Population: 146 million (2003 est.)
Ethnic Composition:
81.5% Russian, 3.8% Tatar, 3% Ukrainian, 1.2% Chuvash, .9% Bakshir, .8% Byelorussian, .7% Moldovan, 8.1% other
Religion: Russian Orthodox Christian, Muslim, Protestant, Roman Catholic, Jewish, other Christian
(Results from the first Russian Federation census, conducted October 2002, are not yet available)
Jewish population: 400-700,000
2002 Aliyah
(emigration to Israel): 6,532
2002 Emigration to United States: 979
Size: 17,075,200 sq km
Capital: Moscow
Major cities: Moscow, St. Petersburg (formerly Leningrad), Nizhny Novgorod, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg
Freedom House Rating: Partly Free
Currency: 30.454 rubles = $1 (October 3, 2003)
GDP: $346.5 billion (2002)
GDP per capita: $2,405 (2002)
GDP Growth: 4.3% (2002)
Head of State:
President Vladimir V. Putin
Head of Government:
Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov
Foreign Minister: Sergei Lavrov
Ambassador to United States:
Yuri V. Ushakov
U.S. Ambassador to Russia: William J. Burns
Chronology of all U.S. envoys to Russia
SUMMARY
The Russian Federation in the post-Soviet era has been marked by tremendous expansion of civic freedoms and free enterprise, but also by economic depression, political turmoil, and civil strife.
Russia has tried to preserve a sphere of influence in its historic “near abroad” (the republics of the former Soviet Union) while asserting itself on the world stage, often taking positions counter to Western or U.S. interests. Relations with Israel are friendly, though Russian weapons sales to states hostile to Israel are a source of friction. Human rights are generally respected, but a restrictive Religion Law, a brutal Chechnya campaign and a crackdown on media freedom have drawn international criticism. Modest economic growth since the 1998 financial crisis has resumed, largely as a result of rising oil prices. Economic reform has been halting.
Modern Russia has inherited a long history of official and popular anti-Semitism from its tsarist and Soviet precursors, which once included restrictions on locations of settlement, periodic pogroms, limitations on social mobility, and the denial of emigration rights. Anxiety about an uncertain future led to a mass exodus of Jews in the early 1990s. However, the rate of emigration has since stabilized, and Russia remains home to the world’s fourth-largest Jewish community. Since the Soviet collapse, a Jewish renaissance has generated countless organizations and activities across Russia. Challenges include intermittent state interference in Jewish communal affairs and the inconsistency of official responses to popular and political anti-Semitism.
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RUSSIAN FEDERATION
INTRODUCTION
HISTORY
Soviet Union & Cold War
Russian Federation
Chechnya
POLITICAL STRUCTURE
FOREIGN POLICY
Successor States (Near Abroad)
Middle East & Israel
DOMESTIC ISSUES
ECONOMIC SITUATION
JEWISH COMMUNAL LIFE & ANTI-SEMITISM
Soviet Jewry
Russian Jewish Renaissance
Anti-Semitism
Government Response
U.S. POLICY
The Russian Federation, nearly twice the size of the United States, covers the largest area of any nation in the world. Russia straddles Europe and Asia, bordering the Arctic Ocean, the Black Sea, the Caspian Sea, the Baltic Sea, and the Pacific Ocean, as well as Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, China, and North Korea. The territory of Russia occupies three-quarters of the former Soviet Union, and it inherited most of its industrial base, natural resources, military assets, international standing and obligations, and former Soviet population. This population, in particular, reflects a strong ethnic, religious and linguistic diversity.
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HISTORY
The establishment of the Russian State dates to 1481, when Ivan III proclaimed himself Tsar of all Russia. In the late-17th century, Tsar Peter the Great expanded the lands under his dominion, creating the Russian Empire. At its height in the mid-19th century, the Russian Empire incorporated the territories of present-day Ukraine, Belarus, Finland, the Baltics, parts of Poland, the Caucasus, Siberia, and much of Central Asia near the Caspian Sea.
Russia remained an authoritarian and powerful but relatively undeveloped state throughout the 19th century. Rooted in an agrarian economy, Russia did not abolish serfdom until 1861, much later than the rest of Europe. Industrialization did not begin until the late 1800s. The pressures of a rapidly modernizing economy and continued autocratic rule led to increasing public tensions and dissatisfaction by the turn of the century. The short-lived 1905 December Revolution reflected this period of tumultuous social and economic tumult.
In turn, Russia’s ill-fated involvement in World War I proved a major catalyst for the Communist Revolution. War pressures and mounting discontent culminated in the February 1917 popular rebellion against Tsar Nicholas II, who was forced to abdicate. A provisional government quickly fell to an October 1917 Bolshevik coup led by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. The new government then signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk on March 3, 1918, capitulating to the Germans and ending Russia’s participation in the war, though Russian territorial concessions were restored upon Germany’s eventual defeat.
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Soviet Union & Cold War
Civil war broke out in May 1918 across much of the newly acquired Soviet territory, between Bolshevik forces (the Red Army) and White Russian forces (a very loose coalition of monarchists, democrats, and Menshevik communists). Several outlying regions of the former Russian Empire (including the Baltic states, Ukraine, Belarus, Finland, and Poland) asserted independence in this period, further complicating the dynamics of civil war with additional forces fighting for independence. Despite the intervention of foreign powers, including the United States, the new Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was formally established under the 1922 Treaty of Union. The independence of Poland, Finland and the Baltic states was recognized in formal treaties, but much of modern-day Ukraine and Belarus were incorporated into the USSR after bloody civil war ended with the Soviet-Polish Treaty of Riga in 1921.
After Lenin’s death in 1924, Josef Stalin became leader of the Communist Party (1924-53). By 1934, he had absolute power over the State. During the 1930s and 1940s, Stalin’s policies of rapid industrialization, ruthless collectivization of agriculture, forced relocation of “suspect” populations, and mass purges of the Communist Party apparatus resulted in over 20 million deaths.
Moscow, August 23, 1939: Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov signing the secret Soviet-German non-aggression pact, as German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop and Soviet leader Josef Stalin watch
In August 1939, the USSR signed a non-aggression (“Molotov-Ribbentrop”) pact with Nazi Germany, carving up Eastern Europe. One month later, German forces invaded Poland from the west, and Soviet forces invaded Poland from the east. Within the brief period of Soviet occupation, Soviet forces deported over one million Poles to Siberia and executed more than 21,000 captured Polish officers at Katyn Forest. By August 1940, the Soviet Union had forcibly annexed the independent Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania; seized the regions of Bukovina and Bessarabia from Romania; and launched an unsuccessful invasion of Finland. Germany violated the non-aggression pact on June 22, 1941, when it attacked the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa. The USSR rose to play a central role in the Allied victory over Germany in World War II, suffering overwhelming casualties and losses. In the War’s aftermath, the Soviet Union consolidated its domination of Eastern Europe and assumed superpower status in the postwar world.
In the immediate postwar years, Stalin’s repressive policies continued. The western territories that formally came under the Soviet Union in 1945 (western Ukraine and Belarus, the Baltic states, Moldova, Bukovina, Transcarpathia) were subject to rigorous nationalization and collectivization. The anti-cosmopolitan campaign of 1948 targeted Jews and other “foreign” nationalities with relatives and other connections abroad. Finally, the 1953 Doctors’ Plot, which accused several prominent Jewish doctors of plotting to kill Stalin, and the heightened rumors of an imminent mass Jewish deportation to Siberia were averted by Stalin’s death in March 1953.
In response to the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) defense alliance by the United States and Western European powers in 1949, the Soviet Union and the socialist Eastern European states signed the Warsaw Pact in 1955 – giving the USSR de facto military and political control over the group.
Stalin’s successors maintained autocratic, if less brutal, rule while expanding Soviet strategic power. Nikita Khrushchev did formally rehabilitate many individuals and groups repressed during the Stalin regime in an attempt to distance himself from his ruthless predecessor and to ease ever so slightly the internal conditions for those living in the Soviet Union. From the 1950s until the late-1980s, however, the USSR competed with the U.S.-led West for global power and influence. The Soviet Union and the West vied for hegemony in developing countries like Korea, Vietnam and Afghanistan, and events such as the erecting of the Berlin Wall in 1961 heightened existing tensions.
Robert Knudsen /
John Fitzgerald Kennedy LibraryPresident John F. Kennedy at the Berlin Wall, June 1963
The U.S.-Soviet nuclear balance of power, with its risk of escalation, deterred direct conflict between the two superpowers, but crises such as the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis and the 1973 Middle Eastern (Yom Kippur) war occasionally brought the two sides to the brink of nuclear confrontation. In the Middle East, the Soviet Union supported Arab states while the United States generally assisted Israel.
Certain aspects of the U.S.-Soviet conflict did fuel advancements in science. A ‘space race’ between the Soviet Union and the United States generated the first satellite (the Soviet Sputnik), the first man in space (Yuri Gagarin), and the 1969 U.S. moon landing. The July 1975 Apollo-Soyuz mission provided a short-lived example of U.S.-Soviet space cooperation.
Soviets launch Sputnik 1
October 1957
Americans reach the moon
July 1969
Communist leaders maintained exclusive power throughout the Soviet period using ruthless and efficient organs of social control such as the KGB. Human rights violations remained rampant despite the signing of the 1975 Helsinki Final Act, an international accord that committed the USSR to respect human rights. Individual and cultural rights were deemed secondary to the needs of the Soviet people and the state. In this light, from the 1960s through the 1980s, anti-Jewish discrimination was widespread, and Soviet Jews increasingly struggled for the right to emigrate. Agitation to emigrate frequently resulted in still worse social and economic hardship, giving birth to the Refusenik movement among those who had been refused exit visas.
OSCE
Signing the Helsinki Final Act, 1975
By the late 1970s, critical problems inherent in the Communist political and economic system accelerated economic decline, even as Soviet military power peaked under Leonid Brezhnev. The 1979 invasion of Afghanistan further drained Soviet resources, while the economy continued to stagnate. The invasion embarrassed the Soviet Union internationally and triggered the U.S. boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games. Social and political unrest began mounting within Soviet satellite states in Eastern Europe through the 1980s. In particular, Lech Walesa’s Solidarity movement, an independent trade union, was formed in Poland in response to labor turmoil in 1980 and slowly gained enough momentum to challenge the Soviet-backed government in Warsaw.
The last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev (1985-91), charted a new political course with initiated reforms aimed at modernizing the USSR, including economic restructuring (perestroika) and a loosening of restrictions on political, social and cultural activity (glasnost).
Ronald Reagan Presidential Library
Reagan and Gorbachev in Reykjavik
Gorbachev also moved decisively to reduce tensions with the West. His 1986 Reykjavik summit meeting with U.S. President Ronald Reagan signaled a shift in relations between the two powers, including a move toward greater general cooperation generally, and specifically on disarmament and human rights.
The shift toward cooperation with the West became most obvious in 1990-91, when the USSR supported moves by the United Nations Security Council to reverse Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait. This move contradicted Moscow’s extensive record of military cooperation with Iraq and Iraq’s outstanding $70 billion debt to Moscow. Following the war, the Soviet Union supported UN Security Council Resolution 687, which in April 1991 established an arms inspection regime for Iraq. The Soviet Union also joined the United States in cosponsoring the October 1991 Madrid Middle East Peace Conference, which created the framework for peace negotiations in the decade to follow.
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Russian Federation
By mid-1991, Moscow’s global power and influence were in steep decline, punctuated the fall of the Berlin Wall in late 1989 and the abolishing of communist rule by Eastern-bloc states. On December 25, 1991, the Soviet Union formally dissolved following an unsuccessful August 1991 coup by Kremlin hardliners. Gorbachev resigned as President of the USSR, and Boris Yeltsin – a leading opponent of the coup and President of Russia (elected June 1990) – became President of the newly independent Russian Federation. These rapid and dramatic events brought an end to decades of internal repression and global Cold War. The other former Soviet republics declared their own independence and received international recognition.
The Russian Federation quickly entered a prolonged period of severe economic and political turmoil. An economic depression impoverished most Russians while political chaos nearly paralyzed their government. In October 1993, political conflict between the Russian Parliament (the Duma) and the Yeltsin government decayed into open warfare in Moscow as the Russian Army ruthlessly crushed an armed uprising by Parliament supporters. In December 1993, elections were held for a new Parliament and a new constitution was approved by national referendum, giving the Executive branch significantly enhanced powers.
While relations between the Russian Federation and the West had greatly improved since 1991, the outbreak of war in Yugoslavia in the early 1990s set Russia’s new leadership at odds with the West. Yugoslavia (“Land of the Southern Slavs”), created under the Soviet aegis in 1945 with six republics and two autonomous provinces, began splitting along ethnic and religious lines in 1990. Devastating wars resulted from independence movements in Bosnia (1993-1995) and Kosovo (1999). Russia identified strongly with the predominantly Orthodox Serbs, considering the territory of Yugoslavia within its sphere of influence and resented intervention by NATO and UN forces in the region. While Russia continued to support the Serb leadership in the 1990s, the NATO and Western powers viewed Milosevic’s Serb-aligned Yugoslav government as a precipitating cause of conflicts and the resulting atrocities known as ethnic cleansing.
Related to Russia’s difficulties with the West, NATO was openly courting former Warsaw Pact nations. Russian-NATO friction abated with the resolution of the Bosnian war but resumed with the increase of violence in Kosovo. In March 1999, Yeltsin expressed anger at NATO’s punitive bombings of Serbia, complaining that the United States and NATO were not treating Russia as a global power. NATO bombing ended in June 1999 with a NATO-Serb agreement, brokered in part by then-Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin of Russia. After Russian army units entered Kosovo in advance of NATO troops, Russian forces were given a zone of occupation inside Kosovo to be manned by 3,000 troops.
In May 1999, Yeltsin’s Communist Party opponents in the Duma began impeachment proceedings against him on five charges: the Soviet breakup, military assault on Parliament in 1993, starvation of the Russian people, the 1994-96 military campaign against the breakaway republic of Chechnya, and the deterioration of Russia’s military power. When the vote was taken, however, the impeachment failed on all counts.
The last years of Yeltsin’s tenure were tumultuous, with frequent cabinet rearrangements and the surprise firing of several Prime Ministers. Vladimir Putin, a former KGB agent and FSB (internal security) chief, was the last Prime Minister appointed by Yeltsin before his sudden resignation, on December 31, 1999. Putin assumed the dual role of Prime Minister and Acting President, until being popularly elected president in March 2000. His domestic popularity soared in the period leading up to the election, partly as a result of the renewed Chechnya offensive, partly as a result of strong manipulation and control of state-run media outlets. Presidential Press Service
May 2000: Former President Boris Yeltsin with President Putin at Putin's inaugurationreturn to headings
Chechnya
In 1994, President Yeltsin had first dispatched military forces to subdue the breakaway republic of Chechnya. By August 1996, following a brutal campaign, Moscow withdrew its troops in exchange for the separatists’ promise not to raise the issue of future political status until 2001. Russia again sent ground troops into Chechnya in September 1999, after a band of Chechen separatists invaded the neighboring Russian republic of Dagestan. Russian authorities also blamed Chechen terrorists for a series of apartment-bombings in Moscow that killed hundreds, although the rebels have consistently denied involvement.
Russian forces destroyed the Chechen capital of Grozny in late 1999, forcing rebels into the surrounding mountains of Ingushetia and Dagestan, generating 250,000 refugees. Despite Putin’s promise of a quick end to the war and his April 2001 declaration that the war was over, fighting continues in 2002 and 2003. International criticism of Russia’s conduct in Chechnya has been persistent, as international organizations cite widespread and systematic human rights abuses by the Russian forces, including revelations of civilian mass graves. Human rights organizations have criticized Russia’s failure to punish suspected war criminals among the Russian forces in Chechnya. Colonel Yuri Budanov, the highest-ranking officer to be tried for crimes against civilians in Chechnya, was found guilty by a Russian military court of raping and killing a villager, but a higher court overturned his conviction; a military retrial began in April 2003. Dozens of Russian soldiers have been prosecuted for such crimes since the beginning of the second Chechnya offensive, but international observers, including the EU, have called the effort inadequate.
Human rights groups have successfully lobbied in some cases to have known “problem” regiments removed from the region.
Russia’s war with Chechnya has also moved beyond the territories of Russia and Chechnya. Accusing Georgia of harboring Chechen rebels in the Pankisi Gorge (Georgian territory bordering the North Caucasus), Russia has threatened to rout out the rebels itself. It even resorted to indiscriminate bombing of the Pankisi Gorge in August 2002.
In October 2002, Chechen gunmen stormed a Moscow theatre during the performance of “Nord-Ost,” taking approximately 800 hostages. The rebels threatened to begin executing hostages unless Russia ended its campaign. They also mined and booby-trapped the theatre. Early on the second morning, Russian troops released a poisonous gas and stormed the theatre, killing most of the rebels without meeting any resistance. The effects of the opium-based Fentinol gas resulted in the hospitalization of over 650 of the hostages and, ultimately, the death of at least 117.
In September 2004, Chechen militants stormed a school in North Ossetia, taking 1,200 hostages. The militants demanded the withdrawal of troops from Chechnya and the release of militants arrested in Ingushetia. Russia refused to negotiate and stormed the school after a three-day standoff, after militants opened fire on children attempting to escape. The offensive resulted in the deaths of the hostage takers and 340 people, almost half of them children, and was widely criticized as a failure. In the aftermath, President Putin promised to conduct an internal probe and to implement new security measures.
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POLITICAL STRUCTURE
The Russian government consists of an executive, legislative and judicial branch. Under the 1993 Russian constitution, the President – popularly elected to four-year terms – holds the bulk of the power. In addition to appointing or firing the Prime Minister, the President may dissolve the Parliament, dismiss the Constitutional Court, and issue decrees that are not subject to legislative review. The government is headed by the Prime Minister and is composed of a cabinet of deputies, ministers and other agency heads, all appointed by the President.
President Vladimir Putin easily won election to a second term in March 2004, garnering 71% of the popular vote, from a 64% voter turn out. Western observers criticized the election as flawed, stating that “the election process failed to meet important commitments concerning treatment of candidates by the state-controlled media on a nondiscriminatory basis, equal opportunities for all candidates, and secrecy of the ballot.” [OSCE]
The legislative branch consists of a bicameral Federal Assembly with an upper house (the Federation Council) and a lower house (the State Duma). As part of Putin’s 2000 administrative reforms, Russia’s 89 republics, krais and oblasts were consolidated into seven federal districts. Regional chief executives and legislative leaders were removed from the 178-seat Federation Council, replaced with members chosen by regional legislatures. The Kremlin backed proposed legislation in late 2002 that would mandate that governors receive a 50 percent minimum of the vote in regional elections – if the minimum is not met, the President would appoint the governor directly.
56% of all registered voters participated in Duma elections held in December 2003. According to Russian law, half of the Duma’s seats are allocated by party lists, the other half by single-mandate districts. Only four parties of elected candidates garnered more than 5% of the required vote necessary to get their party lists into the Duma: President Putin’s United Russia Party (36% of the votes), the Communist Party (13%), the Liberal Democratic Party (11%), and the Homeland Alliance (9%). United Russia won a majority of the seats, making it the largest single party represented and enabling it to block or pass legislation as it sees fit.
The federal judiciary is divided into the Constitutional Court, the Supreme Court, and the Superior Court of Arbitration. Though the Constitutional court tended to serve as the court of final appeal for constitutional matters in the 1990s, as the Russian constitution does not clearly delineate the relative levels and roles of the federal courts, the three branches’ duties sometimes overlap. Judges are nominated for life by the President, subject to Federation Council approval. Jury trials are available in some regions.
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FOREIGN POLICY
Russian foreign policy has evolved substantially since 1992, from early cooperation and compliance with the West, to a more Moscow-centered realpolitik.
As the primary successor to the USSR, Russia inherited most Soviet-era rights and commitments in the international arena, including permanent membership in the United Nations Security Council, participation in the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), and numerous treaties and conventions. Russia continues to play a prominent role in Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts, on a par with the European Union.
Russia has also demonstrated concern about the status of 20 million ethnic Russians living in the “near abroad” – former republics of the Soviet Union. Russia’s early hopes of retying its former Soviet allies to Moscow through the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) were mostly dashed in the 1990s, as the successor states asserted more independent or Western-oriented foreign policies. While much of Russian foreign policy appears to be a reaction against Western primacy in regional and world affairs, its impetus can be linked to Russian aspirations for continued power and influence.
Successor States (Near Abroad)
Moscow’s relationship with the Soviet successor states in the Caucasus and Caspian regions continues to be contentious, especially since Russian interest in these lands, rich with natural resources and industry, remains strong. During the 1990s, Russia transferred roughly $1 billion worth of military hardware to Armenia, and Russia and Armenia integrated their air forces in 1999. President Putin paid a state visit to Azerbaijan in 2001 in an attempt to improve bilateral ties.
Since the breakup of the Soviet Union, Russia’s relationship with Georgia has experienced escalating tensions over the Georgian regions of Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and the Pankisi Gorge. Russia has supported aspirations of self-determination in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, while it has accused Georgia of harboring Chechen rebels in the Pankisi Gorge. While Russia has agreed to support cease-fires in Abkhazia and South Ossetia in exchange for Georgian concessions, it has resorted to aerial bombardments, most notably in August 2002, to rout out Chechen rebels from the Pankisi Gorge. In May 2005, Russia agreed to close its Georgian military bases by the end of 2008. In exchange, Georgia will work with Russia to set up a joint anti-terrorism center in Georgia.
Russia has concluded numerous individual agreements with the Central Asian states, increasing Russia’s visibility in the region through the transfer of military equipment and the coordination of military maneuvers. Russia is concerned about the spread of Islamic guerilla and terrorist groups that actively seek to overthrow authoritarian governments in the region, especially in Uzbekistan. It also seeks to maximize its share of Caspian Sea oil and gas, and to promote pipeline routes through its own territory.
The increased U.S. presence in Central Asia and Afghanistan since September 11, 2001, has altered the dynamic in this region. The United States received Russia’s consent to use Uzbekistan and other Central Asian states as a base for its military operations in Afghanistan. Still, the increase in U.S. activity and aid has potential consequences for Russian continued influence in the region. Russia - Presidential Press Service
Yalta, September 2003: Meeting of the Presidents of Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia and UkraineRussia’s ties with European successor states – Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine, and the Baltics – remain close, but at times tense. Belarus, ruled by the pro-Russian Aleksandr Lukashenko, is probably Russia’s closest ally. In December 1999, Russia and Belarus signed a treaty for a proposed confederated state. Relations with Moldova are fair, though the Moldovan government is not pleased with the continued presence of Russian troops in the separatist region of Transnistria. Russia continues to face international pressure to withdraw troops, as mandated by its obligations under the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe and by the 1999 OSCE summit in Istanbul, Turkey.
Disputes over gas deliveries and payment, and over sovereignty of the gas pipeline that crosses Ukrainian territory, have had a cooling effect on Russian-Ukrainian relations. The two countries are nevertheless closely tied by trade, history, and culture.
Though relations with the Baltic states are now cordial, this was not the case through much of the 1990s. The withdrawal of Russian troops, the status of the large populations of ethnic Russians in Latvia and Estonia and the issue of Russian transit through Lithuania to the Russian oblast of Kaliningrad, have all contributed to tension in the region. Most of these issues have since been settled, and Russia’s has stridently opposed Baltic accession to NATO, slated for 2004. Their accession to the European Union also exacerbated the question of visa-free travel to Kaliningrad.
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Middle East & Israel
Moscow HillelApril 2002 solidarity rally in front of Israeli Embassy in Moscow
Moscow has sought to assume much of the Soviet Union’s former role in the Middle East. However, the end of the Cold War has meant a drop in the Kremlin’s strategic presence and influence in the region. Through a revised post-Soviet strategy of marketing its military hardware and expertise to countries in the region, Moscow seeks to increase its currency reserves and reassert its regional role.
The Soviet Union recognized the State of Israel in May 1948, voted in favor of Israel’s membership in the UN the following year, and maintained regular diplomatic relations. Despite this early support for Israel, Soviet authorities suppressed Zionism at home and permitted few Soviet Jews to depart for Israel. By the late 1960s, the Soviet Union had shifted its loyalties to the Arab countries and especially Egypt. The “Six Day” War of 1967 precipitated a Soviet-Israeli break in relations that lasted through the mid-1980s.
Despite this official policy, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, in pursuit of trade and other agreements with the United States, the Soviet Union began allowing Jews to immigrate to Israel. This was largely in response to U.S. and international pressure that linked trade agreements to human rights and freedom of emigration, notably the 1975 U.S. law known as the Jackson-Vanik Amendment. The wave of mass emigration grew (with some dips) throughout the decade, reaching its peak in 1979; the number of “refuseniks,” or those refused the right to leave, was also growing. By 1980, however, it had returned to a trickle, due to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the subsequent decline in U.S.-Soviet political and economic relations.
The Soviet Union restored diplomatic relations with Israel in October 1991. In 1992, then-Foreign Minister Shimon Peres visited Moscow and met with his counterpart, Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev. In addition to exchange of ambassadors, Yitzhak Rabin became the first Israeli Prime Minister to pay an official visit to Russia, in 1994. Israeli then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Russian then-President Boris Yeltsin in 1997, and in the first visit by an Israeli President to Russia, then-President Moshe Katsav visited President Putin in Moscow in January 2001. In September of that year, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon visited President Putin, and in January 2002 invited Putin for a reciprocal visit. President Putin visited the Middle East and Israel in April 2005.
Russia, the United States, European Union and United Nations comprise the “Quartet” – which from 2000 has been working to bring about a Middle East peace agreement that would create a Palestinian state while protecting the integrity of the State of Israel.
Despite this official rapprochement, Israel and the United States have voiced increasing concern over Russian ballistic missile and technology transfers to Iran, Iraq, and Syria. Russia agreed in June 2003 to halt nuclear exports to Iran, pending that country’s acceptance of a more comprehensive inspections protocol that would allow unannounced visits to Iranian nuclear sites.
The 1990-2003 UN embargo on Iraq specifically prohibited arms shipments to Iraq, and Russia consistently supported a loosening of the embargo. Russia denied signing a $160 million arms transfer deal with Iraq in 1999.
Russia, France and Germany were opposed to U.S. pressure for a tougher UN Resolution on arms inspections in Iraq through late 2002 (UN Resolution 1441), and voiced strong opposition the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in early 2003. Tensions rose with allegations that Russia had sold night-vision and other sophisticated equipment to Iraq just prior to the outbreak of war, Russia’s protests over bombing that occurred near its embassy and concerns about an attack on a convoy of Russian diplomats – which remained open through April’s hostilities. However, relations have been more conciliatory since the end of fighting. In May 2003, Russia endorsing the lifting of UN sanctions on post-Saddam Iraq. By participating in the U.S.-led reconstruction of Iraq, Russia hopes to recoup the nearly $8 billion in debt and billions more in contracts made with the now-defunct Hussein regime.
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DOMESTIC ISSUES
Modern Russian society offers a stark contrast to Soviet-era control and institutionalized repression. Expansion of freedom across Russia’s 11 time zones, though still incomplete, has opened unimagined opportunities for individual and national achievement. The status of civil liberties and the future of pluralism, however, have been called into question since the late 1990s.
Human rights in Russia, particularly in terms of media freedom and the war in Chechnya, have become an issue of international concern under President Putin. The international community has condemned Russia’s handling of the war in Chechnya, citing grievous human rights violations, including rape, torture and mass executions on the part of Russia’s armed forces.
The Putin government has continued to centralize government power by limiting the authority of regional governors, reducing the number of political parties, curbing media critics, and challenging the independence of religious and human rights groups.
Freedom of religion has been threatened by the 1997 Russian Religion Law, which recognizes Russian Orthodoxy as the state religion and refers to Orthodoxy, Islam, Buddhism and Judaism as the “traditional” faiths. The law required that religious groups register with state or local authorities by December 31, 2000, and only those religions that were officially recognized in Russia for at least 15 years prior to the deadline acquired full legal status when registered. The government declined to extend the registration deadline, leaving a high volume of backlogged applications. Reportedly hundreds of organizations did not even attempt to register under the more restrictive law. By February 2000, at least one organization denied registration (an evangelical Christian group) was being threatened with liquidation. Soon after, the Moscow branch of the Salvation Army was threatened with liquidation orders and was evicted from two of its seven offices, following denial of its re-registration on the basis that it is a ‘military’ organization. The organization was successfully appealed the liquidation in 2002, but cases against other, smaller groups are pending throughout Russia.
Most Russian media sources are now controlled by the government, and President Putin carefully guards the image of himself and his administration that is presented to the Russian public and the world. Media coverage of the Chechen rebel hostage crisis in Moscow and its aftermath in October 2002, for example, was strictly controlled by the government.
Many observers believe that the Russian government’s case of fraud against Vladimir Goussinsky, former owner of Media-Most and the NTV network, was part of an attempt to muzzle media opposition by taking control of Russia’s only independent news network. The Kremlin took control of Gazprom and Gazprom-Media, a creditor and shareholder of NTV, installed American-born Boris Jordan as head of Gazprom-Media and NTV. NTV was still found to be too critical of the Chechen rebel hostage crisis, exposing sensitive information that the government sought to control. Putin publicly criticized NTV’s coverage, and Jordan was removed as head of Gazprom-Media in January 2003, in effect forcing him from his post as director of NTV.
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Economic Situation
Although rich in natural resources and industrial capabilities, Russia has struggled with economic instability since the breakup of the Soviet Union. So too it has inherited the social and economic costs of Soviet-era environmental pollution and collapsing infrastructure.
Russia’s economic recovery has been turbulent, affected by the Asian financial crisis of 1997, a growing debt problem, persistent structural weaknesses, and an unwelcoming climate for foreign investment. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other international institutions lent Russia a total of $22.6 billion during the summer of 1998 in an unsuccessful effort to prevent the August 1998 devaluation of the ruble and the ensuing economic crisis. Russian financial woes, in turn, impacted most of the other successor states and touched off worldwide sales of ruble-based assets.
Shai Franklin
Aerial view of Volgograd
Since 2000, Russia has experienced positive economic growth, aided in large part by the trebling of world oil prices during 1999-2000. Fiscal reforms enacted by the Putin government and improved enforcement of tax regulations may also have contributed to the rapid recovery of the Russian economy. GDP growth for 2001 was estimated at 5.5 percent. Putin signed into law a 13 percent flat income tax, boosting fiscal intake. He also approved balanced budgets for 2001, 2002 and 2003, and the government plans to do the same for the 2004-2006 budgets, provided the price of Urals crude stays above $20 per barrel. Experts rate the legal and fiscal reforms of 2000-2003 as largely inadequate to cushion Russia against renewed economic distress when oil prices inevitably fall. Deeper reform of civil and corporate governance is called for to encourage investment.
Unemployment declined to eight percent in 2002. However, a massive income gap persists between the majority of Russians and the upper class, with 30 percent living below the government’s official poverty level as of 2000. The minimum wage is projected to stay below subsistence level through 2004, despite repeated government attempts to raise wages and to pay pensions to pensioners or months of back salary to the many state employees.
Government social programs struggle to meet even the most basic needs of Russian citizens, and even the limited funding is often wasted by bureaucratic mismanagement. Governmental corruption and organized crime are widespread, and capital flight continues to siphon economic growth. During and following the 1998 crisis, Russia reverted to a barter system in order to meet debts. Since 1993, Russia’s Soviet-era external debt has been restructured three times, but it still owed over $100 billion as of January 2002. In 2000, the London Club restructured some of this debt, writing off $11.6 billion; $21 billion in debts to this group remains. Russia’s 2003 budget has allotted $3.5 billion in payments out of the approximately $35 billion owed to the Paris Club of creditors.
Russia’s main trading partners are Ukraine, Belarus, Germany and the United States, to whom it exports mostly gas, petroleum products, metals, and timber. Russia is also the primary trading partner for most of the Soviet successor states. Trade relations with Europe were boosted by the increase in world gas prices, with Europe buying a quarter of its gas from Russia as of late 2002, a rise of about five percent from 2001. The EU currently accounts for nearly 40 percent of Russia’s exports, and this figure may rise 10 percent with EU enlargement in 2004. Negotiations continue on Russia’s accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO), with conflicts over investment climate, market access and government subsidies slowing progress. WTO membership would open talks for a free trade area with the EU, but recent Russian moves to reform its energy sector prompted the EU to grant Russia “free market” status. The United States has similarly designated Russia a market economy.
In October 2002, Russia and Ukraine agreed to form an international consortium to manage the gas pipelines that pass through Ukrainian territory. Tensions over debt owed to Russia were eased in April 2003, when Ukraine agreed to pay $1.4 billion in eurobonds for gas it diverted in 1999-2000. Disputes over sovereignty of the Ukrainian network of pipelines continue.
Reform of the energy sector has been stymied since the mid-1990s, but is expected to resume due to the Russian government’s acquisition in March 2003 of a majority stake in Gazprom, the country’s energy monopoly. Gazprom subsidizes local gas prices, and pricing reform is slated to occur in 2005-2006.
The struggle between commercial monopolies and the Kremlin calmed somewhat under Putin’s leadership, though Russia’s “oligarchs” retain their iron grip on most of the country’s commercial infrastructure. Rapid privatization after the fall of the Soviet Union enabled well-connected Russian entrepreneurs to snap up state-owned properties at questionably low prices. Thus an oligarch class was created, to rival and at times dominate the Kremlin. Putin has attempted to subdue the oligarchs through a series of legal, economic and judicial reforms as well as outright legal intimidation. He initially pursued Vladimir Goussinsky and Boris Berezovsky, vocal critics of Kremlin policy, but largely allowed oligarchs to consolidate their power provided they reduce their interference in Kremlin politics, coinciding with an estimated 70 percent decrease in capital flight.
During August 2003, however, the Kremlin stepped up its interference, arresting a key ally of YUKOS oil magnate Michael Khodorovsky, after Khodorovsky gave financial support to an opposition party for the upcoming parliamentary elections. After a protracted trial, Khodorkovsky, was sentenced to 9 years in jail in May 2005, after being found guilty of fraud, embezzlement, and tax evasion. Russians were divided on the question of the trial’s legitimacy. The state’s case gained some popular support because they viewed Russian magnates as profiting from unscrupulous business deals. Human rights groups, businesses interests, and many Western countries viewed the trial as a politically motivated farce meant to perverse justice and to display the power that the state yields in the legal system.
Russia joined the World Bank in 1992. Since then, the Bank has approved over $12.5 billion for a wide range of projects to improve the public and private sectors, the environment, education, health and welfare. The Bank has already disbursed over $8 billion towards existing projects in collaboration with other international institutions, including the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and World Health Organization (WHO). The Bank’s Country Assistance Strategy (CAS) for 2003-5, projected at $600 million per fiscal year, aims to continue supporting Russian government policies of reform, while mitigating the social and environmental risks and expanding the benefits of reform to a wider population.
EBRD projects in Russia also continue to expand. Among the new projects, it has committed to an 18-year loan of $245 million for the completion of the St. Petersburg Flood Protection Barrier, as part of a EU program to tackle environmental problems in northwest Russia. EBRD projects promoting private sector development include the Russian Small Business Fund (RSBF), the KMB Micro-Credit Bank, and Regional Venture Funds (RVF’s).
IMF-funded projects in Russia have focused on significant structural and fiscal reforms. Since its initial membership in 1992, the Russian government has withdrawn over $11.3 billion and currently owes the IMF nearly $5 billion. The IMF-Russia relationship went through a period of tension when the IMF suspended its aid to Russia in 1999. That decision followed allegations that the Russian Central Bank had diverted hundreds of millions of IMF dollars – targeted for debt repayment and fiscal reform- to private offshore accounts. Since that time, Russia has worked to rebuild trust with the IMF. It has begun to pay off its loans but has not resumed IMF borrowing. Despite the drop in oil prices in 2001-02, Russia hopes to avoid drawing on further IMF credits.
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Jewish Communal Life & Anti-Semitism
As a result of the three divisions of Poland among the Prussian, Austro-Hungarian and Russian empires in the 17th and early 18th centuries, the Russian Empire became home to the world’s largest Jewish community. From the time of their entry into the Empire, Jews have suffered from discriminatory laws, including severe limitations on where they could live, and periodic eruptions of murderous violence, known by their Russian name, “pogroms.”
Soviet Jewry
Despite the active participation of many Jews in the Bolshevik cause, prominent Jewish intellectuals eventually became targets of state paranoia. Although Stalin encouraged Jewish solidarity in an effort to gain American support for the Soviet war effort, he would soon use this as evidence of an international conspiracy. In 1952, Stalin had a number of leading Jewish cultural figures executed in what became known as the “Night of the Murdered Poets.” A campaign against economic crimes and an anti-cosmopolitan campaign also targeted Jews. In 1953, a group of Jewish doctors were arrested on false charges of having murdered two leading Soviet politicians and having intended to kill several prominent military figures, an affair known as the “Doctors’ Plot.” Only Stalin’s March 1953 death saved the doctors from an untimely death. While life threats generally subsided under Khrushchev, a new campaign emerged to stamp out Jewish religion and culture. Jews were systematically excluded from many professions and institutes of higher learning, and many remaining synagogues were closed. In the early 1960s, a disproportionate number of Soviet Jews were imprisoned or executed during a widely publicized campaign against “economic crimes.”
In 1967, in response to early Soviet Jewry advocacy efforts, the Soviets permitted limited Jewish emigration. The June 1967 Six-Day War brought this emigration to a virtual halt. At the same time, Israel’s victory sparked a reawakening of Jewish consciousness and pride among Soviet Jews. The harsh sentences meted out in 1970 to 11 would-be airline hijackers (all but two of them Jewish) attempting to escape the Soviet Union – gave new impetus to the international Soviet Jewry advocacy movement.
Bill Aron
This movement involved the coordinated efforts of diaspora Jewry, Israel, human rights activists and Western governments, in concert with dissidents in the Soviet Union. Refuseniks, or those agitating for emigration who had been refused exit visas from the Soviet government, lost their jobs and social status and were vulnerable to KGB surveillance and even imprisonment. Thousands of U.S. citizens visited the “refuseniks,” and in the 1980s U.S. officials went so far as to host Passover Seders for Jewish activists at the Moscow Embassy.
In conjunction with improved relations with the West during the era of détente, Jewish emigration increased in the years 1971-73. However, in August 1972, the Soviet government instituted a new “diploma tax” for emigrants, prompting the U.S. Congress to pass the Jackson-Vanik Amendment to the Trade Bill of 1974, which prohibited the extension of most-favored nation (MFN) status to non-market countries that restrict emigration. (MFN has since been renamed “normal trade relations.”)
Emigration increased once again in 1977-79, reaching a high of over 51,000 in 1979. During the late 1970s, however, a new round of prosecutions of Jewish activists also took place, with the show trials of such prominent activists as Anatoly (Natan) Sharansky, Yosef Begun, the Slepaks and Ida Nudel, and the interrogations and arrests of countless others.
After the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the consequent deterioration in Soviet-U.S. relations, Jewish emigration from the USSR dropped significantly, reaching a low of 896 in 1984. In December 1987, 250,000 demonstrators converged on the National Mall in Washington, calling on Gorbachev to open the gates of emigration. The onset of glasnost and perestroika eventually brought dramatic changes in Soviet policies toward the Jewish minority. Emigration increased substantially, reaching a level of more than 185,000 in 1990. A total of nearly 600,000 emigrated from 1989 to 1992, with most going to Israel.
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Russian Jewish Renaissance
Russian Jewry ranks as the fourth-largest Jewish community in the world, behind those of Israel, the United States, and France. About half live in Moscow and St. Petersburg; the other half live in some 60 communities throughout the Russian Federation. Since 1990, a dramatic Jewish revival has been underway as communities reestablish religious, social and cultural life. Efforts on behalf of the educational and welfare needs of the Jewish community proceed, against a backdrop of continued aliyah.
President Putin has made several gestures of support toward the Russian Jewish community, expressing sympathy for Jews and a commitment to oppose anti-Semitism, making public appearances at community events, and meeting with prominent Israeli and Jewish leaders.
Speaking at the September 2000 dedication of Moscow’s new Jewish Community Center, the President stressed that the revival of Russian Jewish life “is an integral part of the general revival of folk traditions and spiritual values in Russia. . . [this] spiritual revival is unthinkable without understanding that Russian culture is a combination of traditions of all the people who have lived in Russia for centuries.”
There are now countless Jewish institutions in Russia. These include Russia-wide and international organizations, local community centers, religious organizations, synagogues and burial societies, educational institutions, research groups, aliyah and emigration bureaus, theaters, cultural societies, libraries, sports clubs, youth groups, veterans groups, welfare and charity organizations, pensioners’ clubs, and mass media.
Conference of CIS community leaders and Jewish journalists, March 2003
Federation of Jewish Communities
of the CIS
American Jewish leaders meeting with President Putin at the Kremlin, June 2003The focal point of the Jewish renaissance is Moscow. The 100-year-old Moscow Choral Synagogue and the Marina Roscha Synagogue in Moscow have been key centers of Jewish activity, accommodating and organizing many religious, academic and social programs. A wide array of Jewish umbrella organizations operate in Russia, including the Russian Jewish Congress (REK), Congress of Jewish Religious Communities of Russia (KEROOR), Federation of Jewish Communities of the CIS, World Congress of Russian Jewry, Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia (FEOR), Vaad (Association of Jewish Organizations and Communities of Russia), Moscow Jewish Community, and Jewish Association of St. Petersburg (JASP).
Shai Franklin
Synagogue and Holocaust Memorial at Moscow's Victory Park
The REK built a new synagogue and Holocaust memorial in Moscow’s Victory Park in 1999, and the September 1998 dedication ceremony was attended by then-President Yeltsin, then-Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin and Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov. REK supports numerous projects throughout Russia, publishes a magazine on anti-Semitism (Diagnosis), has established close working relations with Jewish religious organizations, and addresses many aspects of Jewish communal life. Vladimir Goussinsky resigned as REK President in March 2001 and was succeeded by Leonid Nevzlin. Following Nevzlin's own resignation, veteran community leader Yevgeny Satanovsky was elected President.
Building on its extensive record of Soviet-era activities behind the Iron Curtain, the Chabad Lubavitch movement today operates in conjunction with the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia (FEOR), led by the Chief Rabbi of Russia, Berel Lazar. Founded in November 1999, FEOR is affiliated with the Federation of Jewish Communities of the CIS, led by its President, Lev Leviev. It represents 84 communities throughout Russia and sponsors a range of programs, including orphanages, humanitarian assistance, schools, summer and holiday camps, community centers, and the distribution of religious articles such as menorahs and matzos. In September 2000, FEOR opened the new Moscow Jewish Community Center at Marina Roscha, with President Putin in attendance. Three Lubavitch yeshivas operate in Russia: in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Nizhny Novgorod.
The Vaad (Association of Jewish Organizations and Communities of Russia), founded under glasnost in 1989, has been active in an effort to promote Jewish community establishment of National Cultural Autonomies (NCAs). These autonomies, established under a 1996 law, would ensure government support to communities that work within the framework of the law. Jewish communities in St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk and a few other cities have already worked to establish NCAs.
Lesley Weiss
The Jewish University in Moscow, established by Yevgeny Satanovsky in 1991, operates in conjunction with Moscow’s Open University, and recently established a Center of Jewish Studies and Jewish Civilization at Moscow State University. Also in Moscow, the Maimonides State Jewish Academy has about 40 students, and the Russian-American Center for Jewish & Biblical Studies – affiliated with the Russian State University for Humanities – educates about 50. In St. Petersburg, the Petersburg Institute for Jewish Studies has been operating since before 1992, and helps coordinate the activities of the Center of Biblical & Hebrew Studies at St. Petersburg State University. Together, these schools educate 400-500 students in higher Jewish studies.
The Euro-Asian Jewish Congress (EAJC) links Jewish umbrella organizations throughout the former Soviet region and Asia, and coordinates a range of education and welfare programs.
American and Israeli assistance organizations are also active in Russia. The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC/ “Joint”) has established offices in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Kazan and Omsk in an effort to strengthen Jewish communal life and meet social welfare needs. Since before the Soviet breakup, JDC has provided basic and ongoing assistance to needy Jews across Russia; cultivates educational, cultural and religious life; and establishes community centers, libraries, and other communal facilities. The Jewish Agency for Israel (JAFI/ “Sochnut”) operates, with local cosponsors, in 62 local offices across Russia, holding classes for potential olim and coordinating aliyah.
Hineni, an active Reform congregation in Moscow, is supported by the World Union for Progressive Judaism (WUPJ). The World Union maintains its Russian headquarters in Moscow, where it has established an Institute for Modern Jewish Studies (“Machon”) that trains Jewish leaders for other communities. The World Union, active since 1991, works with 29 progressive congregations in Russia as well as over 60 communities in other successor states.
The Moscow Institute for Jewish Studies, an educational center led by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, operates seminars and teacher-training, as well as various outreach projects. Similar programs under the auspices of Rabbi Steinsaltz operate throughout Russia.
ORT, a worldwide technical-training organization founded in St. Petersburg in 1880, returned to Russia shortly after the Soviet breakup. It has established Jewish schools and technological upgrades for other Jewish resource centers in cities across Russia, including in Kazan, Yekaterinburg, Samara, Moscow, and St. Petersburg.
Hillel operates 16 centers in Russia, as part of the worldwide network of the Hillel Foundation for Jewish Campus Life. Activities include holiday celebrations, youth leadership seminars and cultural programs for students and young adults. Hillel oversees Birthright youth missions to Israel, in cooperation with the Federation of Jewish Communities.
Project Kesher runs centers in Russia, offering leadership seminars and support systems for those combating domestic violence and trafficking in women. Programs also include mother/daughter retreats, peer training, and Jewish educational and holiday experiences.
In 2000, the Anti-Defamation League opened a Moscow office to monitor anti-Semitism and coordinate effective responses through community and other organizations. The Anti-Defamation League has also developed initiatives to sensitize and train police and other law enforcement personnel.
In St. Petersburg, the Jewish Association of St. Petersburg (JASP) coordinates the activities of various Jewish public and cultural groups in Russia’s second-largest Jewish community. JASP has 10 member organizations, including the Jewish University of St. Petersburg, Ami newspaper, and the Jewish Welfare Society.
White House photoU.S. President George W. Bush visiting St. Petersburg's Grand Choral Synagogue, May 2002
Also enhancing Jewish life in St. Petersburg are the Grand Choral Synagogue—one of the largest synagogues in the world, Tifereth Israel Day School, Sunday schools, Migdal Ohr Yeshiva High School, and the Jewish Cultural Society. The JDC-sponsored Hesed Avraham program uses hundreds of local volunteers to supply aid and medical assistance to thousands of elderly Jews in the city. The Israeli organization Yad Sarah, which also assists the sick and disabled, operates a joint program with JASP.
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Anti-Semitism
In 2002, the number of anti-Semitic incidents in Russia increased over previous years. Moreover, these incidents grew more violent in nature, at times, incorporating terrorist methods. Signs with anti-Semitic slogans have been posted along highways and city streets, often carrying real or fake explosives. Other forms of anti-Semitism include attacks on synagogues, cemetery desecrations, threats and attacks on Jewish persons, anti-Semitic publications, and the failure of courts to prosecute those inciting anti-Semitism and ethnic violence.
In May-July of 2002, eight anti-Semitic signs with real or fake bombs were prominently posted throughout Russia – in Moscow, Voronezh, Krasnoyarsk, St. Petersburg, Primorie, Tomsk, and the Kemerovo region. The first and best-publicized of these events occurred near Moscow, when 28-year-old Tatiana Sapunova attempted to remove an anti-Semitic sign from a Moscow highway. Her action set off an explosion and she sustained serious injuries. In Tomsk as well, an explosion occurred, injuring one of two individuals attempting to remove an anti-Semitic inscription from the side of the highway.
Synagogue attacks and cemetery desecrations in 2002 included an explosion near a synagogue in Krasnoyarsk, anti-Semitic graffiti on the walls of a synagogue in Perm, vandalism and arson of a synagogue in Rostov-on-Don, a false bomb threat to the Marina Roscha synagogue in Moscow, and the destruction of a Jewish cemetery and Holocaust memorial in the village of Vyazovenki, near Smolensk. In February 2003, the same synagogue in Krasnoyarsk was desecrated with anti-Semitic graffiti.
While the number of attacks against Jews did not rise in 2004, they are becoming increasingly violent in nature. In Moscow, Ulyanovsk, Samara, and Voronezh, prominent and less known Jews alike have been the victims of threats and attacks.
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Government Response
The official government response to recent anti-Semitic incidents and messages has been inconsistent. Despite words of condemnation, little action has been taken against those engaging in anti-Semitic behavior. While criminal cases have been initiated for the above-mentioned poster attacks, law enforcement agencies have refused to label most of these acts as anti-Semitism, choosing instead to label them as hooliganism or terrorism. Only pressure from the media and the public has forced law enforcement to reclassify some of these crimes as acts of ethnic hatred.
Similarly, the government and judiciary have proved ineffective at prosecuting publications for anti-Semitic content. In several legal proceedings filed against the publishers of anti-Semitic literature, the defendants have been found not guilty of inciting ethnic and religious hatred. In some cases, like that of the Voronezh newspaper Bereg, there are direct links between the newspaper publishing anti-Semitic tracts and the local government administration.
In general, public figures espousing anti-Semitic and xenophobic messages are rarely censured or denounced. The Russian National Unity (RNE) movement, led by former Duma Member Albert Makashov, has led a campaign of aggressive anti-Semitism, and many of its adherents hold political office in Russia. Other prominent politicians – including Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov, Liberal Democratic Party leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky, Duma Security Committee Chairman Viktor Ilyukhin, and former Krasnodar Governor Nikolai Kondratenko – have made repeated anti-Semitic statements with few repercussions from the government or their fellow elected officials.
In terms of restitution, the Russian government has returned a small number of the Jewish buildings and synagogues previously confiscated under Soviet rule. The synagogue in Omsk, the largest in Siberia, was re-dedicated in May 1996 and the Russian government returned 61 Torah scrolls to the Jewish community in May 2000. In March 2001, however, Prime Minister Kasyanov ordered the government’s Restitution Commission to cease activities, ongoing since 1993. Since then, 16 religious books from the vast Schneerson Library were returned to a Lubavitch-run synagogue in Moscow in December 2002.
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U.S. Policy
During the 1990s, the U.S. Government made strenuous efforts to encourage Russian economic development and privatization, ensure continued arms reductions, and integrate Russia into Western structures. Russia has become a member of the North Atlantic Cooperation Council (NACC), is on its way to becoming a full member of the G-8 nations and hopes to join the World Trade Organization (WTO). In addition to these current and potential economic and political coalitions, Russia has cooperated with NATO on several occasions relating to regional security, non-proliferation, peacekeeping, and counter-terrorism. The formation of the NATO-Russia Council in 2002 reflects this increased cooperation.
The reduction of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons has been a continual focus of U.S.-Russian relations and treaties. The START II treaty, ratified by the U.S. Senate in 1996 and the Russian Duma in 2000, updates the parameters for eventual nuclear disarmament and promotes nuclear non-proliferation. Both governments hope to formulate a START III treaty to take effect before START II expires in 2007.
George Bush LibraryPresidents George Bush and Boris Yeltsin signing START II Treaty, January 1993
The United States has developed specific programs, such as the Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) Initiative, to support the goals of nuclear disarmament and nuclear security in Russia. Congress appropriated $1.13 billion in 2002 to CTR programs, administered through the U.S. Department of Defense (also known as “Nunn-Lugar”). Since 1992, these programs have deactivated over 6,000 Soviet missile warheads, destroyed over 1,400 nuclear missiles and over 400 silos, and sealed nearly 200 nuclear test holes and other sites in Russia and the successor states. In a separate program, the U.S. Department of Energy – since 1994 – has already purchased over 175 tons of highly enriched uranium (equivalent to approximately 7,000 warheads) and converted it to reactor fuel for commercial use; nearly 325 tons remain.
Defense Department/U.S. Navy1996: Dismantling Russian ballistic submarine under Cooperative Threat Reduction
President Bush has ensured the release of another $450 million for 2003 to secure and disarm nuclear, biological and chemical weapons in Russia. The U.S. National Academies and the Russian Academy of Sciences began working in 2003 on a joint project to reduce the risk posed by unsecured nuclear materials in Russia.
The United States has also contributed substantial funds to encourage the continued involvement of Russia in the advancement of science and technology. In particular, the United States has financed Russia’s participation in the U.S-led international partnership to build the International Space Station (ISS). In this context, Russia has received $800 million in total since 1993. The Nuclear Cities Initiative (NCI), established in 1998 by the United States and Russia, seeks to transition Russian scientists and engineers to peaceful research and applications, and to diversify the economies of Russian cities whose sole Soviet industry was nuclear development. The U.S. Department of Energy administered $21 million for the initiative in 2002.
U.S. policy toward Russia has remained committed to democracy, transparency and good governance, though funding for some programs was cut for 2004. The Russian Democracy Act of 2002 authorized $51.5 million in new funding for programs supporting the rule of law, independent media, anti-corruption, civil society, human rights, and religious freedom. Funding authorized under the Freedom Support Act for 2003 included $50 million for support of independent media sources in conjunction with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) and Voice of America to promote democracy, market openness, the rule of law and human rights throughout the Russian Federation. The total budget allocation under the Freedom Support Act for 2003 is $148 million. However, the 2004 budget would reduce Freedom Support Act funding substantially, to $73 million.
Other U.S. programs geared toward democracy-building in Russia include the Russian Leadership Program (now called the Open World Program) administered by the U.S. Library of Congress. Initiated in 1999, Open World has hosted more than 5,000 Russian delegates engaged in political and legal careers by linking them to their counterparts in the United States, promoting themes such as economic development, federalism, education reform, and the rule of law.
Russia thus continues to receive billions of dollars in aid and loans from the United States, other Western nations, and lending institutions committed to supporting economic reform and civil society building in Russia. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) allocation for funds in Russia totaled approximately $170 million for 2001, $158 million for 2002, and $148 million for 2003. USAID-funded projects have addressed issues ranging from social welfare, health care and education reform, to banking, pension and land reform. USAID, however, plans to “graduate” Russia from its programs by 2005.
Despite this extensive economic support, Russia and the United States do not always agree on issues regarding domestic and international policy. Russia firmly opposed the U.S. withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty in December 2001 and has objected to U.S. proposals for a National Missile Defense (NMD) system. Moreover, it vocally criticized the characterization of Iraq, Iran, and North Korea as the “axis of evil” by the Bush administration in 2002. This opposition carried through the UN Security Council debate leading up to Operation Enduring Freedom in Iraq, exposing the deepest rift in U.S.-Russian relations since Putin took office.
Ron Sachs /CNPRussian Jewish leaders meeting with Senator Gordon Smith (R-OR) in U.S. Capitol, May 2001
The United States – under both the Clinton and Bush administrations – has been critical of Russia’s military campaign in Chechnya and the growing threats to free speech and an independent media in Russia, relating to reporting on Chechnya in particular. Washington expressed concern in the cases of NTV founder Vladimir Goussinsky and Radio Liberty reporter Andrei Babitsky. Babitsky was kidnapped in Chechnya, detained without notice for several weeks by Russian forces, and eventually tried, convicted, and released on charges of using false documents. More recently, Washington has expressed concern about the removal of Boris Jordan from the head post of NTV. In the fall of 2002, President Putin also stripped Radio Liberty of its special privileges for reporting in Russia—a response to its critical broadcasting, often in minority languages, in the North Caucasus. The Kremlin’s claim that, since September 2001, Russians and Americans are fighting the same enemy—whether in Chechnya or Afghanistan—has met with limited success.
Washington has been concerned about the proliferation of Russian military technology and materiel to Iran, Iraq, and other “rogue states.” U.S. proliferation fears were compounded by the 2001 visit to Moscow by Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, when Putin agreed to sell additional weaponry to Iran. Russia agreed in June 2003 to halt further nuclear fuel shipments to Iran, and has been developing plans to buy spent nuclear fuel from Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant, to prevent their development of nuclear weapons.
Congress has held hearings and passed numerous resolutions on Chechnya, press freedom, the 1997 Religion Law, anti-Semitism, weapons proliferation and other Russia-related concerns. President Bush announced his intention in November 2001 to work for Russia’s “graduation” from the Jackson-Vanik Amendment, and the United States has certified Russia as a “market economy.” Congress saw little to graduate Russia during most of 2002-03, however, amid poultry and other trade disputes as well as uncertainty regarding the terms for Russia’s eventual WTO ascension.
In late 2000 and early 2001, U.S.-Russian relations were beset by a series of espionage cases, beginning with the uncovering of FBI agent Robert Hanssen’s long-term and high-level spying for Moscow and the resulting large-scale reciprocal expulsion of Russian and American diplomats. This was followed by the Russian detentions of American businessman Edmond Pope on espionage charges and of American Fulbright scholar John Tobin initially on drug-related and then espionage charges. Both Pope and Tobin were later released and returned to the United States.
After over a year of leveling accusations of incompetence and espionage against Peace Corps volunteers, and having denied them visa extensions, Russia announced the official expulsion of the Peace Corps in December 2002. Acknowledging the benefits of the Peace Corps’ 12-year stay there, the Russian government explained that the country’s new economic and political situation no longer requires such assistance.
Despite continued disagreement on Chechnya, NATO expansion and the Iraq crisis, the United States and Russia have continued to collaborate on significant counter-terrorism efforts and have participated in several summits. Bush and Putin held several bilateral summits: Ljubljana, Slovenia, in June 2001; Washington in November 2001; Moscow and St. Petersburg in May 2002; St. Petersburg in June 2003; and at Camp David in September 2003. During these meetings, the two Presidents have discussed issues of security, counter-terrorism, the reduction of nuclear arms, and other international issues.
St. Petersburg, June 2003: Presidents Bush and Putin exchanging the instruments of ratification for the treaty reducing strategic offensive forces
Russia - Presidential Press Service
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