Russian Stability, Chechen Peace In Doubt

Senior American officials have long expected that President Boris Yeltsin of Russia would eventually oust his national security chief, Alexander Lebed, but were surprised by the timing, they said on Thursday.

The United States is being very careful not to get involved in what it regards as a matter of internal Russian politics, the officials stressed, but they are worried that the popular but controversial peace settlement Lebed negotiated in Chechnya could unravel.

They see little effect on Russian-American relations, where Lebed had not yet become an important player. Defense Secretary William Perry, in Moscow to urge the Russian Parliament to ratify the second strategic arms reduction treaty, or Start-2, told reporters that the personal and security ties among high Russian and American officials are “strong and growing.”

“I don’t see any fundamental change in the U.S.-Russian relationship in terms of this announcement,” he said.

But Lebed’s sudden ouster only adds to the uncertainty about Russia’s stability while Yeltsin awaits a heart operation, the officials say.

The officials say that they have no evidence that Lebed, as alleged, was planning any sort of military coup, and compare the intricate and shadowy power struggle in Moscow, as Churchill once did, to dogs fighting under a carpet.

But they stress that Lebed, who has recently fought with both Defense Minister Igor Rodionov and Interior Minister Anatoly Kulikov, will find little support in the Yeltsin government. And they expect that his lavish coverage in the mainstream Russian press will sharply diminish.

Lebed, whose presidential candidacy was in part promoted and financed by a Yeltsin team worried about the revived Communist Party, lost a great deal of his appeal to Yeltsin after the Russian runoff election on July 3, the officials say.

“It was clear he was no team player and did not like being a loyal subordinate, so it was always a combustible mix,” an official said.

As for the immediate spark, it was likely to have been a combination of Yeltsin’s approaching surgery and Lebed’s overreaching, including his relationship with a former Yeltsin crony, Alexander Korzhakov, and the public suggestion that Yeltsin hand over his powers while under hospital care.

Yeltsin was never going to take kindly to the implication that his second term was already over, the officials say, and his top aides, from the chief of staff, Anatoly Chubais, to Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, were likely to have reminded Yeltsin of his struggle with another general in Afghanistan whom Yeltsin elevated, former Vice President Alexander Rutskoi, who led a 1993 coup attempt.

Dimitri Simes, of the Nixon Center, said that Yeltsin aides probably judged it better to get rid of the ambitious Lebed now, while Yeltsin is well enough to do it personally and on camera, rather than risk Lebed challenging presidential decisions and competence after the surgery.

Jack Matlock, a former American ambassador in Moscow, said that the ouster will only make Lebed more popular.

“This may be as bad a blunder as Gorbachev throwing Yeltsin out in 1987, giving Lebed no alternative but to go into public opposition,” Matlock said. But given Lebed’s popularity and Yeltsin’s ill health, American officials see no reason to take sides in this battle. They are aware that should Yeltsin die in office, Chernomyrdin, who would take over as acting president, must call elections within three months, and that Lebed would have a good chance of winning.