EDITORIAL: Warning signals from Moscow (01/21/96)

EDITORIAL

Warning signals from Moscow

It looks like the campaign for president of Russia is well under way - that's one way to explain the recent behavior of President Boris Yeltsin. More and more he sounds like a candidate rather than a leader.

First there was the departure of Andrei Kozyrev from the post of foreign affairs minister and his replacement with Yevgeny Primakov, director of the Foreign Intelligence Service, by all accounts a loyal KGB operative and staunch Communist Party member. The reaction in Moscow was good and in the West it was cautiously pessimistic, as Mr. Primakov is seen as less sympathetic to the West than his predecessor and is not considered a liberal like Mr. Kozyrev. While Mr. Kozyrev was perceived in Russia as too accommodating to the West, Mr. Primakov has publicly stated that Russia should take a tougher stand in defense of its national interests. The chairman of the Russian Duma's International Affairs Committee, Vladimir Lukin, welcomed the appointment, stating that the new foreign minister "understands what Russia's real priorities are."

Then President Yeltsin made another appointment that indicates his continuing drift - and his attempt to placate his opposition, Communists and nationalists. He named as chief of his administration Nikolai D. Yegorov, described as one of the more hawkish advocates of Russian military intervention in Chechnya. The previous chief was Sergei Filatov, a liberal who left his post to begin work connected with the presidential elections scheduled for June. Western news media have reported that Mr. Yeltsin's inner circle of advisers is now dominated by hawks.

Next came the forced departure of Anatoly Chubais, the last of the reformers left in the Cabinet, a man The New York Times described as "a pillar of economic reform." President Yeltsin sought Mr. Chubais' resignation, thus distancing himself from the economic reforms he had portrayed his presidency as supporting.

Then came the latest developments regarding the separatist region of Chechnya. With Chechen fighters taking hostages yet again, this time in Kizlyar, Dagestan, and later aboard a Black Sea ferry and in Grozny, the unfolding scenario was seen as a test for Mr. Yeltsin (after the earlier debacle in Budyonnovsk). Would he defend the Russia's honor? The Russian president ordered a ground assault on the Chechen rebels holding hostages in the village of Pervomayskoye, where they had holed up after seizing a hospital in Kizlyar. Deflecting criticism, Mr. Yeltsin stated that all peaceful means had been attempted to end the standoff.

Finally, President Yeltsin took another fateful step. Russian Federal Security Service spokesman Aleksandr Mikhailov announced on January 17 that since there "are no hostages left" in Pervomayskoye, federal troops would give up trying to rescue them and would launch intensive bombardment of the village to eliminate the band of Chechen fighters. Multiple rocket launchers and mortar were used in a frontal, all-out assault with the result that the village was, literally, razed. An Izvestiya correspondent who filed a report on the attack said the village had been reduced to rubble and that if any hostages survived it would not be because they were saved, but because, somehow, they were lucky.

And so, the political makeover of President Yeltsin is fully under way. Boris Yeltsin is now painting himself as a strong chief executive who will defend Russia's particular interests at all costs, who will see to Russia's "real priorities." The consequences for the people of Russia and its neighbors have already proven to be grave, the consequences for the Russia's future and its relations with the West will be no less serious.

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