Deterioration in Russia-West Relations Predicted -- 03/24/1999

Deterioration in Russia-West Relations Predicted

24 March, 1999

By Patrick Goodenough
CNS Jerusalem Bureau Chief

(CNS) - As NATO airstrikes on Yugoslavia began on Wednesday, analysts predicted the Kosovo crisis could place the greatest strain on relations between Russia and the West since the Cold War.

While Russia opposes attacks against its traditional Serb ally, it has deeper reasons for rejecting NATO military action in the Balkans.

Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov said this week NATO military intervention in a sovereign state would fundamentally change "the nature of international order."

"Maybe someone would like to make an air strike against Turkey because the Kurdish problem hasn't been solved yet," he said. "Or maybe against Spain because the Basque problem has not been solved."

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Vladimir Rakhmanin argued yesterday that "the use of force in international relations bypassing the UN Security Council is illegitimate."

Moscow was also opposed to the use of force, he said, because "the whole history of the past decades has shown that the use of force in the Balkans is fraught with serious bloodshed and highly negative consequences."

Rakhmanin was speaking to journalists shortly before Primakov, over the Atlantic en route to Washington, dramatically turned his aircraft around after Vice-President Al Gore phoned to inform him of the imminent airstrikes.

Hours earlier, during a stopover in Ireland, Primakov warned military action could "destabilize the situation in the world."

Upon his return to Moscow, Primakov said Russia's "relations with the United States and stability in Europe will suffer," the Itar-Tass news agency reported.

Primakov declined to answer reporters' questions about whether Russia would offer military assistance to Serbia, although Russian officials have hinted that the country might defy the UN arms embargo against Yugoslavia.

Russia has denied that a shipment of Russian jet fighters, whose recent interception in Azerbaijan was made public Tuesday, was headed for Yugoslavia.

Pentagon spokesman Ken Bacon yesterday called "worrisome" the suggestion that Russia may violate the arms embargo.

"Russia is a member of the Security Council, one of the permanent members of the Security Council, and we would expect them to honor arms embargoes imposed by the UN," he told reporters attending a Defense Department press briefing.

Over at the State Department, officials appeared to play down the significance of suggestions the Russians may provide military assistance to Belgrade.

Asked during Tuesday's media briefing whether the U.S. was concerned Russia may back the Serbs militarily, State spokesman James Rubin said: "We have no reason to think they would side with the Serbs.

"The entire international community is blaming the Serbs for failing to make peace," said Rubin. "The Serbs have thumbed their nose at the Russians and everyone else trying to make peace, and we have no reason to think the Russians aren't as frustrated by this obstinacy and intransigence as anyone else."

A less sanguine view of Russia's stance was heard from the Texas-based independent intelligence-analysis firm, Stratfor, which predicted in an analysis published Wednesday that NATO military action in the Balkans "will mark a fundamental turning point in relations with Russia."

Moscow has for years been anxious about the expansion of NATO into areas formerly under Soviet sway.

Stratfor said Russia "sees NATO [military] action as a dangerous precedent, furthering the encirclement of and threat to Russia itself."

When NATO prepared to carry out attacks against Serbia during an earlier crisis last October, Moscow called the action a provocation against Russia too, threatening to sever ties with NATO and arm Yugoslavia.

Concluded Stratfor: " It is important not to underestimate Moscow's resentment
of the way in which Russia has been marginalized in international affairs. And deeper still is Russia's opposition to what it sees as the tightening noose being drawn around it by the U.S. and NATO.

"As we have argued previously, air strikes against Yugoslavia have little chance of forcing Belgrade to surrender its fundamental national interests. What they will certainly succeed in doing, however, is to mark the beginning of a new pattern of relations between Russia and the West – relations rooted in mistrust and animosity."

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