Russian Claim of Rescue Spurs Questions

The Russian army triumphantly announced over the weekend that it had freed captured paratrooper Nikolai Zavarzin in a special forces operation carried out behind enemy lines in Chechnya.

Zavarzin appeared on state television Saturday evening, a few hours after the reported rescue, reassured his parents that he was fine and said he wanted “to thank the people who helped me get out of there.”

There was just one hitch: The Russian government had already announced, on Thursday, that Zavarzin was one of three prisoners of war released by the Chechen rebels in exchange for arrested Radio Liberty correspondent Andrei Babitsky.

Russian officials reached Sunday said they could not explain how Zavarzin could have remained a Chechen prisoner until Saturday if he was released in Thursday’s prisoner swap. It also remained unclear why commandos would need to rescue the private if he was part of a negotiated trade.

The discrepancy underscored fears that the Russian government is not telling the truth about what happened to Babitsky, a 10-year veteran of the U.S.-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty network.

Babitsky was arrested by Russian Interior Ministry troops near the Chechen capital, Grozny, in mid-January and was never permitted to contact his family or employers. Sunday, more than three days after the supposed trade, Babitsky’s wife and radio station still had not heard from him.

The rebels have said they know nothing about a prisoner exchange with the Russians. In an interview Sunday with the radio network, Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov said he was in touch with all the rebel commanders and could guarantee that Babitsky was not in Chechen hands.

Some of Babitsky’s supporters fear that the correspondent was killed while in Russian custody and that the prisoner swap--first announced by the Kremlin--was fabricated to cover up his death.

“I think it’s highly unlikely, given his experience there, that in a three-day period he would not get to a telephone and contact us--unless he is unable to,” said Jeff Trimble, broadcasting director for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

U.S. Presses Russia on Journalist’s Status

In Washington, President Clinton’s chief of staff, John Podesta, said the United States has “made strong protests to the Russian government” concerning the Babitsky case.

“We don’t know his status, and we’re obviously very concerned about it,” Podesta said on “Fox News Sunday.” “We have made our views known to the Russian government. We’ve pressed them on this.”

The prisoner exchange was announced Thursday by Sergei V. Yastrzhembsky, the Kremlin’s chief spokesman on Chechnya. He named Zavarzin and two other soldiers as the three the rebels had let go in the trade for Babitsky. Later Thursday, Yastrzhembsky’s office said Zavarzin had been released earlier in the day, before Babitsky was turned over to the rebels.

On Friday, the government released an undated videotape shot by the FSB--the main successor agency to the KGB--that it said shows the exchange.

While the government has said that Babitsky wanted to participate in the exchange, he looks grim and worried in the video and at one point seems to be struggling to keep from crying.

The video shows him being handed over to an armed man wearing a mask who grabs him roughly, while two soldiers accompanied by a Russian in civilian clothing walk past. There is no footage of the soldiers being released by the Chechens, their supposed captors are never shown, and none of the three men are named.

At the end of the video, an unidentified Russian man, most likely an FSB agent, speaks directly into the camera and states that the video has shown the hand-over of Babitsky to the Chechens.

“Already today, three servicemen have been received in exchange for him: Airborne troops serviceman Nikolai Zavarzin and two draft servicemen from the 506 Motorized Infantry Regiment, Dmitriev and Vasiliev,” the man says.

Asked Sunday how Zavarzin could have been freed twice in three days, spokesmen for the FSB, Yastrzhembsky and the military said they had no explanation.

Zavarzin’s role in the Babitsky hand-over was just one of many questions raised by the video. Babitsky’s backers and the Russian media have pointed out at least 20 other oddities, such as:

* The Chechen rebels are not known to cover their faces. Why did the alleged Chechens in the video wear masks, greet Babitsky rudely and grab him unceremoniously by the elbow?

* Why, if he had volunteered for the exchange, was Babitsky escorted by Russians carrying machine guns?

* Why would the alleged terrorists drive more than 100 miles into Russian-held territory to make the swap just outside Grozny?

* Why were the masked Chechens captured on video only momentarily, when the normal FSB practice would be to keep a camera trained on them for as long as possible, to aid in future identification?

* Yastrzhembsky said the government negotiated the deal with a rebel commander named Said Usa Khodzhayev. The Chechens say they have never heard of him.

Chechen Believes Detainee Is Dead

Mumadi Saydayev, a Chechen government official, said he believes that the Russians killed Babitsky and faked the exchange so they could later blame his death on the Chechens.

“It was just an FSB video shot for their own investigative purposes,” Saydayev told Russia’s Kommersant newspaper. “‘Usually reams of journalists are allowed to film such events. And why were the people from the Chechen side wearing masks? Simply because there were no Chechens there at all. And one more thing: If we had Babitsky now, he definitely would have called home already.”