Entangled in another messy conflict in Chechnya, Russia’s much-diminished military still has clout where it counts–the Kremlin–and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is feeling the squeeze.
Putin, who hopes to succeed Boris Yeltsin as president, has staked his political future on quick success in Chechnya, where the war has entered its seventh week.
Russia’s generals, stung by the humiliation of their failure to win the 1994-96 Chechen war, insist on carrying on a campaign that has created thousands of refugees and an untold number of civilian casualties.
Meanwhile, Western nations, the source of billions of dollars in loans and investment, have been telling Putin he must end the war’s rising toll on civilians and are pressing for a negotiated settlement. Yet, if Putin were to yield to Western demands, he likely would face resignations by some of his best commanders.
Maj. Gen. Vladimir Shamanov, one of the top commanders in Russia’s rebel region of Chechnya, has threatened on television to quit the army if the Kremlin ordered him to cease his advance against so-called terrorist bandits in Chechnya.
It appeared to be Shamanov’s way of saying that the humiliation stops here, that at least one general was not about to stick around for a repeat of the betrayal the military felt over the earlier Chechen war, when Russian units were ordered to leave the breakaway region after a truce.
“The army will fulfill its order. Nobody should doubt this,” Shamanov said. “But for myself, I would say that I would tear off my shoulder boards and go and do something in civilian life. I would no longer serve in such an army.”
While the Defense Ministry issued a rare statement denying a split between Yeltsin’s administration and the military over the conflict, Shamanov’s threat gave the nation’s pundits fresh grist for analysis and headlines for the press.
“The generals have seized a civilian hostage–Vladimir Putin,” said a front-page commentary in Izvestia.
“(Shamanov) has support in military headquarters (so) that I don’t think Yeltsin can say, `OK, boys, we’re finished. We’re going home, and we’re going to have pizza tonight,’ ” said Dale R. Herspring, a 30-year U.S. scholar on East European armies.
Western governments have been toughening their demands for negotiations to end the conflict.
NATO Secretary General George Robertson and German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer urged Russia on Wednesday to negotiate a peace to spare civilian suffering, and President Clinton said Tuesday that the U.S. would continue to push for talks to end the conflict.
On Thursday, Russian forces hammered Grozny, capital of the breakaway region, with barrages of artillery and rocket fire as Moscow rejected Chechen calls for talks to end the fighting. Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said Russia was “prepared to end the military actions even tomorrow” but only if Chechen rebels surrender.
A Russian official has said Moscow doesn’t have to justify to the West the fighting “in its sovereign territory,” even though millions of dollars Russia needs from the International Monetary Fund are at stake.
Shamanov’s boss, Col. Gen. Viktor Kazantsev, the war’s senior Russian commander, clearly stands behind Shamanov.
“I will follow this (war) to the end,” he said, asserting that the Kremlin would not stop the war until it has destroyed the Chechen fighters.
“It would be a disaster for our military institutions if the army had to stop,” said Sergei Blagovolin, president of the Institute of National Security and Strategic Studies. “It’s a very difficult choice for our political leadership, because on one hand it is impossible to allow (the generals) to do everything they want to do, but on the other hand, it’s very important not to put them again into the position of 1996.”
Alexander Zhelin, a former army officer who analyzes military developments, said he believes the war will not stop.
Paval Felgenhauer, a respected military expert, said Shamanov’s dramatic announcement amounts to a propaganda designed to take responsibility for the war off Yeltsin and Putin.
“The idea is to paint Yeltsin and Putin as peaceful people,” he said. “When they are talking to Western politicians they can say, `Well, of course, we have this problem with those generals. They want to fight. They are so bloodthirsty.’ “
Experts in Moscow and abroad contend that the frustration expressed by Shamanov is genuine. Morale in the armed forces has been at a nadir since the mighty Soviet divisions of the Cold War became fractured with the breakup of the USSR and ignored by Kremlin bosses struggling to deal with an economic crisis.
“For someone familiar with the Soviet army during the Cold War, it’s hard to grasp just how chaotic the situation is within the Russian military,” said Herspring, a former U.S. Navy captain who now heads the political science department at Kansas State University.
“Whenever they get involved (in military exercises) with Americans they look like a bunch of buffoons,” he said.
