TITLE: PRESS CONFERENCE WITH STATE DUMA DEPUTY SERGEI KOVALYOV

(PETROVKA, 26/2, 14:10, APRIL 18, 2000)

SOURCE: FEDERAL NEWS SERVICE

Moderator: Good day, our guest today is Sergei Adamovich Kovalyov, a State Duma deputy, a prominent human rights activist. We will speak today about relations between Russia and the world community. And my first question to you, Sergei Adamovich, is the following one: What is your perception of Russia's relations with the West, what are your forecasts?

Kovalyov: Good. I do think that there is no need for a statement. It is best to answer questions. For openers I will only say the following. In our country, mostly in Moscow, in big cities we have a continuing discussion. Most diverse points of view are being presented. But if we are to roughly divide them, they form two big groups, two classes.

Some people very vigorously and categorically state that Russia must have and will have its own road of development with all the ensuing consequences. This takes us to such claims that Russia defies understanding, that there is no common yardstick for Russia.

The other trend is much less aggressive but quite stubborn nonetheless. In the past these people would have been described as pro-Westerners. The discussion between Slavophiles and pro-Westerners began one or two centuries ago. This is a constant argument.

I must say that the arguments used in this debate are threadbare ones. What we did not have in the past was aggressiveness and hostility in mutual relations. Now these are two irreconcilable camps.

I would like to define my position at once. I am a convinced pro-Westerner. I will now explain this. It means the following. No specific national paths of development exist in the world. In other words, there are national specificities in Russia, Belgium, Luxembourg, China and all other countries.

But everything boils down to the fact that there is only one species -- homo sapiens. We are a single biological species, we are single social phenomenon. And humanity depends on much more general laws of development than it follows from ethnic belonging.

This is a fundamental part of my perception of the world. You mentioned the problem of Russia and the world community. Attempts to set ourselves against the world community have a long history. In the 19th century Russian confrontation with the rest of the world was largely only on the level of the Black Hundreds. On a higher cultural level the attitude could be described as pan-Slavism. This is a broader category.

But now in the person of our new Russian ideologues we are dropping lower and lower to the Black Hundreds level. This is a very dangerous anachronism. Meantime humanity is no longer dreaming of becoming a single humanity, it has already become such. The world has become smaller, more interdependent and intertwined. Therefore, no local solutions exist for diverse acute and difficult problems. All important problems are becoming or have already become global ones. This means that we must seek partnership and general rules of the game. We have become a single mankind but permit ourselves to live according to totally different sets of rules. As a result, traditional policy becomes a dangerous anachronism.

This danger is fraught with great bloodletting, perhaps even with collective suicide. The road leading out of this has long been outlined. These are universal values and universal concepts, universal rules of the game, if you like. I will permit myself a slightly challenging expression -- a new world order.

This is becoming the key task of the 21st century. Will we be able to solve this task? Will we be able to put in place this order that will be common for all? A just order that does not put any constraints on our freedoms, including national freedoms. If we succeed, we will survive. If not, I do not know who will be the first to start. Perhaps, India or Pakistan, these new members of the nuclear club, perhaps, they will want to settle their scores in a hotter way than usual. Or some Saddam Hussein will get such a possibility. There are always many of those who are capable of such things.

In its so-called internal problems, but in reality far from internal problems like that of the Northern Caucasus, Russia sets itself against the world community and thus engages in a very dangerous game. And the world community is engaged in a very dangerous game by refusing to support democratic tendencies in Russia and to put pressure against a barbaric aggression and barbaric treatment of law and human life.

We need badly both, support and pressure. I think that is one of the fundamental problems we will face in the forthcoming century.

I think I'd better stop here. Let's hear your questions.

Q: I want to ask you about Chechnya. How would you comment on the creation yesterday of an independent commission to investigate human rights violations by a former Duma deputy and presidential candidate, Pamfilova? I understand that it is led by Krasheninnikov who is the chairman of the Duma Legislation Committee. It also includes Pamfilova and several other prominent people.

Kovalyov: Was Ella Alexandrovna elected to the Duma?

Q: I said a former Duma member.

Kovalyov: I always welcome the creation of any independent commission. Only the experience of creating such commissions, including on Chechnya, which is not little, is sad. Do you remember Govorukhin's commission?

If we could be absolutely sure that this is really an independent commission or at least a commission consisting of people who do understand what an independent commission is, it would be fine. But I am afraid that this will be a remake of Govorukhin's commission.

By the way, I would like to remind you that, if I am not mistaken, six members of Govorukhin's commission -- I remember some of them: Boris Andreyevich Zolotukhin, Viktor Leonidovich Sheinis, then, I think, Arbatov and somebody else, I don't remember the names -- refused to sign the conclusion made by Govorukhin's commission which was far from being independent.

Nevertheless, no special opinion was published and no one paid this attention. I remember several more commissions created by the legislative body of Russia. Do you remember this commission that was supposed to investigate the sad events of the fall of 1993? This commission ceased to exist quite fast when an unspoken agreement had been reached to release both GKChP members and those who ended up in jail after October 1993 events. On the strength of this amnesty for everybody and everything, they reached an agreement to stop all investigations, both of August 1991 and of October 1993. Such a swap.

As for the names you mentioned, I and Pavel Vladimirovich, if I am not mistaken, Krasheninnikov belong to the Union of Right-Wing Forces. He is a lawyer and it would seem that it's his job. But I have some doubts dating back to his work as Justice Minister. It was at that time when he was the Justice Minister that his Ministry stop registering some public organizations, namely, human rights organizations. On what grounds, you would ask me. I will tell you how ministry officials explained this.

They said, the protection of human rights is the prerogative of state bodies, and it's none of your business. The maximum of what you can do is to help state bodies protect the rights of the individual. This is how they explained their refusal to register public organizations. This story is still going on.

As regards Ella Alexandrovna, as far as I remember, she has held all kinds of positions, from Soviet and Komsomol to vigorously democratic ones. Her latest statements concerned Grigory Yavlinsky and whether or not he had had a facelift. And she has also spoken very eloquently and energetically with regard to Poland. Do you remember this incident when Russian flags were tramped in Poznan? An act of hooliganism. As a matter of fact, different countries consider such acts differently.

The US, a country which is not deprived of ethnic feelings and patriotic sentiments, has even adopted a special legislative decision to introduce a norm which says that the burning of or an insult to the national flag should not be considered as an insult to the US state dignity and should be considered as an expression of protest.

One way or another, this form of expressing one's protest is unpleasant and uncivilized. But Ella Alexandrovna did not condemn the hooligans. She pursed her lips and said, "what right does this Poland have to insult our state dignity?" It's very unpleasant: this Poland, this Chechnya.

If I were an independent expert, I would remember more often that some Polish officers were executed in Katyn, that this Poland was forced into obeyance many times and by not quite legal means. There are a lot of things to remember. One can always find those episodes in relations between countries that benefit him. But others would remember Minin and Pozharsky and the resistance to the Western offensive in which Poland played not the last role.

It is not good to set up independent commissions in which it is easy to expect such dependent and predictable emotions. Perhaps, I am giving you too long an answer to your question, but, in short, I do not have any big hopes.

You know, in the place of the people who set up independent commissions I would look around and try to understand if we really have people who are really informed about the Northern Caucasus, about what happened there, people who have been at least in some way independent during the events there. But this is something that our parliament is not going to do.

Q: France Presse. In continuation of the previous question. Is the problem that this is a purely Russian commission, that it does not include international observers who would be more independent?

Kovalyov: I think that international observers are always useful in such matters. This cannot be qualified as interference in internal affairs for the simple reason that human rights are no longer the internal affair of any state, this principle is now unchallenged in the world. Moreover, this principle was very vigorously proclaimed in September 1991 in no other place than Moscow, at the OSCE summit on the human dimension.

I remember that very well. I was appointed co-chairman of the then Soviet delegation. Together with the German delegation we very vigorously upheld precisely that principle. Human rights are not an internal affair.

Well, that is why international experts are often employed as independent experts in world practice. This does not preclude the creation of national commissions, though an effort must be made to ensure their independence. But in our country such commissions are more or less appointed. And when the authorities appoint an independent commission you realize that it becomes dependent.

This is not the first example of this. During the past war another Kovalyov, Krasheninnikov's predecessor in the Justice Ministry, also headed an independent commission. Govorukhin, too, headed one.

Q: News agencies reported today Maskhadov's reaction to the creation of this commission. A very positive reaction. More than that, he agreed to negotiate with this commission. Would you care to comment on this?

Kovalyov: I think Maskhadov did a sensible thing. If this commission and the more so the federal authorities want to negotiate, they must negotiate only with Maskhadov. In any case, they should begin with him. This is because Maskhadov is the only legitimate figure in Chechnya. He is a legitimate figure of that scale. Let us recall who congratulated Maskhadov upon his election as president of Chechnya in January 1997. I think it was the President of Russia. And with whom did Maskhadov sign agreements on May 12, 1997? By the way, with the President of Russia. Therefore, we must not look for legitimate representatives of Chechnya because there are such representatives.

It is another matter if Maskhadov has any real power in Chechnya. His possibilities really are very small. But Maskhadov lost whatever authority he had largely because he pursued a supertask -- to stop the civil war in Chechnya. He paid a clearly excessive price for the attainment of this aim -- the loss of any influence on events inside Chechnya.

A substantial contribution to this was made by the federal center in Moscow and the West in the person of its official representatives. They simply helped Maskhadov lose his power. How did they accomplish this? Very simply. None of them, contrary to agreements, entered any partnership relations with Maskhadov. Even agreements that would put Maskhadov under pressure from both Moscow and the West. And there were ample reasons to put pressure.

You will remember the trade in human beings, the treatment of these people, I mean hostages. Of course, this was done not by the Chechen administration but by the Chechen bandits, but it was precisely the Chechen administration that should have been the first to take measures. But Maskhadov feared to take such measures because he did not want to provide a pretext for a civil war. Or take the invasion of Dagestan. Who can justify that?

Well, neither the West, nor Russia established partnership relations with Maskhadov and lost any possibility of putting pressure on him. I am afraid that in some instances this was done deliberately. Well, Moscow's position was dictated by the fact that it intended at some point in the future to return to pressure of a different type, to pressure put by tanks. As to the West, it was simply afraid of irritating Moscow because in all of its contacts with the West the Chechen side began and ended its statements with one and the same demand -- recognize our state sovereignty. But it was impossible to recognize it.

For diverse political reasons and also for the moral reasons that I mentioned now it was impossible to recognize the sovereignty of an administration that cannot and does not want, that is afraid of dealing with its inveterate bandits who demonstrate in city squares to children, boys and girls, the future of the country how this administration kills people. Are you following me? It was because of these difficulties that there were no contacts with Maskhadov. And that was one of the major reasons why Maskhadov lost his possibilities in Chechnya.

Q: Sergei Adamovich, when the West condemns Russia for its treatment of the peaceful population Russia usually justifies its actions by saying -- and what would you have done in our place, what is we leave and power will fall into the hands not of democrats and liberals but Islamic fundamentalists? And the Western nations, I am not speaking of governments now, understand this to a certain extent because you cannot deny that there is a grain of truth in this.

So, what do you think should be done there now, on what terms can a peace agreement on Chechnya be reached?

Kovalyov: Indeed, this is a difficult question. But let us begin from the beginning. I do not agree with you, there are no grounds for such a point of view. To agree with me I suggest that you engage in a simple mental experiment. Imagine that you are in the basement of a house in a populated locality that is being subjected to artillery, missile fire and bomb attacks.

Are you ready to pay with your life or, still worse, with the lives of your wife and sister for the capture or slaying of terrorists, bandits and so on? If yes, then let us continue our discussion. You know, I saw people who were running around Budyonnovsk and screaming: "My wife is in the hands of Basayev in the hospital. Let her perish if only Basayev is killed".

It turned out later that these dregs did not have any wife there. They had been hired to run around and yell and to whip up passions.

I cannot imagine a serviceman, a lieutenant-general or a lieutenant, who would not know with absolute confident what would happen to a settlement if a strike is delivered on it with special weapons. With specially designed weapons, I emphasize. Designed not for hitting pinpoint targets but for hitting areas of seven hectares or 30 hectares or even more. These people, both lieutenants and lieutenant-generals, know very well whose corpses will lie under the ruins of the houses.

Our colonel-president knows this too. And they do not fear to pay this price. When they agree to pay such a price for achieving their goals, then the same thing happens. There is no police operation in Chechnya. This is a lie. An intentional lie. What is happening there is the armed destruction of a considerable part of the people.

Yes, sometimes one wants to kill, for example, Basayev or Khattab. I know of such attempts very well, I know of them from documents. Even before Grozny was razed to the ground, a missile strike had been delivered on Basayev's house and even four rebels had been killed in the house, but three more blocks were annihilated. There were multi-storey and one-storey buildings there.

So, we are ready to attain our political goals at the price of lives, but of the lives of other people, not our own. I am strongly against this principle. Yes, Basayev and Khattab must be punished, at least they deserve a military defeat and a trial. But not at the price of the lives of other people. If you want to pay with lives, pay with your own ones.

So, what could be a way out of this situation? It's not easy and this is why I said your question was very difficult and it is increasingly difficult to find a solution because in the beginning of the war talks with Maskhadov -- I can assure you that he is a restrained and balanced person, he wants to build a secular society in Chechnya, not a Muslim one, a secular and rule-of-law state. He understands a secular and rule-of-law state not the way we understand it. And yet this is not a barbaric, medieval, theocratic and provincial entity.

So, I believe that in the beginning of the war Maskhadov's authority would have grown immensely had such talks been held. He would have become a much more influential person in Chechnya. I think that even now it is not too late to begin such talks. It's a lie when our official intermediaries between authorities and people and mass media say that human rights activists stole a victory from generals in the 1994-1996 war. We did not steal anything from them because there was nothing to steal, there was no victory. There was a devastating military defeat. And it happened after the army had taken Chechnya under control.

You know, taking these several hundred square kilometers under control is not making the binomial formula. Having such a strong army with so powerful heavy weapons, it's a shame upon our generals that they are still struggling over this simple problem.

What follows the establishment of control? They say they have taken the mountains under control. What's next? The next step is occupational regime. And what is an occupational regime? It's an endless, traditional, and customary for Chechnya, guerrilla war. In other words, it's a vicious circle with a positive feedback. Soldiers drink vodka and do all kinds of ugly things because they are in despair, they wait for night raids and they are angry because of these raids. And these ugly things make the local population which detests its own ruthless criminals, its own Barayevs, Gelayevs and the like support guerrillas. We can understand this. Can you? For example, they break into your house, take your daughter and strangle her after having raped her or not having raped her because they thought she was a sniper. Perhaps she is, but she was not put on trial, she was simply strangled. So, will you support the guerrillas? I would.

So, this is a vicious circle. It has no end. The guerrilla war cannot be won in principle. There is only one way to win it and this way has a terrible name: genocide.

Now, whether or not these talks have a future, I think it would be correct to put forth tough demands for a legitimate, I repeat, legitimate Chechen administration rather than some Gantamirov, a thief released from prison for political reasons and who is basically an obedient puppet. But these demands should concern law and order on this territory. As for its status, it is necessary to conduct equal, very difficult, very long, but equal talks without preconditions.

I will say a few words about status, if you don't mind. This was written in the agreements which were signed at the highest Russian level. It's a lie when some say that these agreements were signed because Moscow had conceded to such naive public pressure or maybe even unscrupulous public pressure. Who knows how much were received from Chechens? Such a version was spread very actively.

These agreements were very balanced and reasonable and at that time inevitable. What did the Chechen side think of its sovereignty?

Let me give you one example. In the very beginning of the previous war, in Grozny that was being stormed already, it was being shelled and tanks were rolling into it -- it was either the end of December or the beginning of January 1995 -- I talked with a vice premier in the Dudayev government and asked him, "Do you really believe that you can maintain state sovereignty in full?" And he said, "No, of course not. You will hear here that Chechnya has a century-long experience of statehood. It's not true. It's a lie, or at best a delusion, a myth. We have never had any experience of statehood and we need special relations with our neighbors, primarily Russia".

"And what do you mean by special relations?" I asked him. And he says, "Here are five points, tick them off on your fingers. First, a common army. Second, a common border. Third, a common currency. Fourth, a common and agreed-upon foreign policy. Fifth, joint management of key industries."

But what about sovereignty, I asked him, what is left of sovereignty, a wolf on the green flag? And he said, "Yes, just that. But this is very important."

You see, this was the government of a warring side and it was ready to announce this position at the talks.

Does Tatarstan have less? Is conducting talks on these conditions worse than killing 100,000 people? I do not know what conditions peace could be reached this time. I think the first condition should be the end to all hostilities without preconditions as it was done at the end of the previous war.

Don't think that I am an ardent supporter of Chechen sovereignty. I have been repeatedly accused of this, but no facts were produced. I am more than skeptical about the right of peoples to self-determination, to state self-determination. I will not lecture you now. I only want to say that this very right runs counter, it does not follow from the rights of the individual but contradicts them. When you have a multi-ethnic state, you automatically have first-grade and second-grade citizens irrespective of the rights of the individual. One group includes people of the so-called title nation and the other group all others. And that's it. But this goes against the concept of human rights.

This is a theoretical solution. I could give you other arguments in its support. But you know that the political situation and life are too complicated for the most perfect theoretical approaches. Do you remember how the State of Israel was created after the war? It was created by the decision of the United Nations Organization. A new state was created. Now imagine this. In, say, 1946 we asked leading representatives of the Jews and said, "You are such an intellectually advanced nation, what are you doing by dividing the world into new small mono-ethnic states instead of working for the unity of humankind?" What would the Jews have told us? They would have said, "non-Jews have just killed 6 million Jews and by working for the unity of humankind we run the risk of disappearing from the Earth's face. In the new state we will try to defend ourselves. Now it's the year 1946 and, by the way, the first post-war Jewish pogroms have just swept Poland, a victim of Nazism. And will you try to convince us now not

to defend ourselves?"

The Chechen history differs from the Jewish one, but still there are some overlapping points. You are all intelligent people and you all remember this. Wars of the last century and the century before that. Then the dawn of Soviet power which was a grim experience for Chechens. At first they had very warm relations with the Bolsheviks when all of them - Ingushis, Chechens and Soviet patriots in general -- were destroying the Cossacks. That followed by the rebellions of North Caucasus highlanders, endless clashes and fighting. Then the war and the deportation of 1944 and two Chechen wars. But enough of that. And many of them say just this, enough. I cannot deny them understanding. Although I have to say that when I think of a possible sovereign Chechen state of Ichkeria, it makes me shiver, the very though of what may happen there frightens me and to a great extent, this is our fault. We support the government and authorities who act in the North Caucasus the way they are acting now.

Q: Have we already reached the August 1996 level when Russia was ready for talks or is this just empty rhetoric because Igor Ivanov said today vaguely that we are open to dialogue with Maskhadov? Is this so?

Kovalyov: I have no doubts that this is just rhetoric. I will tell you a secret. Sometimes in the State Duma I get red files containing state secrets. I am supposed to read them, sign and keep my mouth shut. There is nothing easier than to keep these state secrets because it's absolute uncertainty. Even if you want to retell them, you can't. This bird's language cannot be reproduced by a normal person. Let alone he general spirit of these state secrets. It's all the same. For example, Foreign Minister Ivanov or some other important diplomat tells you of his negotiations with various Western officials. You can be sure that each time he will write the same things.

There is this opinion that the Parliamentary Assembly behaved badly, they are hesitating, that they could change their decision with regard to Russia and we only should help them and not to balk. This is the approximate tone and meaning. I do not understand why this is a state secret if it follows from all newspaper publications and all conversations, for example, with the Russian delegation to the PACE in Strasbourg.

All this means that our authorities are concerned and are looking for such a tone that would not irritate the West and at the same time would show -- they keep on saying that it is necessary to think of something that would be taken as a constructive approach. Do you see the point?

As for the 1996 agreements, reached prior to August, they were not so bad. And even those of the summer of 1995. I myself signed, on behalf of Chernomyrdin -- well, on instructions from Chernomyrdin -- the tentative text of the agreement with Basayev in Budyonnovsk. I remember what is said and all the subsequent documents said.

With all the determination and certainty of the tone and the clarity of the intentions stated, this was nothing but rhetoric until Khasavyurt, because it was signed -- in the beginning of the summer of 1996 an agreement was signed, a ceasefire was reached. And it was observed. But then presidential elections were held and what followed them? You know what followed them. Our president, Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin, who had given guarantees ended up in hospital with a heart seizure and his representative and peacemaker, Alexander Ivanovich Lebed, gave the go-ahead to the escalation of war in direct contact with General Tikhomirov and told him, "If you can finish them, finish them". And Tikhomirov replied, "We broke the agreement, but what a big deal!"

You should understand that a ceasefire agreement is never observed in full by all sides because shootouts occur here and there. You can always say that Chechens break the ceasefire. And this is when this escalation began under the motto of finishing the monster in its nest. When Moscow intellectuals began to ask peacemaker Lebed questions, do you remember what he said? He said, "General Tikhomirov is a manageable general who controls the situation unlike you and me who are here in Moscow. And we should believe that he is doing the right thing". That's what was happening at that time.

Peace came not because of these agreements. Peace came because Chechen rebels seized Grozny and surrounded the dispersed groups of the Grozny garrison. There was no way to save it. And that's when Polyakovsky came up with his horrible ultimatum and it was clear that this ultimatum did not change anything. Polyakovsky could have only destroyed his own surrounded soldiers and everything that was still alive in Grozny, what moved there or stuck out in the form of wall fragments. And nothing else. He would not have destroyed rebels. They are trained soldiers and they know how to deal with blows.

Then Alexander Ivanovich Lebed cast his experienced glance at the battlefield and realized that there was nothing else to do but capitulate, and this is what he did. As it turned out later, everything that preceded this capitulation was unscrupulous rhetoric and a brazen lie. And this is what I wrote in my appeal to Lebed and Yeltsin from the intensive-care unit in July 1996. "You two," I wrote, "deceived 40 million voters". But this was never published except in Russkaya Mysl. Now I think Russkaya Mysl will cease to exist and there will be no one to publish my open letter.

Q: When will Russia be ready? What else has to happen, another encirclement of Grozny or another big failure?

Kovalyov: I think it would be much better if there were no another encirclement of Grozny or another big failure. I do not expect the exact repetition of events that occurred in 1996. I think this will not happen.

Personally I would rejoice if the Russian authorities amended their ways under pressure of the Russian public or, at worst, the world public. But our remarkable public is pushing the federal authorities in the opposite direction. I think this only worsens the expected tragic consequences.

Q: BBC. You said that the authorities are worried, are looking for rhetorics that would not anger the West. Is it that Putin has found these rhetorics in London?

Kovalyov: Quite possible. In the place of the British Queen I would not have met with a colonel. Simply because in good society it is not customary to shake hands with such people. As to the rest, it is a matter of high politics. I think that it is best to look for the right tonality proceeding from the impetus and using the mechanism given by real politicians, by the executive branch, by the European members of parliament, by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

In a certain sense a miracle happened. Once over such a long period, in fact, for the first time in history the parliamentary body of the Council of Europe remembered that it has statutory documents, that it has the obligation to abide by its own regulations and statutory commitments. I think it was a sin not to use this miracle. I understand, of course, that the Ministerial Committee will not expel Russia from the Council of Europe. It does not have such an aim and will do correctly by not expelling Russia. But I think it is foolish not to use such a powerful trump card.

A sort of political game is inevitable now. One set of diplomats will say: "Try to understand us, there are bandits there and we must destroy them in the end". Another set of diplomats will say: "Try to understand us, we are not living in the Soviet Union, after all, pressure is being put on us, we cannot permit ourselves such an independence from our public opinion and our own members of parliament. Let us find a way out of the situation".

Something good could have resulted from this. But the matter is that Soviet diplomats are more skillful at deception. I do remember this and I fear this. Generally speaking, a lot in our dirty, grim, bloody history that is littered with corpses depends on Western hypocrisy and Western double standards. This is so.

You see, when Russia was joining the Council of Europe this was obvious, and I constantly and publicly was saying that Europe is assuming too heavy a burden... I told them, you cannot reject this burden because the danger is too great and the price is too high. You must help Russia integrate into Europe, you must remember that Russia is part of Europe. You must, as Sakharov also said, give Russia support and put pressure on it. It is equally interested in the former and in the latter.

Of course, everybody agreed with this at the time and said: "Yes, of course, after all, it is precisely the purpose of making Russia a member of the Council of Europe so that we could give it consultations on matters of law, so that we could criticize it explaining what is good and what is bad". But nothing of the sort happened, of course.

Later on, when Russia was already a member of the Council of Europe and was already fully violating its voluntarily assumed statutory obligations, including in Chechnya... Well, I spoke at the time with Mr. Milleman who headed the ad hoc Council of Europe commission on Chechnya and we had a stormy discussion. Suddenly he stopped it. He looked closely at me, held a long pause and asked me: "Do you want Yeltsin to be elected for a second term?" And this gives you an answer to all the questions about Chechnya.

It is thus that the West behaved. Not only Milleman. Can you say that Clinton or Kohl behaved differently? Or Britain? Can you say that the British press differed from the press in other countries?

At that time two persons, Clinton and Kohl, had the possibility to stop the slaughter not in two years but in two months. To stop the war. Very simply. There was no need for threats to bomb Moscow. There was no need for economic sanctions as well. All that was necessary to state their stand publicly, very definitely and in no uncertain terms. Instead they chose to attend the glorious anniversary celebrations in May 1995. But they should have said, no, excuse us, no anniversaries, no victories can be celebrated in a country that kills its own people.

And that would have been enough. Instead, we started a mess that will last for many years. The guerrilla warfare in the Northern Caucasus will last for many years. You can write this down and seal it in an envelope.

Q: France Presse. You said that Russia runs the risk of isolation, that ultranationalistic tendencies, you mentioned the Black Hundreds, are on the rise.

Kovalyov: These are different things. To find oneself in isolation or to cultivate ultranationalism.

Q: It seems to me that for you this is interconnected. I want to ask about Putin. What will be the impact of his election? What point of view will he support? Will he be for integration in the world community or for Russia's isolation and search of its own road?

Kovalyov: You know, this is quite a difficult question. I will try to give you a brief and crude answer. I think Putin will support all points of view. He is already doing this. He is prepared to establish business relationships with anyone. At the beginning of the present Duma's work he established business relations with the Communists. Remember? Something that never happened before came into being -- a parliamentary majority in Russia. But, of course, this happened not in the way as in normal parliamentary countries where the parliamentary majority assumes certain obligations on itself. In our case, there were no commitments. Everything boiled down to the distribution of portfolios.

The way Putin enters into business contacts with criminal elements is characterized by his relations with Gantamirov, and not only with him, now also with Yakovlev. Generally speaking, Putin is a creation of a system, a model that was developed in the Soviet Union, he is a creation of the system of favoritism. This is not the first instance in history. And very often a puppet turns out to be so resolute and ambitious as to be able to eat up the puppeteers. This has happened.

Let us recall Napoleon's relations with the Directoire. They thought that they had acquired a remarkable sword but the sword thought differently. I will not be surprised that Vladimir Vladimirovich will emulate him. A very remarkable person, a very honest and noble one, Mikhail Mikhailovich Molostvov, has said very aptly that Vladimir Vladimirovich is on his way from a Stazi to becoming a Lord. It is very possible that Vladimir Vladimirovich is capable of pushing aside Boris Abramovich, or Gleb Olegovich, or Alexander Staliyevich, or anybody else. Why not?

But the only thing he cannot do, and this is the worst thing, he cannot stop being an embodiment of this abominable Soviet system of favoritism. He is its creation and its embodiment. He cannot renounce this system. But this system is directly opposite to the idea of a state that serves its society, the idea of civic society as source of government.

You see, he wants the country that he is heading to have the reliable mechanism of behind-the-scenes intrigues, a mechanism developed over many decades, instead of a system of appointment to office by way of elections.

Let us honestly ask ourselves: was Unity elected to the Duma or appointed to the Duma? I think that it was appointed rather than elected. Or take Putin. Are you saying that he was elected? I doubt this.

You see, he will further perfect the system that generated him and install it everywhere. I vouch for that. How successful will he be in this? You know, this will depend not only on him but on all of us as well.

But what, as it often happens lately, we will turn out to be the first pupils in class? Remember, Shvarts wrote about this? Well, then such will be our lot. At the same time, I do not think that Putin will be able or will want to restore GULAG. He will not do that. That is impossible. Nobody is capable of restoring the old repressive system. Besides, there is no need for that. You see, the guard who is here, inside, is much more effective than the one manning the guard tower. Alas, this inner guard is triumphing.

And what will be the direction of Putin's preferences? He has outlined them quite clearly. Recently he spoke about the undesirability of some contacts with some foreigners for a certain period of time. I do not know how much time I need... Are you representing France Presse? Probably, I will have to be punished although you are not a foreigner, judging by your Russian, but you are still being paid your wages by France Presse.

Perhaps, I should be punished for this contact.

Some time ago he drank a toast to Stalin and before that there was something concerning Andropov. By the way, he began by making a remark that many people do not remember any more. Well, when he was just appointed prime minister and his rating was closer to 2 percent than to 52 percent, he said: "The country is in need of stabilization. We will put behind bars those who are against stabilization". A clever man reasons simply but this does not mean that these are absolutely irrevocable intentions and it is necessary for all of us to stock on dried bread and medicines that we will need during imprisonment.

No, nobody will be put behind bars. But they will strengthen and upgrade that system of intrigues, appointments and constraints, including constraints on the press. Since you all television viewers you know this as well as I. Take a look at the Berezovsky channels. I wouldn't say that the other channels are all that independent as well.

Moderator: Thank you. Any more questions? There are no more questions. Sergei Adamovich, thank you very much for coming and I wish you the best in your work. I also thank the press.

Kovalyov: Thank you for your attention.