31.01.2000 21:00 ON THE SITUATION IN THE NORTH CAUCASUS
SERGEY V. YASTRZHEMBSKY - RF Acting President assistant for the co-ordination of information and analytical work of the federal bodies of executive authority involved in the counter-terrorist operation in the North Caucasus
YASTRZHEMBSKY: Concerning the operational situation. As in the previous twenty four hours and the last days, the main events are developing, above all, in Grozny and also in the Argun gorge.
In the past twenty four hours, fierce fighting went on for the high-risers surrounding the Chechen capital's Minutka Square. Chechen militants have turned each apartment house into a fortress. Federal servicemen who seized a 12-storied building, one of the highest in the city, found a whole mine arsenal in its basement floor. The military say that all prominent buildings in Minutka Suare have been mined. Insurgents are fighting particularly desperately. A large group of them has been concentrated there, and federal troops have to fight literally for each building, each floor.
Nonetheless, federal forces already control more than a third of the square and their pressure is growing there and in other districts of Grozny. According to the latest information, they occupied six neighbourhoods in the area of the cannery and the third and fourth neighbourhoods in the area of Staraya Sunzha. This was to some degree predetermined because precisely in those districts Chechen militants surrendered on a mass scale last Saturday and Sunday and this morning. According to specified data, 140 militants laid down their arms yesterday. These are for the most part young people between the ages of 17 and 20 years. They are very exhausted, as they have had no food for many days now. As they say, mercenaries repeatedly opened fire at those people who were surrendering. Quite a few were shot dead in the back.
All those who have voluntarily laid down their arms and are now staying at isolation centres undoubtedly come under amnesty if investigation shows that they had not been involved in the terrorist acts and operations conducted by separatist insurgents in the previous years. However, Chechen warlords try to conceal the possibility of being pardoned under the amnesty so as people should not surrender. It is of great importance that the mass media make this information known to the population of the Chechen Republic. I think that by doing so you will be able to save many people.
The Argun gorge is another site of heavy hostilities. Federal forces build up their activity, trying to get into the gorge. Last Saturday their advance party landed in the Itum-Kalinsky district. It is the first landing party to be sent to the Shatoi district. They are now strengthening their positions and controlling settlements and roads.
Criminals made new unsuccessful breakthrough attempts last night. They were dispersed, many of them got in the minefields and were eliminated. Military authorities presume that those who stay on the narrow strip of Grozny, which remains under Chechen militants' control, can make new attempts to break through in the afternoon and, especially, at night.
According to information from the Interior Ministry, 38 criminals, including five for whom a federal search was started earlier, have been arrested in the past twenty four hours; 17 firearms and several thousand pieces of ammunition have been confiscated; and nine mini-plants for the production of lubricants have been destroyed. Over three thousand means of transportation and more than 7,000 people have been searched.
According to information from the Justice Ministry, a group of its specialists is carrying out their war-time juridical duties in the territory of the Chechen Republic. The Justice Ministry penitentiary authorities say that 188 violators of the passport regime and five criminals have been detained today. 23 people who are suspected of being members of illegitimate armed groups are on remand in a detention centre.
According to the Prosecutor's Office, a 70-year-old hostage has been freed. He was a witness of the barbarous execution of Brittons and a New Zealander. A group of Prosecutor General's Office experts is bound for Grozny to talk with the man and prepare the necessary materials.
According to the Emergency Situations Ministry (MChS), 35 civilians, including seven children, have left Grozny in the past 24 hours.
Humanitarian activities continue in the liberated territories and the North Caucasus as a whole. On January 30, a 34-platform train brought 62 modules for first-aid stations, 12 Moskvitch cars and equipment for these stations.
I am unable to give all the details concerning the possibilities for journalist work. We continue to particularise the regime of accreditation and decide on the best way of working with power departments. As I promised at my first briefing, we have already opened the main press centre in Mozdok. It has its own premises and in-city telephones, which is of great importance for journalists. Tomorrow all kinds of equipment will be sent to that press centre. As we also promised, we have opened a watch press centre in Khankala today. RTR and NTV antenna dishes will be mounted there to ensure direct communications. We hope that you will share your technical facilities with your colleagues from other television channels. We are mounting one more antenna dish, using the FAPSI (Federal Agency of Government Communications and Information) possibilities. All who work in Mozdok will be able to use it.
We believe we will be able to increase the number of journalists working directly in Khankala. According to our estimates, between 15 and 25 journalists will be able to stay there: they will represent the main television stations plus those who arrive in Chechnya on a make-shift basis and broadcast directly from Grozny and the Khankala-based headquarters of the United Grouping of federal forces for two or three days.
Concerning Abdrei Babitsky. This morning I met with Radio Liberty management. The INTERFAX Agency quoted Interior Minister Vladimir Rushailo as saying that the Prosecutor General's Office will make a decision on Babitsky's release. But this should not be regarded as an already adopted decision to free Babitsky.
Here is the information prepared by the Main Directorate of the Prosecutor General's Office for the North Caucasus. On January 18 Andrei Babitsky (born in 1964, a resident of Moscow) was brought to the detention centre of Chernokozovo, Naursky district. He was detained on the outskirts of Grozny because he had no permit to be at the site of the dislocation of troops. I want to emphasise that the issue at hand is not a journalist's accreditation papers but exactly the permit to be in the area of a military unit's dislocation. The same day, as a person without permanent residence he was put in the detention centre for identification for a period of ten days in keeping with the Russian President's decree No. 1815, issued on November 2, 1993, and the Naursky district prosecutor's sanction. Babitsky explained that he came to Grozny to visit the Orthodox church in which he got married in 1995. He also said that he was the director of Radio Liberty's North Caucasus bureau. However, he had no documents to confirm that he was a journalist. Within the framework of criminal investigation launched on October 15, 1999, under the tentative title "War," and in line with Article 90 of the code of criminal procedure of the RSFSR, the acting prosecutor of the Chechen Republic arrested Babitsky on January 27 on suspicions of a crime coming under Article 208, section 2 of the criminal code of the Russian Federation, namely, participation in illegal armed units.
On January 29, during questioning, the suspect explained that he had arrived in Grozny as a Radio Liberty correspondent but he had no accreditation with the United Grouping of federal troops. In Grozny, he had worked at the headquarters of field commander Khutayev in the area of Ulitsa Vosmogo Marta. He had a satellite telephone and a Sony digital video camera. Khutayev's people accompanied and protected him around the city. At Khutayev's headquarters Babitsky met with Gelayev, the so-called commander of the southwestern front; Ismailov, who was in charge of the defence of Grozny, and field commander Israpilov. He videotaped hostilities waged by terrorists in the Chechen capital. To believe Babitsky, he did not take part in the hostilities. He said that he had come to the area of federal troops dislocation not to inspect it but to find a way out of the city in the guise of a resettler. He had left his video camera and satellite telephone at Khutayev's headquarters. He was detained by military intelligence operatives on the outskirts of Grozny.
The necessary investigation aimed to establish whether Babitsky was involved in the activities of illegal armed groups is being held at present. The acting Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Ustinov, is going to the North Caucasus to handle a number of tasks. If no other decisions concerning Babitsky are made as yet, he will study his case on the spot, among other things. Today I cannot give you any more information of how the Acting Russian President qualified this incident, because I had no chance to talk with Vladimir Putin before my meeting with you, as he was speaking in the Justice Ministry today.
A Russian and a foreign travel passports and a driver's license issued in Ingushetia were found during the search of Babitsky. According to the driver's license, Ingushetia was Babitsky's main residence. This circumstance also aroused suspicion of the investigation authorities. In addition, Babitsky had an accreditation card of the Ichkeria information ministry signed by Movladi Udugov. There were numerous other signatures and stamps, including those of Basayev, Belayev, Udugov, Israpilov and Ismailov on his accreditation card issued in the latter part of 1999, that is, after the aggression against Daghestan had begun. According to my information, Babitsky is being kept on remand in a prison cell with two other men. He has not made any complaints of maltreatment. Yesterday, he wished to see an eye doctor. An MChS eye doctor was to examine him today.
I have promised a single system of accreditation, most probably with the staff of the Russian president's assistant. The accreditation mode will be one and you will no need other identification to work. Understandably, as long as hostilities are underway, the situation is not very tranquil even in the liberated areas, especially at night-time and moving freely in the Chechen Republic is not advisable. We will be organising trips. The first group to go there in line with the new system of accreditation will be taken to Chechnya on February 6. There has been a RIC list - I think there are several companies of the US, Slovenia and Canada on it, a dozen people of the press in all - and we are inviting them to fly there with the plenipotentiary envoy of the Russian Federation Government. The itinerary will cover the liberated areas of Chechnya, and then we will compile an itinerary for Khankala, so as to enable them to work in direct proximity of the combat area. There will be no free movement, if this is what you are asking.
I do not know the specific standing of every company and every journalist working in Moscow. I want to know something else: if you are interested in going there, we must satisfy your interest and do everything to provide beneficial and secure conditions to you.
QUESTION: You said at the previous briefing that there would be a breakthrough in the situation in Grozny soon. Have there been any changes? You said that the central channels would be represented in Khankala. Can you name them? Everybody has a different understanding.
YASTRZHEMBSKY: The central channels have not been arbitrarily identified by the president's assistant. The audiences identify them. When TV-6 starts working on the level of NTV, RTR and ORT, you will certainly be in their number. We expected REN-TV, TV-6 and Central TV to want to be present there, and it goes without saying that these and other channels will go there on a rotation basis.
I think it is wrong to speak of a deadline for the operation's completion, because we remember the task of, first, doing everything to avoid undue losses in the federal troops and, two, to minimise losses of civilian life. The question of deadlines is thus removed from the agenda.
The massive surrender of militants in the past few days indicates, first of all, that there is a split in the ranks of those who are stubbornly resisting the federal troops in Grozny. There is a psychological watershed. The ones who are surrendering seem to have been recruited literally recently, shortly before the counter-terrorism operation in the Chechen Republic was launched. It is only natural that they have no motives the die-hard rebels do.
QUESTION: I would like to return to the situation with Andrei Babitsky and to ask about the reply that the Radio Liberty director has got on the charges leveled today. Why was it that you learned of his detention so late? What is the Presidential Administration's reaction to the statement of Albright who said today that if the war in Chechnya were to continue, Russia might increasingly find itself in isolation?
YASTRZHEMBSKY: I have just told you everything I know about Babitsky. This does not mean that the Radio Liberty director agrees with the charges presented to Babitsky, but the extent of information he was given at that time was satisfactory. We agreed that as soon as I have any additional information, he would be duly informed.
Why the information of his detention was late and what can be done to preclude similar situations in the future is something to be pondered. This means that by far not all information needed for fast coverage of Chechen developments comes through administrative, official channels.
I can hardly imagine how Russia can be isolated. I think this statement is largely addressed to the American public opinion. But it in no way corresponds to the realistic potentialities and intentions of our partners. We are well aware of concerns in the West and spend a lot of time to describe the genuine reasons behind the events in Chechnya, because we are confident that the misunderstanding that exists in the West is rooted in a shortage of in-depth, comprehensive information about the true nature of the Maskhadov regime. We cite a lot of data, facts to demonstrate that the republic has turned into a veritable enclave of international terrorism.
There are irrefutable facts to prove that there is a real network of training international terrorists, including in perpetrating act of terrorism against heads of state friendly with Russia. I mean primarily those who have been trained in Khattab's schools to perpetrate acts of terrorism against Eduard Shevardnadze. The Georgian terrorist was apprehended in time and extradited to Georgia. Or take preparations of an act of terrorism against president Karimov in Tashkent.
I am positive that Ms. Albright will be given additional information during her stay in Moscow. Hopefully, this information will enable her to get a fuller understanding of the events in the Chechen Republic.
MOSCOW TIMES: The Red Cross announced the detention of Chechens last week. Do you possess any data as to how many detained persons are suspected of participating in Chechen bandit formations? How many Chechen prisoners are there?
YASTRZHEMBSKY: What do you mean, 'prisoners'? I would not use the term 'prisoners'. There is a group of persons who are being investigated for their participation in bandit formations and personal involvement in acts of terrorism. There is a second group of persons who are known to be on the federal wanted list for their participation in bandit formations. A third group are the wounded who are being treated in medical establishments and are naturally not being investigated. There are 23 persons who are suspected of having participated in the illegal armed formations. I regret to say I have no information pertaining to the Red Cross.
THE GUARDIAN: How can an invitation be obtained?
YASTRZHEMBSKY: Invitation? I am not inviting anybody to go there. I am waiting for your requests. Vladimir Derbenyov is in charge of collecting these requests. It is advisable to state in it, what you want to see, who you want to meet. This does not mean your request is sure to be granted, but in the very least we will be aware of your interests.
We have received all requests submitted to RIC, and they are many. I think it will take us several days to process all requests and to list them in the order of receipt. We will be taking groups of journalists first to Mozdok and from there either to Gudermes to Koshman, or to Khankala. I understand that many requests have been amassed, but please understand us: a lot of things have to be changed on the go.
QUESTION: How are trips organised? Is everybody going in a group? Everyone has his own requirements, you know.
YASTRZHEMBSKY: Requirements do not always tally. They are better tallied upon arrival at Khankala. The rotation basis means the following: three Russian channels I have named here -ORT, NTV and RTR - will be permanently represented in Khankala. Ten places will be given on a rotation basis to other mass media for the stay in Khankala. We plan to airlift groups of journalists by helicopter to Khankala from Mozdok to enable them to work in Khankala for 2 or 3 days. After that they return to Mozdok and cover, if they are interested, of course, the activities of Koshman or the Emergencies Ministry. That is to say, we will try to balance out, first, the interest in hostilities and, second, the coverage of other topics. That is to say, the ten places will be provided on a rotation basis, to be permanently filled and working.
QUESTION: We are an agency and our presence in the news is needed in any case.
YASTRZHEMBSKY: Only three Russian channels will be represented there on a permanent basis.
SAME PERSON: You have the right [to decide]?
YASTRZHEMBSKY: No. I think it is right that the preference is given to the Russian media. Everybody else will be given the maximum possible opportunity to collect information. Also, I think we will form two video teams: one to work directly in Khankala and the other, in the Argun gorge. They will do the shooting and give you the raw footage, so that you could use it as you see fit.
QUESTION: Last week, certain officials said they couldn't provide information without having checked with you first. Is this a new rule?
YASTRZHEMBSKY: I think this does not correspond to reality. This can be easily verified. Take the list of today's reports by, say, Interfax and see how many have been sent out. I am sure that RIA Novosti, ITAR-TASS and Reuters produced a score reports each without reference to Yastrzhembsky; I saw them all, they quote different newsmakers, different officials, including the military who also make news today. Nobody tells them, nor is going to tell them, not to do this.
It is quite another matter that we make reports of loses for the week at Friday briefings in RIC. These Friday briefings will be conducted, as a rule, by Mr. Manilov. We set this procedure. But we are setting no limitations on reports by the military, nor are we going to. I stay in Moscow, 60 journalists stay in Mozdok, and some of them stay in Khankala. They meet with different military, of different ranks.
RADIO ROSSII: What are the criteria of the completion of the counter-terrorist operation in Chechnya?
YASTRZHEMBSKY: I think it is the completion of the military stage of the counter-terrorist operation as such, which means the liberation of Grozny, of course, and the rest of the Chechen Republic's territory, of bandit formations. The next phase is the complete restoration of the administrative bodies of authority in Chechnya. Neutralising the remains of small bands and search and arrest of terrorists will be a purely militia operation to be undertaken by the Interior Ministry.
As new parts of Chechnya are liberated and as the territory controlled by bandit formations becomes smaller, their capacity to exert direct propaganda pressure on the population will taper. Udugov's Kavkaz site in Internet will not reach every Chechen home. Therefore the main weapon they are using, and not without success, is fabricating rumours. One of the more frequent rumours that they use to disorient people is that the military will inevitably leave Chechnya. Different dates are quoted, and hints are dropped that talks with Maskhadov or other representatives of bandit formations are imminent.
This will not work. There will be no talks. Most importantly, the regular troops will not withdraw from the Chechen Republic after the completion of the military operation. A division will be stationed in the Chechen Republic on a permanent basis. Localities are being selected for stations of the regular troops. They will stay at bases. The function of enforcing law and order, dispersing and neutralising small bandit formations is for the police and the interior troops to tackle.
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