Yeltsin Likely Behind Russia’s Early Incursion

Russia’s top diplomat, Foreign Minister Igor S. Ivanov, promised it wouldn’t happen. When Russian troops rolled through Serbia, he gave his word they would stop at the Kosovo border.

And when the troops violated his pledge, crossed the border and drove triumphantly into Kosovo’s capital, Pristina, early Saturday waving the Russian flag, Ivanov huffed that it was a mistake.

But was it?

Kremlin officials went on a political offensive Saturday, insisting that the Russian troop movement was fully authorized and that the convoy moved into Kosovo on clear orders from President Boris N. Yeltsin.

“This was done within the framework of the first phase of the international security presence in Kosovo,” said Yeltsin’s deputy chief of staff, Sergei E. Prikhodko. “We have all the necessary instructions from the president pertaining to such a presence.”

Yet despite such assurances, Russia’s conduct has raised troubling questions about its reliability, chain of command and word of honor.

“Clearly, there was some confusion in the Russian ranks,” said a visiting U.S. administration official. “This is not what the international community considers professional behavior by a country that wants to be taken seriously.”

Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott--who had left Moscow on Friday but then turned around in midair and returned when news of the Kosovo deployment broke--met through the night with Russian officials and again during the day Saturday to try to calm the furor and reestablish trust.

After the U.S. side “passed fairly strong messages” to the Russians, the administration official said, the talks focused less on figuring out what went wrong than on finding a solution to the central dispute: how to integrate Russia into the Kosovo peacekeeping force.

While government officials on both sides want the Russians to participate, as of late Saturday the military officers who will run the operation still had not found a command system they think will work. Russian officers refuse to take orders from NATO, but NATO officers are insisting on a unified, NATO-led command.

“Diplomats simply do not understand how things are done in the armed forces,” said Gen. Makhmut A. Gareyev, president of the Russian Academy of Military Sciences. “If the military allows diplomats to run the armed forces, the military will always end up in a stupid situation.”

On that principle, U.S. and Russian generals flew from Moscow to Kosovo to hammer out their differences on the ground with the commander of NATO’s peacekeeping force, British Lt. Gen. Mike Jackson.

Early Arrival Boosts Morale in Russia

The talks in Pristina alone demonstrated that the Russians’ audacious incursion had considerably boosted their bargaining power. On Friday, the NATO-led peacekeeping force was going ahead without them. On Saturday, it couldn’t if it wanted to.

“Having sent its troops into Kosovo and getting there ahead of everybody else, Russia brandished its fist in the faces of its ill-wishers,” military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer said. “It has forced them to pay respect. And many people in Russia like that a great deal.”

Even Yeltsin, who hovered offstage throughout the incident, appeared gleeful when he emerged in silent television footage Saturday meeting with Ivanov and Defense Minister Igor D. Sergeyev.

Although the president did not speak on the issue, he managed to make his feelings known. The Itar-Tass news agency reported that he had issued an order Saturday morning promoting Lt. Gen. Viktor Zavarzin, the commander who led the Russian peacekeepers into Kosovo, to colonel general. That was a further gibe at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, since Zavarzin is Russia’s official representative to the alliance.

President Relies on His Past Tactics

The tactics were vintage Yeltsin. In previous military conflicts, such as the war against separatists in Russia’s volatile Chechnya region, the president has frequently declined to publicly endorse risky military or diplomatic maneuvers until their success has been assured.

He is also famous for setting subordinates against each other. Analysts said it was very likely that the president had given contradictory instructions to Russia’s ministries of defense and foreign affairs.

“The foreign minister does not have authority over the Defense Ministry,” Felgenhauer said. “All his words will fall on deaf ears of the Russian troops in Kosovo. They only obey orders from their own commanders.”

Russia’s independent NTV network reported that the order for the troops to cross the border was given by Col. Gen. Anatoly V. Kvashnin, head of the Russian general staff. However, the order was issued after Defense Minister Sergeyev had held an emergency meeting of his top generals Friday afternoon, so presumably Kvashnin’s directive had higher sanction.

Prikhodko, the presidential aide, suggested that Yeltsin’s instructions to the military had been general, standing orders.

“The responsibility for carrying out these instructions and their strict observance rests with the military,” Prikhodko said.

And there is little doubt that Russia’s armed forces were bound and determined to play a role in Kosovo, a province of Yugoslavia’s dominant republic, Serbia.

After events of recent years--especially Russia’s humiliating defeat by the separatists in Chechnya--military leaders are eager to burnish their reputation.

In Russia, the “power ministries”--including the Defense Ministry and the secret services--report directly to the president, while the Foreign Ministry has to go through the prime minister.

Yeltsin Has Power to Control Troops

That means there is only one person in the whole country--Yeltsin--who can mediate a conflict between the realms of defense and foreign affairs. And only one person who could have clarified Russia’s position or ordered the troops to halt.

Yeltsin also has a habit of shifting his political orientation every few months, taking some actions to please hard-liners and then shifting to conciliate pro-Western liberals.

While the Kosovo diplomatic mediation effort headed by envoy Viktor S. Chernomyrdin earned praise from liberals, the brazen military deployment in the province and the snub it dealt to NATO collected swift plaudits from Communists.

“We have not left our [Serbian] brothers face to face with NATO’s military machine,” rejoiced party leader Gennady A. Zyuganov.

The fallout from the incident is likely to continue for weeks. But the central message has already been delivered: Don’t trifle with Russia.

“No one should have hard feelings about this,” said Gen. Gareyev of the military academy. “By sending its paratroopers to Yugoslavia, by having them cross the border into Kosovo before NATO, Russia has shown to everyone in the world that its army is still alive and we are not as helpless as some may think.”