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Pastimes : Kosovo -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: goldsnow who wrote (13368)	7/6/1999 6:30:00 PM
From: Douglas V. Fant	Respond to of 17770

goldsnow, No surprises- Yeltsin's position in Russia is shaky: 2005 GMT, 990706 – Yeltsin Keeps Eye on Security Service Heads Russian Security Council Secretary Vladimir Putin told reporters at the Kremlin on July 6 that Russian President Boris Yeltsin has ordered weekly meetings of the Security Council under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin. Yeltsin reportedly claimed the scheduling of frequent meetings "very strongly disciplines the security agencies which know that the president of the Russian Federation is watching them." Yeltsin went on to joke that the security forces' chiefs "are usefully afraid" of the president of Russia. Yeltsin himself will preside over the next meeting of the Security Council, which is set to discuss military-technical cooperation with foreign countries. The Russian Security Council is comprised of the prime minister, the head of the presidential administration, the Security Council secretary, the defense minister, the interior minister and the minister of foreign affairs. Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev presided over the decision to rush Russian troops into Kosovo ahead of NATO forces, apparently without informing Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, and possibly without informing Yeltsin. Interior Minister Vladimir Rushailo, currently carrying out a crackdown in the northern Caucasus, has been accused by Chechen authorities of fomenting an artificial crisis in the region in an effort to deceive Yeltsin. However, Yeltsin is concerned with more than just a passel of loose canons complicating his foreign policy. He is concerned with the prospect of Russia's security services – who are disgruntled to enraged over Yeltsin's failure to counteract the noose NATO has thrown around Russia – possibly threatening his own security in office. Yeltsin has no intention of waltzing off to a dacha in Yalta like his predecessor, leaving Moscow to the hardliners and tanks. He so much as said so, with his spokesman brushing off questions about his vacation plans and stating his explicit desire to keep an eye on his defense, interior and foreign ministers. Clearly a power struggle is raging behind the scenes in Moscow, and while it is unclear whether weekly meetings can rein in the security services, at very least Yeltsin wants them to know that he is not napping. This raises another question: Does Yeltsin have control of the Federal Security Service (FSB), the successor to the KGB? During his short tenure as prime minister, former KGB official Yevgeny Primakov reportedly purged the FSB of officials put in place by Yeltsin ally Boris Berezovsky, replacing them with allies of Primakov. If he cannot rely on his intelligence services, Yeltsin may have done nothing more than illuminate his fears – showing more weakness than strength – and put his fate in the hands of shaky allies both inside and outside of Russia.