Senators Seek to Shift Russian-American Military Exercises From Urals to the U.S. : Diplomacy: Communists and nationalists had opposed the arrival of 250 ‘Yankee’ troops.

A delegation of U.S. senators Tuesday sought to defuse anti-American sentiment by proposing that joint military exercises, which were to be conducted in Russia, take place instead on U.S. soil.

The United States and Russia agreed in September to the maneuvers, with both governments billing the exercise as a dry run for possible future peacekeeping operations. The drill was to take place in July at the Totsk testing ground in the Ural Mountains. Its significance was to be more symbolic than military, because the entire operation was to involve only 250 soldiers from each side, no heavy equipment and no live fire.

Still, Communists and nationalists here had seized on the notion of “Yankee” soldiers on Russian territory as further evidence of what they see as a continued attempt by the United States to impose its will on a weakened Russia.

“Russia cannot be made a training ground for the American Army,” lawmaker Pyotr P. Shirshov, an army officer from Bryansk, said in a heated debate last month.

Faced with stiff opposition in Parliament and in the Urals, the Russian government quietly asked the United States on Friday to postpone the exercises.

On Sunday, a bipartisan delegation from the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee arrived to learn that the maneuvers, meant to showcase the new cooperation between the old adversaries, had instead fallen victim to resurgent Russian nationalism.

Some conservative Russians interpreted the American push for the exercises as “ ‘We won the Cold War and now we’re going to show you our stuff’--which is not at all what it was meant to be,” said Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.).

Given the “sensitivity” of the issue, committee Chairman Sen. Sam Nunn (D.-Ga.) said the seven senators visiting here will recommend to President Clinton and Defense Secretary William J. Perry that the planned U.S.-Russian maneuvers be held in America.

Nunn suggested that the National Training Center at Ft. Irwin in California--or several bases in his home state of Georgia--might be just right for the job. Hutchison said she is sure Texas would be pleased to host the exercises.

Russian politicians welcomed the U.S. proposal.

“All these hysterics about the exercises in the Totsk firing range are simply comical,” said liberal economist Yegor T. Gaidar, complaining that hard-liners have told people that U.S. troops would use the opportunity to seize Moscow. “Nevertheless, the opposition managed to use this as a pretext for violent anti-Western propaganda.”

Gaidar called the Nunn proposal “reasonable and useful--because the most frequently repeated argument was, ‘See, they are not inviting us to have the exercise in the States, are they?’ ”

Ironically, the United States and Russia first agreed to hold the maneuvers in Germany. But officials had neglected to consult the German government, which nixed the idea. Next, the United States proposed hosting the exercises, but Russia balked at the $2-million price.

Sergei N. Yushenkov, chairman of the Defense Committee of the Duma, or lower house of the Russian Parliament, said the maneuvers’ cost could still be a problem.

And he said that members of the far-right party led by Vladimir V. Zhirinovsky--who had insisted that the exercises not be held in Russia--were already finding new excuses Tuesday to oppose holding them in the United States. Zhirinovsky supporters have formed an alliance with other nationalists, Communists and conservative Agrarian lawmakers. They often command a Duma majority.

“They do not want equal partnership (with the West), and they are not really interested in promoting a stable, firm and reliable international security system,” Yushenkov said of the hard-line opposition.

At the same time, there are signs that Russian lawmakers elected in December are serious about making the new Parliament work. The U.S. senators were invited to Moscow by Duma Speaker Ivan P. Rybkin, who wanted the Senate committee to explain to Russian lawmakers how the U.S. Congress oversees the military budget.

Yushenkov said the Defense Committee wants to exert the same level of civilian control over the Russian military as the U.S. Congress exercises over its armed forces--a statement that impressed the U.S. lawmakers.

While they met with a range of Russian politicians--including Zhirinovsky backers--the senators did not request a meeting with President Boris N. Yeltsin.

In Soviet times, visiting lawmakers always had token meetings with the Supreme Soviet, the puppet legislature, then held more substantive meetings with the real rulers. “We didn’t want to give the impression that our meetings with the Duma were perfunctory,” Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.) said.

The U.S. lawmakers used their visit to discuss the chaotic, punitive Russian tax system, which discourages foreign investment. Russian lawmakers, meanwhile, complained about U.S. efforts to prevent Russian weapons sales to other countries, contending that the United States is acting simply to block competition in the lucrative world arms market.

Nunn also stressed the need for U.S. and Russian lawmakers to take a more active role in overseeing the dismantling and destruction of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

The Georgia senator said he is “frustrated” by bureaucratic delays in distributing the $1 billion that Congress has appropriated to help Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus do away with their weapons of mass destruction. He said he had been assured the money will begin flowing soon.

Nunn said there are no documented cases of Russian organized crime groups stealing or selling materiel from the old Soviet arsenal but said that such a threat exists.