DATE=9/16/2000
TYPE=ON THE LINE
TITLE=ON THE LINE: INSIDE PUTIN'S RUSSIA
NUMBER=1-00884 SHORT # 1
EDITOR=OFFICE OF POLICY - 619-0037
CONTENT=
INSERTS AVAILABLE IN AUDIO SERVICES
THEME: UP, HOLD UNDER AND FADE
Anncr: On the Line - a discussion of United
States policy and contemporary issues. This week,
"Inside Putin's Russia." Here is your host, ------
--.
Host: Hello and welcome to On the Line.
Despite the continuing war in Chechnya and a
crackdown on the press, Russian President Vladimir
Putin remains popular with the Russian people. But
the accidental sinking of the Kursk nuclear
submarine and the shocking deaths of some one-
hundred Russian sailors have raised serious doubts
about Russia's competence. Some took the incident
as evidence that Russia's infrastructure continues
to decline and its government is not fully in
control. Observers wonder whether President Putin
can carry out further economic reform, fight
corruption, and make more progress toward a
genuinely democratic system.
Jonas Bernstein is a senior Russia analyst with
the Jamestown Foundation. He says that the recent
troubles in Russia, including the fire in Moscow's
main T-V transmission tower, indicate how some
things have not changed much since the Soviet era.
Bernstein: I think you have a combination of two
things. A: the crumbling infrastructure that's
been inherited from the Soviet period. The other
problem is that there are still elements of a
centralized command and control system. In the
case of the Ostankino Tower fire, the head of the
Moscow fire brigade said that they couldn't, they
wouldn't cut off the power to the television tower
because it's what state television is broadcast
over, until they got Putin's permission. Again, I
think it's an emblem of the degree to which, in
fact, there has been much less change over the
last ten years than a lot of people think.
Michael McFaul is a senior associate at the
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He
says that President Putin has actually been
seeking to concentrate power in a way that his
predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, never did.
McFaul: What is striking to me is how it's not the
continuation of the status quo, that in every
single front he has punched first against the
oligarchs, against the regional authorities,
against the Duma. We forget that. There has been a
fundamental redistribution of power between the
president and the Duma, and against the press.
Many people believe that there were no
countervailing powers under Yeltsin. We now see
that, at least, there was something.
Helmut Sonnenfeldt is a guest scholar at the
Brookings Institution. He says that Putin's
attempt to concentrate power is dangerous.
Sonnenfeldt: Putin and his people think that they
can go out and negate something that's done in the
regions by an elected governor, or by an elected
legislature in the regions, that they say is
contrary to federal law. Now in more or less
normal places, that's a judicial issue, not an
executive issue. So I think that this accumulation
of power in different dimensions is very much on
his mind. The question will ultimately be whether,
in fact, he can impose it and how far he has to go
to use methods that go back to czarist times, and
even Communist times, in order to impose it. What
happens then?
Host: Helmut Sonnenfeldt from the Brookings
Institution says that President Putin wants Russia
to become part of the industrialized West, but it
is not clear whether he understands how to achieve
that goal. For On the Line, this is -------.
Anncr: You've been listening to "On the Line" - a
discussion of United States policies and
contemporary issues. This is ----.
15-Sep-2000 14:06 PM EDT (15-Sep-2000 1806 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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