Peace and Conflict Monitor

Last Updated: 11/05/2003

WHO ARE THE SILOVIKI?
Joe Schumacher

As Putin lunches with the Pope and his new found friend billionaire Berlusconi, the media at home and abroad are beginning to ask who are the lions beneath the Russian throne. Are the siloviki came out from the cold?

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/05/opinion/05SAFI.html

OP-ED COLUMNIST

Siloviki Versus Oligarchy

By WILLIAM SAFIRE

Published: November 5, 2003Russia today is ruled by Vladimir Putin's siloviki, former K.G.B. men and military officers who have the nation by the throat. That power-hungry mafia (the Russian word is rooted in "power") brooks no opposition from either the small band of democratic reformers or the political leftovers from the Yeltsin regime.

Only one power center posed a threat to the siloviki's domination of Russian life. This was the group of oligarchs, who became the super-rich by ripping off the old Soviet Union's natural resources when Communism collapsed.

The K.G.B.'s Putin came to power by making a deal: we of the siloviki run the country, and you oligarchs can keep your ill-gotten gains — provided you cut us in on some of the money and stay out of politics.

Not all the new billionaires went along with the new corruption. Boris Berezovsky, manipulator of Yeltsin, had delusions of staying on as the man behind the throne, while Vladimir Gusinsky had hopes of creating a free national media network, not beholden to the Kremlin bosses. Putin confiscated all he could of the wealth of both men, who would not do his bidding, and chased them out of Russia.

But along came smooth, likable Mikhail Khodorkovsky, oiliest of oilmen. This youthful robber baron, after amassing his $8 billion, became an exemplar of economic transparency — openly declaring corporate income and paying taxes, accessible to interviewers — thereby beguiling foreign investors, who wanted to believe that free enterprise and the rule of law had come at last to Russia.

"Open Mike's" plan was to tout his Yukos oil stock, then merge with Exxon Mobil and become as rich as Bill Gates. But he apparently felt the need for more political protection than the siloviki would sell. Accordingly, this oligarch of all oligarchs began to ladle out largesse to the starving political parties. This ranged from the Communist Party, allied with the Putin followers, to Vladimir Zhirinovsky's ultranationalists, and included the democratic reform parties behind Grigory Yavlinsky and Boris Nemtsov.

President Putin, fresh from his love-in at Camp David with President Bush, decided that Open Mike was getting too big for his briuki. With parliamentary elections coming up next month and his presidential re-coronation scheduled for March, Putin could afford no media editorial backsliding — or the infusion of money to his opposition to purchase time or space. He ordered the arrest, trial, conviction and jailing of Khodorkovsky and the seizure of his billions in stock. All this was to be done legally by the siloviki's men in black robes, of course, with Putin pretending to have no part in it.

Reaction to the cuffing of Open Mike was predictable: the Russian stock market tanked, the U.S. State Department tut-tutted, Exxon Mobil and other investors ran for the hills, and even the visiting Ariel Sharon of Israel told Putin in Russian that he was making a mistake. Putin's chief of staff and other holdovers from the early Yeltsin era quit in disgust or were quickly forced out.

This reaction bothered the siloviki not a whit; they pretended the political arrest was no different from our investigating Enron. As other oligarchs dived under their desks, Russian voters were delighted at pictures of one of the envied richies enchained.

Some of Khodorkovsky's flunkies are putting out word that their boss may run for political office from jail. That could happen in the U.S. — the election of the Vermont congressman "Spittin' Matt" Lyon in our post-Revolutionary era is an example — but in Putin's Russia, where mass media coverage is tightly controlled, the notion of a grass-roots national insurgency by a half-Jewish multibillionaire is laughable.

Yesterday I asked the reformer Yavlinsky, one of the few who fought the takeover of the economy by the oligarchs in the early 90's, what he thought of Putin's crackdown. "The cure is worse than the disease," was the guarded response on the global cellphone: we are evidently back to the chilling days of K.G.B. snooping on communications.

Which side to root for in the struggle for Russia's political soul: oligarchy or siloviki? Which door: the Lady or the Tiger? I remember the same choice in the war between Iran and Iraq. We can root only for both sides to lose.

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2003/11/03/002.html

Monday, Nov. 3, 2003. Page 1

Putin's Choice Balances Siloviki

By Simon Saradzhyan
Staff Writer

By elevating Dmitry Medvedev, a St. Petersburg technocrat, to his chief of staff, President Vladimir Putin has prevented the siloviki from becoming virtually the sole players in his administration and will thus retain his position as ultimate powerbroker.

Late Thursday, Putin accepted the resignation of Alexander Voloshin as chief of the presidential administration and immediately appointed Medvedev to fill the vacated seat. Dmitry Kozak was promoted to become Medvedev's first deputy.

Medvedev, 38, and Kozak, 44, graduated from the same St. Petersburg law school as Putin and worked with him in the St. Petersburg city administration in the early 1990s. Putin brought both of them into the Kremlin shortly after he was elected in 2000.

Voloshin is widely believed to have stepped down after realizing that he was no longer able to defend the interests of the Family, officials appointed by Boris Yeltsin and their big business allies, from the onslaught of the siloviki.

Putin's decision to accept Voloshin's resignation, after mulling it over for five days, was seen as a victory for the siloviki, officials from the security services who came into the Kremlin with Putin.

"There should be no doubt that the balance of power has shifted greatly toward the siloviki with Voloshin's departure," Yury Korgunyuk of the Indem think tank said Friday. "This signals that the Family is losing the remnants of its clout, but it should not necessarily be interpreted as a full and final victory for the siloviki."

As if on cue, Medvedev came out Sunday night on Rossia television and questioned the decision last week to arrest shares in Yukos. He said the legal effectiveness of the action was not clear and warned that it could have serious consequences for the economy.

Andrei Piontkovsky, an independent political analyst, said Medvedev's comments were a sign Putin was bowing to those who oppose a full victory for the siloviki.

If Putin had picked one of the siloviki to replace Voloshin, the siloviki would have gained near monopoly influence over Kremlin policy, said Korgunyuk and Alexei Makarkin of the Center for Political Technologies.

Instead, Putin picked Medvedev and promoted Kozak. He also promoted Igor Shuvalov, another lawyer, to the rank of deputy head of the administration. Medvedev and Kozak belong to neither of the two main rival groups, and their appointment indicates the emergence of a new group, which Kommersant on Saturday dubbed the "Petersburg lawyers."

Given that the presidential administration outweighs even the government when it comes to formulating, if not implementing, policies, Medvedev and Kozak are in a position to pull strings on many issues.

They cannot, however, match the weight of Voloshin, who was the longest-serving chief of presidential staff in post-communist Russia.

"Voloshin was a generator of ideas, a creator," Makarkin said. "While formally a subordinate, he was also somewhat of a partner for Putin, while the newly promoted men are more the obedient executioners of the president's will."

Despite serving as first deputy chief of the presidential staff for more than three years, Medvedev is still a dark horse. He has maintained a low profile, fulfilling his duties quietly and only occasionally drawing the spotlight, as when he engineered the changing of the guard at Gazprom in 2001.

Kozak, who pushed through the liberalization of Russia's judicial system and other legal reforms, has been more outspoken.

Medvedev and Kozak will be able only to limit, not match, the political clout of the siloviki group, which is led by deputy heads of the presidential administration Viktor Ivanov and Igor Sechin, according to Vladimir Pribylovsky, head of the Panorama think tank.

Their relative weakness and lack of experience in economic policymaking will inevitable lead Medvedev and Kozak to gravitate toward liberal economists in the government such a Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin and Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref, also natives of St. Petersburg.

If allied, these two groups would probably be able to prevent the siloviki from monopolizing influence on Putin, Korgunyuk and Makarkin said.

However, they would be neither capable of nor willing to prevent Putin and the siloviki from getting rid of other members of Voloshin's team, the two experts said.

The appointment of Shuvalov was seen as a concession to the Family. Kommersant said he will take over Voloshin's role as overseer of the economic bloc in the Kremlin administration and will become the informal leader of the Family group. Voloshin's Kremlin team includes deputy heads of the administration Vladislav Surkov, Sergei Prikhodko, Alexander Abramov and Dzhakhan Pollyeva and presidential spokesman Alexei Gromov, according to the newspaper.

Surkov, the informal supervisor of the pro-Kremlin United Russia party, is considered likely to stay through the State Duma elections in December.

It is also a matter of time for Yeltsin-appointed Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, the experts said.

With the Family weakened and on its way out, Putin will rely on the siloviki and the liberal wing of his team, and play one off against the other to remain the ultimate arbiter, Korgunyuk and Makarkin said.

According to Nikolai Petrov of the Carnegie Moscow Center, however, the siloviki are already unstoppable and will continue to gain influence.

The liberal-minded natives of St. Petersburg in the Cabinet and presidential administration will likely continue to draft and implement economic and administrative reforms to ensure economic growth, but will do so under the watchful eye of the siloviki, Petrov said. "Neither Medvedev nor Kozak nor others are thinking about balancing the siloviki. ... They will be hired managers, but not more."

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=518&ncid=732&e=5&u=/ap/20031105/ap_on_re_eu/italy_putin

Russian President Putin Visits Italy

Wed Nov 5,10:42 AM ET

By ALESSANDRA RIZZO, Associated Press Writer

ROME - Away from a political storm at home, Russian President Vladimir Putin (news - web sites) began a state visit to Italy on Wednesday, finding a close friend in Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi.

Putin — whose two days of talks here include meetings with Berlusconi, Pope John Paul (news - web sites) II and a summit with the European Union (news - web sites) — held his first discussions with Italy's head of state, President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi.

In remarks after the meeting, the Russian president kept clear of the recent outcry over the arrest of Russian oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who is accused of fraud and tax evasion in what some critics allege is a politically driven investigation.

"We have been able to see our mutual understanding and the convergence of our positions on many key problems of the world," Putin said.

His opponents say the arrest was motivated by Putin's desire to curb Khodorkovsky's growing financial and political clout and in retaliation for his funding of parties opposed to the Russian president. Putin denies the accusations.

Ciampi praised Putin's role in Russia's economic progress — without mentioning the Khodorkovsky scandal, which has dragged down the stock market in Moscow. "These advances would not have been possible without the start of the deep reforms invoked by President Putin," Ciampi said.

Before arriving, Putin said Russian tycoons who made money illicitly couldn't enjoy impunity any longer. "Instead, today it must be clarified that everyone must respect the laws of the country," he told Italy's Corriere della Sera daily.

Putin spoke Wednesday of strong cooperation with Italy, citing Italian support for Moscow's proposal of visa-free travel between Russia and the EU.

"Russia and Italy have a shared understanding of the need to cancel the visa barrier — the need to guarantee true freedom of contacts among people on the European continent," Putin said.

The EU wants Russia to tighten controls on its long, porous borders first and make Russian passports harder to forge.

It was Putin's second visit to Italy this year. In August, he spent three days at Berlusconi's Sardinian estate.

Berlusconi and Putin have developed a close friendship, visiting one another and meeting on the sidelines of international conferences. The two dined together Tuesday night and were holding formal talks Wednesday.

Berlusconi, whose nation currently holds the rotating EU presidency, has strongly supported Russia's efforts to join the World Trade Organization (news - web sites) and has even suggested Russia could become part of a "Big Europe" along with Israel and Turkey.

Putin says Russia is not pressing to join the EU.

Thursday's EU-Russia summit is the last such formal meeting before the EU takes in 10 new members in May, most of them Moscow's former satellites in the days of the Soviet bloc. The summit will focus on ties in economics, border control, justice and education.

However, Amnesty International wants human rights high on the agenda, urging EU leaders to confront Putin on the situation in Chechnya (news - web sites). The rights group said Wednesday that European officials should demand answers from Putin on allowing international monitoring in Chechnya, treatment of refugees, and punishing those guilty of serious abuses.

Another international group, Doctors Without Borders (news - web sites), is pressing the EU to raise the case of an aid worker kidnapped in August 2002 in the Russian republic of Dagestan, which borders Chechnya. The group says Russia is not doing enough to find worker Arjan Erkel.

The EU also is urging Russia to sign border agreements with Estonia and Latvia, two countries set to join the bloc next year, and to step up work against organized crime.

Also on the agenda is whether Russia will ratify the Kyoto Protocol (news - web sites) on global warming (news - web sites). Ratification by Russia is the key to putting the 1997 protocol into effect, but prospects for passage in Moscow remain uncertain.

The Uni


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