Clinton-Yeltsin Summit Likely Not a Worldbeater : Diplomacy: Meeting after V-E Day celebrations, the two face the worst U.S.-Russian relations since the Cold War.

The public spectacle of this week’s summit in Moscow promises to be a gaudy celebration of the grand--if temporary--alliance that defeated fascism 50 years ago.

But the meetings behind closed doors between President Clinton and Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin will resemble more the testy negotiations of an estranged couple who have chosen to remain together for reasons more of convenience than conviction.

Clinton will appear with Yeltsin to commemorate the World War II Allied victory in Europe and pay tribute to the grievous price the Russian people paid to ensure it.

But after the bugles have sounded, Yeltsin and Clinton will have less than five hours to repair the worst ruptures in U.S.-Russian relations since the Cold War ended in 1991.

Clinton plans to prod his cantankerous partner on the war in Chechnya, the sale of nuclear technology to Iran and NATO’s expansion into the nations of the former Warsaw Pact. Aides said he will pointedly remind Yeltsin that entry into the Group of Seven industrialized nations and other prestigious institutions will depend on how Moscow resolves these and other issues.

Yeltsin--who scored a coup merely by persuading Clinton to bypass V-E Day celebrations in London, Paris and Berlin to mark the occasion in Moscow--enters the talks emboldened by the discovery since his last meeting with Clinton, in September, that he can still flex political muscle in Eurasia and in the former Soviet republics.

Yeltsin also recognizes the domestic political value of exploiting his independence from the West on issues of Russian national sovereignty and pride. The Kremlin has also reassessed its relationship with Clinton in the aftermath of the November elections in the United States, which Moscow read as a diminution of Clinton’s freedom of movement at home and abroad.

U.S. officials describe the summit as a step in creating a “normal” relationship between Washington and Moscow, part of the difficult evolution of two nations that are no longer enemies but not yet friends.

But summit expectations at the White House and the Kremlin are extremely low, and some officials in both capitals wish the meeting was not taking place at all.

“I don’t think anyone is expecting any improvement on the political issues,” said Sergei Y. Puzanov, an analyst with the influential USA-Canada Institute in Moscow. “Based on the latest events in Chechnya and the Iranian nuclear deal, I would say there could even be a worsening of relations.”

Just how far Russia and the United States have strayed from each other in recent months is apparent in a disturbing allusion Puzanov makes to the 1962 flash point that probably brought the superpowers as close as they ever came to war.

“We are headed for a bad phase,” the analyst said of U.S.-Russian ties. “Still, it won’t be as bad as, say, during the Cuban missile crisis.”

Secretary of State Warren Christopher, seeking to dampen hopes of measurable achievements at the two-day affair, said: “We’re not expecting any great series of breakthroughs. We’re not expecting all the outstanding problems to be resolved.”

He insisted, however, that the summit still has value as part of a process of what the Administration calls “pragmatic engagement.”

And frustrating as that process may be, the alternative--what Yeltsin in December called a “cold peace”--is “unpleasant in the extreme,” said Coit D. Blacker, the top Russia specialist at the National Security Council.

“They could turn inward again,” Blacker said. “They could become a fractious member of the international community. They could become a confrontational actor within the system.”

The visit that will begin Tuesday with a day of pageantry commemorating the World War II victory will get down to diplomatic business Wednesday morning and has to be wrapped up in time for a joint news conference that Clinton and Yeltsin will hold in midafternoon.

Clinton is then scheduled to address students at Moscow State University, and he is expected to make a direct appeal to the Russian people for continued social and economic liberalization. He will leave Thursday for a one-day stop in Kiev, the Ukrainian capital.

“There’s going to be very little time for negotiation,” said Vyacheslav A. Nikonov, head of the International Security and Arms Control subcommittee of Russia’s lower house of Parliament, the Duma. “I think this visit will have more emotional meaning than substance.”

Like other analysts, Nikonov expects Clinton to berate Yeltsin over continued aggression against rebel Chechnya and to appeal for scrapping the $1-billion nuclear deal with Iran--in both instances to no avail.

Christopher also held out little hope that Yeltsin can be persuaded to call off the Iran deal, although at week’s end there were indications that Russian officials were squabbling over a related sale of a gas centrifuge capable of producing weapons-grade uranium.

“We do not expect miracles,” Christopher said of the nuclear sale to Iran. But he said Clinton will tell Yeltsin in no uncertain terms that the deal would have adverse effects on the overall U.S.-Russian relationship.

Christopher, however, ruled out specific penalties if the Iran deal goes through or, for that matter, if Yeltsin rebuffs him on any other area of American concern.

“We should not make any single issue the talisman of the relationship,” he said.

Yeltsin will continue to make his case against the eastward expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, but he will meet the same response he has heard repeatedly from Washington: NATO will grow gradually and openly and not at Russia’s expense.

Yeltsin is likely to repeat his warning against drawing new lines of division in Europe and to remind Clinton that the growth of the Western military alliance fuels paranoia among reactionary elements in Russia.

Clinton will listen politely but not budge, aides said.

That the summit is taking place at all is a victory for Yeltsin, said Michael McFaul of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, because Clinton initially made his visit conditional on Moscow ending its violent repression of Chechen separatism. Clinton later relented out of concern that snubbing Victory Day events could do more harm than good to relations.

Yeltsin gains political capital in having engineered Clinton’s about-face, McFaul said, even though the glow of Western endorsement has dimmed among Russians.

“It’s not like it was two years ago, when Yeltsin needed Western support and American assurances that ‘You’re our man,’ ” he added. “Now they don’t need it (U.S. support). Or at least they feel they don’t need it.”

Aside from the standoff over Iran, Clinton also may come away empty-handed if he pushes for Russian withdrawal from Chechnya.

That the U.S. President is visiting Russia while it presses a brutal siege in the breakaway republic where 20,000 or more people already have been killed has been the prod for much criticism of Clinton by a wide array of pressure groups and political opponents.

Yeltsin ordered a two-week halt to offensive actions in honor of Victory Day and to ease pressure being brought to bear on his guests in their own nations. As one of more than 50 heads of state due in Moscow for the celebrations, Clinton is not the only leader being criticized for propping up Yeltsin as he wages war.

Chechen rebels have refused to abide by the cease-fire, however, and fighting has continued across the devastated southern region.

U.S. officials have sought to portray this week’s meeting as part of a continuing process of discussion that has value for its own sake.

“These are fairly regular meetings between the two presidents . . . so we don’t have the sense that we have to apply artificial benchmarks every time we meet,” one senior U.S. diplomat said. “The very fact that they get together and talk about these issues almost always advances the ball.”

Many in Congress are growing increasingly impatient with that attitude, asserting that Clinton has invested too much in his personal relationship with Yeltsin and is unwilling to attach a price to Russia’s flouting of U.S. objectives and international norms.

Among these critics is Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the influential chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee’s foreign operations panel, which oversees the foreign aid budget. He believes that U.S. aid to the former Soviet Union--which has totaled nearly $14 billion in grants and loans since 1991--should be strictly conditioned on the former republics’ behavior.

“I see a dangerous pattern emerging: of dialogue for the sake of dialogue--diplomacy as an end, not a means,” McConnell said in a recent speech to the Council on Foreign Relations.

“There is a widely held view that key officials do not see the intrinsic danger of dialogue without end, which is ultimately appeasement. In failing to draw bright lines and adhere vigorously to its stated goals, the Administration invites disaster.”

Williams reported from Moscow and Broder from Washington.

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