Russia Rethinks Kosovo

Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov, one of the main candidates for president in 2000, has suddenly softened his bellicose position on NATO's bombardment of Yugoslavia. Since the end of last week, he has ceased his demands that Russia immediately render military-technical aid to Serbs in Yugoslavia, saying it is necessary only if NATO begins ground operations. Luzhkov's new position is understandable given a noticeable drop in the ratings of "warlike politicians." The mayor apparently understood that not all Muscovites were ready to back his hardline pro-Serb orientation - approximately 15 percent follow the Islamic faith and, thus, sympathize with their Albanian religious brethren.


The strong emotional reactions of Russian politicians to NATO's aggression towards Yugoslavia lasted slightly more than a week, from March 24 to April 1. During this period, those whose state and party positions required them to condemn "the barbaric actions of the NATO militarists" did so. The condemnations ran the gamut: President Boris Yeltsin promised "adequate measures," Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov carefully protested in a restrained manner, the armed forces' General Staff commented about "NATO cutthroats," and State Duma deputy and General Roman Popkovich called for "the preventive use of nuclear weapons."


After reviewing issues of 127 Moscow newspapers and magazines from March 1999, the National Electronic Library of Moscow came to the conclusion that the Yugoslav found that the level of media interest in the Kosovo crisis rivaled media interest in the war in Chechnya. In its first 10 days, 81 percent of articles in Moscow publications were devoted to the Chechen conflict. During the first 10 days of the bombardment of Yugoslavia, 16 percent of articles were written about it.


This strongly indicates that the Kosovo problem has become a key factor exerting influence on Russia's domestic political situation. This is not surprising: Both print media and television have created a kind of virtual reality. Commentators in Russian newspapers have often frightened readers with the possibility of NATO bombardment in Russia ("Today Belgrade, Tomorrow Moscow").


Liberal nationalist newspapers put out the message: "We always said that NATO is an aggressor"; "We will help the brother-Serbs with weapons and volunteers, we will rebuff the aggressor"; "the bombardment of Yugoslavia is the defeat and disgrace of Yeltsin's policy of grovelling to the West." Communist newspapers called on readers to be vigilant, warning that a revanche of liberal, democratic forces could take place in Moscow under the cover of NATO presence in Yugoslavia (including the dismissal of Yevgeny Primakov's government, the dissolution of the State Duma and the banning of the Communist Party from the Russian Federation).


More conservative newspapers, meanwhile, panicked about the possibility of a seizure of power in Russia by communists, nationalists and criminal elements. According to the authors of these articles, this could happen as a result of a destabilization of the country's atmosphere. At the same time, virtually all of these newspapers unequivocally condemned the bombing of Yugoslavia, intelligently dubbing it "a mistake by NATO and the West."


Many commentators believe politicians are using Yugoslavia to solve their own problems on the sly. Whether this is true, the subject of Yugoslavia has forced certain "hot" topics onto the back burner. For example, the question of Yury Skuratov's removal from office for a second time had much less resonance in the media then his first removal. Likewise, Boris Berezovsky was fired from the post of CIS executive secretary practically without a sound.


Thanks to Kosovo, the spectrum of attention towards Russian politicians changed significantly. For the first time since 1991, a prime minister - Primakov - was mentioned in the press considerably more often than the president, Boris Yeltsin. The frequency with which Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev, Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, and left-wing politicians Gennady Zyuganov and Sergei Baburin appeared in newspapers also rose sharply. Right-wing politicians like Grigory Yavlinsky, Viktor Chernomyrdin and Sergei Kiriyenko were alluded to less often.


This increased attention to politicians connected with Kosovo, however, has not meant a growth in their popularity. In late March and early April, Zyuganov's and Luzhkov's share of the electorate shrank by 5.1 percent and 4.7 percent, respectively, the Agency for Regional Political Research reported.


These results presumably indicate disillusionment on the part of some left-wing voters with the "excessively warlike and confrontational" statements made by Zyuganov and Luzhkov concerning Yugoslavia. Such statements essentially mean that Russia could enter the war on the side of the Serbs - with all of the consequences similar to those still fresh from the war in Chechnya.


The Kremlin has been forced to step back from its initial pro-Serb position because of another important domestic factor - the dissatisfaction such a one-sided position has aroused within Russia's Moslem community. Tatarstan President Meitemir Shaimiev enunciated this discontentment in his speech to the Federation Council, the upper house of parliament. Soon afterwards came news that volunteers in Tatarstan and other Moslem regions of Russia were forming units to assist the Kosovo Liberation Army.


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