Russia denies missile shift; Poland wants inspections

Compiled from Times wires

© St. Petersburg Times, published January 5, 2001

MOSCOW -- Russia stepped up its denials Thursday that it had moved short-range nuclear missiles to a naval base on the Baltic Sea, close enough to threaten parts of Poland and Lithuania.

But the denial, which came from diplomatic and military officials, did not settle the matter. Warsaw asked for an inspection of the base in Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave wedged between Poland and Lithuania.

The deployment of such weapons would be more significant politically than militarily, analysts said.

Nuclear missiles based elsewhere on Russian soil could easily reach the same targets. Yet battlefield nuclear weapons in Kaliningrad would be seen as a political challenge to NATO as it considers adding the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia to its expanding membership.

NATO recently brought in Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary, all former Soviet satellites, despite fierce Russian opposition.

Russia's denial on Kaliningrad followed assertions by unidentified U.S. officials, first reported in the Washington Times, that the Russians had been stockpiling battlefield nuclear weapons there for a year or more.

The newspaper report said the nuclear warheads were designed for a new type of short-range missile with a range of about 44 miles.

"(That) doesn't correspond with reality," said Anatoly Lobsky, a spokesman for the Baltic Fleet. "The Baltic Sea has been declared a nuclear-free zone, and the Baltic Fleet unfailingly fulfills its commitments."

Vladimir Yegorov, who resigned as commander of the Baltic Fleet after being elected governor of Kaliningrad late last year, dismissed the report as a "dangerous joke."

Military analysts said such a deployment would make little sense for Moscow.

"I'm quite sure it's not true," said Alexander Golts, a Moscow journalist who covers defense issues. "It looks like absolute rubbish to deploy warheads in Kaliningrad."

Golts said NATO inspectors regularly checked that there was no nuclear buildup in Kaliningrad. "I cannot believe, knowing the condition of our armed forces, that they are tough enough to redeploy," he said.

Yet Golts pointed out that the Russian military has been trying to show that its forces can still challenge NATO.

The August naval maneuvers in the Barents Sea, during which the Kursk nuclear submarine sank, were aimed at drilling Russian warships to take on NATO carrier groups. Last year, Russia deployed nuclear-capable "Bear" bombers close to the Bering Straits, after calling them a cheap alternative to a proposed U.S. anti-missile defense.

Russian reconnaissance planes recently buzzed an American aircraft carrier at sea, a move the United States dismissed as a meaningless stunt but that Russian air force commanders trumpeted as evidence of their capabilities.

"Russia has been playing a strange game in the Arctic, and we may be seeing a return to the old games," Golts said. "Games designed to increase Russia's ambition and show it is still a powerful nation."

The former chief of staff of Estonia's armed forces, Gen. Ants Laaneots, linked the reports to a toughening of Russian foreign policy since President Vladimir Putin took over a year ago.

"This is a continuation of Putin's new offensive foreign policy concept, which has been stated in Russia's military doctrine adopted last year in which Russia reserves the right to use nuclear weapons first," the general said.

Polish Defense Minister Bronislaw Komorowski on Thursday called for international inspectors to verify that Moscow had not deployed nuclear weapons.

"Poland needs to monitor the situation in Kaliningrad on a day-to-day basis and it is doing that," Komorowski said.

Yuri Gladkevich, an analyst at the independent Military News Agency, said Russia would have nothing to gain politically from such a deployment. Ditching nonbinding arms agreements from the early 1990s, which were intended to limit tactical nuclear weapons deployment in Europe, would only invite the ire of European countries and the United States.

He contended that the news reports were based on misinformation, an intelligence leak intended to influence policy for the incoming Bush administration or to demonstrate to America's European allies that Russia remained a threat.

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