(Poverty caused by the economic transformation was a rising problem for the government)
The most pressing issues for the Russian government were rising unemployment, poverty and homelessness among Russians. A set of reforms aimed at creating jobs was introduced by Prime Minister Yavlinsky, which included:
- opening up the Russian market to western companies and goods, but only for necessities (this was done in order to avoid shortages, but otherwise they would be rectified as soon as Russia built up its own production capacities). Protectionist policies would be introduced in order to avoid foreign brands and companies outcompeting domestic companies;
- support the formation of Russian companies by offering them low-interest taxes and lower interest rates in Russian banks;
- expansion of infrastructure, including roads, railways, bridges, and electrical infrastructure, to expand economic interconnectivity and job creation opportunities;
- decreased bureaucracy for Russian companies and businesses;
- export-oriented economic model;
- expansion of foreign investment opportunities;
- cooperation on interstate programs and projects with Russian economic partners within the CIS and EEU;
- modernization of the Russian car industry;
- establishment of brand laws to protect Russian local and regional products;
- modernization and automatization of factories;
- encouraged cooperation with Russian companies for foreign companies seeking to do business in Russia;
- reorganization and modernization of the Russian agricultural sector;
- introduction of capital control.
The issue of poverty and homelessness was addressed by President Fyodorov, who introduced a program of cheap housing for Russian citizens, social kitchens and expanded social aid for the poorest citizens, as well as public works for the jobless. The visit of Russian Foreign Minister Kozyrev to Berlin was successful, as both sides reached agreements on various topics, including: German financial aid and investments in Russia, technology transfer to help Russian economic transformation, trade deals between Germany and Russia, economic cooperation and partnership between the European Union and the Eurasian Economic Union. The appeal for help from the Russian diaspora in the Baltic States was answered by the Russian government. Russia, using political, diplomatic and military pressure, forced the Baltic States to abandon their policy of anti-Russian discrimination, additionally, citizens of Narva were granted autonomy rights. Nevertheless, the Russian stance scared many states in Central and Eastern Europe and resulted in deeper cooperation between the Baltic States, Poland and Romania with NATO and the European Union.
(START II treaty was aimed at reducing risk of nuclear war)
START II (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) was a bilateral treaty between the United States and Russia on the Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms. It was signed by US President George H. W. Bush and Russian President Svyatoslav Fyodorov on 3 May 1993, banning the use of multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRVs) on intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). Hence, it is often cited as the De-MIRV-ing Agreement. It was ratified by the US Senate on 26 January 1996 with a vote of 87–4. Russia ratified START II on 14 April 2000, making it conditional on preserving the ABM Treaty. When the US withdrew from the ABM Treaty on 13 June 2002, Russia withdrew from START II one day later. Thus, START II never entered into effect. Instead, SORT came into effect, which reduced the strategic warheads count per country to 1,700–2,200.
ICBMs using MIRVs are considered destabilizing because they put a premium on a first strike. These missiles can carry from two warheads to as many as 50 in some Soviet super-heavy missile designs. They can also carry a large number of decoys. Significant numbers of highly accurate warheads and decoys could annihilate an entire nation in a first strike, including a substantial amount of an opponent's missile silos and air force bomber fleet. Hypothetically, if each side had 100 missiles, with five warheads each, and each side had a 95% chance of neutralizing its opponent's missiles in their silos by firing two warheads at each silo, the side that strikes first can reduce the enemy ICBM force from 100 missiles to about five by firing 40 missiles with 200 warheads and keeping the remaining 60 missiles in reserve. Thus, the destruction capability is greatly multiplied by MIRVs since the number of enemy silos does not significantly increase. Both Soviet R-36M and US LGM-118 Peacekeeper missiles could carry up to 10 MIRVs though the latter are no longer operational.
The historic agreement started on 17 June 1992 with the signing of a joint understanding by both presidents. The official signing of the treaty by the presidents took place on 3 January 1993. It was ratified by the US Senate on 26 January 1996 with a vote of 87–4. However, Russian ratification was stalled in the Supreme Council for many years. It was postponed many times to protest American military actions in Iraq and in former Yugoslavia and to oppose the expansion of NATO in Eastern Europe. The treaty became less relevant as the years passed, and both sides started to lose interest in it. On 14 April 2000, the Russian Supreme Council finally ratified the treaty with some conditions. Specifically, these conditions were that the US would continue to uphold the ABM Treaty, and that the US Senate would ratify a September 1997 addendum to START II that included agreed statements on the demarcation of strategic and tactical missile defenses. The US Senate never ratified the addendum, as a faction of Republicans led by Jesse Helms opposed any limits on American anti-ballistic missile systems. As a result, START II never entered into force.
(Yantar Special Economic Zone was aimed at turning "Kaliningrad into Hong Kong on the Baltic")
The Yantar Special Economic Zone is a Special Economic Zone in Russia that was established in 1993 in the Kaliningrad Oblast of the Russian Federation. "Yantar" means amber in Russian. Amber has been collected along the Baltic coasts of present-day Kaliningrad Oblast since ancient times. After the dissolution of the former Soviet Union (USSR) the Russian Socialist Federal Republic (RSFSR) remained as the largest of the original 15 republics. It comprised nearly 75% of the territory of the former USSR. In 1992, it was renamed the "Russian Federation" (RF). The Kaliningrad Region (Kaliningrad Oblast) is one of the 89 provinces (so-called "subjects of the federation") that make up the RF. Each of these provinces had its own constitution as well as its own provincial parliament. However, they vary greatly in status, ranging from that of Republics within the RF (e.g. Tatarstan) over Greater Regions (kraya) and Regions (oblasti), Autonomous Districts (avtonomnye rajony) and so-called "Metropolitan Areas of Federal Significance" (the cities of Moscow and St Petersburg). An opaque feature of Russian federalism is that the federation and the subjects of the federation have the power to specify, limit and even re-arrange their competencies through treaties and arrangements ("Negotiated federalism"). The Kaliningrad Oblast concluded such an arrangement with the Russian Federation on June 12, 1993. This included detailed stipulations, among others, for the later Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in the Kaliningrad Region (the Yantar SEZ).
The Kaliningrad Region is one of the smallest provinces (subject of the federation) of the Russian Federation. It is also the westernmost part of the Russian Federation and has no land border with the federation itself, forming an exclave bordering the Baltic Sea (West), Lithuania (North and East), and Poland (South). It comprises an area of roughly 15,000 square kilometers with a population of about 1 million. Historically, this region had been part of Prussia since the early 13th century and subsequently became part of the German Empire (Deutsches Reich), forming its easternmost province (East Prussia – Ostpreußen) with the capital Königsberg (now Kaliningrad). After World War II the region was annexed by the USSR in accordance with the Potsdam Agreement (July/August 1945) and its five million German residents were expelled. In 1946, the USSR incorporated the region into the RSFSR under the name "Kaliningrad Oblast". For the following 45 years the region was predominantly used as a military base. Kaliningrad is located 600 km from Berlin, 300 km from Warsaw, 831 km from St. Petersburg, and 1,000 km from Moscow. Beginning from the early 1990s, Free Economic Zones mushroomed in the Russian Federation. The Yantar SEZ provides a customs-free zone, as well as low-tax provisions with regard to corporate profit tax and corporate property tax. The goal of the Yantar SEZ was to turn Kaliningrad into a manufacturing center of the Baltic sea. The main trading partner was Germany and and the bulk of foreign investment in the Yantar SEZ came from German enterprises.
(Russian troops leaving Germany)
On 1 September 1993, last Russian troops left Germany. Russian President Svyatoslav Fyodorov was to oversee the departure of the last 1,800 troops from an army that numbered 338,000 just four years ago, told his soldiers they could return home assured that "for Russia, a military threat will never again rise from German soil." "Today," Fydorov added, "is the last day of the past." The ceremonies in Berlin overshadowed the simultaneous departure of the last Russian troops from Latvia and Estonia. Together with last year's departure of occupation forces from Lithuania, today's withdrawal completed Moscow's retreat from the Baltic republics annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940 and restored to independence in 1991.
The Russian exodus marked the final contraction of what was once the world's greatest military empire, stretching from the forests of Western Europe to the Bering Strait in the Soviet Far East. The government of Chancellor Helmut Kohl has lauded Moscow for what one German official recently called "a strategic and logistical masterpiece" in dismantling the occupation force in Eastern Europe, which for decades formed the backbone of the Warsaw Pact. Since the pullout from eastern Germany began in 1990, for example, the Russians have transported more than 540,000 people -- including soldiers, civilians and family members -- and 2.6 million tons of equipment, enough to fill 13,400 jumbo jets. The withdrawn cargo includes 4,200 tanks, 3,700 artillery tubes, 1,400 aircraft and 677,000 tons of ammunition. In a day filled with symbolic gestures of reconciliation between former World War II and Cold War adversaries, Fyodorov and Kohl laid wreaths at the mass grave of 7,000 Soviet soldiers killed in the climactic Battle of Berlin in 1945. Together the two leaders climbed the 60 steps to the top of the massive Soviet war memorial in Treptow Park, which features a 40-foot statue of a sword-wielding Soviet soldier straddling the shattered ruins of a Nazi swastika.
"As a result of this protracted and bloodiest of wars, Europe was saved from Hitlerism," Fyodorov declared, his voice booming over the assembled ranks of Russian and German soldiers. "Here, in Berlin, the poisonous roots of this unprecedented evil were torn out, the ashes of Hitler's monstrous plans were thrown into the wind." Kohl acknowledged that "terrible things were done to the Russian people by Germans and in the name of Germany. We bow in respect before the millions of your countrymen who lost their lives in this dreadful war." But the chancellor also cited the darker moments of the long Soviet occupation -- "what Russians later inflicted on Germans," as he put it -- including the effort to starve West Berlin into capitulation in 1948-49, the Soviet suppression of a 1953 workers' uprising in East Germany and the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961.
While thanking the Russians for their "discipline and willingness to cooperate," Kohl made clear that he considered the occupying forces to be interlopers whose departure was long overdue -- a position he is likely to use to good effect in this fall's federal elections. Originally scheduled for the end of the year, the withdrawal was advanced by four months, permitting Kohl to remind voters that he is largely responsible for finally pushing the Red Army off German soil. The final Russian pullout came under the terms of the 1990 treaty that paved the way for German reunification and a full restoration of German sovereignty. The treaty also requires the withdrawal of soldiers from the other three Allied powers that occupied Berlin; the French, British and Americans will complete their pullout next week. To help the Russians find the exit door, Bonn has appropriated 14 billion marks ($9 billion). More than half that sum, roughly $5 billion, has been earmarked to build 46,000 apartments in the former Soviet Union to house returning soldiers. Uncertainties about housing in particular and the future in general have loomed large in the thoughts of the last Russian soldiers here as they finished packing up this week to return home. Most of the remaining troops are scheduled to leave on trains tonight and Thursday morning; a small contingent will remain behind for another week or so to tie up loose ends.
All of the soldiers face either a sharp cut in pay -- in Germany they collected German marks as well as nearly worthless rubles -- or outright demobilization from an army that has shrunk from 4 million in 1988 to about 1.2 million today. "There are certainly economic problems and other difficulties at home in these new times," Lt. Igor Pikalov, 24, a company commander who has served here three years, said while awaiting the ceremonies at Treptow Park. "But I believe that in the coming years things will stabilize. Officers have to be optimistic." Pikalov, whose wife and 5-year-old son returned to Russia a month ago, will leave with his company early Thursday for the 32-hour train ride back to Moscow. After a welcome-home parade in the capital, they will proceed 200 miles south to the unit's new home in Kursk. Like many of his comrades, who have crammed the departing baggage cars with everything from disposable diapers to used BMWs, Pikalov has taken advantage of the German consumer paradise to buy a car, a television set and other electronic gadgets.
The departing soldiers also have picked clean their abandoned military bases in Germany. Window glass, wiring, sinks, toilets, door knobs -- all have been scavenged from more than 1,100 installations. Russian crews even pried up the concrete slabs from the mile-long military runway at Neuruppin, north of Berlin, and shipped them home in boxcars. Gen. Matvei Burlakov, commander of the West Group of Russian forces here, told a German newspaper last week that he had ordered his soldiers "to take everything with them as part of our withdrawal," because even a cement pole "can be traded in Russia for five pigs." Left behind is an ecological catastrophe. Collectively covering 927 square miles -- an area the size of Luxembourg -- the former Russian encampments are saturated with a half-century's worth of pollution, including dumped motor oil, chemicals, artillery duds and abandoned vehicles. Bonn has estimated the cleanup will cost tens of billions of dollars. Today, however, the farewell rhetoric focused on the tens of thousands of Soviet soldiers who fell during World War II and whose remains will stay in Germany. "Almost 320,000 of our soldiers found their last resting place on German soil," Fyodorov said. "But for their heroism, today's Europe would not exist and Germany would not be prospering." Kohl vowed that his country will "honor the memory of your comrades who fell in Germany." He also stressed "our close and trustful cooperation" in overcoming future challenges, such as environmental protection and nuclear nonproliferation. For many of the Russian soldiers standing at attention under a warm August sun, however, the future is here. "I'm looking forward to going home," Pvt. Wolodya Morgil, 20, said as Fyodorov and Kohl made their exit from Treptow Park. "I want to be home."
(Former Soviet Black Fleet caused a diplomatic conflict between Russian Federation and Ukraine)
With the end of World War II, the Soviet Union effectively dominated the Black Sea region. The Soviet Union controlled the entire north and east of the Black Sea while pro-Soviet regimes were installed in Romania and Bulgaria. As members of the Warsaw Pact, the Romanian and Bulgarian navies supplemented the strength of the Soviet Black Sea Fleet. Only Turkey remained outside the Soviet Black Sea security regime and the Soviets initially pressed for joint control of the Bosporus Straits with Turkey; a position which Turkey rejected. In 1952, Turkey decided to join NATO, placing the Bosporus Straits in the Western sphere of influence. Nevertheless, the terms of the Montreux Convention limited NATO's options with respect to directly reinforcing Turkey's position in the Black Sea. The Soviets, in turn, had some of their naval options in the Mediterranean restricted by the Montreux Convention limitations. In the later post-war period, along with the Northern Fleet, the Black Sea Fleet provided ships for the 5th Operational Squadron in the Mediterranean, which confronted the United States Navy during the Arab-Israeli wars, notably during the Yom Kippur War in 1973.
In 1989, the 126th Motor Rifle Division at Simferopol was transferred to the Black Sea Fleet from the Odesa Military District. Also that year, the 119th Fighter Aviation Division, with the 86th Guards, 161st, and 841st Guards Fighter Aviation Regiments, joined the Fleet from the 5th Air Army. The 86th Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment became part of the Moldovan Air Force upon the breakup of the Soviet Union. The 841st at Meria airport (between Poti and Batumi in the Adjar ASSR) (Georgian SSR) became the 841st independent Guards Anti-Submarine Helicopter Regiment in May 1991 and was disbanded in October 1992. The 43rd Aviation Sevastopol Red Banner Order of Kutuzov Regiment of Fighter-Bombers, after being included in the Air Force of the Red Banner Black Sea Fleet on December 1, 1990, was renamed the 43rd Separate Naval Assault Aviation Sevastopol Red Banner Order of Kutuzov Regiment.
With the fall of the Soviet Union and the demise of the Warsaw Pact, the military importance of the fleet was degraded and it suffered significant funding cuts and the loss of its major missions. In 1992, the major part of the personnel, armaments and coastal facilities of the Fleet fell under formal jurisdiction of the newly independent Ukraine as they were situated on Ukrainian territory. Later, the Ukrainian government ordered the establishment of its own Ukrainian Navy based on the Black Sea Fleet; several ships and ground formations declared themselves Ukrainian.
However, this immediately led to conflicts with the majority of officers who appeared to be loyal to Russia. According to pro-Ukrainian sailors they were declared "drunkards and villains" and they and their families were harassed. They have also claimed that their names were branded "traitors to Russia" on local graffiti. Simultaneously, pro-Russian separatist groups became active in the local politics of Ukraine's Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol where the major naval bases were situated, and started coordinating their efforts with pro-Moscow seamen. During this time the Georgian Civil War broke out. Fighting erupted between two separatist minorities of South Ossetia and Abkhazia supported by Russia on one side and the Georgian government led by Zviad Gamsakhurdia on the other. However, he was ousted during the so-called Tbilisi War in 1991. The new government continued the fighting against the break-away republics, but at the same time asked Russia's president Fyodorov for support against the 'Zviadists' who were trying to regain power. This led to the Black Sea Fleet landing in Georgia (despite the unsettled dispute over ownership of the fleet), and resulted in the Battle of Poti.
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org