Russians Outfox U.S. in Latest Great Game

[jimmy olsen]

Thanks Obama, that diplomatic reset really helped out.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124467909278604353.html

Russians Outfox U.S. in Latest Great Game

By ALAN CULLISON

(See Corrections & Amplifications item below.)

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan -- One at a time the government's top critics seemed to go to jail, or simply disappear.

Syrgak Abdyldayev, a local journalist, began to investigate whether the attacks had anything to do with a team of Russian-speaking specialists who arrived last year to advise the Kyrgyz government. He published several scathing articles accusing the government of shunting aside its opponents and turning to Moscow for financial support, including one in February that likened Russian aid to "oxygen for a sinking submarine."

Then Mr. Abdyldayev became a victim. Three men attacked him with metal pipes as he left his newspaper one evening in March, broke both his arms, his ribs and a leg, and stabbed him 26 times in the buttocks.

Times are changing in Kyrgyzstan, a mountainous Central Asian republic that not long ago was a hoped-for springboard for Western-style democracy in the former Soviet Union.

The president, Kurmanbek Bakiyev, has steered Kyrgyzstan sharply back into the orbit of Moscow. In January, Mr. Bakiyev jolted Washington by announcing he was evicting the U.S. from an air base that has been crucial to the supply of troops fighting in Afghanistan. And political freedom here, as in Russia, is in decline. The Kyrgyz and Russian governments deny any link to the attacks on Kyrgyz critics.

In the West, hopes were high that the global financial crisis would rein in Vladimir Putin's assertive foreign policy. But here, as in other parts of the former Soviet Union, hard times have had the opposite effect: The Russians are coming back.

Russia has been hit by the crisis, but remains far richer than its former satellites, and it has used its largess to regain clout near its borders, in what President Dmitry Medvedev calls the "zone of privileged interests."

"Basically Russia sees the crisis as an opportunity to increase its influence in the post-Soviet space," said Nikolai Zlobin, analyst for the Center for Strategic Studies in Washington, D.C., who meets regularly with Russian officials. "They think this is the right time to act."

Moscow has already delivered more than $300 million of a $2.1 billion aid package to Kyrgyzstan it promised Mr. Bakiyev when he announced he was evicting U.S. troops from the base. That has helped the Kyrgyz government pay wages and pensions as Mr. Bakiyev competes in hastily called presidential elections in July.

Moscow lately considered extending a $5 billion loan to the cash-starved government in Ukraine, and has held talks on credits for Belarus and Armenia.

This week Mr. Putin stunned Western officials by announcing that Russia would pull its long-standing application to join the World Trade Organization, and instead form a trade block with neighboring Kazakstan and Belarus. Western officials say the move appears to be a pressure tactic by the Kremlin, which has been frustrated by the lengthy WTO application process.

Moscow's assertiveness poses a challenge to President Barack Obama as he vows to "reset" relations with Russia in the run-up to his first presidential visit to Moscow in July. Both the U.S. and Russia are praising a new level of cooperation on arms control and other issues. But they remain at odds over how much influence the other should exert in Russia's traditional backyard.

Lately the Kyrgyz government has said it is open to talks on keeping the U.S. base on its soil. But even the threat of closure sends a clear message to Washington, analysts say, that the U.S. must show greater respect to Moscow in the region.

In Kyrgyzstan, opposition politicians fear the reset could mean a new era of American accommodation to the Kremlin. As the U.S. has grown preoccupied with its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and its economic crisis at home, it has dialed back its support of Western-style democracy, they say.

"The American ambassadors used to be very outspoken about their opinions," said Medet Sadyrkulov, a former head of Mr. Bakiyev's administration. "Now they have gone quiet."

The U.S. ambassador, Tatiana C. Gfoeller, declined to be interviewed for this article. State Department officials in Washington likewise declined to comment.

In the fall, the Kyrgyz government cut off broadcasts of U.S-funded Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, which had hosted a talk show critical of regional elections that were swept by mostly pro-government parties. The U.S. issued a statement of protest, but the programming has remained off the air.

Russian state television, which is broadcast throughout the country, has beamed in a steady stream of reports critical of the U.S. presence, alleging the U.S. base here was a center of high-tech surveillance and drug dealing. The U.S. denies that.

The political climate in Kyrgyzstan chilled, too.
[kyrgyzstan]

Days after Mr. Sadyrkulov shared his views in an interview with The Wall Street Journal in March, his body was found in his burned-out car outside Bishkek. Colleagues call his death a political killing. The government says he died in a car accident.

In the interview, he said he quit his job in the presidential administration largely because he worried that Mr. Bakiyev was taking the country too close to the Kremlin.

The history of the air base in Kyrgyzstan mirrors the trajectory of U.S. relations with Russia, from an era of burgeoning friendship to distrust.

After the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, Mr. Putin called the then-president of Kyrgyzstan, Askar Akayev, and told him that "the U.S. is our ally in the war on terror and that we should let them in," one former senior Kremlin official recalled. Mr. Putin also lobbied the president of Uzbekistan, who allowed the U.S. to set up on another Soviet-era base, Khanabad.

The U.S. needed the bases to funnel soldiers and supplies to Afghanistan. At the time, the former Kremlin official said, the U.S. told the Russians they would only stay on the bases during the "active phase" of the war, for 12 to 18 months.

By 2003, the Kremlin was anxious about the prolonged U.S. presence. Late that year, Mr. Putin flew to Bishkek to mark the opening of Russia's own nearby airfield. He was angered by the U.S. invasion of Iraq, which he staunchly opposed. Then the Americans began to say the bases were "strategic" and that they were staying, the former Kremlin official said.

"The existence of these bases was viewed as a trick," the former Kremlin official said. "So we felt no moral obligation to keep them open."

U.S. officials deny they gave any timetable for withdrawing from the bases.

Moscow's suspicions were heightened by a wave of so-called color revolutions that swept the former USSR, beginning with Georgia in November 2003, followed by Ukraine in 2004 and Kyrgyzstan in 2005.

President George W. Bush praised the revolts, promising to spread democracy to the far corners of the world. Kremlin officials feared the U.S. was fomenting rebellion in Russia itself, and accused the U.S. of organizing the revolts through nongovernment organizations, something the U.S. denies.

The wave of unrest halted in repressive Uzbekistan, where in May 2005 troops fired on protesters, killing hundreds. Russia backed the crackdown; the U.S. called for an investigation.

Encouraged by Moscow and China, Uzbekistan kicked U.S. troops out. The U.S. was forced to shift resupply operations to the air base in Kyrgyzstan.

Relations with Mr. Bakiyev's government were cool from the outset. The Kyrgyz leader swept to power after chaotic protests over rigged parliamentary elections in 2005. He set about shuttering independent media outlets and founding a progovernment party that sidelined rivals.

Mr. Bakiyev soon began pressuring the U.S. to raise the rent it paid for the base. Talks nearly derailed in July 2006, when his government expelled two U.S. diplomats for allegedly spying. Mr. Bakiyev suspected they were funding the political opposition, says former Kyrgyz Foreign Minister Alikbek Dzhekshenkulov. "The Russians wound him up," he says. Other Kyrgyz officials say the expulsions were Mr. Dzhekshenkulov's idea.

In the end, Washington agreed to an eightfold rent increase, to $20 million a year.

In September 2006, a U.S. air tanker collided with Mr. Bakiyev's official plane on the runway of the airport, putting the Kyrgyz craft out of commission.

The U.S. paid to repair the plane, though an American probe blamed a Kyrgyz air traffic controller for the wreck. Before the investigation was even complete, though, Russia gave Mr. Bakiyev a new Tupolev airliner as a gift, said Mr. Sadyrkulov, the former head of administration, before his death.

Mr. Bakiyev "was very offended" with the U.S. over the incident, Mr. Sadyrkulov said. It was another case where "the Russians showed they were much easier to deal with," he said.

In December 2006, a U.S. guard at the base shot a Kyrgyz truck driver to death, after he said the driver brandished a knife at a base gate. Kyrgyz officials wanted to try him for murder inside the country, but the U.S. flew him back to the U.S.

Mr. Bakiyev "wanted some kind of meaningful support... signs of cooperation, partnership," said Sergei Masaulov, spokesman for the Kyrgyz presidential administration. Instead he got "signs of disdain," he said.

Mr. Masaulov said the Americans never engaged his government on a long-term plan for economic prosperity. A landlocked nation of five million, Kyrgyzstan lacks the vast natural resources of its neighbors, and officials had long hoped that its glacial lakes and snowcapped mountains could turn it into a hydroelectric supplier. But neither the Russians nor the Americans ever came up with the money to fund such a project.

Last summer, Russia began high-level talks about an aid package to Kyrgyzstan, including construction of a $1.7 billion hydroelectric power project that would employ thousands and turn the country into a major exporter for the region, Mr. Sadyrkulov said.

The two sides agreed in principle in December, Mr. Sadyrkulov, the former head of presidential administration said, when Mr. Medvedev and the Kyrgyz president met again, one on one, in the Kazakh capital of Astana. The Russians applied "very bad pressure" at the meeting, Mr. Sadyrkulov said. The Kremlin denies putting any pressure on the Kyrgyz over the U.S. base.

Mr. Masaulov, the presidential spokesman denied any "direct connection" between aid and the base closure. "But its obvious that when people meet on the diplomatic level, they talk about their interests, and what they want," he said.

In January, U.S. Central Command Chief Gen. David Petraeus visited Bishkek, but Mr. Bakiyev declined to meet him. Still, Mr. Petraeus called a news conference to report that other top Kyrgyz officials told him there were no plans to shut the base.

Shortly after he left town, a longtime ally of Mr. Putin, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, flew into town and hammered out the details of an aid package to Kyrgyzstan.

Mr. Bakiyev then flew to Moscow, where the deal was signed, and the Kyrgyz president announced at a Kremlin press conference that he was kicking the American forces out of the country. U.S. officials were stunned. "Frankly, we thought it was a negotiating tactic, and we were ready to call their bluff," said a military official. "But it's becoming clearer that, no kidding, they want us out."

Mr. Sadyrkulov, who quit his job with the president in January, tried to rally Kyrgyzstan's fragmented opposition. He began traveling to neighboring Kazakhstan to meet U.S. officials, as they were afraid to meet with him inside the country, he said.

He drove to Almaty for meetings March 12, and shortly after midnight called his wife to say that he was driving back. He was held up at a border post for questioning, he told her, and would be home in a few hours.

Police say they found his body hours later, along with his driver and another passenger in the burned-out carcass of his car.

Write to Alan Cullison at [email protected]

Corrections & Amplifications

Kurmanbek Bakiyev is the president of Kyrgyzstan. An earlier version of this article incorrectly gave his first name as Murtanbek.

[Jaron]

Yes, this is clearly not Russia's fault, but Obamas. Because Russia never pulled any shit when Bush was around.. right?

[jimmy olsen]

Yes, this is clearly not Russia's fault, but Obamas. Because Russia never pulled any shit when Bush was around.. right?

He's in charge now, so he gets the blame.

[Jaron]

Lets blame the Indian-Chinese situation on Obama too. How is this even remotely Obama's fault, Tim?

[Josquius]

and stabbed him 26 times in the buttocks.

Wow, thought that was an Italian thing.

[CountDeMoney]

and stabbed him 26 times in the buttocks.

Wow, thought that was an Italian thing.

Garbon was stabben 26 times in the buttocks once.  Didn't even get his phone number.

[garbon]

Garbon was stabben 26 times in the buttocks once.  Didn't even get want his phone number.

Fixed that for you.