1. Christopher Donnelly, remarks, "Russian Fission--Nuclear Consequences of Political Disintegration," US Department of Energy Workshop, Washington, 9 December 1992.
2. George Breslauer, panel discussant, "Transition to Democracy in the Eurasian Commonwealth," 24th National Convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, Phoenix, Arizona, 20 November 1992.
3. The countries under discussion here are Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.
4. Moldova's delegate to the UN General Assembly, Vitalie Snegur, describing the "devastating" situation in the Dniester region, bemoaned that "A screen of silence has been drawn over this tragedy."RFE/RKL Daily Report, no. 234, 7 December 1992, p. 3.
5. The term refers to the republics on the periphery of the Russian Federation .
6. In December 1992, 176 ICBMs (130 SS-19s, 46 SS-24s) were located on two sites in Ukraine; 80 SS-25s were located at two sites in Belarus. International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Military Balance, 1992-93 (London: IISS, 1992), pp. 71, 86.
7. Ukraine and Belarus did have nominal membership in the United Nations, although for most of that time their major roles were as adjuncts to the Soviet intelligence effort in New York. Internally, however, they were characterized not as nations, but as "nationalities." Paul Goble, "Ethnic Politics in the USSR," Problems of Communism, vol. 38, no. 4 (July-August 1989), pp.4-5
8. Jack Snyder, "Containing Post-Soviet Nationalism: International Substitutes for Impotent States," (Washington: National Council for Soviet and East European Research, 1992), p. 7.
9. See, for example, Roman Solchanyk, "Poland and the Soviet West," in S. Enders Wimbush, ed., Soviet Nationalities in Strategic Perspective (New York, NY: St. Martin's Press, 1985), pp. 158-80.
10.The Baltic states, pointing to their interwar status as a kind of mini-European Community, have patterned their security institutions after the Nordic nations. Ukraine has established cooperative defense agreements with Hungary and plans similar agreements with Poland and the Czech republic. In an article in an authoritative Ukrainian defense journal, three Ukrainian officials describe NATO as "a strategic counterweight to Russia in Europe," a mission to which Kiev would like to contribute. See Aleksandr Goncharenko, Oleg Bodrug, and Eduard Lisitsyn, "Possible Ways of Safeguarding Ukraine's National Security," Narrodnaya Armiya, pt. 1 (29 July 1992), p. 2; FBIS-USR-92-118 (16 September 1992), p. 53.
11. In a stimulating essay on civil-military relations in the former Soviet Union, Christopher Donnelly notes that, "whilst the Soviet Union has ceased to exist, the Soviet armed forces have not." "Evolutionary Problems in the Former Soviet Armed Forces," Survival, vol. 34, no. 3 (Autumn 1992), pp. 28-42.
12. Western scholars were similarly surprised. Ukraine, along with the other Western republics, were "considered by many experts to be the strategic reserve of the Soviet nationality policy. . . . Viewed as the most politically integrated and culturally assimilated of all non-Russian republics, Ukraine, Byelorussia, and Moldavia were viewed as the last places to give birth to large-scale ethnic unrest." Charles F. Furtado and Andrea Chandler, eds., Perestroika in the Soviet Republics (Boulder, Col.: Westview Press, 1992), p. 215.
13. Vyacheslav Chornovil, quoted in Laurie Hays, "As He Builds a National Ukraine, Chief Becomes Thorn in Yeltsin's Side," Wall Street Journal, 17 March 1992, p. 1.
14. The authoritative English-language volume on Ukraine is Orest Subtelny, Ukraine--A History (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1988). See especially pt. 3, "The Cossack Era," and chapter 19, "The Ukrainian Revolution."
15. On Ukraine's path to independence, see Adrian Karatnycky, "The Ukrainian Factor," Foreign Affairs, vol. 8, no. 3 (Summer 1992), pp. 90-107; Taras Kuzio, Ukraine--The Unfinished Revolution (London: Institute for European Defense & Strategic Studies, 1992); and Roman Solchanyk "Russia and Ukraine: The Politics of Independence," 8 May 1992, pp. 13-16.
16. Chrystia Freeland, "Kiev Leader: From Apparatchik to Nationalist," Washington Post, 6 May 1992, p. A16.
17. Stephen Foye, Military/Security Notes, RFE/RL Research Institute, 24 November 1992.
18. Ukraine is still operating under the old communist constitution, and members of the discredited party still predominate in the parliament, ministries, and regional government bodies. See "Ukraine--Independent, but not yet free," Economist, 13 June 1992, pp. 54-55.
19. Stephen Erlanger, "Ukraine Finds `Active Independence' Despite Military and Other Obstacles," New York Times, 6 September 1992. See also Kuzio, Ukraine--The Unfinished Revolution, pp. 9-10.
20. "There has been no Gaidar here, and there won't be," notes an adviser to Ukrainian President Kravchuk, alluding to the radical "shock therapy" reforms occurring in Russia under Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar. "They [Ukraine's economic planners] view stability as so much more important than economic reform." That Ukraine's leaders cannot see the connection between the two is perhaps the most characteristic failure of the Ukrainian regime. See Margaret Shapiro, "Ukraine's Leaders Retreat From Reform," Washington Post, 24 October 1992, p. A17.
21. According to Ministry of Defense figures 264 (53 percent) of the Ukrainian General Staff are Russian; 202 (43 percent), Ukrainian. Russians account for almost 90 percent of generals, 80 percent of air force officers, over 50 percent of all officers. The ministry also notes that 300,000 senior and warrant officers of Ukrainian origin serve outside Ukraine. Molod Ukrainy, 21 August 1992.
22. Ukrainian Center for Independent Political Research, Political Review, October 1992, pp. 82-83.
23. Grigory Omelchenko, chief of the Union of Ukrainian Officers, indicated in August that the armed forces of Ukraine could not be counted on to protect Ukrainian sovereignty. Vladimir Ruban, "Rozhdeniye Voyennoi Derzhavy" ["Birth of a Military Power"], Moskovskii Novosti, no. 32 (9 August 1992), pp. 6-7.
24. Ukrainian Center for Independent Political Research, Political Review, October 1992, p. 83.
25. Kuznetsov remains a deputy in the Crimean Assembly, which has sought greater autonomy for the region. According to a Russian journalist in Crimea, "In Ukraine in general, the federative tendency is ripening. After the Crimea, the Donbass may separate, and western Ukraine." Such views are partial and overstated, but they reflect an undercurrent that cannot be comforting for Kiev. See Fred Hiatt, "Crimea Catches Sovereignty Bug," Washington Post, 1 June 1992, p. A12.
26. The Crimean peninsula, "granted" to the Ukrainian SSR by Khrushchev in 1954, was in turmoil through most of 1992 due to Russian parliamentary calls, endorsed by Russian Vice President Rutskoi, that Crimea receive independence from Ukraine, or that it even be returned to Russia. The issue was also mingled with the tussle over ownership of the Black Sea Fleet and appeared to be defused--if only temporarily--in the two summit meetings between Boris Yeltsin and Leonid Kravchuk during the summer of 1992. On the Black Sea Fleet, see Celestine Bohlen, "Yeltsin Rebukes Ukraine Over Fleet," New York Times, 8 April 1992, p. 3; Douglas L. Clarke, "The Saga of the Black Sea Fleet," RFE/RL Research Report, 24 January 1992, pp. 45-49; for a detailed historical perspective, see Paul Olkhovsky, Russia's Navy From Peter to Stalin: Themes, Trends, and Debates (Alexandria, Va.: Center for Naval Analysis, 1992).
27. IISS, Military Balance 1992-93, p. 86. On the dispute over control of strategic air bases, see Serge Schmemann, "Friction Rises and Ukraine and Russia Clash over Ex-Soviet Armed Forces," New York Times, 3 March 1992, p. 3.
28. On Kiev's efforts to"activate" nuclear weapons on Ukrainian soil, see Irwin Stelzer, "Ukrainian chaos threatens peace in east," Sunday Times (London), 9 August 1992, p. III-7; Chrystia Freeland, "Ukraine Having Second Thoughts About Giving Up Nuclear Weapons," Washington Post, 6 November 1992, p. A20; Fred Kaplan, "Ukraine officials tying missile removal to aid," Boston Globe, 16 November 1992, p. 1.; and Mark Frankland, "Ukraine's stance on nuclear arsenal stirs fresh worries," Washington Times, 23 November 1992, p. 7.
29. See John Lloyd, Chrystia Freeland, and Anthony Robinson, "History bears down on States of the Union," Financial Times, 19 August 1992, p. 3. The authors conclude that "the deal reached at Yalta is fraught with the possibility of misunderstanding." On Ukrainian reaction to the Yalta accord, see "Statement of the Republican Party on Events Concerning the Black Sea Fleet," 4 August 1992, in Ukraine in Documents (Kiev: Ukrainian Center for Independent Political Research, 1992), pp. 77-78.
30. Serge Schmemann, "New Leader in a Lament for Ukraine," New York Times, 9 November 1992, p. A9. Kuchma, who for 25 years was a director of the largest military factory in the USSR, also complained about the lack of Western aid: "We were always told, by our own Mikhail Gorbachev and by the politicians in Europe and America, that when we cease being an enemy they won't leave us in the lurch. Now we're left in the lurch waiting for a dictatorship that will be worse than the last one."
31. Oleg Bodrug, Aleksandr Goncharenko, and Eduard Lisitsyn, "Possible Ways of Safeguarding Ukraine's National Security," Narodnaya Armiya, 29 July 1992. FBIS-USR-92-118 (16 September 1992), p. 53.
32. As Mykola Mykhalchenko, adviser to Kravchuk, puts it, "Russia wishes to become the successor of the old Russian empire. It has an economic crisis and its leaders are trying to rally the country around nationalist-patriotic ideas." See John Lloyd and Chrystia Freeland, "Divided feelings about Russia split former USSR into two camps," Financial Times, 5 June 1992, p. 4. On Russian attitudes toward Ukraine, see the work of the great Russian philologist Dmitrii Likhachev, Reflections on Russia (Boulder, Col.: Westview Press, 1991), esp. "The Greatness of Kiev," pp. 62-76, and chapter 3, "The Baptism of Rus' and the State of Rus'."
33. Ignor Sinyakevich, "Offensive of the Postcommunist Nomenklatura Calls a Halt," Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 19 November 1992, p. 3. FBIS-SOV-92-234 (4 December 1992), p. 35.
34. Following a CIS summit meeting in February, Belarusian parliamentary Chairman Stanislav Shushkevich noted, "Yesterday, as never before, we understood that the Commonwealth of Independent States is the structure without which we will never survive," a curious statement considering the flaps between Kiev and Moscow. On that score, Shushkevich noted, "It was clear there was no single approach on military matters." See "Ex-Soviet Summit Called a Success," New York Times, 16 February 1992, p. 16.
35. Moscow INTERFAX, 30 November 1992. FBIS-SOV-92-233 (3 December 1992), p. 28.
36. Andrei Kortunov, "Strategic Relations Between the Former Soviet Republics," Backgrounder, Heritage Foundation, no. 892, 17 April 1992, p. 6.
37. Pavel Kozlovsky, "Do Not Be Critical. We Have Worked Out Our Conception," Respublika, 21 October 1992, p. 2. FBIS-SOV-92-219 (12 November 1992), p. 74.
38. See Stephen Foye, Military Security Notes, p. 5.
39. See International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights, Fact-Finding Mission to Moldova, 22-26 November 1991.
40. The leaders of the self-appointed Dniester Republic held one of the few official celebrations of the 75th anniversary of the Bolshevik coup in November 1992. The lead speaker was the commander of the Russian 14th Army, Lt. Gen. Aleksandr Lebed. On the roots of the Dniester conflict, see Vladimir Socor, "Creeping Putsch in Moldova," RFE/RL Research Report, 17 January 1992, pp. 8-13.
41. See Bohdan Nahaylo, "Ukraine and Moldova: The View from Kiev," RFE/RL Research Report, 1 May 1992, pp. 39-45.
42. Kravchuk had previously insisted on the principle of "inviolability of borders," in all such disputes within the CIS. His mid-summer shift in policy could prove risky, considering the numerous parts of Ukraine seeking similar degrees of "self-determination," such as the Crimea.
43. Financial Times, 27 May 1992.
44. RFE/RL Daily Report, no. 232, 3 December 1992, p. 3.
45. RFE/RL Daily Report, no. 235, 8 December 1992, p. 3.
46. According to Snegur, Moldova "will not give up the Dniester to anyone, particularly not to those who also want to get the Crimea and also create here an outpost against Ukraine." RFE/RL Daily Report, no. 95, 19 May 1992, p. 3.
47. For an interesting cross section of views on Western policy toward Baltic independence as late as 1989, see "The International Status of the Baltic States: The Baltic Republics Fifty Years After the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact," in Nationalities Papers, Semi-Annual Publication of the Association for the Study of the Nationalities of the USSR and Eastern Europe, Fall 1989, pp. 156-203. See also Walter C. Clemens, Jr. Baltic Independence and Russian Empire (New York, NY: St. Martin's Press, 1991), esp. pp. 293-318.
48. On the differences among the three republics, see Graham Smith, ed. The Nationalities Question in the Soviet Union (London and New York, NY: Longman, 1990), chapters 3-5; Romuald H. Misiunas, "The Baltic Republics: Stagnation and Strivings for Sovereignty," in Lubomyr Hajda and Mark Beissinger, The Nationalities Factor in Soviet Politics and Society (Boulder, Col.: Westview Press, 1990), pp. 204-27; and Economic Survey of the Baltic Republics (Stockholm: Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in collaboration with the governments of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, June 1991).
49. See, for example, the interview with Lithuanian Supreme Council Chairman Vytautus Landsbergis in Moskovskiy Novosti, no. 32, 9 August 1992, p. 11.
50. For a detailed look at Russian troops in the Baltic republics, see "Problems of Military Withdrawal," in RFE/RL Research Report, 28 August 1992, pp.15-37.
51. According to Lithuanian Defense Minister Audrius Butkevicius, there were 20,745 Russian military personnel in Lithuania as of August 1992, of which 10,000 were officers or NCOs, organized in 5 divisions. At full strength, these units would number 35,203.
52. When Boris Yeltsin suspended troop withdrawals on 29 October, it was Churkin who sought to assuage Baltic fears that the suspension meant a fundamental change in Russian policy. He told Estonian leaders that the withdrawal decision "has never been questioned." See John Lloyd, "Moscow tries to reassure Baltic states," Financial Times, 5 November 1992, p. 4.
53. In the late 1980s, the leader of the LDP, Algirdas Brazauskas, was among the first communist officials to come out in favor of Baltic independence.
54. On the debate in Latvia over citizenship, see Alexei Grigorievs, "The Controversy over Citizenship," Uncaptive Minds, vol. 4, no. 4 (Winter 1991-92), pp. 57-60.
55. Interview with the author, Latvian Foreign Ministry, Riga, 19 September 1992.
56. TASS, 28 September 1992. FBIS-SOV-188, 28 September 1992, p. 14
57. In recent negotiations, the Russians used 58,000 as their figure for troops stationed in Latvia. The Stockholm-based SIPRI estimated 48,000, while the Norwegian press estimated the number at between 28,000 and 29,000. Latvia's deputy defense minister, without revealing the exact number, told the author that the figure was closer to the Norwegian estimate.
58. Paul Goble, scholar of Soviet nationalities, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, speech at Club 21, Riga, 18 September 1992.
59. Located 120 kilometers west of Riga, the Skrunda facility includes a "Hen House" radar used for early warning and space tracking, and a Krasnoyarsk-type large phased-array radar systems (LPARS) still under construction. See US Department of Defense, Military Forces in Transition (Washington: USGPO, 1991), p. 39.
60. The Estonian city of Narva, scene of Peter the Great's first defeat in the Great Northern War, is a hotbed of Russian nationalism and site of one of the many anti-Baltic speeches made by radical Russian nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky. For Zhirinovsky's views on partition of the Baltic states, see RFE/RL Daily Report, no. 234, 7 December 1992, p. 6.
61. ITAR-TASS 25 November 1992. FBIS-SOV-92-229, 27 November 1992, p. 64.
62. Helsingin Sanomat, 29 September 1992, in Military and Security Notes, RFE/RL Research Institute, Issue 41, October 1992.
63. In December 1992 the Russian Officers' Assemblies of the Baltic region sent an open letter to the Congress of Peoples' Deputies demanding the resignation of Russian Defense Minister Grachev, accusing him of attempting to withdraw forces from the Baltic states without providing suitable facilities in Russia. See John W. R. Lepingwell and Alfred A. Reisch, Military and Security Notes, RFE/RL Research Institute, Issue 49, December 1992.
64. On Bolshevik ideology toward the multinational Russian empire, see Richard Pipes, The Russian Revolution (New York, NY: Macmillan, 1990); Pipes, The Formation of the Soviet Union: Communism and Nationalism, 1917-1923 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1964); Walter Laquer, The Fate of the Revolution (New York, NY: Scribner's, 1967; 1987 rev.); Adam B. Ulam, The Bolsheviks (New York, NY: Macmillan, 1965); and Mikhail Heller and Aleksandr M. Nekrich, Utopia in Power (New York, NY: Summit Books, 1986).
65. On the debate between empire savers and nation builders in Russian and Soviet history, see Roman Szporluk, "The National Question," in Timothy J. Colton and Robert Legvold, After the Soviet Union--From Empire to Nations (New York, NY, and London: W. W. Norton & Co., 1992), pp. 84-112; Szporluk, "Dilemmas of Russian Nationalism," Problems of Communism, July-August 1989, pp. 15-35; and Hélène Carrère d'Encausse], The End of the Soviet Empire--The Triumph of the Nations (New York, NY: Basic Books, 1993).
66. Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev prefers to use the term "continuer" state, expressing semantic concern for the other republics, all of which were "successors" to the USSR.
67. John Lloyd, "Painful legacy."
68. FBIS-SOV-92-127, 1 July 1992, p. 11.
69. On the significance of the afghantsi in the post-Soviet military, see Michael Dobbs, "Coup Lifted War Heroes to Top of Russian Military," Washington Post, 27 September 1992, p. A37.
70. Moscow INTERFAX, 27 October 1992.
71.John Lloyd, "Painful legacy of an empire," Financial Times, 9 July 1992, p. 12.
72. Kolesnikov stated in ITAR-TASS on 30 July that NATO may be behind the moves in other republics to contest Russian power. The RFE/RL Research Institute adds, "Kolesnikov warned that growing instability could lead to direct intervention by Western powers in the former USSR under the pretext of establishing international control over nuclear weapons located there." See RFE/RL Daily Report, no. 145, 31 July 1992, p. 2.
73. Stephen Foye, "CIS Armed Forces Yearender, 1992," Military/Security Notes, RFE/RL Research Institute, 24 November 1992, p. 6.
74. See Kuzio, Ukraine--The Unfinished Revolution, p. 9.
75. Aleksandr Rutskoi, "Vzaschituu Rossii," Pravda, 30 January 1992.
76. Vladimir P. Lukin, "Our Security Predicament," Foreign Policy, no. 88 (Fall 1992), pp. 57-75. The article received great attention in Ukraine and the Baltic States.
77. Alexander A. Belkin, "Needed: A Russian Defense Policy," Global Affairs, vol. 7, no. 3 (Autumn 1992), p. 89.
78. Stephen M. Meyer, "Russian Fission--Nuclear Consequences of Political Disintegration," remarks at US Department of Energy Workshop, 9 December 1992, Washington.
79. Columbia University Professor Jack Snyder, Containing Post-Soviet Nationalism," 1992, pp. 33-34.
80. Although Lithuanian President Landsbergis and some Ukrainians have floated the idea of a confederation including Ukraine, Belarus, and the Baltics, no real progress has been made beyond various bilateral cooperation agreements. The Baltic defense ministers have had a hard time realizing their plans for Baltic security cooperation. See Andrei Kortunov, "Strategic Relations Between the Former Soviet Republics, p. 6.
81. See George F. Kennan, "For Russian Troops, A House to Go Home to," Washington Post, 8 November 1992, p. C7. Kennan's idea is quite sound, although he suggests that the United States should provide sole financing for housing and infrastructure for up to 20,000 officers and their families.