http://www.lineone.net/express/99/12/11/news/n0400yeltsin-d.html

-- none (none@none.com), December 13, 1999

Answers

"I am not suggesting that these nuclear bombs will go off on their own, but we do expect to see the defence systems playing up a bit."

Yipes! This is NOT assuring news!

-- Faith Weaver (suzsolutions@yahoo.com), December 13, 1999.

Pretty damn nice of me to direct my tax dollars to Boris to hook him up with that new missile system. Good catch none.

-- Hokie (nn@va.com), December 13, 1999.

Yeltsin Puts Missiles On Red Alert

From Will Stewart in Moscow

Boris Yeltsin put his most powerful nuclear missiles on full alert last night in what was seen as a dramatic warning to the West over Chechnya.

The Kremlin deployed ten new Topol-M missiles - its newest, most sophisticated and deadliest weapons - in a state of combat readiness.

The move coincided with President Yeltsin's return to Russia after a trip to China, during which he hit back at criticism of his campaign in Chechnya and warned the West to keep its nose out. "Russia is a great power that possesses a full nuclear arsenal," he thundered in Beijing. "It is us who will dictate."

The West was told in advance of Russia's deployment, as dictated by nuclear treaty commitments. But the timing and the rarity of such a move amounts to a dramatic show of force designed to back Yeltsin's message.

The intercontinental missiles - with a 6,200 mile range and capable of striking Britain or America - were put in readiness in the Saratov region, 400 miles south-east of Moscow.

Russia publicly portrayed the move as a scheduled test of a new weapon, which replaces its SS-19 missiles, dating to the 1970s.

But observers last night said the provocative timing could only be linked to the Chechen crisis - and Yeltsin's anger at the West's hostile reaction to his bloody military purge in the troubled region.

Many Russian politicians and analysts say Yeltsin is too ill to rule Russia and have his finger on the trigger of the world's second largest nuclear power.

In televised comments yesterday, even his wife Naina admitted that he had "never been in such a bad state as he is now" after a bout of pneumonia which followed a succession of health problems, including heart trouble.

While putting Russia's missiles on alert is seen as posturing bluster, Britain's foremost independent nuclear expert, John Large, warned it was a foolish manoeuvre, particularly in relation to the millennium bug, for which it is feared Russia is still ill-prepared.

"There was an unwritten agreement for both Russia and the US not to deploy nuclear weapons before the Y2K period," he said.

"Even if the weapons themselves are OK - which I very much doubt since their testing system has been effectively down and out for three years - they would have to work within the strategic defence system there which is full of Y2K glitches. There is no real need for it - it is a risk they don't need to take.

"I am not suggesting that these nuclear bombs will go off on their own, but we do expect to see the defence systems playing up a bit."

The Topol-M missile is relatively small and can be transported on a mobile launch pad, meaning it would be hard to locate and take out in the first strike of a nuclear confrontation.

"Of the five nuclear powers, none of the others will match these weapons in the next few years," bragged Colonel-General Vladimir Yakovlev, Russian forces commander. "Topol-M is able to breach any anti-missile system that exists in the world and any which will be built in the near future."

The deployment came 24 hours ahead of today's deadline - set by Russia a few days ago - for people in the Chechen capital Grozny to "flee or perish".

Moscow yesterday appeared to have extended the deadline for residents to get out of the ruined city. But the Kremlin immediately stung the West by implying a new ultimatum to wipe out Grozny was on the way.

The missile manoeuvre also came as Europe's leaders gathered for an EU summit in Helsinki.

They were last night preparing to fire off a salvo of condemnation for the Russian offensive in Chechnya, which has seen thousands of civilians killed and tens of thousands of refugees spilling across the borders into neighbouring Ingushetia.

"It can't be business as usual while Russia continues with these actions in Chechnya," a British source said at the Helsinki summit. "I imagine there will be some words of condemnation."

But little hard action was expected to back up the words. The West is aware that, in practical terms, there is little it can do to halt the Russian offensive, though the EU is likely to shelve a science and technology agreement and a #1.5 billion aid package to Russia in protest over the action in Chechnya.

The nuclear deterrent on both sides of the old Iron Curtain is credited with maintaining peace since the end of the Second World War.

But in recent months the post-Cold War nuclear consensus has collapsed and Russia and the US seem on the verge of a new arms race.

) Express Newspapers, 1999

-- here we go again (nukes@on.horizon), December 13, 1999.

How many MIRV war heads are on this TOPOL-M. If it is 12, it would explain the 120 American cities list. And suggest that this deployment is not a surprise to our leadership.

-- Bill P (porterwn@one.net), December 13, 1999.

Many Russian politicians and analysts say Yeltsin is too ill to rule Russia and have his finger on the trigger of the world's second largest nuclear power.

In televised comments yesterday, even his wife Naina admitted that he had "never been in such a bad state as he is now"

-- here we don't go again (you@are.delusional), December 13, 1999.

Bill,

From what I've read there is only 1 warhead in this missile... can anyone else verify this?

-- (ct@no.yr), December 13, 1999.

Bill,

You're correct, ONE per missle.

-- Vernon Hale (create@premiernet.net), December 13, 1999.

Kind of brings all of those hypothetical "What if the Russkies take a 'use it or lose it' approach if they believe that their missiles will turn into duds come Jan 1, 2000?" questions that people have expressed here into a less hypothetical light....

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.cum), December 13, 1999.

The 'New Russia' Is No Friend
Col. Stanislav Lunev
December 13, 1999

According to a statement by Russian Federation Defense Minister Igor Sergeev (on Russian TV, channel ORT, Nov. 12) the successful Russian military campaign in Chechnya is a serious blow to secret American plans to destabilize conditions there. Sergeev accused the United States of provoking the war as part of a plot to weaken Russia and to "take full control of the North Caucasus."

Sergeev spoke these words at a meeting with the Russian generals, which was attended also by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Given the high-level occasion and the rank of those present, it's evident that Sergeev wasn't just expressing a personal opinion. This view is, in fact, the official position of Boris Yeltsin and his regime not only about Chechnya but also about the underlying dynamics of Russian-American relations in general. From the Russian perspective this is the true nature of what eternal optimists in Washington naively regard as a "strategic partnership" between the two nations.

Of course, Sergeev's remarks came as a surprise to the US press and to some Washington politicians who are trying to sell Americans on the idea that the new, "democratic" Russian is no longer a threat to world peace. But the remarks were no surprise to the Russians, who have been the target of ongoing anti-American propaganda for some time.

For the last several years the Russian military has been conducting field exercises for the army, navy, air force, and strategic forces. The largest of these since 1985 was "West-99," a major exercise designed as preparation for war against the US and the other NATO countries. Russian military documents reveal that the US and NATO are considered Russia's "main potential military adversary," requiring the preparation of large-scale military counter-measures.

As under the USSR, defense against "American aggression" continues to be the cornerstone of all Russian military preparations. The main focus of Russian military-training manuals, for example, is on the armed forces of the United States and the military structures of American allies, their weapons systems, chains of command, and their tactics and strategies.

Kremlin propaganda tells the Russian people that their living conditions are bad not because of the corrupt regime in Moscow but because of America, the destroyer of the former USSR. The US, they say, is now trying to destroy Yugoslavia as well, Russia's only friend in the Balkans. It has occupied Kosovo and opposes Russia's friends around the world. And now it is trying to destroy "Mother Russia" by provoking the conflict in the North Caucasus.

The government-controlled Moscow press has insinuated that NATO and the US are behind the separatists in the North Caucasus and other areas which Russia considers to be within its sphere. Sovershenno Secretno, the Russian newspaper, reported in October 1999 that the new war in Chechnya had cut the oil pipeline in the North Caucasus "which advances Turkish interests in trying to gain control of Caspian-oil transportation."

Siberian oil, by itself, isn't well suited for the market, the paper said, so it must be used in combination with oil from Azerbaijan and Chechnya, the so-called Russian mixture. Since many European oil refineries use the Russian mixture, the war in Chechnya serves to promote American interests by cutting off the Russian supply and increasing EU dependence on sources controlled by US and other Western concerns.

Of course, fabricating the myth of a foreign enemy is not new. It is a typical device used by tyrannical regimes to distract their subjects from poverty and oppression at home. It is especially handy also at directing attention away from the criminal activity of those in power.

And now RF (Russian Federation) propaganda is claiming that the present invasion of Chechnya is to prevent America and other NATO countries from "taking full control of the North Caucasus." This is essentially the same propaganda as two decades ago when Moscow told the Soviet people it was necessary to invade Afghanistan in order to keep American troops from moving in and taking over the country.

No one in Russia benefits from the war in Chechnya but the corrupt Kremlin regime. Yeltsin and his "Family" of hoodlums are trying to regain control of the oil route from the Caspian Sea to Europe and thus influence future European policy and, of course, retain their power in Moscow.

A chief player in this scenario has become Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who is being promoted to the Russian public by Kremlin disinformation. Putin is a graduate of Leningrad State University. In the 1980s he joined the former KGB and was stationed in East Germany as a foreign-intelligence officer. He wasn't especially good at the spy business, so after his return home he was switched from intelligence to the reserves of the counterintelligence service.

Using his civilian cover as a deputy dean of Leningrad University, Putin was assigned by KGB headquarters in 1990 to penetrate the staff of well-known Russian politician Anatoli Sobchak. Sobchak had been Putin's law professor when Putin was a student. With KGB money and support, Putin established himself as a top policy advisor to Sobchak after Sobchak became the first "democratically" elected mayor of Leningrad as well as later when he became the mayor of St. Petersburg.

Fluent in German and having influence on Mayor Sobchak, Putin played an important role in establishing contacts between German businessmen and the so-called new Russians. How much money Putin was able to appropriate to himself from these contacts is a guarded secret. Suffice it to say that during his tenure there, St. Petersburg came to be known as a "black hole" into which untold resources, money, weapons systems, etc., mysteriously disappeared.

Mr. Putin's qualities are so well suited for "the Family" that in the mid 1990s he was deemed worthy of a personal visit by Yeltsin's daughter Tatyana. She made a special trip by train to St. Petersburg to offer Putin a high-ranking job in the presidential administration. As reward for his loyalty to "the Family" the previous year, he was appointed as director general of the Federal Security Service (FSB - a successor agency to the KGB) and then later as secretary of the powerful National Security Council (NSC).

As head of the FSB, Putin orchestrated a very active anti-American propaganda campaign. Anti-American demonstrations were organized in Moscow and other cities, and dozens of local citizens and foreigners were accused of spying for the USA. At the same time Russian intelligence activity was increased against the US and the other NATO countries, reaching Cold War levels and beyond, as finally acknowledged even by the US media.

From the time Putin was head of the NSC and during his tenure as prime minister, Russian military spending has increased fifty percent. And preparations for war have been intensified - not just for limited warfare such as in Chechnya but also for full-scale, global war. Chechnya has served as a useful testing ground for the Russian military. It learned much from its humiliating defeat in 1994 during the previous Chechen conflict, both militarily and in preparations planning and funding.

At the same time the government began to adopt a more aggressive military policy, it also decided to increase its reliance on tactical nuclear weapons in view of its weaknesses in conventional systems. In support of this, Pres. Yeltsin has ordered an across-the-board upgrade of research and development as well.

Testing of the new tactical weapons has already begun at the nuclear-test facility on Novaia Zemlya Island. As the military newspaper Krasnaia Zvesda reported, a new nuclear-deterrence policy has also been approved by the president which gives the go-ahead to the use of nuclear weapons when all other measures have failed in a given conflict.

On November 23, channel ORT disclosed that a special meeting of the NSC was formulating new policy for the navy. As Putin, who chaired the meeting, said, new policy is necessary because the Russian navy is presently losing its forward-deployment capabilities - even in locales where the former Soviet navy had a permanent presence. In addition, the NSC requested more research and development for new types of naval weaponry.

But the main success of Putin's first 100 days in office as prime minister lies in another area. All investigations of criminal involvements by Boris Yeltsin, by his relatives, and by members of "the Family" of thugs were delayed, postponed, and have finally vanished altogether. Mr. Putin has accomplished what none of his predecessors could do.

In passing, it's interesting to note that, despite the superficial differences, this method of dealing with presidential "irregularities" should be familiar to Americans these days. One must wonder who is taking lessons from whom: Clinton from Yeltsin, or Yeltsin from Clinton. In any event, the parallels are striking, and almost in lock step.

Very pleased with Putin's work, "the Family" has launched a pro-Putin campaign both domestically and internationally. Domestically the Yeltsin regime is giving him much credit for the current military successes in Chechnya. The barrage of populist slogans in the Russian media have also increased Putin's popularity dramatically. A few months ago his name was known only to the experts, yet almost overnight he has become the most popular politician in Russia.

The Family is trying to portray Vladimir Putin as an experienced government bureaucrat, with a democratic orientation. Channel ORT, on November 19 - at the time of the OSCE meeting in Istanbul between Boris Yeltsin and Pres. Clinton - stated that Yeltsin introduced his protigi Putin as "the only politician in Russia who could really support democracy."

Of course, the Russian president gives the word "democracy" his own interpretation, which has little in common with the true meaning of the word. It's difficult to say whether foreign leaders will buy Yeltsin's assessment of Putin. But if they support Putin, whose hands are stained with the blood of his own people, they will be supporting someone who will not hesitate to shed the blood of the citizens of their own countries.

If the West throws its support behind Vladimir Putin for the coming presidential elections and he wins, the next Russian president will be a person like Yeltsin, a person without principle, who has strong anti-American sentiments, and who is preparing Russia for war against the United States and its allies. The US and the NATO countries will be helping perpetuate a regime that will be even more committed than now to milking them for funds - which it will use to make war against them and to subjugate again the peoples of the old empire.

-- Nabi (nabi7@yahoo.com), December 13, 1999.

I think its time to ween those ruskies off of our aid and let them fall apart at the seams. Maybe the people would rebell and get out from under their leaders bootheels. GM

-- gm (gregman900@yahoo.com), December 13, 1999.

Those topol M's are Mirv capable, but the Russians have assured us they are only mounting one warhead on each one. Of course we just have to take their word for it as we have no way of verifying it. These are not the first ten to be deployed either, they have been deploying these things all year. My best estimate is now 40 fully funtional and deployed missiles with an unknown number of warheads. Apparently the concern over Russia is leaching into the mainstream, Nightline is doing a show on the rebirth of the Russian military tonight. I don't know if theya re going to get into the nuclear aspects but there should be some good info if they don't come out with one of those government happyface shows.

-- Nikoli Krushev (doomsday@y2000.com), December 13, 1999.

"Of course, fabricating the myth of a foreign enemy is not new. It is a typical device used by tyrannical regimes to distract their subjects from poverty and oppression at home. It is especially handy also at directing attention away from the criminal activity of those in power."

This is the definition of our present leadership.Now we all will pay.As my grede school teacher used to say"Because of a few bad apples the whole class must suffer.

-- ... _ _ ... (Heaven@help.us), December 13, 1999.

well on that happy note will go snuggle,my fine husband and the dog hope we are all still here tomorrow.

-- sandy (rstyree@overland.net), December 14, 1999.

It is a dangerous game we play....

-- Stars and Stripes (stars_n_stripes@my-deja.com), December 14, 1999.

Maybe WE (US) need to preempt.

-- near butnot in theFemabunker (heretoonear@dc.com), December 14, 1999.