Polishing Up Luzhkov

By appointing Sergei Yastrzhembsky as the Moscow city government's deputy prime minister for international relations, Mayor Yury Luzhkov named the next foreign minister of Russia should the mayor win the presidential elections in 2000. But for now, one of Yastrzhembsky's paramount tasks is to obtain the sympathies of the West for presidential candidate Luzhkov.


Incidentally, the new deputy prime minister began his efforts to fulfill this task long before his official appointment: At the end of October, he went on a "private journey" to a number of European countries that ended with his participation in an international conference in Madrid organized by the Spanish newspaper El Paisand French daily Le Monde. Influential European politicians, including NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana, the speaker of the Lithuanian parliament Vytautas Landsbergis, and Estonian President Lennart Meri, took part. There is no doubt that this audience was already receiving Yastrzhembsky in his new capacity as the head of the Moscow "foreign ministry," as Russian news agencies had written about his forthcoming appointment right before his departure.


The situation is reminiscent of the early '90s, when Andrei Kozyrev made his sensational journeys to the West. Having only just taken up his post as the head of the Foreign Ministry in 1990, Kozyrev began the process of popularizing Boris Yeltsin's image in the West when Yeltsin had already entered into conflict with Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev.


Now the presidential race, which has already begun, is dictating its own laws, under which the foreign policy line of the "shadow foreign ministry" established under Luzhkov has a chance of success only if it at least acquires its own face and somehow differs from the line held by the current Foreign Ministry. And that means that Yastrzhembsky's ministry is doomed to become an alternative, a competitor and a rival to the ministry on Smolenskaya Ploshchad that is dominated by Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and his predecessor, Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov.


Yastrzhembsky's actions have apparently been deemed worthy of merit by the Moscow mayor. Yastrzhembsky was fired from his job as Kremlin press secretary and deputy chief of staff for insistently promoting Luzhkov's candidacy to the post of prime minister. But it all turned out for the best; Luzhkov was not appointed.


It didn't seem to bother the mayor that Yastrzhembsky's career in the Kremlin was begun by the man who was then the head of the presidential administration, Anatoly Chubais, a false friend to Luzhkov. It was Chubais who in 1996 suggested the president appoint Yastrzhembsky, who was then ambassador to Slovakia, as his press secretary. The president agreed. It might even seem that the foreign minister's post itself is calling Yastrzhembsky.


That fall, for example, the Kremlin was growing inclined to think Primakov's harsh opposition to NATO expansion had produced certain undesirable results. Primakov's postulate - that NATO would disintegrate before Moscow's firm negative stance on expansion - proved to have the opposite effect. It caused bewilderment in Europe and the United States, and anti-Russian sentiment rose in the West in direct proportion to the explosion of anti-Western sentiment in Russia. As a result, the left's influence on Foreign Ministry policy rose significantly.


At the beginning of autumn 1996, it became necessary to rebuild bridges to the West. The Kremlin's team of influential young reformers insisted on it. So Yastrzhembsky's name came up as a possible replacement for Primakov. But the president preferred to maintain the status quo.


Now Luzhkov has no qualms about taking advantage of Yastrzhembsky's carefully cultivated image in the Western foreign-policy community in the mayor's likely run against Primakov for the presidency in 2000.


Luzhkov's foreign-policy line is shaping up to be fairly harsh toward the West, and doesn't differ much from the Russian left's. He is noticeably falling into populism, readily repeating national-patriotic and Russian Orthodox slogans. Yastrzhembsky's task will apparently be to give this policy a balanced, centrist tone and find vital mutual understanding with the United States and the West.


The Moscow mayor has thus far limited his foreign policy activities to southern and eastern Europe, the Baltics and the Far East, and his analysis of the situation in those regions is nearly identical to the position of the leftist majority of the State Duma.


It is worth noting that because of his attacks on the authorities of the Baltic states for their policy on their Russian-speaking populations and of Ukraine over Sevastopol and the Crimea, Luzhkov has been declared persona non grata in those states.


Luzhkov's anti-Western outbursts on foreign policy are backed up by his fundamental assertions that, for example, liberalism will "collapse" not only in Russia but in developed countries as well.


Luzhkov's line on foreign affairs is much harsher than the official position of the Foreign Ministry. Populism and dogma noticeably dominate over pragmatism and professionalism. In order to compensate for these shortcomings, it will be Yastrzhembsky's job to polish up and civilize the Moscow mayor's foreign policy.


Alexander Shumilin is the foreign editor of Expert magazine. He contributed this comment to The Moscow Times.