NEWS ANALYSIS : Russians Playing the Blame Game Over Chechnya

Famous last words. Russian Defense Minister Pavel S. Grachev, speaking late last month, boasted that “one regiment of paratroopers would need just two hours to solve the whole issue” in breakaway Chechnya.

Four days after Moscow sent thousands of troops streaming toward the Chechen capital of Grozny, those words come off as bravado so outrageous as to be almost comical. Except that to Russians there is nothing comical about the flaws in intelligence and military planning revealed by snags in the offensive.

Why, media and analysts ask, was Russia’s crisis with Chechnya allowed to get so out of hand that only massive force could solve it?

Why does the Russian march on the breakaway region seem so impromptu? And why were Russian troops caught by surprise when villagers outside Chechnya, in neighboring Dagestan and Ingushetia, blocked their way, leading to deaths, injuries and the humiliating loss of armored vehicles?

In the finger-pointing that has gathered momentum since Sunday, one target is taking the most blame--the Federal Counterintelligence Service, a rough Russian equivalent of the FBI known by its Russian initials, FSK.

“I would give the FSK an F for its preparation of the operation without a moment of hesitation,” said security expert Sergei Blagovolin, an adviser to President Boris N. Yeltsin. “They failed to recruit people who are against (Chechen President Dzhokar M.) Dudayev--and there are very many of those people in Chechnya. They could not work properly with the opposition. That’s a kindergarten level of work. The FSK’s preparation for the operation was disastrous.”

The FSK is charged with fighting foreign spies, terrorists and threats to Russia’s security, including economic dangers. It came formally into existence only in January after yet another revamping of the remnants of the Soviet KGB, and it answers directly to Yeltsin.

These days, in contrast to the all-powerful KGB, it must also answer to the likes of nationalist lawmaker Alexander Nevzorov. Nevzorov demanded that FSK Director Sergei V. Stepashin come to Parliament to face the criticism.

“Stepashin is a lazybones,” Nevzorov snapped. “It’s his fault that 18-year-old soldiers with runny noses are fighting there, not officers’ battalions trained for that purpose. . . . Let the FSK pay for sending a special contingent of troops there.”

Stepashin was also taking flak from the Russian media.

“Was it really impossible to foresee (and therefore prevent) the reaction of the populations in Ingushetia and Dagestan?” wondered Dmitri Ostalsky in the newspaper Sevodnya. Ingush and Dagestani villagers burned at least 30 military vehicles, and dozens of soldiers were taken hostage.

Alexander Minkin’s questions in Moskovsky Komsomolets, Russia’s most popular daily, were even sharper: “If (we had to invade) Chechnya, why did it have to be done so stupidly, so talentlessly, so unpreparedly? There have been reports that paratroopers arrested Stepashin--he didn’t know the password. Is this cooperation? And why in winter? It’s hard enough to operate in the mountains even in summertime. Why do we know nothing? Is there a plan?”

Analysts also appeared little impressed by the initial performance of the new Russian army in its biggest operation since it was created in 1992.

“As for the military side of the operation, I would give them only a C,” Blagovolin said. “So far, they have avoided a lot of bloodshed.”

Vitaly Tretyakov, editor of the respected newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta, wrote scathingly: “The start of the Chechen expedition as a fact and its first results (the reaction of the local population, the losses among Russian troops, the colonels taken captive!!!) testify to the total incompetence of those who planned it both from the point of view of ethnic politics and the military aspect.”

The Russian troops struggling toward Grozny have come in for fewer attacks than the FSK, perhaps because they are seen as unfortunates fulfilling an unpleasant task.

But their slow progress did their image no favor.

“The longer it takes for our military actions there, the greater will grow Dudayev’s authority and prestige,” worried Sergei Oznobishchev, director of the Center for International Security Problems at the USA-Canada Institute, a Moscow think tank.

The Russian army is also clearly suffering from the weak turnout in recent military drafts and the diminishing officer corps, both of which have left most units undermanned.

“Where can we get soldiers other than the 18-year-olds you saw on TV?” asked Col. Gen. Yuri Rodionov, a member of Parliament’s defense committee. “It’s all very easy to discuss problems, but it is very difficult to organize such an operation.”

Indeed, most commentators did not blame the army for how it carried out its orders--they instead pointed out that the orders would never have needed to be given if not for the FSK.

It was the FSK that, by all accounts, organized the Nov. 26 attempt at storming Grozny by forces that claimed to be Chechen opposition to Dudayev but were actually stacked with recruits from the Russian army.

One problem was that the Russian soldiers were recruited by the FSK so clandestinely that their own commanders didn’t know that their men would be moonlighting. That got the Defense Ministry understandably mad at the FSK. Another problem was that when the Russians were routed, officers were taken prisoner and forced to admit their role in the would-be coup.

Acknowledging its shame, the FSK sacked its deputy chief, Yevgeny Savostyanov, who had overseen the Caucasus region for the service.

Even worse, the disastrous Nov. 26 attack on Dudayev was the third of its kind, military observers say. When the FSK realized the last storm had failed, analysts believe, it immediately began to push for a major operation to squash Dudayev once and for all.

Battered by public opinion, the FSK may take its revenge on Dudayev personally. According to Russian reports, it has been putting together a super-elite group of 120 commandos to slip into Grozny and “liquidate” the Chechen president.