chief of staff, said that top army officers whose future "militant" remarks are inconsistent with Yeltsin's position "would be dismissed immediately."
Interfax cited an anonymous source saying that General Anatoly Kvashnin, chief of the general staff, was not likely to keep his job. Kvashnin has taken a hawkish line on Yugoslavia and has not ruled out Russian military aid to Yugoslavia.
Saturday, Colonel General Leonid Ivashov, the head of the Defense Ministry department for international military cooperation, said that if NATO deployed ground troops to Yugoslavia, Russia would take steps "accordingly to the situation."
He said the military leadership has held meetings on possible additional measures to counteract NATO's aggression in Yugoslavia. The only step Ivashov made public was the withdrawal of Russian peacekeeping forces from Bosnia.
Krasnoyarsk region Governor Alexander Lebed, a retired general who once headed Yeltsin's Security Council, said the Yugoslav conflict has allowed Russians "to get up from our knees."
"Already, both those on the left and those on the right agree that the country is being degraded," Lebed said in an interview published Tuesday in Komsomolskaya Pravda. "Fifteen years ago, what is happening right now would not be possible. But today we are destitute and weak."Immediately after the Duma vote Wednesday to arm the Serbs, Yeltsin's spokesman Dmitry Yakushkin said such shipments would mean "a slow drawing of Russia into war" and "inevitable escalation of the conflict with unpredictable consequences."
Yeltsin reiterated the position Thursday.
"Our fundamental position is not to get sucked into a big war and not to deliver arms," he said at the start of a meeting with Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev.
Russia has sent one warship to the Mediterranean in solidarity with Yugoslavia but has focused on diplomatic efforts to end the NATO airstrikes against Serb positions.
Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said diplomacy was making some progress. "Such active political dialogue is contributing to finding a way out of this situation," Ivanov told reporters after talks with visiting Norwegian Foreign Minister Knut Vollebaek, who heads the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
At the same time, Sergeyev said Russia planned to beef up its combat troops and improve their readiness in response to NATO airstrikes. Russia won't increase the size of its military but boost the state of its combat divisions, the minister said.
"The plans to strengthen the armed forces are explained by the new strategic concept of NATO, under which the alliance intends to use force without the UN Security Council's consent - in any part of the world," Sergeyev said.
Most observers agree that Yeltsin and Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov are the only political figures holding back the forces pushing for military involvement in Yugoslavia.
But Lebed said the ailing Yeltsin's position was so weak that he may not be able to stop the flow of Russian fighters or arms to the Serbs.
"Who will ask him for permission?" Lebed was quoted as saying in an interview with Der Spiegel.
>From a rational perspective, defense experts said, Russia's impoverished
military should not, and could not, help arm Yugoslavia.
Finance Minister Mikhail Zadornov said Thursday he didn't think "Russia has the economic resources to participate in some sort of large-scale military operations."
But he added that the NATO bombing has forced the government to drastically change its views on funding for defense.
"The Finance MInistry has precise instructions that all Defense Ministry expenditures are of top priority," Zadornov said. Both NATO and Russia have already demonstrated that what they do in the conflict is "highly irrational," said Alexander Pikayev, defense analyst with the Carnegie Moscow Center.
Pikayev cited Washington's decision, at a time of tense relations with Russia over the NATO campaign, to slap sanctions on three Russian institutions accused of military cooperation with Syria.
"This is apparently not a very smart move," Pikayev said. "The risk of uncontrolled escalation exists. The situation is deteriorating."
So what could Russia do?
* Russia could deploy additional warships to the Mediterranean. The step could lead to an escalation if Russian ships attempted to jam NATO communication and intersect information about NATO flights. This is considered unlikely, though, because it would mean direct confrontation with NATO.
Nevertheless, the Russian navy reiterated Thursday that its six additional ships are ready to head out of their Black Sea port. There is already a small intelligence gathering ship, Liman, in the Mediterranean.
* Russia could resort to covert supplies of weapons, experts said. The shipments could be technically difficult because of NATO's air blockade in Yugoslavia, and most countries surrounding Yugoslavia are either NATO members or hope to become ones.
But Pikayev said it might not be impossible.
"The Balkans are the Balkans, and for money you could ship everything there," he said. "You cannot count Bulgaria, Romania and Albania out."
The Kremlin has said that Russia will abide by the international sanctions against supplying weapons to Yugoslavia.
But if NATO ground operations were to aid the Kosovo Liberation Army and supply the separatists with weapons, the alliance would be breaking the international sanctions. This, the experts said, would give Russia a free hand to ship arms legally.