A Blow to the Head:
How a Principal Institute, the Creator of Russia's World-Famous Antiballistic Missile System, Collapsed
Moscow Obshchaya Gazeta 5-11 Mar 98 No 9, p 5
by Anna Politkovskaya:
Dossier
In early 1995, the Volga facility (Baranovichi, Byelarus) went into operationa station of the Russian Missile-Attack Warning System, which is capable of locating ballistic missile launches virtually throughout Europe. Information about a launch goes from Baranovichi to a command-computer post (KVP) of the ABM System of the Moscow Industrial Region (A-135), which controls the long- and short-range ABM silos equipped with nuclear warheads. This ABM system, unlike anything in the world, was put on alert duty on 17 February 1995 by a top secret order of President Yeltsin.
About ABM
For nearly 40 years, so as not to attract attention and also in our top-secret defense sector, this box was called simply the NIIRPthe Scientific Research Institute of Radio Instrument Making. Actually, the NIIRP has been the countrys head enterprise for developing an antiballistic-missile defense [ABM] since 1961. It was here that the famous A-135 system was developed.
For three decades in a row, among the graduates of the Moscow Physicotechnical Institute [MFTI], the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute [MIFI], and the physics department of the Moscow State University [MGU] it was considered good fortune to be assigned here to one of the countrys most closed and prestigious defense institutes. They took the best of the very best. Gradually, the elite of the so-called special subject matter began to take shape, and the A-135 system became the absolute victory of it and general designer Anatoliy Basistov. The associates of the institute received 469 of the highest governmental awards. On that, this page of history turned.
Today, the average wage at the NIIRP is from 400,000 to 500,000 rubles [R]. The current value of General Basistov is just over R2 million. However, this wage is mythical, so-called calculated. They have not been giving anything for a long time. The states indebtedness (in the person of the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Economics) for wages to the associates of the NIIRP has reached 22(!) months and 40 billion old rubles. The enterprise itself owes the budget more than R120 billion. This is not the first year nearly 2,500 people have been in a suspended state. There is nowhere for the ABM Russian serfs to go, and there is no job in sight. It is not possible either to let oneself go or to work further.
Chinatown at Sokol There is practically no checkpoint at all at the NIIRP now. The tilted, broken down door together with the angry aunt allegedly writing out passes to the regime facilitythis is all that is left of the former secrecy on the Leningrad Highway 80 in Moscow. A bright Oriental market reigns at the institute ruins. A bright yellow panel at the entrance to the NIIRP reveals to the world two huge red Chinese characters. Naturally, without translation. It is not needed. The characters are understood by the Chinese tenants settled in one of the buildings.
The industrious and cheerful Chinese shuttles trudge along the former road to the countrys highest state secrets day and night to the NIIRP with shoulder packs, bags, and handcarts. They do not have a minute of idle time. Part of the area has been turned into wholesale warehouses of various textiles. The rent is meager—$13 per square meter. This was set by the Ministry of State Property. Not a single dollar goes to the NIIRPat least that is what the current director, Valeriy Gruzdev, assures us. They say the Chinese are very satisfiedwhere in Moscow can you still find such prices next to the Center and not far from the subway? From time to time, shabbily dressed people exit the checkpoint and hurry to the electric train. These are the creators of the A-135 system. Their objective is that most classified facility in Sofrino near Moscow. The scientists are supposed to accomplish an inventors supervision there. Sometimes the ticket collectors put them off the train as not having tickets, and they have to wait for the next one.
Make Way for Our Bright Future!
The farther you go, the more often it happens that the elite and their families have nothing at all to eat. And that is when they go into small-scale industry. The brilliant theoretician Boris Vinogradov, incidentally one of the four directors of the NIIRP replaced in the last 5 years, toils as a night driverhe has golden hands, and he himself assembled the motor vehicle. At first, according to friends, Boris Petrovich suffered greatly and pulled his cap down to his eyes when the next passenger got in, afraid that it was one of his acquaintances. Then the feeling of embarrassment faded by itselfreal money helps get rid of emotional anguish better than any tranquilizer.
And here Dmitriy Mazurin, candidate of sciences and mathematics, is very angry with the worldrecently they did not even given him a full-time job as an electrician at the subway. He tried to sell books on the street, Vladimir Bogdanov, a candidate of sciences and a department chief, throws up his hands. It is not working out. The list of jobs where the inventors who created the countrys ABM shield are working today is not the most diverseone-time guards at parking lots (best of possible!), loaders at someones beck and call, and stall operators. Among the women, the jobs of cleaning woman and selling newspapers are in great demand. We will make special note that no one is living on science. Here at the institute they has a very narrow specialization, and now this is an unconcealed minus in conditions of a market economy. Only a few people are engaged in pure science.
Ten years ago, not even in my worst dreams would I have dreamed that I would be working as a loader,says Valeriy Sorokin, chief of SKB-3 (the third design bureau). Now I will take any job I can find. Carry, nail, sell. His friend—Anatoliy Vavilin, deputy chief of the department in charge of his wife and daughter, both disabled—recently has also agreed to any kind of extra money. An excellent systems analyst, he also cut locks, knocked off doors, and dug up gardens for dachas. One day they hired him to saw off the lower branches on a birch tree. Although he did not know how to do it, he still scrambled up the tree and fell to the ground—that is how candidate of sciences Vavilin died.
It is far worse for those who have not at all discovered the abilities to fit into the new life circumstances. Rostislav Dmitriyevskiy, once a chief engineer, lived by selling bags and was very tormented by this. In the end, his heart did not endure the shame—he died two months ago. Doctor of Sciences Vladimir Gusev, after learning that he had been turned down again for extra earnings, first cut his veins and then jumped out of a window with his daughter—the two of them were living together and there was nothing more for them to eat. At SKB-3 alone, at Sorokin, three of the 100 associates committed suicide in 1997.
I compare our reality with the Titanic, continues mathematician-loader Dmitriy Mazurin.
The organizers of reforms are in the lifeboats. They sit and watch as the Titanic is sinking and keep saying over and over again: the strongest will survive...
Who Signed the Death Sentence?
Will the institute live or die? Will ABM develop or be halted? Who was appointed arbitrator in this dispute? Curious questions. There are specific answers to them.
Once long ago, an appeal to the CPSU Central Committee with a request to create an ABM institute in the country was signed by six marshals of the Soviet Union, and each name was famous. Nothing similar is visible on the decision to eliminate the NIIRP. Many figures of the present had a hand in the destruction of the institute, but their names do not evoke piety. Mikhaylov, Muravyev, Gruzdev, Sergeyev, Savelyev... Who knows them? Perhaps other than one name—Gaydar. The signature of Yegor Timurovich on State Decree No. 1356 (November 1993) marked the beginning of the tragedy which has now turned into the institutes throes of death. The document was fashionable—about making the NIIRP a joint-stock company.
The NIIRP Open-Type Joint-Stock Company [AOOT] was registered in June 1994. All the institutes management was immediately transferred there—according to their own wishes. But thecollective balked—letters rained down on the president and the government, calling the decision on privatization of ABM a historical mistake, since such subject matter in principle cannot be in private hands. Nikolay Mikhaylov, presently first deputy RF minister of defense, at that time insisted on privatization more than the others. Now, in 1998, he adheres to the same opinion, which he shared in an interview with Obshchaya Gazeta: The logic of the changes is such that it cannot help but be taken into account. This was the challenge of the time. And we had to respond to it. I said to them all—either you keep pace together, or the institute goes in the opposite direction. But the reaction of the NIIRP was of the good old-fashioned sort. And it almost did nothing to fit in with the new economy in the difficult conditions of the transition period. The last reproach is not entirely valid. The NIIRP quivered, trying to find orders—but everything was in vain, someones mighty hand had shut off the oxygen to it everywhere. It should be noted that Nikolay Mikhaylov is the person they talk about at the institute: Our troubles with orders began with him. In the 1980s, he was the director here. Later he headed the Vympel Central Scientific Production Association, which was involved in missile-space defense. In 1993-1994, Mikhaylov became one of the first directors in the defense sector who boldly took the step of privatizing Vympel, becoming the president of the joint-stock company with the same name. Today, it is precisely on this basis, under the supervision of the same Mikhaylov, that the state is developing the ideas of transferring to private hands enterprises possessing national super-secrets.
There are two views on this process. The first is that it is absolutely unsound and will not lead to anything good. The other is that this is a method of saving and maintaining special subject matter. Even understanding all the complexities of Russias economic condition, none of the apologists of the privatization path of developing the defense sector dare to guarantee that tomorrow or 5 years later, as a result of the open sale of stock at an auction, the management of the joint-stock NIIRP would not be taken over by a person of another structure and different convictions to whom it will seem more profitable to sell the super-technologies than to hold on to them with both hands, sustaining losses. No one will be able to stop him! He will have the legal right to the commercial secret and at hand the stockholders meeting which, as we know, decides how it should be. It is largely thanks to this that the privatization viewpoint won. Nikolay Mikhaylov is now the right-hand man of the RF minister of defense and, moreover, is responsible for the entire defense order in the country. Whether or not the NIIRP will receive funds for development of ABM depends on him personally.
However, let us go back a bit. The governmental decree of 1993 stated: the institute is to be made into a joint-stock company as a part of Vympel, that is, under Mikhaylovs supervision. Having balked, not wishing to be privatized, the NIIRP resisted, including the will of Mikhaylov. Events developed further in such a way that would indicate that Mikhaylov did not forgive the collective for the rebelliousness. His hands were visible in any event at the NIIRP, including the last one. Having brought the institute to an extreme degree of exhaustion, the Ministry of Defense (read Mikhaylov) is now closing the books on this struggle. The countrys head enterprise for ABM—the NIIRP—for the first time in several decades is not even listed in that line of the draft budget for 1998 which deals with the state order for ABM. This is a sentence. As soon as the budget is approved, the institute will lose everything.
If you have still not guessed who confiscated the money for ABM, we will prompt you. Of course, it was Mikhaylovs dear Vympel Joint-Stock Company. But does it not have another theme? Yes. So what? The main thing is the money.
Thus, what was planned back in the early 1990s has come about—the fulfillment of super-secret work is controlled in Russia by private capital. It is on a par with macaroni factories, cardboard manufacture, stores, and kolkhoz markets. However, Mikhaylov has weighty arguments in his hands. He believes that the institute is no longer able to operate, the collective is morally corrupt, and there is no return road to science for it. The most disgusting thing is that Mikhaylov may be right.
Instructions on Self-Consumption
Against the background of the struggle of fundamental viewpoints around ABM, the institute increasingly wallowed in wars. It waged two wars immediately. One was an external war to get back for itself the status of a state enterprise. And there was an internal war—a civil, fratricidal war.
In the summer of 1994, the NIIRP appealed to the Moscow City Court of Arbitration, requesting that it declare that same governmental decree invalid, and encountered powerful resistance of the government. Nevertheless, in April 1995, by decision of the Supreme Court of Arbitration of Russia, the legal capacity of the state enterprise was restored, privatization was declared impossible, since the NIIRP had direct relation to the developments of nuclear weapons. However, the ordeals did not end with this. The Vympel Company resorted to countermeasures according to the principle: if I cannot have it, I will not give it to others. In May 1995, a liquidation commission was created, chaired by Vladimir Litvinov, and it did all it could not to submit the liquidation balance sheet prescribed in such cases.
The whole year went into the liquidation. And without results. In the spring of 1996, by order of Alfred Kokh of the State Committee for the Administration of State Property, the commission was simply disbanded, and the debts and fines of the joint-stock company were transferred to the account of the state enterprise. It is precisely these debts and fines that turned the NIIRP into a habitual debtor and essentially made it bankrupt.
Neither wages nor orders—only debts.
On the wave of the return of the state enterprise status, Valeriy Gruzdev became director of the NIIRP. And all questions were now directed to him, and he was not in a position to give practically a single answer. Above all, to the main question—the financial question. Naturally, against the background of chronic nonpayment of wages, the anger of the popular masses began to mature in the collective. One fine day, the Golovinskiy Inter-municipal Court of Moscow was swamped with massive suits against the administration demanding it be forced to pay the wages.
Where Does the Money Go?
Finally, the court seized the institutes clearing account. The demand to settle up was directed to that same liquidation commission of the AOOT which was so terribly in debt to the workers. For a long time the courts decision went unfulfilled—the account was empty. However, in November 1995, a persistent rumor began to go around the institute that the Ministry of Defense was about to transfer something. The information came from circles close to the accounting office, where, as we know, they know everything. Then the good news: more than 300 million rubles had arrived. However, completely unexpectedly for those waiting, the money disappeared from the account after it had barely arrived.
It turned out that the Golovinskiy Court received a request signed by that same Vladimir Litvinov to immediately lift the seizure from the account, and Judge Yelena Prokhorycheva promptly satisfied the request. And this was done without even notifying those who had requested the account be seized. The decision of the Golovinskiy Court stated: In its declaration, the NIIRP AOOT guaranteed payment of the indebtedness for wages to the workers as priority. It is obvious that as soon as the seizure was lifted, the guarantees remained on paper—the money floated away. Later the official paper of the Central Bank was published, signed by the deputy chief of the budget transactions department, O. Yakovleva, that supposedly on 13 November 1995 funds in the amount of 343,812,000 rubles were erroneously transferred (?)to the account of the NIIRP, which is why on 25 November 1995, it was requested that the be returned to account No. 74129095 Voinskiy at the Central Bank. The chairman of the Golovinskiy Court, T. Razgulova, well aware of the grave material situation of the plaintiffs and being put on the spot by the numerous suits from the workers of the NIIRP and the subsequent avalanche of their legitimate complaints that the judicial decisions were not being carried out, sent a letter to the then-chairman of the State Committee for the Defense Industry, Zinoviy Pak: We request you immediately take steps to pay the indebtedness for wages and inform the court within 10 days. Needless to say, everything was in vain. No money, no replies.
But the intrigues continued to tear the collective apart. It is the strangest thing that the director, Doctor of Technical Sciences Valeriy Gruzdev, not only participated in them but also encouraged them, instead of fighting for orders. A serious scientist, prior to his appointment he never was an administrator. It is possible that he could have retired as a respected person if he would not have become director. When the power ended up in his hands, he began to use it for the wrong purpose. Not once during the two years having provided the collective his own schedule of payment of indebtedness, he suddenly began to shake up personnel—as if this were a cause.
The first one this affected was the general designer—Anatoliy Basistov, a lieutenant-general, czar and god of the countrys ABM. In past years, the general designer was appointed by the Presidium of the USSR Council of Ministers, in coordination with and on the recommendation of the corresponding department of the CPSU Central Committee. He had the rank of minister, because the general designer of the NIIRP and the general designer of ABM were one and the same. At some moment the specific director of the institute was given the right to appoint and relieve the general director. And Gruzdev took advantage of this right. He suggested to the 76-year-old Basistov to write to him, Gruzdev, the appropriate application, which he, Gruzdev, would consider. From that moment on, Gruzdevs war with Basistov began.
There are two heavy folders in the Ministry of Economics today. Some write letters in defense of Gruzdev, others write in defense of Basistov. Now we are experiencing a process in which a conflict has become an open war between groupings, says Valeriy Gruzdev. Since it is hardly possible to get out of the internal impasse, the institute will probably be transformed. Thus, the person who came to unite and save the institute has merely better prepared it for destruction. Here is what the present curator of the NIIRP, Sergey Muravyev, chief of the Department of Electronics and Instrument Building of the Ministry of Economics, thinks in this regard: Gruzdevs activities in the post of director have already become destructive. Therefore, he is leaving by mutual agreement on 15 March. Who will be the next director? Muravyev is hiring Valeriy Sergeyev, former director of the Khimki Branch of the NIIRP, for this position. My proposal on Sergeyev is primarily based on the fact that he agrees with the inevitability of privatization of the enterprise. This is the main thing. Such is the viewpoint of the chief of the department. But it is Sergeyev who is linked to another dark money story at the institute.
In 1994, a serious accident happened at the Khimki Branch at its radiation-technology complex (facility X). Special work was required. The Ministry for Civil Defense, Emergencies, and Elimination of Consequences of Natural Disasters [MChS], with whom a contract was concluded, pledged to provide the institute more than R2 billion in assistance in order to complete the work in December 1996. At some moment, the MChS announced that it had no money, but that it had substitutes nicknamed lifchiks[underbodices] among the people, or rather the rights to conduct a monetary offset for incomes and expenditures of the federal budget. They got their playful name in honor of then-Minister of Finance Livshits, who thought them up. Director Gruzdev gave Sergeyev a general power of attorney to manage this matter and, as they say, forgot about everything. Sergeyev entered into financial machinations with the lifchiks, resulting in the institute loosing more than R1 billion. When the matter came to light, a promissory note for R1 billion from the Financial-Industrial Union was on Gruzdevs desk, which sort of covered the losses. Naturally, attempts to put the note into circulation and use it to pay off at least part of the debt were unsuccessful. The security proved to be non-disposable and was worthless. Thus, the absolutely destitute enterprise lost a huge amount of money in the financial fraud. The result is that the Khimki Branch still has not recovered. Gruzdev fired Sergeyev, and Sergeyev is not suing Gruzdev, demanding reinstatement.
What is in store in the immediate future? Both in the Ministry of Defense (Mikhaylov) and in the Ministry of Economics (Muravyev) they respond the same—the time has come to draw the line. Sergeyev will come only to eliminate the NIIRP, especially since this is no longer an institute, but ruins. And ruins can be privatized.
The Americans Turned Out To Be Smarter
The death of the head institute that developed the ABM system for Russia has not only subjective causes but also causes completely independent of specific people, no matter what names they had—Mikhaylov, Gruzdev, or Gaydar. Of course, they are on the surface and, therefore, the squabbles, gossip, and shameless self-interest of some and the devotion of others to science and the cause into which their life has gone are also noticeable.
The history of the collapse of the institute has, as usual, a reverse side. Justifiably no wishing to be someones private firm, the NIIRP placed the country on the brink of disaster—wide-scale scientific research and development on ABM has been halted. And this is while the United States is gaining momentum in the ABM field from month to month. Today America annually invests up to $6 billion in these developments and in the near future will be able to deploy a nationwide ABM system along the entire perimeter of its territory.
In the opinion of leading NIIRP experts, whereas in the 1970s we were 20 years ahead of the United States in ABM, now Russia is 15-20 years behind.
The Treaty on Limitation of ABM Systems Between the United States and the USSR has been in effect since 1972. It strictly regulates the number of ABM complexes which each of the sides may possess. Each may have two: one each around the capitals of Moscow and Washington and one each in that area which each of the countries shall determine independently. The 1972 Treaty categorically prohibits deployment of a nationwide ABM system.
Nevertheless, in the early 1990s, exactly simultaneously with our privatization, the American side began to insist on making changes to the 1972 Treaty. First of all, they demanded from Russia approval for creation of a so-called theater ABM, a non-strategic ABM system. Since 1993 negotiations have been constantly conducted on the permissible boundaries of such work. The United States, Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and Byelarus have participated in them. In 1995, Russia actually agreed to continuation of work in the United States to create new ABM systems. The famous THAAD system came into the world. Without even waiting for the conclusion of negotiations with the partners of the 1972 Treaty, the United States began testing the new systems. This occurred on 21 April 1995, and the United States presented Russia with a fait accompli of not even a pregnancy, but already of a birth.
Read on—there is more. In the U.S. military budget for 1996, primary attention was devoted to namely the theater ABM system. In the opinion of Russian experts, precisely this system is one of the components for creating a new-generation nationwide ABM system not covered by the 1972 Treaty. In February 1996, the next swallow darted out—a draft law on withdrawing from the 1972 Treaty was submitted to the U.S. Congress. The objective was clearly stipulated—to have the ability to create a nationwide ABM system not limited by anything. Although the draft law did not pass, attempts to push the idea are continuing successfully. In January of this year, voices were again heard in the American Senate demanding revision of a number of provisions of the 1972 Treaty in favor of the United States.
In March 1997, a Russian-American summit was held in Helsinki, at which five joint statements were signed. One of them was on the attitude toward the 1972 Treaty. And although its importance was confirmed, nevertheless henceforth Russia agreed that it has no objections to six ABM systems which are being developed in the United States. No one even mentioned similar Russian systems. In June 1997, U.S. Secretary of Defense Cohen stated that by the year 2002 the United States will deploy the main ground-based components of a nationwide ABM system. The statement was made literally the day after Yeltsin flew out of Denver and immediately following successful tests in the United States of the fundamentally new THAAD anti-missile missile. It is assumed that it is to become a key element of the nationwide ABM system. It is to be ready for deployment in 1999. As Secretary Cohen reported, in the next 5 years, he intends to allocate at least $2 billion annually for this work in addition to that already in the budget. The total amount of spending agreed upon with Congress for creation of a nationwide ABM system in the United States is more than $17 billion. This is for scientific research and practical implementation.
In the fall of 1997, the United States and Russia signed a document on a new interpretation of the 1972 Treaty. Russia agreed to the technological improvement of the American ABM system. The only thing it managed to insist on was territorial limitations. Why do we give in? From all appearances, one of the main reasons is that the global reshuffling of the 1972 Treaty, which the United States actually has been insisting on for several years, is completely beyond Russias control. How will we respond in that inevitable high-tech war which will begin immediately if there is no 1972 Treaty? It is incomprehensible. It is assumed that in the period 2002-2006, the United States will acquire a relative invulnerability of its territory to a nuclear missile attack. Anatoliy Basistovs prognosis is milder—he believes that this will not happen until the year 2010.
However, 3 years earlier or 3 years later, it is obvious to everyone that the 1972 Treaty is heading for the archives. What will we do? Here are the words of one of the professors at the NIIRP, who asked not to be named: When the government tells you there is no tragedy in our elimination, do not believe them. It takes decades to train a specialist of the necessary level and appropriate moral makeup. If they tell you that not the NIIRP but another institute will take over and perform the work, also do not believe them. We know our market.Today there is no one besides us who can perform this work, and they are saying yes only because they are ready for any order at the cost of any promises. But the catastrophe is that we also cannot perform this work. That is all. That is the finale. However, today it is not just institutes that are collapsing, but also the world system of balanced interests. Who is a friend to us and where is our enemy, or as the military say—potential adversary? What hind of economic and technical capabilities does he have? Until these questions are answered, in principle a competent military doctrine cannot be formulated. And as long as there is no doctrine, no one will take it upon themselves to discuss what kind of ABM system there should be.
The insufficient intellectual efforts of the Russian leaders in this direction turn out to be a criminal vacuum where it cannot be—there are too serious things placed on the map. The present material superiority of the United States is still only half the problem. There they have adopted a completely different approach to what scientists should be engaged in. Institutes such as the NIIRP are not afraid to place the results of their labor on the general delivery shelves, without rushing to embody them in costly iron. That is because while the job is going to iron, the idea becomes obsolete and new ones are born. Interrupted production can be restored. Interrupted scientific thought—this is precisely the finale.
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