‘Gentle Terrorist’ Is the Poster Boy of a New Cold War

In retrospect, with a new U.S.-Russian Cold War all but declared, it might just be seen as the first--if unofficial--shot across America’s bow.

Two years ago, a gunman leaped from a vehicle in front of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow and aimed a grenade launcher at the building’s mustard-colored walls. When the launcher jammed, he pulled out a second, which also jammed. Then he hoisted a semiautomatic assault rifle and, over the heads of a crowd of protesters, sprayed the facade with bullets.

Remarkably, although hundreds of people were on the street, no one was injured. But 11 bullet holes were added to the Jackson Pollock-like paint splatters and smashed eggs already sticking to the embassy’s exterior in an anti-American protest collage.

On Thursday, a Moscow court sentenced 43-year-old Alexander Suslikov to 6 1/2 years in a maximum-security prison for his role in the attack. Suslikov, described as the gunman’s accomplice, said the assault was meant to be a harmless protest against the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s bombing of Yugoslavia.

“If he didn’t want to hurt anyone, they shouldn’t have fired in the first place,” one U.S. diplomat grumbled.

That Suslikov’s trial ended the same week that U.S.-Russian relations went into a nose-dive is coincidence, but one many Russians found fitting. If nothing else, Suslikov’s sentencing was a reminder for Russians and Americans that relations have been on a downturn not just since the Bush administration took over in Washington, but for more than two years. The NATO air war in spring 1999 transformed Russians’ disillusionment with the West into downright antagonism, especially toward the United States.

As a result, Suslikov, a sculptor of uncertain talent who sat in the vehicle as the gunman fumbled with his arsenal, has become a kind of anti-American poster boy.

“A Victim of Politics and Art,” said the Vremya Novostei daily. The Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper termed him “A Very Gentle Terrorist.” Even those who didn’t embrace his action found it hard not to at least praise his “patriotism.”

“I only take actions I’m not ashamed of,” Suslikov said before his sentencing, according to the Kommersant Daily newspaper.

Suslikov and his lawyers say firing at the embassy wasn’t his idea. They blame a man they call “Mikhail,” whom Suslikov met in 1993 when both fought as citizens on the side of hard-line lawmakers during a violent standoff in the Russian parliament building. Mikhail remains at large.

The March 28, 1999, daytime grenade attack was audacious, taking place within sight of dozens of riot police who were keeping an eye on the protesters. The two men managed to flee uninjured, under police fire.

For some reason, the sculptor decided to honor the incident by carving a 2-foot-tall gypsum statuette he titled “Answer to NATO.” The statuette, depicting a man in camouflage aiming a grenade launcher, went on display in the Russian parliament. According to Kommersant, the statuette piqued the interest of police, who went to interview the sculptor. And in his studio, they found a cache of weapons. When asked, Suslikov acknowledged taking part in the attack.

Nonetheless, Suslikov and his lawyer downplay the role of the sculpture.

“No one can prove that it was this very incident in front of the embassy that inspired him to sculpt this particular figurine,” insisted Suslikov’s lawyer, Andrei Shalamov. All the same, it stood prominently on the judge’s desk during his court hearing, along with the grenade launchers.

Even though the sentence was less than the nine years prosecutors requested, the lawyer said Suslikov’s patriotism should have earned him a lighter sentence.

Judge Marina Komarova was unimpressed, saying, “The accused did not deny the fact that he realized the act of protest . . . could have ended either in their own death or in large-scale bloodshed on both sides.”

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Alexei V. Kuznetsov of The Times’ Moscow Bureau contributed to this report.