By Vitaly PORTNYKOV, The Day
One can only wonder at the foresight of Russian President Boris Yeltsin,
who managed to have his country admitted to the exclusive club of the seven
most developed countries well before the August crisis in Russia last year.
What struck one most during the latest meeting in Cologne was not the fact
that the Russians themselves felt like guests but that the hosts bent over
backwards to convince them that they were not guests. Actually, one felt
there was something insincere in this cultivation of equality, no matter
how pleasantly Bill Clinton or Gerhard Schroeder smiled at Boris Yeltsin.
The Western leaders tried so hard to show the Russians their concern that
they had even prepared a special document on the situation in Russia. At
this juncture, it was the Russian Premier Sergei Stepashin who began to
worry: he started explaining to his Western friends that a document like
this might demonstrate that today Russia is not as equal a member of the
eight as one might wish. The friends agreed that Russia is the sick man
of Europe. And a sick man's wishes should be heeded. He does not want to
disclose the time of taking medicines? He wants to call the doctor a cosmetologist?
No problem.
We only wish he would take his pills.
That this is a patient who can just as soon turn over the bottle instead
of taking the medicine was amply demonstrated by the adventuristic seizure
of the Pristina airport by Russian paratroopers. There have been never-ending
explanations of this senseless action: a wish to help the Kosovo Serbs,
intelligence reports of a plan to bar the Russians from Kosovo, and the
need to have a separate sector in Kosovo after NATO (in coordination with
Belgrade) had already divided the area into sectors. The result was to
be expected. There will be no Russian sector in Kosovo, but the zones of
responsibility designed specially for the Russians will allow Moscow to
speak about its important participation in the peacekeeping operation.
As Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Igor Ivanov said, the G8 states
understand that it is Russia, which established peace in Kosovo.
Let it be! Don't worry! You are peacekeepers! And even a developed state!
You don't agree? You need money? OK, here you are...
After a few attempts to live in the real world, the Kremlin, Moscow,
and Russia are doing back through the looking glass. "We also lead the
whole world in ballet..." "In this world Russia is the strongest and most
influential, it is attentively listened to, its leaders decide everything
and thus need no reforms, no economic development..."
They might feel easier and more cozy in a world like this.
Only it does not exist.






