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Colonel Stanislav Lunev
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The War in Chechnya - Mass Murder or Antiterrorist Crusade?
Col. Stanislav Lunev
January 17, 2000

Russian Parliamentary Elections
Col. Stanislav Lunev
January 4, 2000

Russian Espionage, the Mercury Continues to Rise
Col. Stanislav Lunev
December 28, 1999

Dangerous New Developments in Chinese Policy
Col. Stanislav Lunev
December 21, 1999

The 'New Russia' Is No Friend
Col. Stanislav Lunev
December 13, 1999

The Russian Military, In Bad Shape?
Col. Stanislav Lunev
November 23, 1999

The Kremlin Sanatorium
Col. Stanislav Lunev
November 12, 1999

Chechnya � Reiteration of Tragedy
Col. Stanislav Lunev
November 2, 1999

Y2K, Russian Style
Col. Stanislav Lunev
October 26, 1999

Russian Crime Operations in the US
Col. Stanislav Lunev
September 30, 1999

New Developments in Russian Espionage against the US
Colonel Stanislav Lunev
September 24, 1999

Where Is Today's Russia Headed?
Colonel Stanislav Lunev
September 13, 1999

Chechen Terrorists in Dagestan � Made in Russia
Colonel Stanislav Lunev
August 26, 1999

Yeltsin "Elects" Putin as Successor
Colonel Stanislav Lunev
August 20, 1999

"Russia-China," the New World Super Power
Colonel Stanislav Lunev
August 19, 1999

Russia Helped Create China Spy Machine
Colonel Stanislav Lunev
August 18, 1999

Where Is the IMF Money to Russia Really Going?
Colonel Stanislav Lunev
July 27, 1999

Chinese Spy Activity against the U.S.
Colonel Stanislav Lunev
July 1, 1999

Analysis: Russian Involvement in the Kosovo Crisis
Colonel Stanislav Lunev
June 24, 1999

China�s Penetration of the United States
Col. Stanislav Lunev
June 17, 1999

Biography of Colonel Stanislav Lunev

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The War in Chechnya � Mass Murder or Antiterrorist Crusade? Col.

Stanislav Lunev January 17, 2000

http://web.archive.org/web/20000413132702/www.newsmax.com/articles/?a=2000/1/17/45411

On the last day of 1999 Boris Yeltsin transferred his presidential
power and nuclear briefcase to his hand-picked successor, Vladimir
Putin. A few moments later, as his first presidential act, Mr. Putin
promptly issued an executive decree giving Yeltsin immunity from
prosecution for crimes committed by "The Family" (Yeltsin�s coterie of
henchmen) during his tenure in office. This act may have been the most
important element in Yeltsin�s decision to resign at this time.

The new Kremlin leader announced that the Russian constitution
requires new presidential elections to be held in three months. He
didn�t hesitate to announce this constitutional provision, for he and
The Family are convinced he will win the elections and thus preserve
the corrupt power structure for years to come.

Mr. Putin, former head of the KGB, has no redeeming social, political
or economic qualifications whatsoever but is, nevertheless, the most
popular politician in the RF today. With the Russian economy in ruins,
living standards and life expectancy have plummeted drastically. The
Yeltsin-Putin "solution" to this dire state of affairs is to distract
the Russian people by arousing nationalist passions with the renewed
assault on Chechnya. Thus far this has proven very effective, making
Putin the hands-down favorite for the presidential office.

After several months of bloody warfare, Russian troops continue their
attack on Grozny, the Chechen capital, which has been leveled to the
point where no habitable buildings remain standing. The RF, a country
with armed forces many times larger than the entire population of
Chechnya, is so sure of victory that it is already hailing its
anticipated triumph over this small nation in the Northern Caucasus.

RF propaganda is picturing the assault on Chechnya as a selfless
crusade against "bandits" and "international terrorists." According to
recent statements by the RF defense minister, it is also against U.S.
and NATO "attempts to destabilize this area and establish control over
the Northern Caucasus." Unfortunately, the average Russian does not
have access to information other than that provided by the state-run
media and gullibly believes the Kremlin propaganda.

But what is really happening in Chechnya is nothing less than mass
murder. What the RF is committing in Chechnya is the unbridled
slaughter of innocent civilians. It is a barbarous war crime in every
sense. And it is a crime against Russians as well, against Russians in
mixed marriages and others who are living in Chechnya and have no
place to take refuge. Many Chechens have already fled the combat zones
and escaped to relatives in the mountains, the countryside, and
neighboring Muslim republics.

As for the Chechen war being a campaign against terrorism, Russian
officials have provided no real proof of a Chechen involvement in the
bombings in Moscow or other Russian cities. It is of note that the
bombings were in no way advantageous to Chechen interests. They have,
however, been a boon to Putin and the intelligence agencies in which
he rose to power.

Riding a wave of Russian jingoism and xenophobia, the Kremlin is
trying to re-establish Russian control over Chechnya with ruthless
disregard for the thousands of innocent lives it is costing. It is
apparently of no consequence, either, that hundreds of thousands of
women, children and the elderly have been forced to flee across the
border to other republics. According to Putin�s official line, the
Chechens are merely feigning their misery in order to "make the
situation look worse" and "give the impression of a humanitarian
catastrophe."

In order to protect the world from the spread of such Chechen lies,
Russian troops are bombing TV stations, radio towers and telephone
facilities along with other "terrorist-related facilities" such as
hospitals, public markets and bridges. The RF has made it clear that
it does not take kindly to news reporters who cover events in Chechnya
truthfully.

As a result, the Kremlin has created a new propaganda ministry, which
it calls the "press center." Russian officials say it is to provide
"objective information that shows the official view of the Russian
government." All attempts to report the reality of the Chechnya war
are denounced by government propaganda as "distortion" and
"falsehood."

For example, in mid-December an AP journalist reported heavy losses
suffered by the Russian military in Grozny, where he saw the bodies of
at least 115 RF soldiers at Minutka Square, many mangled and burned as
a result of the unsuccessful Russian attack. Russian officials quickly
denied that any attack had taken place. Premier Putin called the
report "sheer nonsense," and Defense Minister Sergeev denounced it as
"lies and misinformation." At the end of December Russian military
officials went so far as to arrest several reporters from the United
States, Spain and other countries who tried to cover events in the
Chechen battlefield.

As a base of support for their criminal war, Kremlin leaders have
created the special "Yedinstvo" (Unity), or "Medved" (Bear), political
block. That they have done this was openly acknowledged by Putin in
his interview on Channel ORT TV (Dec. 22). Devoid of any political or
economic agenda other than support for the war, the "Bear" has come to
be called the "Party of War." It did very well in the last
parliamentary elections with 23 percent of the votes (please see the
previous column).

Few objections to the war have reached public attention. Grigory
Yavlinsky, leader of the only Russian democratic party, "Yabloko," is
among the few who have spoken out. This gave Anatoly Chubais, a
Yeltsin Family loyalist, the opportunity to brand him as a traitor.
The same accusation has been directed against every other Russian
politician bold enough to object to the war.

The war in Chechnya has "changed the hierarchy of public concerns,"
said Igor Bunin, director of the Moscow Center for Political
Technologies. "The feeling of a common enemy has emerged. This common
enemy can be found not only in Chechnya, but in the West." The bombing
of Chechnya � and the heavily slanted cheerleading it is getting in
the censored Russian press � has given Mr. Putin an enormous
popularity boost.

Heavy casualties from street fighting in Grozny during the 1994-1996
war forced the Yeltsin regime to seek peace and grant the territory de
facto independence. This time RF troops have turned to a pound-and-
surround strategy, using helicopter gun-ship strikes and heavy-
artillery shelling to soften up rebel strongholds, occupying the towns
only after Chechen guerillas have succumbed or withdrawn.

The Russian military, still smarting from what many officers believe
was a "betrayal" by Moscow in the 1994-1996 war, has committed some
100,000 troops to the latest fighting, more than three times the
deployment of the last Chechen war. These 100,000 troops are fighting
against a mere 40,000 Chechen militants, who are armed only with their
personal guns and small weapons such as automatic rifles, machine
guns, grenade launchers, and light-artillery pieces. But it has become
difficult to estimate the Chechen combatants, for the RF has declared
all Chechen males between the ages of ten and sixty to be enemy
troops. It is astonishing that the Chechens have withstood the
onslaught of countless air strikes and tank and artillery assaults.
Yet, defying all odds, they continue to do so.

Even with the successes of Russian strategy to date, military
specialists are not convinced the army can establish effective control
of Chechnya in the long term or put an end to debilitating low-grade
guerrilla strikes by Chechen forces. An estimated several thousand
well-trained Chechen fighters are said to be in Grozny, and they were
able to rout an early Russian probe into the city. But even if Grozny
falls, Russian forces have little hope of subduing Chechen guerrilla
forces based in redoubts in the country's mountainous south.

The Russian troops' low casualty rate � about 600 admitted to by the
Defense Ministry � and the overwhelmingly pro-war media coverage
inside Russia could change quickly if the current campaign bogs down
in another ugly guerrilla conflict.

Chechnya serves the Russian military as an opportune testing ground
for the future. Tens of thousands of military personnel are getting
their field training for larger, full-scale engagements foreseen in
the future. The military industry is testing new types of weapons,
including cruise missiles and cutting-edge attack helicopters like the
Black Shark and the Alligator, capable of inflicting massive
"collateral damage."

The Russian military has taken this opportunity to "field" test its so-
called vacuum bombs for the first time. These bombs kill personnel
while leaving structures and technical equipment undamaged. Channel
ORT TV (Dec. 24) disclosed that vacuum bombs were used against
guerrillas in highly fortified bunkers, but in point of fact this
occurred in an area with thousands of civilians.

Politically speaking, the war in Chechnya will also be a testing
ground for the presidential elections � given, of course, that nothing
unforeseen intervenes and the elections are held as scheduled. The
present Russian preference is for an autocratic strongman, a strong
state, and a forceful posture toward the United States and the West.
Nonetheless, it is too early to make predictions about the elections
in March even though the recent Duma elections demonstrated Putin�s
strong popularity.

If Vladimir Putin can hold his base of support, he will surely win �
unless the war in Chechnya, his source of strength, goes drastically
awry, as it did in 1994-1996. In such case, the Russian media would be
forced to report this and Putin�s support could vanish as quickly as
it appeared.

Such a turn of events is not impossible, for anything can happen in
today�s Russia. In any case, it is clear that the war in Chechnya will
have far-reaching ramifications in Europe and around the world. A new
generation of young and assertive leaders in the Kremlin could
possibly benefit Russia, but it would prove difficult for America and
Europe. It could mean an even closer alliance between Russia and China
in the United Nations and in general. It could also result in
increased challenges to U.S. and European policies internationally.

In the decade following the Cold War, the United States and Europe
have utterly failed in their policies toward Russia. Whoever the next
president may be, the military will play a significant role in Russian
political life. The military considers its days of humiliation to be
over and will no longer tolerate secession anywhere in the RF.

With the United States and the West in mind, Mr. Putin told a meeting
of security officials in December, on the anniversary of the VChK
(predecessor to the KGB), that "several years ago, we fell prey to the
illusion that we have no enemies. We have paid dearly for this. Russia
has its own national interests, and we have to defend them."

While the Western elite and their talking heads in the media speculate
ad absurdum about Russian intentions, Putin's words spell out clearly
enough what these intentions are. Is anyone listening?

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Russian Parliamentary Elections; Col. Stanislav Lunev; January 4,
2000

http://web.archive.org/web/20000302202858/www.newsmax.com/articles/?a=2000/1/4/50457

[This article was written shortly before Boris Yeltsin stepped down
from the Russian presidency on Dec. 31. Yeltsin has appointed Vladimir
Putin, his prot�g� and recent prime minister, to take his place until
elections can be held in 90 days. As to be expected, part of the
agreement has been to give Boris Yeltsin immunity from criminal
prosecution now that he has resigned from office. The parliamentary
elections of Dec. 19, described below, were engineered toward this
latest move by the Yeltsin-Putin forces.]

These days the most powerful criminal clan in the Russian Federation,
"The Family" of Boris Yeltsin, is celebrating another victory over its
own country and its own people. Created three months ago by The
Family, a new political party, "Yednistvo" (Unity)� also called
"Medved" (the Bear)� was the coalition leader in the Dec. 19
parliamentary elections. The Unity party has no clear ideology or
program beyond its support of the war in Chechnya, whereas the other
parties in the coalition, also spawned by The Family, are professed to
be centrist. These parties now dominate the Russian political arena.

With 98 percent of the vote counted, Russian TV (Channel ORT, 12/21)
reported that Unity, with 23.4 percent of the vote, finished just
behind the Russian Communist Party, which had 24.2 percent. It further
reported that this was a personal triumph for both Pres. Yeltsin and
his handpicked successor, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Russians call
it "Putin�s Party," while the experts call it the "War Party" because
it rallies voters behind Putin, the government, and the war in
Chechnya.

Another new force in Russian politics, the Fatherland/All Russia
Party, did worse than expected with about 12.6 percent of the vote.
The Kremlin launched a vicious campaign against this party through the
state-run media. It is headed by former Prime Minster Yevgeny Primakov
and Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov. Both are prominent opponents of the
Yeltsin administration.

The Union of Right Forces, also nurtured by The Family, is led by the
young politicians Anatoly Chubais, a close friend of Yeltsin�s
daughter Tatyana Dyachenko, and former Prime Minister Sergei Kirienko.
It received 8.7 percent of the vote. The Yabloko (Apple) party, headed
by Social Democrat Grigory Yavlinsky, had 6.1 percent of the vote,
whereas the block of ultra nationalists under Vladimir Zhirinovsky had
about 6.1 percent.

Only six parties won more than the required 5 percent on party voting
lists. Two hundred twenty-five Duma seats will be divided among them
according to the number of votes each has won. The remaining 225 seats
were contested in single-seat constituencies.

In effect, the Unity block represents the pro-Kremlin cabal funded by
media tycoon Boris Berezovsky, who financed the Yeltsin presidential
elections in 1996. The new party is nothing but a collection of
governors from various administrative districts who support the
Kremlin regime and its bloody war in Chechnya.

Pleased with the elections, Kremlin officials called it a "revolution,
which could change the political face of the country." The government-
controlled press and some foreign papers claimed that the new centrist
party had made major breakthroughs that could change the face of
Russian politics and boost hopes for economic reform.

The truth is, however, that these so-called centrist parties are
controlled by the Kremlin and will merely continue the destructive
policies of the present Moscow political elite. In other words,
Kremlin leaders placed unprincipled political stooges at the head of
these "centrist" parties in order to gain control of the new
parliament and retain their power.

On the whole, nevertheless, few politicians wanted their names
associated with The Family of Yeltsin henchmen. But this didn�t deter
Kremlin leaders, for they simply picked one of their own, a member of
the current government. They chose Three-Star General Sergei Shoigu,
Emergency Situation Director, who for the last two months has used his
office to promote the present regime.

Sergei Shoigu�s biography is simple, and telling. He came from the
former Soviet Communist Party political elite and is extremely loyal
to The Family. He was born in 1955, son of a Communist bureaucrat who
was later promoted to deputy prime minister of the Tuva Soviet
Autonomous Republic. While attending the technical university, Shoigu
married the niece of Oleg Shenin�s wife. Shenin was chief of the local
Communist Party organization.

After graduating from the university, Shoigu worked for a while as an
engineer. However, most of his career has been connected with the
Communist Party. When his relative Oleg Shenin was made a member of
the powerful Politburo of the CPSU, Shoigu moved into Shenin�s
previous position as local party leader.

Nonetheless, in 1991, Shoigu betrayed his benefactor, who was put
behind bars for participating in the supposed coup attempt against
Gorbachev. Since then Shoigu has joined forces with Yeltsin and
functioned as head of a government committee and then as Minister of
Emergency Situations. In 1998, without any military service
whatsoever, he was given the rank of three-star general.

According to the Russian press, under his leadership the Emergency
Ministry was involved in financial wrongdoing in the rescue operations
at Sachalin and Kuril islands and during the Northern Caucasus
military operation, where huge amounts of money simply disappeared.
Until recently he had been known merely as a government bureaucrat and
had received little, if any, media attention.

Along with Shoigu�s appointment by the Kremlin as head of the new
political block, the Putin forces have spent profusely on promoting
him, as has also Mr. Berezovkski (described by Forbes magazine as the
Kremlin Lucky Luciano). On Dec. 19 Berezovski was elected to the
parliament along with the "Yeltsin Family Cashier" Roman Abramovich.
Kremlin propaganda portrays Sergei Shoigu as an "honest person without
political ambition."

Anyone who believes that government propaganda doesn�t work is grossly
mistaken. Shoigu�s political image has been promoted so effectively
that his party � without a prominent politician or a program beyond
support of the Chechnya war � is now dominating the Russian political
scene in concert with the so-called centrist block.

With Shoigu�s "War Party" and the other new political blocks in the
Russian parliament, things will be different. In the old parliament
the Kremlin had unconditional support from only one political block,
the Liberal-Democratic Party of Vladimir Zhirinovsky. Zhirinovsky is
the one who promised to wash Russian soldiers' boots in the Indian
Ocean. He also demanded the return of Alaska to Russia and requested
nuclear strikes against NATO countries taking part in the Kosovo
conflict.

The new parliament means, then, more support for both nationalist and
anti-democratic government policies. It means, in effect, more
militarism, a tighter alliance with China, and the placement of
barriers before US and NATO policies in North Korea, Vietnam, Iraq,
Iran, Cuba, and elsewhere.

The nationalist war parties in parliament will be inflexible in arms-
control negotiations, and the era of nuclear disarmament could well be
over. By and large, the Russian posture will become much more hardline
and aggressive in the near future.