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After the recent adoption of the UN Security
Council resolution on dispatching peacemaking forces to
Kosovo, NATO had to conduct negotiations with the Russian
Federation on the composition, functions, sectors under
control, co-operation and financing of the contingents
they send. But as usual the North Atlantic Alliance only
notified us about decisions that had been adopted separately,
in particular, about five sectors for the troops brought
by the USA, the UK, Germany, France and Italy. However,
they only offered us the opportunity to "join"
one of the sectors under the command of a corresponding
NATO country. If we had agreed to these terms, we would
have virtually legalised the occupation of the region
as a result of an aggression, and the resolution of the
UN Security Council that we supported would have served
as a mere fig-leaf. After learning about NATO's time-table
for dispatching troops to the region, in the circumstances
we conducted rapid negotiations with Belgrade and instantly
transferred there an incomplete battalion (200 people)
from Bosnia, which took over the airport in Prishtina
to provide for the introduction of additional forces there.
This is certainly a brilliant military operation. Now
units from Pskov division (5,000 people) are about to
be transported there. Now everything will depend on the
ability of our politicians to gain air corridors from
Romania, Bulgaria or Hungary.
However, we are shocked at the way in which this decision
was adopted in Russia. Boris Yeltsin has stubbornly kept
silent; however, the President should have immediately
made a corresponding declaration. But once again he preferred
to adopt a position of feigned ignorance: if our peacemakers
are shot in Prishtina, he will not be to blame, as he
will claim that he did not know anything about this and
so did not do anything... This is outrageous, as the national
interests of the country require the President to assume
full responsibility for radical decisions. He should have
signed a corresponding decree and requested the approval
of the Federation Council (Ed. the upper chamber of the
Russian parliament) for such an action. Then everything
would not have looked like a political show, but rather
as the conscientious and consistent actions of a country,
that had been undertaken in accordance with its Constitution.
But in actual fact it transpired that even the Minister
of Foreign Affairs Igor Ivanov had not known anything
about the planned action.
Nevertheless, we must now cater for our contingent there
and make arrangements with NATO to allocate a corresponding
sector to be controlled by Russia under the UN flag. The
future status of Kosovo and the role that will be granted
to the United Nations Organisation will depend on this
step.
To Alexei Arbatov's page
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