IRON TROIKAS:

THE NEW THREAT FROM THE EAST

Richard J. Krickus

March 2006

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iii

FOREWORD

There has been widespread discussion of Russia’s efforts to exploit 

its energy assets to influence developments in Ukraine; specifically, 

to put pressure on the leaders of the Orange Revolution who have 

adopted a Western orientation, rather than one toward the East—

Russia. Less attention has been devoted to similar efforts undertaken 

by Russia to advance Moscow’s security objectives in the East Baltic 

Sea Region (EBSR).

Through what the author of this monograph, Dr. Richard Krickus, 

calls Iron Troikas, he demonstrates how the Russian leadership 

has exploited its energy assets to advance its security interests in 

the vital EBSR—with emphasis on Poland and the Baltic countries. 

This triad of power is comprised of former members of the military 

and security service—the siloviki; economic warlords, members of 

organized crime, and rogue military personnel; and “local elites” in 

Poland and the Baltic countries who have advanced Russia’s security 

interests in the region.

The analysis provided by Dr. Krickus is driven by the failure of 

the Western defense community to understand this “new threat from 

the East,” and to provide recommendations bearing on how it can be 

addressed by the U.S. military and the EBSR defense establishments. 

The thrust of this monograph is in keeping with the U.S. Army’s and 

U.S. Government’s ongoing exploration of ways to advance their 

goals in an ever changing global security environment.

DOUGLAS C. LOVELACE, JR.

Director

Strategic Studies Institute 
iv

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR

RICHARD J. KRICKUS is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the 

University of Mary Washington and had held the H. L. Oppenheimer 

Chair of Warfighting Strategy at the U.S. Marine Corps University. 

Before that, he had co-founded The National Center for Urban Ethnic 

Affairs in Washington, DC, and in the early 1970s began conducting 

research on the USSR’s “nationalities question.” In this connection, 

Dr. Krickus began to write about popular unrest among the people of 

Lithuania. In 1990, Sajudis, the Lithuanian popular front movement, 

invited him to serve as an international monitor for the first democratic 

election conducted in Soviet Lithuania. He has offered testimony at the 

Senate Foreign Relations Committee and has lectured at the U.S. Foreign 

Service Institute, the Polish Foreign Ministry, the European Commission 

and other domestic and foreign venues on the Soviet Union/Russia, 

the Baltic countries, NATO and Kaliningrad. Dr. Krickus has published 

widely on these issues for academic and policy-oriented journals as well 

as newspapers like The Washington Post, The Chicago Sun Times, The Los 

Angeles Times, and The Wall Street Journal Europe. For the past 8 years, 

he has written a column on world affairs for Lietuvos Rytas, Lithuania’s 

leading national daily. He is the author of a number of books: Pursuing 

the American Dream, The Superpowers in Crisis, Showdown: The Lithuanian 

Rebellion and the Break-Up of the Soviet Empire, and The Kaliningrad 

Question. Dr. Krickus holds a B.A. in government from the College of 

William and Mary, an M.A. in international affairs from the University 

of Massachusetts, and a Ph.D. in comparative politics from Georgetown 

University.
v

SUMMARY

In the aftermath of September 11, 2001, American security analysts 

preoccupied with global terrorism have ignored Russia as a security 

threat, but this is a mistake for two reasons. First, violence in the 

Caucasus, a demographic and health crisis, economic uncertainty, 

income inequality and a return to autocracy suggest a problematic future 

for Russia. Though deemed implausible, an imploded Russia would 

have massive security implications for the international community.

But second, there is an existential threat posed by Russia which 

Janusz Bugajski has described in his book, Cold Peace: Russia’s New 

Imperialism. It involves Moscow’s campaign to reassert its influence over 

the security policies of the countries in Central and Eastern Europe. The 

purpose of this monograph is to identify the actors and circumstances—

characterized as Iron Troikas—which the Kremlin is employing to 

achieve these goals. The focus will be upon four U.S. allies in the East 

Baltic Sea Region (EBSR): the Baltic countries and Poland. Toward this 

end, the monograph will analyze:

• The siloviki, the “men of power” who represent the first 

component of Iron Troikas. Like President Vladimir Putin, they 

hope to create a strong state that will project Moscow’s security 

interests in areas formerly dominated by the Soviet Union by 

exploiting Russia’s massive energy wealth.

• The economic warlords, Mafia, and rogue military personnel, 

who have exploited the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist 

Republics and the drive toward privatization, comprise the 

second component. Even if they are not working under the 

direction of the siloviki, they have advanced the Kremlin’s goals 

in the EBSR. As Keith Smith of the Center for Strategic and 

International Studies has documented, Putin’s renationalization 

of Russia’s energy sector is designed to project Russian influence 

throughout the EBSR; that is, through its “energy card,” 

compel the Baltic peoples and Poles to adopt security policies 

favorable to Moscow. Simultaneously, criminal and rogue 

military personnel have shipped contraband through the Baltic 

Corridor—including weapons—and one day may provide an 

infrastructure that terrorists can exploit.

• The Old Nomenklatura and New Oligarchs in the EBSR countries 

constitute the third component of Iron Troikas. They provide a 
vi

network of “local” actors that aid and abet—primarily in pursuit 

of economic and political advantage and not subversive goals—

Russian interests seeking to penetrate their societies. The 2002-03 

presidential crisis in Lithuania provides evidence that Russian 

officials, with the complicity of Russian economic interests, came 

close to achieving that objective.

Against this backdrop, Western defense analysts must acknowledge 

that Iron Troikas represent a “new threat from the East”—in the EBSR 

but throughout the Near Abroad as well. To date, the Western security 

community has failed to acknowledge this threat primarily because it 

does not involve classical military operations. Simultaneously, American 

and European political authorities have been reluctant to challenge 

Russia on Iron Troikas out of concern that to do so will place at risk joint 

Russian-Western efforts to fight the global war on terrorism, to curb the 

proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and to gain access to vital 

energy assets from areas other than the unstable Middle East.

But on the basis of this initial assessment of Iron Troikas, it is 

apparent that Russia hopes to achieve a number of goals, all of which 

are detrimental to U.S. security interests in New Europe. For example, 

to foreclose the possibility that New European states will join the United 

States in future military ventures similar to Iraq, to promote a common 

European Union security policy that diminishes North Atlantic Treaty 

Organization (NATO) effectiveness, and to coerce the Poles and Balts 

into accepting a security arrangement more in keeping with Russia’s 

interests.

The U.S. defense community must revisit Russia not as a peer military 

threat, but as an unstable area that could influence developments 

throughout Eurasia. Most specifically, it must acknowledge that Iron 

Troikas represent an existential security threat to America’s EBSR allies. 

The region represents a potential theater of strategic operations in the 

easternmost frontier of NATO and can provide access and bases that one 

day may be required out of political necessity or for operational reasons. 

Its importance may grow as developments in Belarus, Northwest Russia, 

and Ukraine become more problematic.

Measures therefore must be taken by the defense community to 

address this “other than war” threat. Toward this end, the U.S. Army 

should develop programs bilaterally or with NATO and through 

existing networks help the military establishments in the region cope 

with it.
IRON TROIKAS:

THE NEW THREAT FROM THE EAST

Introduction.

In the aftermath of September 11, 2001 (9/ll), American defense 

analysts have been preoccupied with global terrorism and have 

ignored Russia as a security threat to the United States and its allies. 

Thomas P. M. Barnett writes, “In Europe, we have no compelling 

need to prepare for war, and that definition includes the Russian 

Federation.”1 As the successor state to the Soviet Union, Russia 

certainly does not constitute the peer threat that the Union of Soviet 

Socialist Republics (USSR) did during the Cold War, but dismissing 

it as a security threat altogether falls short on two counts. 

First, while it may be an exaggeration to proclaim the Russian 

Federation a failed state, it faces many daunting challenges and it 

will remain unstable for years. As Paul Goble has observed, key 

institutions that functioned during the Soviet Union have become 

badly weakened. “The Communist Party is gone. The KGB has 

been reduced to a shadow of its former self, however threatening 

it may still appear. The armed forces are a hollow shell, one made 

ever more so by demographic decline and the shortage of funds. 

And the interior ministry and its police are simultaneously weak, 

incompetent, and corrupt.”2

As a consequence, Russia faces a serious internal security problem. 

In spite of years of military operations, the Chechen insurgents have 

not been crushed, and reports from Dagestan, Ingushetia and North 

Ossetia indicate that the insurgency will spread and inflame the 

entire North Caucasus.3 This development alone justifies the claim 

that Russia is an unstable society. But perhaps of even larger longterm significance is Russia’s demographic crisis that is exemplified by 

the fact that the Federation’s population shrinks by one half-million 

people annually. What’s more, while the ethnic Russian population 

stagnates, growth rates are highest among their fellow citizens, those 

of the Muslim faith in particular. With the demographic collapse of 

the Russian population, “Moscow is already the largest Muslim city 

in Europe, that by 2010 forty percent of the country’s 18-year-old 
males will be from traditionally Muslim nationalities, and by 2030, 

the Russian Federation will have a non-Russian and quite possibly 

non-Slavic majority.”4 Consequently, resistance to Russian rule is 

likely to spread to other areas of the country where non-Russians 

are a majority population such as Tatarstan—even though it is 

surrounded by ethnic Russian provinces. 

Throughout Russia, corruption at all levels of government 

flourishes, including the law enforcement and court system, and 

criminals without fear of prosecution sell weapons and even more 

dangerous materials to the very people—including terrorists—the 

police are supposed to be fighting. 

Meanwhile, the military is shrinking in numbers, fire-power, 

and capability. Its performance in Chechnya has been abysmal, and 

reports that rogue military personnel are selling weapons to the 

people Putin calls terrorists testifies to the decline of a once mighty 

fighting force. Only the most undesirable elements of Russia’s draft 

age population serve in the armed forces, and they are lucky to get an 

adequate diet, much less serious training during their active service. 

Brutal beatings and other forms of mistreatment tolerated by their 

officers account for high rates of suicide among enlisted men. Aircraft, 

naval vessels, and heavy Army equipment are in advanced stages of 

decrepitude, and few military personnel have the opportunity to use 

them in meaningful training or combat operations.5

While Putin’s popularity among ordinary folk remains high, the 

January 2005 protests clearly indicate that the Russian people are 

anxious about their future. Many ordinary Russians were appalled 

by Putin’s casual, hands-off treatment of the Kursk submarine 

disaster and the ineptitude of his underlings in their mishandling of 

the Moscow theater and Beslan school terrorist massacres. 

Among Russia’s best and brightest in the liberal community, few 

voices are raised in Putin’s defense. He has systematically destroyed 

the fledgling democratic institutions that appeared in the 1990s. The 

Duma is subservient to the Kremlin, elections may be free but not 

fair, the Federation’s governors are now hand-picked by Putin, and, 

while newspapers may criticize the government, television carries 

few reports of that nature. 

With the jailing of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, “the richest man in 

Russia,” the business elite—and not only the wealthiest oligarchs—
have expressed concern about further efforts on the part of the 

Kremlin to interfere in their affairs and complain that governmentinitiated corruption is on the upswing.6

Of course, the escalation in oil prices has provided Putin with 

a windfall that has enabled him to fund social programs that are 

popular, and to entice the military and hardliners with the prospect 

of substantial increases in defense spending. But it is conventional 

wisdom among economists that no large society can base its economic 

development on the sale of commodities alone.7 Moreover, it was 

the fig-leaf of the USSR’s energy wealth during the Brezhnev era 

that mislead so many elites in the Soviet Union and the West alike 

to conclude that Soviet rule would prevail whatever its problems. 

Consequently, the vast majority of Soviet experts in the West failed 

to anticipate the USSR’s collapse in 1991.8

Developments on the foreign policy front have not been favorable 

to Putin either. He skillfully played a weak foreign policy hand 

during his first term in office, and even today continues to parry 

American and European criticism of his anti-democratic policies 

and his brutal war in Chechnya with some success. The leaders of 

the Trans-Atlantic alliance have been timid in their criticism since 

they look to Russia to join the global war on terrorism (GWOT), to 

curb the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), and 

to provide energy inputs from areas other than the unstable Middle 

East. 

But he has suffered a series of foreign policy setbacks during his 

second term. The Baltic countries have entered both the European 

Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) 

on his watch. He has had to accept American penetration of areas 

that were previously under Moscow’s domination—the Caspian 

Sea Basin and Central Asia. The knowledge that American troops 

and military assets are now deployed in bases that once housed 

Soviet forces has outraged the generals and explains why some in 

the military are unhappy with their president. And even while they 

may support his attempts to establish security ties with China, the 

Russian defense establishment remains suspicious of the giant to its 

south. There is substance behind such fears. Among other things, the 

massive Chinese population situated below Russia’s borders in the 
Far East is likely, in the next several decades, to gain de facto, if not 

de jure, control of resource rich Russian territory.

Furthermore, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)—

comprised of former Soviet Republics—has not become the Russiandominated security system that Kremlin planners had anticipated. 

The “colored revolutions” in Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan 

have forced Putin to the unappealing conclusion that the CIS is 

doomed. Having played a visibly active role in a campaign to elect 

a pro-Russian candidate in Ukraine, and failing in that venture, was 

especially humiliating for him. It clearly is another reason why many 

imperial minded in the military and among the security forces have 

begun to doubt his capacity to manage Russia’s foreign affairs.

 A new phase in the USSR’s demise is unfolding as Soviet-era 

elites surrounding Russia cling to power with little prospect that they 

will do so for much longer. Those in Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan, for 

example, are faced with mounting resistance to their dictatorial rule, 

and their days are numbered.9 The demise of “pro-Russian” regimes 

throughout Eurasia in favor of those that view Moscow with enmity 

or are driven by religious zeal represents a profound threat to the 

Kremlin’s imperial ambitions and to its internal security as well. 

Widespread and serious discord will continue to produce shock 

waves of instability over vast areas of Eurasia for many years. In the 

face of these developments, Russian watchers have begun to think 

about the unthinkable—the break-up of Russia itself, an event that 

will have a far greater impact upon global security than anything al 

Qaeda or like-minded terrorist groups can achieve in their wildest 

dreams. An aggressive Russian military strike is not an issue here, 

but the following three factors demonstrate why an imploding Russia 

is a security threat of ominous proportions: most of the people who 

live on earth reside in or adjacent to Russia’s vast territory; a growing 

proportion of the world’s economic output can be found in this area; 

apart from the United States, Russia possesses the largest nuclear 

arsenal in the world, as well as a massive biological and chemical 

weapons capability. An imploded Russia would destabilize countries 

and governments over a wide area of Eurasia. It would wreak havoc 

with any Western effort to achieve energy security. It would also 

disseminate components of Russia’s vast WMD and conventional 
arsenal to terrorists and rogue states that consider the United States 

their principal international enemy.10

While Russia may not be stricken by the worst case scenario 

described above, there is a second, existential Russian threat that 

cannot be ignored by the United States. Because it is diffuse and 

represents a host of different players—security operatives, criminal 

elements, rogue military personnel, and economic “warlords”—it 

has not received the attention it deserves. This is true largely because 

it has not as yet been identified as a coherent entity that is driven 

by intent and not just random circumstances. The players and 

their destabilizing activities will be described in this monograph as 

belonging to Iron Troikas. The purpose of this analysis is to identify 

and evaluate these phenomena and show how they are shaping 

the security environment in the vital East Baltic Sea Region (EBSR). 

While military planners in the West have failed to fathom their 

importance, strategists in Moscow hope to exploit them and thereby 

project Russian power over areas formerly under the control of the 

USSR. 

To place Russian Iron Troikas into a broader perspective, we 

might consult Janusz Bugajski’s book, Cold Peace.

11 He argues that 

in keeping with past practice, Russia’s leadership, like those who 

preceded it, covets the states of the Baltic Sea region. Indeed, he 

contends, “An important measure of Russia’s global role is the 

nature of its policies toward former East European vassals.” While 

complaining about how their policies may compromise Moscow’s 

interests, “Russia has failed to take into account, the national interest 

of its East European neighbors.” Moreover, widespread ignorance 

about these countries on the part of the Russian population fosters 

hostility toward them as they are considered to be “Russo-phobic.” 

Inadvertently or not, this mindset gives legitimacy to those in the 

Kremlin who continue to harbor imperialistic ambitions towards 

countries once under Russian domination.12

Consequently, the vast majority of security analysts in Eastern 

Europe agree with Janusz Bugajski. “If Russia had a thriving 

liberal democracy, a vibrant civil society, an effective multi-ethnic 

system, a productive capitalist economy, and a genuine peace 

policy in Chechnya, then its influence may have been welcomed in 

Eastern Europe, regardless of historical experiences with Russian 
imperialism.”13 Given Russia’s size and geographical proximity, 

all the EBSR states desire harmonious relations with their giant 

neighbor. That they continue to fear Russia’s enmity was the major 

reason why they sought membership in NATO in the first place. 

At the same time, given Russia’s internal security problems and 

threats to its interests to its south and the Far East, logic dictates 

Moscow should welcome stable democracies on its European 

frontier. Among other things, on-going friction between Russia and 

the East European countries compromises Putin’s efforts to develop 

cooperative relations with the Trans-Atlantic community.

 Yet, in his approach to the region, Putin continues to cling to 

imperialist ambitions that Bugajski claims are reflected in six broad 

strategic goals.

1. Expanding foreign policy influences. Capturing and exerting 

predominant, if not exclusive, influence over the foreign 

policy orientations and security postures of nearby states 

formerly in the Soviet zone of influence.

2. Promoting economic monopolization. Obtaining economic 

benefits and monopolistic positions through targeted foreign 

investments and strategic infrastructure.

3. Consolidating political dependence. Increasing East European 

dependence on Russian energy supplies and capital 

investments.

4. Limiting Western enlargement. Limiting the pace and scope of 

Western penetration in Russia and its ‘zone of interest’ and 

constricting Western enlargement, especially with regard to 

the security arena in the CIS states.

5. Rebuilding global influence. Using the broader East European 

region as a springboard for rebuilding a larger sphere of 

predominant influence and great power status.

6. Eliminating U.S. unipolarity. Gradually but systematically 

undercutting and restricting the transatlantic or EuropeUnited States relationship, as well as Eastern Europe’s direct 

ties to Washington.14

The focus of this monograph is to describe how Iron Troikas 

function and explain why they represent a “new threat from the 

East” to four states in the EBSR—Poland and the Baltic democracies. 

Western security analysts have neglected Iron Troikas largely 
because they do not represent a security threat in strictly military 

terms, while their activities and players are often only tangentially 

associated with the military. But those who control and manipulate 

Iron Troikas do so with the goal in mind of projecting Russia’s 

influence over neighboring states that were once closely associated 

with the former Soviet Union but now are members of NATO or 

seek that affiliation.

The East Baltic Sea Region is of strategic importance since it 

provides a transit route for shipping and the off-loading of cargo in 

Northwest Europe through its many ice-free ports. It is a connecting 

link via air, land, and sea with Northwest Russia and is close to 

Belarus and Ukraine—two segments of the former Soviet Union 

whose near-future will have a dramatic impact on the spread of 

democracy in the European half of Eurasia. 

For the most part, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania were 

ignored or mistreated in the 20th century by the West as exemplified 

by the misfortunes of Yalta. But in the post-Soviet period, they have 

received more favorable attention. The reasons are many: Solidarity 

in Poland led by Lech Walesa and his Gdansk ship-yard workers 

provided the shock troops for the popular resistance that led to the 

demise of communism in their country and expedited the decline 

of “Marxist-Leninist” regimes throughout the Soviet Union’s “outer 

empire” in Eastern Europe.

The three Baltic countries, through their “singing revolution,” with 

Lithuania taking the lead in 1990, helped contribute to the demise 

of communism in the USSR’s “inner-empire.” Had the Lithuanian 

independence movement been crushed on “bloody Sunday,” January 

13, 1991, the hard-line coup in August of that year would not have 

occurred, Mikhail Gorbachev would have remained in power, and 

the Soviet Empire would not have disappeared in December 199l.

Poles and Balts in exile played a crucial role in lobbying political 

elites and opinion molders in the United States to facilitate their old 

homeland’s gaining entry in the EU and NATO years before most 

commentators thought that eventuality likely. Finally, well-deserved 

Western guilt played a vital role here as well. 

In spite of popular opposition at home, the governments of all 

four countries have supported the United States in its war against 

Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. The Balts have provided far less than 
the several thousand troops that Poland has deployed, but their 

participation has enhanced Washington’s claim that an international 

and not only an American force deposed the Iraqi dictator. All four 

governments have demonstrated their loyalty to Washington, even 

though public opinion opposes their participation in the war. And in 

light of the fact that the European half of Eurasia including Belarus, 

Russia and Ukraine remains unstable, the bases all four countries 

can provide NATO/U.S. military deployments are significant. 

(Reference already has been made to instability in Russia; in the 

text below, arguments will be proffered to demonstrate why the 

word “unstable” is appropriate in describing Belarus and Ukraine.) 

Unlike the Caspian Sea and Trans-Caucasus, the United States can be 

confident that it can gain and maintain access and transit rights and 

permission to deploy troops in the region—at least under existing 

circumstances.15

All four belong to a segment of the EU—New Europe—that is 

said to represent, with some justification, the interests of the United 

States in that body. In this part of Europe, one does not find the kind 

of raw anti-Americanism rampant in many parts of Old Europe. 

Even though 90 percent of the Polish population opposes their 

government’s decision to deploy a large number of troops in Iraq, 

anti-war sentiment has not been translated into hostility toward 

Americans. Also, all four made these troop deployments with the 

full knowledge that this action would alienate major EU partners 

such as France and Germany. The Lithuanians working with the 

Poles in Ukraine, for example, was not looked upon with favor in 

many European capitals, either.16 Representatives from New Europe 

working through the European Parliament and other EU bodies have 

adopted positions on a host of defense and foreign policy matters 

that have been influenced by U.S. analysts with whom they enjoy 

close relations. Consequently, it is not fanciful to assert that through 

New Europe, American concerns will be advanced in EU bodies. 

Lithuania and Poland have developed close and growing 

diplomatic, economic, political, and military ties with Ukraine, 

suggesting a new bloc of pro-American states in the heartland of 

Europe running from the Baltic to the Black Sea. (There is a caveat here, 

of course: not all segments of Ukraine look upon the United States 

with favor.) The combined population of the Baltic States, Poland, 
and Ukraine is about 95 million; that is a population larger than any 

single state in the EU. With a halt in enlargement as dictated by the 

French and Dutch rejection of the new constitution, this linkage may 

be even more significant to U.S. strategic interests as the EU’s future 

remains problematic. 

Poland and Lithuania occupy territory bordering on Kaliningrad—

Russia’s western-most oblast—that represents the extension in each 

case of EU and NATO borders with Russian territory. Consequently, 

Kaliningrad enjoys a special status not true of Russia’s other 88 

regions. Most unsettling for its neighbors, the oblast has served as a 

transit route for illegal contraband, including weapons and strategic 

goods, not just cigarettes, alcohol, narcotics, and human cargo. For 

some time now, analysts have been concerned about Kaliningrad 

serving as a base for criminal organizations, in league with members 

of the Russian armed forces, using the oblast as a springboard to sell 

weapons from the old Soviet arsenal to any buyer with the money 

to purchase the goods—and whatever their intentions. These sales 

are of special concern, since nuclear weapons were deployed in the 

oblast during the Cold War, and it was reported only a few years ago 

that tactical nuclear weapons were still there.17

American security analysts, of course, cannot ignore the fact 

that Poland and Lithuania share a common border with Belarus, a 

country led by the man President George W. Bush has called “the 

last dictator in Europe”—Alexander Lukashenko. As presidential 

elections in 2006 approach, many expect Lukashenko to accelerate 

oppressive measures that have escalated in 2005, and this has 

produced growing pressure from the United States and the EU upon 

the dictator to conduct fair and free elections. Opinion is growing 

in conviction that Belarus may eventually experience the same 

kind of popular upheaval that spawned the colored revolutions in 

Georgia and Ukraine. But if a popular uprising occurs, Lukashenko 

will use brutal force to crush it. This prospect accounts for demands 

emanating from both sides of the Atlantic among democratic activists 

that the international community prevent this outcome and remove 

Lukashenko from office. One might assume that a relatively small 

European country whose leader has been targeted for destruction 

by the world’s only superpower and Europe’s most powerful 

organization faces a stormy—unstable—future.
10

Such talk, of course, is not well-received in the Kremlin where 

Russian analysts predict a Belarus-Russian Union—under discussion 

for years—will materialize in the near future. The prospect that 

Belarus will become a flash point of conflict between Russia and the 

West is further reason to explore security issues in the East Baltic 

Sea Region. But at the same time, a strong case can be made that 

Lukashenko’s greatest threat is not from the West but from the East, 

for in a Russian union with Belarus, Lukashenko will be a marginal 

figure at best. The people of Belarus, of course, will lose their 

sovereignty as well.18

Finally, there is a more generic reason to understand how Iron 

Troikas function: they have the potential of providing terrorist 

organizations with the infrastructure to transport WMD and 

associated materials, and people who might use them, to the 

heartland of Europe—and perhaps North America as well. Indeed, 

they may already be doing so. This may not be the intent of those in 

Moscow who are manipulating them for Russia’s security interests 

but that nevertheless may be the outcome. It is pivotal, then, for 

American defense analysts to acknowledge them, understand how 

they function, and develop strategies to deal with them. If left 

unattended, they could contribute to the host of disparate threats to 

the global order that the United States played such a pivotal role in 

developing in the last half of the 20th century.

The Siloviki.

The team surrounding Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s was comprised 

of party cadre, government technocrats, liberal reformers, and 

even one-time dissidents. Those who were largely responsible for 

economic reforms, like Yegor Gaidar and Anatoly Chubais, were 

champions of a free market. They also believed in democracy and 

encouraged the rapid transition from a command to a market 

economy to undermine the capacity of left and right-wing autocrats 

to dominate the political system. Given their economic and political 

priorities, it was not surprising that they were pro-Western in their 

foreign policy orientation, although perhaps naïve about the West’s 

capacity or predilection to embrace them as newly minted allies. 
11

The Russian Academy of Sciences estimates that under Yeltsin 11 

percent of the country’s senior officials were former members of the 

military and secret service. Perhaps the most prominent post-Soviet 

politician rumored to be a former security operative—and/or a KGB 

invention—was the neo-Stalinist, anti-Semite Vladimir Zhirinovsky. 

As leader of the Liberal Democratic Party, pundits considered him 

at one point a serious successor to Yeltsin. And we now know that 

he enriched himself while collaborating with Saddam Hussein after 

a United Nations (UN) oil embargo was placed upon Iraq.19

With the appearance of Putin, these “men of power”—popularly 

known as the siloviki—have proliferated in numbers and influence in 

the Russian Federation. The Russian Academy of Science estimates 

that about one-fourth of the senior officials in the government today 

are siloviki. Putin is the most talked-about member of this clan, but his 

Defense Minister and close friend Sergei Ivanov also is a former KGB 

operative, as is the head of the Interior Ministry, Rashid Nurgaliyev. 

Siloviki hold prominent posts in the president’s office; for example, 

two of Putin’s deputy chiefs of staff, Viktor Ivanov and Igor Sechin, 

worked for the KGB in Leningrad. 

The siloviki have played a prominent role in Putin’s attempt to 

marginalize the regional governors, and many of them now hold 

executive positions in one of the 89 governorships; i.e., former 

generals in the army and KGB. Furthermore, five of the seven men 

who have been selected to serve as “super-governors” are siloviki. 

For example, Viktor Cherkesov, who was pursuing “anti-Soviet” 

dissidents as a KGB operative right up the USSR’s implosion—and did 

much the same thing as the head of the KGB successor organization, 

FSB, in St. Petersburg—was named presidential envoy for northwest 

Russia. What is more, people like Cherkesov hired siloviki to meet 

his staffing needs; indeed, 70 percent of the individuals hired by the 

“super-governors” are siloviki.20

Finally, siloviki control or hold important positions in all of 

Russia’s natural gas, petroleum, and pipeline companies, privately 

or publicly owned—Gazprom, Rosneft, Transneft, etc. It has been 

estimated that 6,000 former members of the security services and 

other power ministries now are in place to exploit Russia’s economic 

assets and to enable Moscow to project power beyond Russia’s 

borders.21
12

The siloviki, who constitute the first element in an Iron Troika, 

are said to be free of ideological baggage, but like Putin they believe 

that Russia cannot be ruled without a strong state. In this sense, they 

retain their Soviet sensibilities and, like the old leadership in the 

USSR, they think first about the state and only secondarily about the 

people as the world learned with the Kursk explosion, the Moscow 

theater tragedy, and the Beslan school massacre. They realize that 

a strong state and a weak economy are mutually exclusive, and if 

something approaching a free market generates the wealth they 

need to restore the state and Russia’s armed forces, they will accept 

it even though reluctantly. And yes, like the Yeltsin family, they are 

not disinclined to acquire wealth while going about the business of 

revitalizing the Russian Leviathan.

They still harbor imperial ambitions and cling to the fantasy 

that Russia can restore the power that enabled the Soviet Union to 

be a major player in world affairs. To achieve this objective, they 

are prepared to make tactical moves that they find unsavory, such 

as feigning cooperation with the West, but they still cling to the 

conviction of their predecessors that the West is the enemy, and 

indeed the United States as the leader of the Western alliance is bent 

upon emasculating Russia, humiliating its people and leaders.

Consequently, in the wake of 9/ll, Sergei Ivanov stated categorically that Russia would in no way provide assistance to the United 

States in its war against the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan. 

He was overruled by Putin, but Ivanov’s attitude reflects the true 

sentiments of the siloviki. Currently, as the American presence 

grows in the former Soviet space, the siloviki find new evidence that 

America remains Russia’s principal adversary in the world. If they 

occasionally play by the rules of the American-dominated global 

order, it is only because they are too weak to do otherwise.22

Russia’s weakened position, however, has not prevented them 

from provoking the world’s only superpower by opposing the war 

in Iraq and by providing Iran with help in its nuclear industry—

enabling Teheran, in the opinion of American analysts, to develop a 

nuclear weapons capability. 

After the Soviet Empire’s demise, they continued to deem the 

EBSR as vital to Russia’s security. After all, for centuries invaders 

from the West used Poland as a pathway into Russia’s heartland, 
13

while northern marauders crossed the Baltic Sea and penetrated 

“Russian territory” through Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.

During the Cold War, the Soviet Union deployed significant 

ground, naval, and air forces in the region with two missions in 

mind: as a defensive barrier against invasion from Europe, and as 

a strategic base to conduct an offensive campaign against NATO 

targets in the West.

In wake of the USSR’s collapse, Russia hoped to establish a formal 

security system throughout the CIS but was rebuffed by Poland and 

the Baltic states. Historical enmity toward Russian imperialism, 

exacerbated by a half-century of brutal Soviet occupation, accounted 

for deep-seated fears of post-Soviet Russia, and that impulse was 

compounded by persistent revanchist rhetoric from the Russian 

political classes. According to the imperial-minded in Moscow, all 

four were vital parts of Russia’s legitimate geo-political space.

In 1993, Russia’s defense doctrine “classified Poland as a potential 

threat to its security and placed the country firmly within Russia’s 

sphere of interest.”23 Moscow pressed Poland to join a Russiandominated security system and labeled Poland’s bid to join NATO 

a hostile act. In an attempt to drive a wedge between Poland and 

Ukraine, President Yeltsin announced that he would accept Poland’s 

membership in NATO. Later he retracted that position and warned 

the Trans-Atlantic leadership that to include Poland in NATO was 

to draw a new line across Europe and create a flashpoint of tension 

between Russia and the West.

After Poland entered NATO and the EU, relations between 

Warsaw and Moscow improved, but only for a short time. Polish 

President Alexander Kwasniewski met with his Russian counterpart 

ten times during the first term of Putin’s presidency. Poland became 

Russia’s eighth largest trading partner, and three out of every four 

Poles favored close commercial relations with Moscow, while a 

similar percentage of Russians favored good commercial exchanges 

with Warsaw.24

But by the end of Putin’s first term in office, the Kremlin began 

to express grave concerns about Poland’s foreign policy initiatives 

similar to those that Moscow had expressed in the previous decade. 

Namely, Poland was promoting an imperial agenda of its own in 

Russia’s Near Abroad; Warsaw’s preoccupation with development 
14

in Ukraine was especially resented. “The Kremlin was perturbed that 

Warsaw was intent on pursuing close ties with Kyiv and depicted 

Poland as an aspiring regional power seeking to replace Russia. 

Warsaw was allegedly pursuing the formation of a belt of states 

between the Baltic and Black Sea and constructing a cordon sanitaire 

around Russia.”25

Moscow’s worst fears were reconfirmed by the formation of a 

Polish-Ukraine peacekeeping battalion and talk about a Baltic-tothe-Black-Sea-Security Zone. The Poles eagerly adopted the role 

as “Russian experts” in the EU and championed an initiative—the 

“eastern dimension”—that offered “partnership relations” with 

countries located between the expanded EU and Russia. Poland 

has welcomed the prospect of leading the block of states that U.S. 

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has labeled New Europe. 

From the perspective of the Kremlin, the forgoing provides strong 

evidence that Russia is right in seeing Poland as an American Trojan 

Horse in the EU. 

After accepting an enlarged EU as a fact of life, Moscow hoped 

to countervail U.S. unilateralism with the help of President Jacques 

Chirac in France and Chancellor Gerhardt Schroeder in Germany. 

Differences in the Trans-Atlantic alliance over Iraq were a divisive 

force in the EU, but the Poles provided several thousand troops as a 

sign of solidarity with America. While the number of troops was not 

all that large, the political cover that Poland’s support provided the 

administration of George W. Bush was significant.

The specter of a Polish Trojan Horse complying with Washington’s 

dictates gained velocity as the Polish government supported the “proAmerican” presidential candidate in Ukraine, Victor Yushchenko, in 

his bid to defeat the “pro-Russian” candidate, Victor Yanukovich, 

after a disputed election in December 2004. In post-mortems of 

the Orange Revolution, pro-Kremlin commentators in Russia not 

only blamed President Alexander Kwasniewski for contributing to 

Yanukovich’s defeat but claimed that a Polish-American, Zbigniew 

Brzezinski, and his two sons were the brains behind the insidious 

campaign to defeat a pro-Russian candidate for the high post. To 

make matters worse, the Orange Revolution gave impetus to talk 

about Ukraine joining the EU in the very near future. Without 
15

Ukraine, what was left of Putin’s quest to create a new Russian 

imperial state via the CIS?26

After Putin’s setback in Ukraine, Polish-Russian relations became 

even more fractious as Moscow refused to denounce the MolotovRibbentrop Pact or the Katyn Forest massacre of Polish officers 

during World War II as President Kwasniewski demanded. And in 

the summer, attacks upon the sons of Russian diplomats in Warsaw—

followed by assaults on Polish diplomats in Moscow—became an 

additional source of Polish-Russian enmity.27

At the same time, the Kremlin could not shake the idea that 

Belarus was Poland’s next target as evidenced by Polish diplomats 

“meddling in internal Belarus affairs,” prompting the government 

in Minsk to declare them persona non grata in the spring of 2005. 

Pronouncements on the part of U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza 

Rice and President Bush himself that Alexander Lukashenko was 

the “last dictator in Europe” and had to be removed only reinforced 

Moscow’s conviction that the Poles were doing Washington’s dirty 

work. 

While the Baltic democracies have a much smaller population 

than Poland and have fewer resources to cause trouble for Moscow, 

the siloviki have displayed special enmity toward them ever since the 

collapse of the Soviet Empire. For the imperial-minded in Russia, the 

Baltic states, like Poland, were part of Russia for centuries; what is 

more, they were republics within the USSR for 50 years. They played 

a pivotal role in precipitating the eventual demise of the Soviet 

Empire, and mere mention of them enrages the Russian political elite. 

The drum-beat of anti-Baltic rhetoric produced by Russia’s ruling 

classes—as exemplified by developments associated with the 60th 

anniversary of Nazi-Germany’s defeat in May 2005—unquestionably 

has contributed to negative sentiments that ordinary Russians voice 

toward the Balts. Recent polls show that when asked: “What country 

do you consider unfriendly to Russia?” Latvia scores first with 49 

percent; Lithuania, second with 42 percent; and Estonia, third with 

32 percent.28 These findings are explained in part by the fact that 

many ordinary Russians deem the Baltic countries as integral parts 

of Russia.

Under American pressure, Yeltsin removed Russian troops from 

all three states by the end of the 1990s, but he and his successor, 
16

Putin, sought to deny them NATO membership by alleging that 

they had subjected ethnic Russians to human rights violations and 

by refusing to sign border agreements with them, a precondition for 

membership. 

Kremlin strategists bristled at the notion that the pesky Balts were 

portraying themselves as models for those former Soviet Republics 

that sought membership in the West. Lithuania was deemed especially 

troublesome since it encouraged the EU to deny Russians visa-free 

access in their travels to and from Kaliningrad and enthusiastically 

sought the role as interlocutor between Brussels and the government 

of Belarus via its policy of “constructive engagement.” What is more, 

Chechen exiles have been allowed to express criticism of Moscow in 

all three countries.

Russian security analysts see Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania’s proAmerican orientation as a barrier to their establishing a relationship 

with major EU countries in Moscow’s effort to countervail U.S. 

power. Indeed, the Baltic leadership’s enthusiastic support of the 

American-led coalition in Iraq prompted expressions of outrage from 

Berlin and Paris. At one point, French President Chirac responded 

with the intemperate remark—”shut up!” when they and other new 

EU members signed a letter of support for the American-led effort to 

topple Saddam Hussein.

And, of course, in late 2004, the Lithuanian president Valdas 

Adamkus joined his Polish counterpart in the campaign to resolve 

the political crisis in Kyiv in Yushchenko’s favor peacefully. The 

Kremlin, moreover, was humiliated when Vilnius was the site for the 

first NATO foreign ministers’ meeting in space formally controlled 

by the USSR the following spring. Nor was Putin happy about Bush’s 

visit to Latvia before he attended the May 9 celebration in Moscow 

commemorating the 60th anniversary of Nazi Germany’s defeat. 

The fact that the Lithuanian president and his Estonian 

counterpart, Arnold Ruutel, did not attend the Moscow celebration 

gave hard-liners in Russia additional reason to express outrage at the 

“uppity Balts.” They were not happy with Latvian President Vaira 

Vike-Freiberga, either. She attended but issued a statement asserting 

she was doing so to extend a hand of “friendship and reconciliation 

to the Russian people, while encouraging the present-day leadership 
17

of their country to denounce the crimes committed by the Stalinists 

in Latvia and elsewhere in Central and Eastern Europe.”29 And as 

she anticipated, Putin’s attempt to divide and denigrate the three 

presidents by sending them an invitation in the first place proved to 

be a diplomatic blunder. Among other things, it called attention to 

his autocratic policies at home and his imperial ambitions abroad.

Finally, in 2005 Russian defense planners expressed outrage that 

the United States was contemplating the closure of bases in Old 

Europe and relocating ground, air, and naval units in New Europe. 

Poland was mentioned as a candidate for such installations. The 

Russian Defense Ministry charged that this constituted a violation of 

the NATO-Russian Charter—and was nothing less than a dangerous 

provocation. Not only would Western Russian territory be placed a 

risk but so would Russia’s exclave Kaliningrad; previously it was 

surrounded by Poland and Lithuania and subjected to their economic 

and political pressure, but now it would be confronted with an even 

more explicit military threat from NATO. Such talk naturally has 

prompted Western defense analysts to consider how Russia might 

respond; for example, in the late 1990s, when Moscow expressed 

concern about Kaliningrad’s security, Western intelligence reported 

that the Russian high command had deployed tactical nuclear 

weapons in the oblast to protect that exposed part of Russia.30

If Russian national security analysts had little faith in their ability 

to coerce Poland and Baltic states with Russian military might 

prior to their joining NATO, this option was even more unlikely 

under present circumstances. To subject all four to the same kind 

of “discipline” that Moscow enjoyed in the past, the Kremlin had 

to craft a new strategy to regain its hegemony over all of them; to 

tarnish their images and undermine their appeal to other CIS states; 

to use them as a springboard into the vast EU market and exploit 

their membership to shape EU policies toward Russia at large; and 

to gain sufficient leverage over them to prevent Washington from 

using them as agents of influence in Russia’s Near Abroad.

Perhaps by happenstance, rather than design, Kremlin planners 

realized at some point in the 1990s that they possessed an economic 

weapon of significant potential, one capable of promoting Russia’s 

foreign policy objectives in the space of the former Soviet Union. 

The weapon was a massive supply of natural gas and petroleum 
18

along with strategic pipelines from east to west, refineries, pumping 

stations, and other installations associated with Russia’s energy 

wealth.

As Keith Smith at the Center for Strategic and International 

Studies has observed, “By the mid-1980s . . . the USSR had become 

the largest oil producer in the world, with peak production at 12.5 

million barrels per day in 1988 and exports of more than 4.09 million 

barrels per day.” Low and/or fluctuating oil prices during the 1990s 

masked the significance of Russia’s energy wealth, but a decade later 

with soaring oil prices and growing concern about disruptions in 

the flow of oil from the Middle East, that asset has increased as a 

geo-political weapon. At the same time, “Russia’s proven reserves 

of natural gas . . . are the largest in the world and twice those of Iran 

which possesses the second-largest reserves . . . The energy industry 

accounts for about 20 percent of Russia’s GDP, approximately 

60 percent of its export revenues, and well over 40 percent of the 

government’s fiscal revenues.”31 Through its energy industry, Russia 

has vast resources that enable it to play the energy card on a global 

basis. 

Lukoil is Russia’s largest privately owned petroleum company 

and is said “to have the largest reserves of oil and gas outside of the 

Persian Gulf states.”32 It is not only a powerhouse within Russia; it 

has made a large imprint upon energy markets outside of the country. 

In addition to the sale of its product on the wholesale market, it also 

owns retail enterprises in Europe and North America. The countries 

of the East Baltic Sea Region, like many other countries that formerly 

were associated with the Soviet Union, rely upon Russian petroleum 

imports to meet their commercial, transportation, and industrial 

requirements. Russia’s percentage of crude oil exports to Poland 

amounts to 94 percent; for Lithuania, the figure is 100 percent; and 

for the two other Baltic countries, an estimated 90 percent.33

Gazprom, the state-run natural gas giant, controls all the natural 

gas lines in Russia and is a major exporter of gas abroad. Russia 

provides Poland with 84 percent of its natural gas, and for the three 

Baltic countries, the figure is 100 percent. Gazprom was legally a 

private entity before June 2005 but, in fact, was under the Kremlin’s 

political control. Transneft operates a system of pipelines that 

carries oil from Russia’s fields—as well as from some energy-rich 
19

neighboring states such as Turkmenistan—to markets at home and 

abroad.34

Moscow has used the pipeline system as a foreign policy weapon. 

Indeed, the Kremlin is prepared to make economic sacrifices to 

promote its foreign policy agenda. Russia, for example, is building its 

Baltic Pipeline System to carry oil to the Russian port of Primorsk; it 

could find cheaper outlets were it to use the underutilized oil transit 

routes through the three Baltic countries.

At the same time, skeptical about Warsaw’s good will or merely 

wishing to punish Poland, Russia is building an undersea gas 

pipeline to Germany at a cost “three to four times as much as running 

a parallel pipe along the Yamal route through Poland.”35

It was not until Putin’s election as president in 2000, that the geopolitical potential of Russia’s energy asset was fully acknowledged 

and acted upon. According to Smith, “Putin appears to share the 

widespread view in Russia that energy is too important a national 

asset to allow the market or any private individual free rein in deciding 

on issues such as links to foreign partners, pipeline construction, or 

competition for the right to explore new oil and gas fields.”36

 Putin has coveted Russia’s energy wealth to resurrect a stable and 

prosperous state but at times has ignored the dictates of the marketplace to achieve important foreign objectives. This is not only the case 

in the Near Abroad, it holds true of his relations with the Western 

democracies. The Europeans are desperate to gain access to Russia’s 

vast pool of natural gas and petroleum, so desperate that many of 

them have ignored Putin’s flirtation with autocracy and old-fashioned 

Russian imperialism. The energy card has provided him with the 

opportunity to join the French in Chirac’s effort to countervail the 

power of American unilateralism. Meanwhile, Gerhard Schroeder, 

when he was Chancellor, was under enormous pressure from his 

business community to develop close relations with Russia.37

In attempts to countervail American unilateralism, Putin has 

been cautious; that is, careful not to push the Americans too far. But 

he can take comfort in the fact that Washington also covets Russian 

energy assets. Like its European cousins, it, too, is desperate in its 

search for energy sources in areas outside of the volatile Middle East 

and eager to find replacements for those purchased from hostile 

traditional suppliers such as Venezuela under the leadership of a 
20

“new Castro,” Hugo Chavez. Putin, with the rising costs of gas and 

petroleum on the one hand, and the dip in energy resources globally 

on the other one, has played the “energy card” to good effect. He has 

blatantly violated adherence to free market regulations in playing 

that card—rules that Russia is required to abide by if it is to enter the 

World Trade Organization (WTO)—because of the West’s growing 

energy dependency upon Russia. The aftershocks for the global 

energy market that Hurricanes Katrina and Rita have produced can 

only work in Putin’s behalf.

To orchestrate an energy strategy that places Russia’s foreign 

and security objectives first and economic goals second, Putin has 

relied upon the siloviki who remain wedded to their traditional way 

of operating. They conduct commercial affairs like they would an 

intelligence or military operation. Such notions as transparency, 

the sanctity of contracts, and other practices common in advanced 

democratic capitalist societies are alien to them. Because they see 

economic affairs primarily in security terms, they believe that violence 

is a legitimate tool in advancing their “commercial objectives.” It is 

just such a mindset that has given impetus to the notion that Russian 

foreign policy has been criminalized.

Economic Warlords, the Mafia, and Rogue Military.

As is true of 19th century American robber barons, number of 

individuals have played a prominent role in post-Soviet economic 

affairs whose commitment to free market values and the rule of 

law is tenuous or nonexistent. These people will be identified as 

“economic warlords.” Closely associated with them are members of 

organized criminal organizations, the Mafia, and “rogue elements” 

in the military.

All three groups have exploited Russia’s drive for economic 

privatization and have enjoyed a symbiotic relationship even prior 

to the Soviet Union’s demise. By design or circumstance, they have 

provided the Kremlin with resources and personnel in its campaign 

to advance Russia’s foreign and security objectives in the East Baltic 

Sea Region.

One of the great mysteries of the USSR’s collapse involves the 

disappearance of vast sums of money controlled by the Communist 
21

Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). Many commentators believe that 

prescient party members, anticipating the USSR’s collapse, became 

virtual private “investors.” It has been estimated that millions and 

perhaps billions of dollars from party coffers found their way to the 

West. They were invested in a host of legal and illegitimate enterprises 

by individuals uniquely qualified to invest funds outside of the 

USSR. Many were intelligence operatives in the KGB and military 

units like the GRU. They spoke foreign languages, lived in the West, 

and had extensive contacts abroad that were developed during the 

Cold War. Consequently, after the Soviet Union’s collapse, they were 

well-positioned to work with their old associates in exploiting the 

first privatization drive that dominated the Russian economy during 

its stormy period in the 1990s.38

They also worked closely with the “red directors” who, as 

managers of major enterprises, had access to hard cash commodities 

like natural gas, oil, metals, and wood products. The “red directors” 

had remained in control of their enterprises after the USSR’s demise 

in part because the liberal reformers did not want to alienate 

powerful members of the Old Nomenklatura. In many instances, 

then, “ownership” remained in the same hands in the new economy 

as it did in the old one. The reformers calculated that by allowing the 

“red directors” to gain a stake in the new economy, they would not 

block efforts to facilitate the destruction of the command economy. 

That outcome had the additional benefit of undermining the power 

of the political reactionaries on the far left and right who opposed 

democracy and/or market reforms. At the same time, mesmerized 

by their new wealth, they would pay little attention to the proWestern reformers’ quest to establish close ties with the countries in 

the Trans-Atlantic alliance.

A second group of bright and enterprising people with high level 

contacts and entrepreneurial skills competed with the “red directors” 

for control of Russia’s wealth. They came from various sectors 

of society and eagerly assisted President Yeltsin in dismantling 

the command economy. Through a “loans for shares” scheme, 

the reformers hoped to create momentum for a market economy 

that could not be reversed—even if, in the process, it precipitated 

widespread corruption. Enterprises such as Norilsk Nickel and 
22

Yukos oil company were auctioned-off for a pittance, allowing a 

small number of the most ruthless and most enterprising of Russia’s 

oligarchs to gain control of the country’s vast resources in less than a 

decade.

The oligarchs and Yeltsin “family” facilitated Vladimir Putin’s 

rise to power in the conviction that the former KGB operative would 

not turn against them if he replaced the aging alcoholic president. 

Putin demonstrated his loyalty, even at risk to his own welfare, when 

he was an aide to the mayor of St. Petersburg, Anatoly Sobchak, 

who was accused of corrupt practices. The mass media, largely 

under control of the tycoons—e.g., Boris Berezovsky and Vladimir 

Gusinsky—helped elect him in 2000. Soon afterwards, however, 

Putin turned against those of his benefactors whom he considered a 

political threat to him and his entourage of siloviki.

39

One of the new team’s first priorities was to destroy the capacity of 

the independent oligarchs to wield the same kind of power that they 

did under Yeltsin. Indeed, it was their money, energy, and enterprise 

that enabled Yeltsin to win re-election when polls indicated that the 

vast majority of Russians had lost faith in his stewardship in 1996. In 

a society with a small middle class and economic power and mass 

media concentrated in the hands of a few tycoons, Putin knew that 

democratic institutions could be easily subverted.

Fully cognizant of their power, Putin and his team hounded the 

oligarchs and ultimately forced some to leave the country or face 

much worse outcomes; Berezovsky and Gusinsky were among the 

richest and most prominent who sought the safe harbor of exile. 

The domestic political ambitions of both men have been cited as the 

reason for Putin’s forcing them to go abroad, but he also has feared 

the oligarchs might tamper with his foreign policy priorities. 

In October 2003, the wealthiest oligarch, Khodorkovsky, 

celebrated by foreign investors as the most progressive of the bunch, 

was arrested for tax evasion and other “economic crimes.” In 2005, 

he received a 9-year jail sentence. On the basis of the evidence, there 

is no question that he should be in jail, but so should many oligarchs 

who are now free because they have not challenged Putin. This is 

just one example of how Putin has applied the law selectively and, 

in the process, has undermined the legal system in Russia.40
23

The conventional explanation for Khodorkovsky’s downfall is 

that Putin considered him a political opponent, indeed a potential 

competitor for the presidency. Absent from this analysis are the 

foreign policy factors that contributed to the Yukos President’s 

demise. 

As the head of Yukos and bent upon operating the company 

in a manner in keeping with Western and not Russian enterprises, 

Khodorkovsky had refused to abide by the Kremlin’s direction that 

Russian energy entrepreneurs advance the government’s security 

priorities first and only later think about profit margins. He not only 

purchased the largest oil refinery in the Baltics—Lithuania’s Mazeikiu 

Nafta—thereby denying that prize to Lukoil, a Kremlin favorite; he 

also contemplated a partnership with China in the construction of 

an oil pipeline, and indicated that he sought a close commercial 

relationship with one of the major American oil companies. If 

successful, Khodorkovsky would have compromised Putin’s drive 

to play the energy card on the global chessboard.41

In addition to being the dominant provider of energy to the 

countries of the East Baltic Sea Region, the Kremlin has set its 

sights on dominating the energy infrastructure as well. Gazprom 

and Lukoil own or control natural gas outlets, power stations and 

petroleum service stations in all four countries. To reduce concerns 

about “Russian domination,” they often have engaged in joint 

ventures with local enterprises and governments and with Western 

firms like Germany’s Ruhrgaz. Through ownership and contractual 

relationships that lock-in local companies and governments, they are 

intent upon consolidating their control of the “local” energy sector. 

The fact that they also are the only energy source available confronts 

their customers with deals that “they just cannot afford to refuse.” 

Russia’s energy giants had engaged in rapacious activities 

prior to Putin’s rise to power, but he has achieved even greater 

government control of their assets and operations in his campaign to 

renationalize Russia’s energy sector. Yukos was the first energy giant 

to fall victim to this campaign; in addition to Khodorkovsky’s arrest 

and incarceration, major Yukos subsidiaries have been absorbed 

by the government or its close associates. On June 16, 2005, it was 

announced that the Russian government was increasing its stake in 
24

Gazprom’s ownership with the intent “to create a national energy 

giant in the style of Saudi Arabia’s gargantuan Aramco.”42

It is against this backdrop that Russia’s energy enterprises, public 

and private, have colluded with the Kremlin to secure control of 

strategic energy assets in the East Baltic Sea Region. 

In 1999, the Conservative/Christian Democratic coalition 

government deemed it in Lithuania’s strategic interest to deny 

Lukoil the opportunity to gain operational control of Mazeikiu 

Nafta, the largest energy enterprise in the country. It included the 

oil refinery at Mazeikiai, a pipeline at Birzai, and a port terminal at 

Butinge. The government snubbed offers from Lukoil and instead 

sold a controlling share to the Tulsa-based energy company, Williams 

International. Conservative leaders like the former “president” 

(head of the parliament—Seimas) Vytautas Landsbergis, who led 

the country to independence through the popular front movement, 

Sajudis, recalled how Mikhail Gorbachev had punished Lithuania 

in the early 1990s through economic embargos when it broke with 

Moscow. He and his associates feared Russian control of Lithuania’s 

major energy enterprise would not only provide Moscow with 

a hammer-hold over Lithuania’s energy infrastructure, it would 

enhance its efforts to influence both Lithuania’s foreign and security 

policies.

To sabotage the Williams deal, Lukoil persuaded Transneft and 

the Russian Ministry of Industry and Energy on several occasions 

to halt the flow of oil to Lithuania. When Moscow failed to gain 

ownership, it resorted to other tactics to undermine the Williams 

operation. In a surprise move, in 1999 Yuri Zubakov, a KGB veteran 

for 25 years, was appointed Ambassador to Lithuania in an effort 

to compromise the Williams operation.43 Zubakov, for most of his 

career, served as Yevgeny Primakov’s assistant when the latter 

was the director of security services, foreign minister, and prime 

minister. Keith Smith—U.S. ambassador to Lithuania at that time—

observed that immediately afterwards unfavorable reports about 

Williams appeared in the Lithuanian media concerning the merits 

of the transaction and fears that Lithuania’s sovereignty would be 

comprised.44 Meanwhile, critics of the deal remarked that it was 

imprudent to snub Russia, the country’s largest supplier of petroleum. 
25

Similar reservations were expressed by opposition politicians in the 

Seimas. The objectivity and motives of their protest was in question 

since some of them reputedly had close business ties with Russian 

energy firms or were benefactors of their campaign contributions. 

Lukoil’s local affiliate, Lukoil Baltija, established an “independent” 

company, Vaizga, that provided campaign funds to various political 

parties; during the 2000 Seimas elections it provided the leading 

opposition party, the Social Democratic Party, with a reported 

$90,000 contribution. The party was under the leadership of former 

communist party chief Algirdas Brazauskas who was rumored to 

have close links with Russian energy interests. This was one of the 

first signs of Russian attempts to influence Lithuania’s political 

process; a more ambitious effort would soon be forthcoming.

Through such tactics, the withholding of crude oil and 

management problems within the company, Williams later sold 

Mazeikiu Nafta to a Russian energy giant—not to the pro-Kremlin 

Lukoil but to Khodorkovsky’s Yukos. In the wake of the young 

oligarch’s imprisonment, Russian energy interests friendly to the 

Kremlin now are seeking to buy a controlling share in the company. 

Among national security analysts in Vilnius, this has caused some 

concern because in both 2004 and 2005, the Lithuanian government 

issued reports warning that a Russian takeover of Mazeikiu Nafta 

would jeopardize the country’s national security.

Moscow has played its energy card in Latvia as well. In 2002 

“. . . the owners of the port of Ventspils rejected a purchase offer 

from Transneft and Lukoil to buy them out, an offer transmitted 

more as a nonnegotiable demand than a friendly takeover. Almost 

immediately, Transneft let it be known that no Russian crude would 

be carried by pipeline to Ventspils until a sale was negotiated 

that would give a working majority of the shares to a Russian 

company.”45

The port, which until recently was Russia’s second largest 

oil export terminal, provides a major source of revenue for the 

economy and government, and the Latvian owners refused to sell. 

Circumstances suggest, however, that they eventually may do so. 

Russian oil continues to be transported through the port via rail, but 

the costs of such shipments are higher than by pipeline. Russian oil 
26

companies, now selling their product in this fashion, will connect 

to expanded pipelines, stop using Ventspils, and turn to the new 

Russian port of Primorsk northwest of St. Petersburg on the Barents 

Sea instead. As a consequence, the Latvians will be compelled to sell 

the port, and at deflated prices. 

Under the stewardship of Simyon Weinshtok, Transneft has sought 

to consolidate control over oil shipments through its pipelines and 

in a manner that promotes the Kremlin’s efforts to squeeze the Baltic 

states economically. In July 2004, and in a replay of the Zubakov 

ploy, the Kremlin sent Victor Kaluzhny, a former minister of fuel and 

energy, to Riga to serve as Russia’s ambassador to Latvia. In 1999, 

Kaluzhny had sent a letter to Russian oil companies urging them 

to halt oil supplies to Lithuania in an obvious attempt to promote 

Lukoil’s gaining control of Mazeikiu Nafta.46

Kaluzhny’s appointment was an attempt to facilitate Russian 

control of Ventspils, but in spite of Moscow’s efforts to by-pass the 

port, it may continue to remain an important terminal for the export 

of petroleum; new outlets in Russia may not be constructed in time 

to ship product to the West and take advantage of the current high 

oil prices.47 This campaign may not make economic sense, but it is 

consistent with Putin’s desire to play the energy card for foreign 

policy gains.

Moscow has enjoyed less success in gaining leverage over Poland’s 

energy infrastructure because, unlike its Baltic neighbors, Poland is 

a large country and has the economic and political resources to cope 

with outside interference in its society. Furthermore, throughout its, 

history it has demonstrated on numerous occasions that it does not 

bend easily to Russia’s will, and the Russians respect that tenacity.

Nonetheless, Russian energy interests have penetrated Poland’s 

energy sector as previously indicated; Poland receives 91 percent 

of its crude oil from Russia, along with 84 percent of natural gas 

from that same source. Gazprom has been most active in attempts 

to secure control of local energy assets and has used its monopolistic 

clout to force Poland to sign an unfavorable contract that was only 

recently revised. Russian investors also have attempted to purchase 

the country’s second largest oil refinery, Rafineria Gdanska. Polish 

officials, therefore, have observed. “The Polish energy market is 
27

murky, full of unclear deals and suspicions of links between business 

and politics. . . . By letting in the Russians, we will ultimately lose 

any chance to regulate and make the Polish energy sector more 

civilized.”48

Unlike Lithuania, Russia has experienced less success in efforts 

to acquire control of Poland’s energy companies. Still, the Russians 

have been active. Specifically, Polish concerns have focused on Polski 

Koncern Naftowy (PKN) Orlen, the country’s largest producer and 

distributor of fuel and a most profitable enterprise. For example, in 

the second quarter of 2004, its profits soared by 317 percent. About 

94 percent of the company’s crude oil comes from Russia so, like 

Mazeikiu Nafta, it is vulnerable to Russian export policies.49

Moscow’s decision to build a pipeline under the Baltic Sea rather 

than one via a route parallel to the Yamal I pipeline underscores 

the fear of Polish security analysts about the Kremlin’s intentions. 

Consequently, when allegations circulated that Russian energy 

interests were seeking to buy into Orlen, Polish authorities expressed 

keen concern about them.

Mentioned in this connection were President Kwasniewsi and his 

wife, Jolanta. But the key figure was Jan Kulczyk, Poland’s “richest 

man,” who in December 2004 appeared before a parliamentary 

committee, explaining charges that he had been involved in a scheme 

to sell Orlen to Russian buyers. In this connection, it was alleged that 

he had met with the president of Lukoil in London in October 2002. 

The subject of the meeting was said to be the merging of Orlen and 

Rafineria Gdanska and then the sale of the new entity to Lukoil. In 

addition, it was alleged that Kulczyk met with an ex-KGB agent a 

year later in Vienna, and his detractors saw it as further evidence of 

his playing ball with powerful Russian energy companies. Kulczyk 

has denied the allegations and claims that they are part of a political 

witch-hunt directed at big business.50 Whatever the facts, here is 

further evidence that even government officials in a country as large 

as Poland are concerned about what Keith Smith has characterized 

as Russia’s campaign of “stealth imperialism.” 

In Estonia’s case, the newly independent government in Tallinn, 

unlike its counterparts in Riga and Vilnius, embarked upon a 

crash campaign to break its traditional dependence upon Russia’s 

commercial assets and adopted a comprehensive campaign to sweep 
28

Estonia’s Old Nomenklatura from power. Consequently, its business 

sector has not been penetrated by Russian interests and their political 

and business friends operating within the country to the same degree 

that is true of Latvia and Lithuania. Even so, Moscow has withheld 

energy inputs using anti-Russian actions—allegations that ethnic 

Russians are being mistreated in Estonia—as a pretext.51

In addition to assaults upon their energy infrastructure, all four 

countries have been threatened by the activities of the Russian mafia 

and others with links to criminal organizations. Included here are 

members of the military and military/industrial complex and “local” 

criminal enterprises.

During the Soviet era, and contrary to the claims of Kremlin 

propagandists, organized crime thrived in the USSR. Criminal gangs 

compensated for the flaws of the command economy by providing 

scarce goods and services. For years they cooperated with government 

and party officials in profit-making ventures in the “black economy,” 

especially during the final 2 decades of the USSR.

“The Russian mob, working with corrupt officials, developed the 

underground channels of trade which helped that economy prosper. 

When Gorbachev came to power in 1985, most Russian cities already 

had powerful organized gangs. Their cohesiveness and wealth 

enabled them to survive the collapse of the old regime, and to profit 

from the disarray of the new one.”52

It was only after the Soviet Union’s collapse that Western 

observers gained full appreciation of just how extensive were the 

Mafia’s operations, not only in Moscow but in all of the republics 

as well. In 1995, “of the estimated $43 billion sent out of Russia for 

investment abroad . . . some $15 million was thought by Russian 

authorities to have been earned illegally.”53

Of course, the Mafia could not have functioned without the 

complicity of high-level officials and members of law enforcement 

agencies. The mobsters became even more assertive after the old 

economy’s collapse; without a functioning banking system, firmly 

established business practices and a viable legal system, criminal 

organizations provided all of these services, although at a high price 

and without much subtlety. The world press in depictions of the “wildwild-East” provided numerous accounts of Mafia killings related 

to the violent and chaotic business climate in post-Soviet Russia. 
29

Leading businessmen, public officials, and even foreign investors—

not only mobsters—were the victims of bombing, machine gun and 

rocket-propelled grenade attacks, and other violent attempts to settle 

business deals. The most recent example attracting attention in the 

West was the murder of Paul Klebniov, the Moscow station-chief of 

Forbes business magazine. His stories about the illegal practices of 

Russian business enterprises, it is believed, got him killed.

Criminal gangs that had functioned throughout the Baltic 

Sea region during the Soviet-era enjoyed a similar profound 

improvement in their prospects when the USSR collapsed. Most of 

them had established close ties with the Russian and Chechen Mafia, 

and, with a large inventory of military equipment on their territory, 

they thrived in the corrupt environment that prevailed.

According to Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions 

Index, Poland and the Baltic countries have earned high scores for 

corruption for many years. In each case, citizens have complained 

about corrupt practices associated with the police, courts, customs, 

and tax and privatization authorities. In all four countries, there 

has been a blurring between legal and illegal activities; criminal 

organizations have exploited the subsequent chaos to their advantage, 

often resorting to violence to achieve their objectives.54

Mobsters have not only dealt in alcohol, drugs, human cargo, 

and tobacco, they also have been engaged in the illicit transfer of 

arms and strategic goods. “Local” and Russian gangs, along with 

military personnel and customs and other government officials have 

sold assault rifles, pistols, machine guns, anti-aircraft weapons, 

explosives, and even nuclear materials to a wide variety of customers. 

Paul Holtom at the University of Glamorgan’s Centre for Border 

Studies has written widely about arms brokers and arms transfers in 

the East Baltic Sea Region. 

• In 1994, the Estonian “Interior Minister Heiki Arike granted a 

permit to acquaintances to import 25,000 Kalashnikov assault 

rifles and 40,000 Tokarev military handguns from Poland and 

Austria, which subsequently ‘disappeared,’ with occasional 

appearances in the hands of criminals. He managed to survive 

a nonconfidence vote by 51 to 49 votes.” Furthermore, the civil 

guard unit, Kaitseliit, was accused of engaging in arms and 
30

explosive transfers to criminal groups in Estonia and Russia 

but as far West as the Irish Republican Army.55

• In Latvia—as in Estonia—weapons not only circulated within 

the country but were transported farther east. Officials in the 

Russian town of Pechora “discovered three tons of aviation 

weapons and 347 gun parts in two railway carriages during a 

routine check of a train heading from Russia to Riga.”56

• In Lithuania, the criminal situation in the early years was 

much the same as in Estonia and Latvia with gang killings, the 

murder of journalists, and “unexplained” bombings recurring 

on a steady basis. Lithuania served as a transit route for illegal 

contraband since it bordered both Belarus and Kaliningrad—

two territories where local officials and the mob operated with 

special zeal. Lithuania’s proximity to Kaliningrad “accounted 

for the high percentage of Lithuanian-based organized crime 

groups involved in the illegal weapons trade, estimated at one 

time to number more than forty.” What is more, in 2002, “six 

Lithuanians were arrested in Vilnius while apparently trying 

to sell a kilogram of radioactive cesium-137 to a German 

national suspected of having links to organized crime.”57

• Like many countries in the Warsaw Pact, arms from military 

units—Polish and Russian—have found their way into the 

hands of criminal organizations in large Polish cities. “The 

fact that Poland has developed into an important transit route 

for supplies of drugs to and from Eastern and Western Europe 

has been known and documented for some time, with the 

role of the northeastern ports of Gdansk and Gdynia believed 

to play an important role in moving illicit goods through 

Europe.” At the same time, Poland is a unique case, since it 

is an arms producer in its own right and has a large arms 

inventory under its control. Consequently, arms have been 

“lost” in Poland as well; for example, four Arrow anti-aircraft 

missiles in 2002.58

Finally, there is the matter of Kaliningrad, the Western-most 

Russian oblast. Given its unique position of being a Russian 

political entity in the geographical heartland of Europe, as well as 
31

former military bastion, it deserves special attention. In addition to 

the weapons that were deployed there during the Cold War, after 

the USSR’s collapse, a vast amount of military equipment found a 

home there after it was returned from bases in “the west,” primarily 

East Germany. Consequently, many defense and law enforcement 

analysts in Europe fear that the oblast could become a strategic 

base for criminal gangs that, with the help of business enterprises, 

government officials, and military personnel, could serve much like 

Columbia today where the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia 

(FARC) thrives.

During the Cold war, Kaliningrad was a closed territory with 

a heavy military presence. The USSR’s Baltic Sea fleet was located 

there, along with contingents of ground and air defense units. It was 

the first line of defense against an attack from the West and could be 

used simultaneously for offensive operations in a westward coup de 

main.59

With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Kaliningrad became 

an exclave of the Russian Federation. All land and rail routes to 

and from Kaliningrad to Russia henceforth had to traverse foreign 

borders.

In the 1990s, Kaliningrad was perceived simultaneously as a 

flash point of conflict with its neighbors and a gateway to Europe. 

The first perspective was based on the presence of large numbers 

of Russian troops and on Russian fears that foreign revanchists (in 

Germany and Lithuania) claimed the oblast. Later in the decade, 

none of these latent points of conflict became manifest. According 

to U.S. Government estimates, there were 25,000 Russian military 

personnel in the oblast, and no foreign governments had claims on 

it.

But Kaliningrad did not become a gateway to Europe either. On 

the contrary, afflicted by daunting economic, political, and social 

problems, it was described as a “black hole” in the center of Europe. 

Today it no longer receives the heavy subsidies it enjoyed during the 

Soviet era, and it has experienced greater dips in its agricultural and 

manufacturing sectors than other Russian regions. To make matters 

worse, the region’s residents and political leadership complain 

that the authorities in Moscow have ignored them or have adopted 

conflicting policies that have exacerbated the oblast’s economic 

problems.
32

To attract domestic and foreign investment, first a “free” and 

then a “special” economic zone was created. But Moscow’s failure 

to enact enabling legislation or to change existing laws has undercut 

the zones. After Russia’s August 1998 fiscal crisis, Kaliningrad’s 

economic situation deteriorated even further.

By 2000, the EU indicated that it was prepared to address the 

“Kaliningrad Question” through its Northern Dimension—a 

development plan for Russia’s northwestern regions—but the 

initiative received a mixed reception from Moscow. Russian 

authorities expressed concern that Kaliningraders would suffer once 

Poland and Lithuania entered the EU and adopted stricter border 

controls. Also, while President Putin indicated that he desired closer 

ties with Europe, his representatives in Moscow and Kaliningrad were 

slow to adopt a common approach toward the oblast’s problems. By 

the fall of 2002, however, the EU and Russia reached an agreement on 

providing transit documents (and a sealed train) to facilitate travel to 

and from Kaliningrad to Russia through Lithuania.

At the same time, Russia continues to press Lithuania for 

revisions in the existing agreement that governs the shipment of 

Russian military personnel and equipment through Lithuania; the 

government in Vilnius argues that there is no reason to do so because 

the existing one has worked without any serious difficulties.60

Against this backdrop, Kaliningrad’s neighbors remain concerned 

that it has become a focal point for criminal operations that not only 

prevail within the oblast, but have crossed their borders linking 

Russian criminal enterprises with “local” ones. 

And as is true of many areas in Russia where there are large 

number of military personnel, elements of the military establishment 

have become involved in criminal activities. The criminal activities 

of the Russian military-industrial complex can be assessed on the 

macro and micro levels of operations. In the first case, the defense 

industry controlled vast inventories of aluminum, copper, silver, tin, 

titanium, and other precious metals that Western companies would 

pay high prices to purchase. Here, we find a major source of raw 

materials that were moved through a corridor running from the 

Baltic countries to Poland and then westward via land, or via the 

Baltic Sea to Scandinavia—i.e., the “Baltic Connection.”
33

Military personnel, along with Russian criminal gangs, have 

facilitated this monumental looting of Russia’s vast wealth with 

the assistance of “local” officials, business people, and criminal 

organizations. Over time, then, an extensive network was created and 

today facilitates the transport of alcohol, drugs and tobacco, gasoline, 

human beings, and military weapons and equipment. Included here 

ominously are nuclear materials such as uranium, red mercury, and 

other dangerous materials that can be used by terrorists to kill large 

numbers of people.

Lithuanian and Polish gangs, in cooperation with Russian 

colleagues and military personnel, have sold a significant storehouse 

of weapons in and around Kaliningrad city and the naval port at 

Baltiysk. While crime and corruption are prevalent in all of Russia’s 

89 regions, the situation in Kaliningrad was deemed so bad in the 

late 1990s that Boris Yeltsin engaged in a special campaign to oust 

its governor, Leonid Gorbenko. Among other things, Gorbenko 

surrounded himself with advisors with dubious backgrounds. For 

example, his former Vice-Governor, Georgi Topazly, was arrested in 

1992 at the Polish border for possessing $12,000 that he had allegedly 

earned from selling ammunition. Much larger shipments of arms 

and explosives, it was assumed, went undetected. The governor 

also gave local officials the power to determine quotas on imported 

goods. These “Mafia laws” provided Gorbenko and his associates 

with the authority to earn handsome profits in transactions that were 

of questionable legality.

While high-level commanders and civilian defense administrators 

have been active in wholesale deals, smaller transactions involving 

military personnel have occurred at the retail level. With the USSR’s 

collapse, members of the Russian military in Kaliningrad who 

had served honorably and bravely in the past found they had the 

choice “to remain in service”—in dramatically reduced economic 

circumstances—“or retire.” Those who stayed active suffered 

humiliation as their families lived in decrepit housing—in some 

instances on rotting ships in conditions of poverty and destitution. 

Under these circumstances and like their colleagues in Chechnya, 

military personnel in league with the Mafia have sold weapons and 

military equipment via Lithuania and Poland to buyers both east and 

west. They also have used their facilities and transport to collaborate 
34

with criminal gangs and business interests in the massive sale of all 

manner of contraband.

The Foreign Connection.

The third element of the Iron Troika involves the Old Nomenklatura and New Oligarchs that have appeared in the four countries 

under analysis. 

With the collapse of communism in Europe, the former 

Nomenklatura in the Soviet bloc was split into two political 

movements. The first group adhered to Marxist-Leninist ideology, 

favored a command economy, and in the area of foreign policy was 

anti-American and looked toward Moscow for leadership. The best 

example of these people and the neo-Leninist political organizations 

they maintained were those that survived the demise of the USSR in 

Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine and deemed NATO and the EU hostile 

foreign opponents.

The second, more pragmatic group, adopted a social-democratic 

orientation that accepted the free market and looked favorably 

toward the West in the realm of foreign affairs. If they were not the 

most steadfast supporters of NATO and EU membership, they did 

not oppose affiliation with either entity. The post-communist left in 

Lithuania and Poland most clearly fit this description.

The Lithuanian and Polish ex-communists, who adopted the 

Western-oriented, social democratic road, have skillfully conducted 

their affairs since the early 1990s and in recent years have become a 

powerful political force in both countries. Simultaneously their neoLeninist comrades have faded from the political scene in the EBSR. 

But as Joan Barth Urban has observed, “The shared communist 

legacy of these successor parties affected all of them in vital and 

often similar ways.”61

First, in the face of hostility from the early post-communist 

governments and a large segment of the population, they were forced 

to adopt a posture of discipline and solidarity among themselves 

and their close supporters. In Poland, the former communists made 

every effort to disassociate themselves from their political legacy, 

and they adopted a pragmatic not ideological approach to resolving 

the country’s problems. Consequently, “Poles came to see the social 
35

democrats as professionals who could run the government better 

than anyone else—in part because they were excluded from the great 

policy and personal battles of the early nineties.”62

Against this backdrop, Alexander Kwasniewski, the excommunist official, defeated former Solidarity leader Lech Walesa 

in the 1995 presidential race. Like the case of Vytautas Landsbergis 

in Lithuania, many Poles were put off by what they deemed to be 

Walesa’s preoccupation with “the communist threat” and insufficient 

interest in mundane domestic matters that preoccupied ordinary 

folk. In both cases, the ex-communists, Kwasniewski in Poland and 

Algirdas Brazauskas in Lithuania, were deemed steady, pragmatic 

politicians preferable to activists like Walesa and Landsbergis, who 

played a vital role in the struggle against Soviet rule but now were 

“no longer relevant” in the post-Soviet period.

Second, the former communists inherited party resources, 

personnel, and organizational networks that they had enjoyed under 

the old system. For example, even after the collapse of the command 

economy, the administrators and managers in the old Soviet-style 

enterprises have remained in place. In 1995, Kwasniewski’s “. . . 

greatest support . . . came from those associated with the old regime: 

enterprise managers, peasants, the military, and the police.”63

Brazauskas as president and prime minister—the post he holds 

today—has gleaned support from similar segments of Lithuanian 

society. What is more, in Lithuania the Polish and Russian minorities—

representing about 13 percent of the population—remained loyal to 

the ruling communist government and continue to provide the leftist 

parties their support in the post-Soviet period. They feared the rise 

of Sajudis, and even today, the conservative parties have difficulty 

gaining rapport with them.64

Third, “Given the socioeconomic upheaval, income polarization, 

and relative impoverishment caused by all the post-communist 

economic transitions, the ability to play on the widespread nostalgia 

for lost social security was by no means a negligible advantage 

for the successor left parties.”65 Unquestionably, this factor has 

contributed to a firm political base for the former communists in 

both Lithuania and Poland. In Estonia and Latvia, the presence of 

a large ethnic Russian population and the close attachment of the 

communist Nomenklatura to Moscow—in the eyes of the Estonian 
36

and Latvian people—denied the former communists the same 

political opportunities that they enjoyed in Lithuania and Poland. As 

the indigenous governments in Tallinn and Riga adopted what their 

ethnic Russian populations characterized as daunting citizenship 

requirements, tensions between the ethnic communities remained 

high and resulted in parties that were marked by sharp ethnic 

divisions.

At the same time, communal friction was exacerbated by the 

fact that the ethnic Russians very successfully adapted to the new 

economy, in part because of their old political contacts but also 

because of their past training and urban location. For example, half 

the people who live in Latvia’s capital, Riga, are ethnic Russian or 

Russian-speakers. It did not hurt, either, that the Russians found it 

easier than their Estonian and Latvian counterparts to do business 

in Russia. These Russian connections were cited by the “locals” 

as further reason why the “Russians” in their midst could not be 

trusted.

A further source of communal friction was associated with the 

presence of powerful Russian criminal organizations in the Baltic 

countries that maintained close ties with their counterparts “back 

home.” Of course, there were Estonian and Latvian mobsters who 

took advantage of criminal contacts in Russia in “business” ventures 

both within the Baltic region and beyond.

Like their old comrades in Russia, former Soviet government 

officials were well placed to exploit the privatization campaigns in 

both Lithuania and Poland. It is no surprise, then, that many of the 

most successful New Oligarchs in both countries are ex-communists 

or those with close ties to the successor left-wing parties. Some have 

also used their old political contacts in Russia to facilitate attempts 

to gain economic power in the new economy; unlike their political 

opponents on the right, they feel quite comfortable working with 

Russians. What is more, no one in the EBSR, whatever their political 

orientation, can ignore an overwhelming fact: Russia is a natural 

business partner, especially in the critical area of energy.

In addition to the individuals who used their past political 

positions and contacts to advance their economic ventures, are 

enterprising individuals unaffiliated with the Old Nomenklatura 
37

who first gained wealth by participating in the wholesale plunder of 

Russia’s energy, metal and commodity resources in the 1990s. These 

individuals, along with those who have gained economic prominence 

by virtue of their entrepreneurial skills, welcome Russian investment 

as it has helped fuel economic growth in the region. They have found 

it very profitable to do business with the Russian energy firms that 

have established operations in their countries and have used Russian 

capital to invest in the brisk real estate market. 

Moreover, privatization campaigns in the ESBR countries have 

involved people of all political stripes, not only those who wielded 

influence in the old system. Especially in the early stages of the 

economic transition, they conducted business in a manner that 

involved a cavalier attitude toward the law and accepted corruption 

as “the price of doing business.” And when pressed, many 

entrepreneurs who engaged in questionable business ventures could 

point out with justification that “at the time there was no law against 

it!” It, for example, could mean money made in gray areas where 

the law did not apply. In this last connection, one hears accounts 

of profitable outcomes achieved by currency exchanges that were 

not deemed illegal because there were no laws extant that forbid 

them.66

Consequently, many members of the EBSR business community, 

who today operate within the law, have skeletons in their closet 

similar to those of the Russian oligarchs, even if they have not 

achieved the same level of economic success. This may account for 

the reluctance of economic and political elites to enforce corruption 

laws on the books and to prosecute individuals who engage in illegal 

activities.

To look more closely at the relationship between the Old 

Nomenklatura and the New Oligarchs in the region, let us turn 

to a case study of the privatization of security services in Poland. 

Because of the lawlessness that prevailed during the early years of 

privatization, security firms played a larger role in bourgeoning 

market economies than in mature ones.

Maria Los has observed that, with the rise of Solidarity in 1980, 

there was “an extraordinary mobilization of the military and 

civilian secret services. Additionally, the Soviet, East German, and 

other communist intelligence services, alarmed by the Solidarity 
38

movement’s potential influence, rapidly expanded their clandestine 

presence in Poland.”67 Equally important, thousands of civilian and 

military intelligence and secret service operatives henceforth were 

dispatched to disparate state institutions and enterprises.

On the eve of communism’s demise in Poland, and in keeping 

with a similar situation in the USSR then, the party relied upon former 

intelligence operatives to give the communists purchase in the new 

economy as the old one expired. Insofar as they operated outside of 

Poland’s borders, their activities were enhanced and monitored by 

the KGB. Consequently, the ties between these Polish and Soviet/

Russian actors would remain in place after the USSR’s collapse and 

serve them well today.

In possession of vast state and private assets in the 1990s, the 

former communists held a financial edge that they used to good 

advantage in their clashes with Solidarity and parties on the right. 

Los concludes, “As of 2005,” they had been “in power for 8 out of 15 

post-communist years. The key of their success lied in their foresight, 

founded on the secret services’ intelligence. Their comprehensive 

but flexible management of the transition process was made possible 

by a combination of knowledge, skills, and operation resources of 

the united political (party/secret services/army) elite that allowed 

a swift take-over of both the economy and the strategic power/

information/financial sectors.”68

She also claims that members of the secret services networks 

were involved “in criminal economic schemes” while “no serious 

economic scam would have been possible without an active presence 

and often the leading one of former secret service operatives and 

their secret collaborators.”69 At the same time, these economic 

schemes were often associated with “international activities” that 

provide government officials with cover—i.e., they were portrayed 

as matters of national interest and, unlike domestic matters, were 

not subject to the same principles of transparency. 

Former members of the security services—including those in 

the military—had created private security agencies, often with 

links to organized crime groups. “Security sector employees have 

been identified in numerous bank robberies, vanishing security 

vans transporting large sums of money, hostage-takings and 

kidnappings.”70 Los claims it is also evident that these people have 
39

a close working relationship with many municipal police agencies. 

Finally, in underscoring Russian involvement in these security 

enterprises, Los writes,

According to Antoni Macierewicz, the Interior minister in 1991-92, the 

creation of the detective and security companies was initiated and at 

least in part directed by the Soviet/Russian intelligence services as an 

alternative surveillance apparatus to replace the old one, which had 

been fully integrated with the Soviet services. He commented on the 

private security industry: “The Russians organized it, shaped it into one 

organizational structure, penetrated it and maintained it, apparently for 

information gathering purposes.”71

These private entities possessed knowledge and had connections 

that were vital to successful economic and political enterprises. 

Furthermore, they could rely upon criminal organizations to provide 

the muscle to enforce business transactions.

In assessing the activities of former members of the Nomenklatura, 

it would be a grave error to disparage the post-Soviet activities of all 

members of this group. Many former members of the Communist 

Party, the Komsomol, et al., today are honest, patriotic members of 

society. Having done well in the new system, they have no reason to 

welcome a return to a Soviet-style political or economic system. The 

same holds true for successful members of the business community 

throughout the East Baltic Sea Region. Nonetheless, some members 

of the Old Nomenklatura and New Oligarchy have engaged in 

activities that are detrimental to the welfare of their respective 

countries. But given the lack of transparency in the business ventures 

of entrepreneurs throughout the former communist bloc, it is difficult 

to make such determinations.

Simultaneously, it is difficult to determine the extent of 

organized crime in any society, since much of what criminals do 

lacks transparency, and many individuals who know about their 

activities and have inside information prefer, for safety sake, not to 

discuss them. Much the same thing can be said about the activities 

of economic warlords who have resorted to murder to silence 

journalists and who have discovered a new weapon of late, lawsuits. Anyone who consults with people knowledgeable about such 

activities soon learns that they are reluctant to “name names” for 
40

these reasons.72 Consequently, while frequent mention is made of 

Russian security operatives and/or criminal elements that are active 

in nefarious activities in the region, it is difficult to determine the 

nature and extent of such activities. 

Also, law enforcement agencies everywhere are reluctant to share 

information with their counterparts in other jurisdictions, much less 

other countries. Various investigations of the 9/ll attacks clearly 

demonstrate this practice. Moreover, none of the countries under 

scrutiny possess the wealth and academic, journalistic, and think 

tank network of enterprising researchers required to investigate 

these matters in a manner Americans take for granted.

In each case, the law enforcement agencies and court systems are 

still developing and, like other government bodies, their operations 

are marked by widespread corruption. Under these circumstances, 

even when criminals are caught or public officials are found guilty 

of misdeeds, they often escape punishment. This only encourages 

potential whistle-blowers to remain silent and discourages 

enterprising analysts from reporting about criminal activities.

To explore the Russian factor further and gain insight into how 

elements of Russian Iron Troikas threaten the political and security 

prospects of the countries under scrutiny, we shall turn to recent 

political developments in Lithuania.

In the spring of 2004, President Rolandas Paksas, a two-time 

mayor of Vilnius who had served twice as Prime Minister, was 

impeached after being found guilty on three counts.73 A year earlier 

he had defeated Valdas Adamkus, an American émigré, by a fivepoint margin in the second round of the presidential election. The 

latter’s defeat was attributable to his age, a lack-luster campaign, and 

hostility on the part of many voters toward all of the mainstream 

parties on the one hand, and Paksas’s youth, energy, and appealing 

populist agenda on the other. Furthermore, the younger man’s effort 

was both well-financed and skillfully orchestrated. Indeed, it looked 

much like an American-style campaign. 

In post-mortems of the election, it was revealed that Russian 

money and Russian public relations experts had played a vital role 

in Paksas’s unexpected victory. Yuri Borisov, a Russian businessman 

who serviced and sold helicopters from his company in Lithuania, 

conceded that he had donated 350,000 euro to the Paksas campaign. 
41

His help, as expected, had strings attached to the contribution because 

Paksas had promised him a high-level post in his administration 

and granted him Lithuanian citizenship—one of the actions that 

had resulted in his ultimate impeachment. Borisov’s contribution 

was just the tip of the iceberg, because it has since been alleged that 

he provided one million dollars to the campaign. Lithuanian and 

Russian analysts claim that “Russian interests” contributed as much 

as $5 to $7 million to Paksas’s war-chest.74

Clearly, whatever the precise amount, when the financial records 

were published, it was reported that both candidates received 

roughly similar sums of money. Lithuanian analysts, however, are 

convinced Paksas received far more than that from Russian sources, 

and this explained why the Paksas’s campaign was so prominent on 

TV, why it demonstrated a focused and on-message American style 

race, and why it distributed all manner of material that blistered 

Adamkus for his age, his attachment to the Williams deal, and for 

ignoring the plight of those Lithuanians who did not benefit from 

the new economy.

Russian political analysts had discussed openly Lithuania’s 

vulnerability to outside manipulation for some time. Confusion over 

the relationship between the president and government provided an 

institutional wedge that could be exploited. For example, since the 

president cannot belong to a political party, he is detached from the 

legislative majority and cabinet. 

But even more inviting for manipulation was widespread voter 

unhappiness with the political process and mainstream parties, 

and doubts about economic reforms. As was true of Russia, those 

Lithuanians who continued to work in Soviet-style enterprises or 

lived in the countryside were disenchanted with “the new Lithuania,” 

and they would provide their votes to Paksas who claimed to speak 

in their behalf. In the Duma elections of 2002, the Motherland Party 

captured the votes of similarly situated voters in Russia, and there 

were indications that the Paksas campaign had people working for 

it who borrowed directly from this successful electoral effort.

Political scientist Raimundas Lopata and Baltic News Service 

editor Audrius Matonis have provided a detailed analysis of Russian 

involvement in the Paksas affair in their book, A President in a Tailspin.

75

The Russian input was not merely an ad hoc, random affair; it was 
42

a premeditated campaign to subvert Lithuania’s political process. 

It was crafted in Moscow and carried out in Lithuania through 

the Russian Embassy under the stewardship of Yuri Zubakov. It 

was Primakov’s right-hand man, then, who would orchestrate the 

campaign to replace the American Valdas Adamkus as Lithuania’s 

president with a compliant Rolandas Paksas in the 2002 election.

Contrary to prevailing conventional wisdom that the Kremlin was 

most dissatisfied with Estonia and Latvia because of their alleged 

mistreatment of ethnic Russians, Lopata and Matonis claimed that 

Lithuania was Moscow’s priority target. It was the Lithuanians 

who had prevented a visa free regime for Russians traveling to and 

from Kaliningrad, it was the government in Vilnius that, in league 

with the Poles, was meddling in Ukraine and Belarus, and it was 

the presumptuous Lithuanians who claimed that they were a model 

for a successful transition from a closed to open society that other 

former Soviet republics could emulate.

Almax, a Russian PR firm with reputed close ties to the Russian 

secret service, helped implement a strategy that targeted those 

Lithuanians left behind by the new economy. In a search of Borisov’s 

villa after Paksas was impeached, Lithuanian authorities found 

a plan designed by Almax to discredit the country’s political elite 

and mainstream parties, presumably with the intent of promoting 

the fortunes of Paksas’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in the fall 

2004 parliamentary elections. (He had formed it prior to becoming 

a presidential candidate.) But many Lithuanian analysts concluded 

that its real aim was to destabilize their country. The Paksas team 

had proposed an expansion of presidential powers, and, if they had 

succeeded in that effort and the LDP had formed a new government 

in 2004, a man beholden to Russia would be in charge of a high office 

with new authority to shape policy at home and abroad.

Lithuania’s leading national daily, Lietuvos Rytas, reported 

that Paksas’s principal campaign supporter, Borisov, had been a 

member of a Soviet military intelligence (GRU) unit in Afghanistan. 

It surmised that he did not act on his own to curry favor with the 

president or simply to gain a commercial advantage, and observed 

that anyone involved in the sale and servicing of Russian helicopters 

had to enjoy close ties with Russia’s military-industrial complex. 
43

After coming under attack, Paksas denied that he sought help 

from radicals, but the media reported that many of his benefactors 

were tied to individuals with anti-democratic credentials and 

criminal associations. Several radical fringe groups that opposed 

the government’s pro-Western orientation actively organized to 

block the president’s impeachment. In pro-Paksas demonstrations, 

one could find evidence of a Lithuanian red-brown coalition of 

sorts. Lithuanian police officials indicated that the radical-right 

(brown) anti-Semitic deputy, Vytautas Sustauskas, sought the help 

of Henrikas Daktaras, the reputed Kaunas mob boss, to organize 

demonstrations favorable to Paksas. Also, Valery Ivanov was 

present at such demonstrations, providing the red component of the 

“coalition.” He had led the pro-Soviet Yedinstvo or Unity movement 

that organized anti-independence demonstrations in the early 1990s. 

At the time, the KGB had calculated that the demonstrations would 

provoke violence and provide Moscow with the pretext to crush the 

rebellion. 76

In a fall 2003 memo authored by Mecys Laurinkus, the head of 

Lithuania’s State Security Department (SSD), that precipitated the 

presidential scandal, the activities of Russian criminal organizations 

in Lithuania, as well as Lithuanian criminals who often worked with 

them, were cited. “Especially active on Lithuania’s territory is ‘XXI 

vek’ (21st Century), an organization which is directly connected to 

Russian and international crime groups.” At the same time, “Special 

services and high officials (in) NATO countries possess information 

that Lithuania is being used as a third country for arms sales in 

violation of embargoes involving countries that support international 

terrorism.”77

In a meeting with the Seimas, Laurinkus charged that one of the 

president’s aides, national security advisor Remigijus Acas, had ties 

with Russian mobsters. Lithuanian and Russian criminals hoped to 

exploit Lithuania’s next round of privatization and looked with great 

expectation toward the spring of 2004 when Lithuania was scheduled 

to join the EU. Afterwards, they hoped to gain access to Europe’s 

vast market by using Lithuania as base from which to operate. Later 

phone taps revealed individuals associated with Paksas making 

threatening remarks about what they would do to Laurinkus when 

they had a chance to act. 
44

Conservative politicians were convinced that here was further 

evidence to support their charge that Moscow was attempting to 

subvert Lithuania. Vytautas Landsbergis, the leader of the Lithuanian 

rebellion in the early 1990s, claimed that Russian penetration of 

strategic industries was both an economic and political threat to his 

country. According to the former Sajudis leader, the Kremlin began 

a decade ago to place economic operatives throughout the former 

Soviet Republics and satellite states with the hope of influencing 

political as well as economic affairs in those countries. He claimed that 

Lithuanian politician Victor Uspaskich, a Russian-born businessman 

from Kedainiai and founder of the popular Labor Party, had been 

functioning in this capacity.78 In 2004, Uspaskich’s party received the 

largest number of seats in the Parliament but was unable to form a 

government; the previous one remained in power with Brazauskas 

serving as Prime Minister. The Labor Party got several important 

cabinet posts—for example, Uspaskich became the economic minister. 

But the next year, he was forced to leave office because of a conflict 

of interest involving his business enterprises and Russian officials 

and his use of fraudulent academic documents. Notwithstanding his 

somewhat diminished political fortunes, he remains one of the most 

popular politicians in Lithuania and has been an active player in the 

attempt of Russian energy interests to purchase Mazeikiai Nafta.

At the time of Paksas’s impeachment, American officials denied 

a major Russian orchestrated campaign to subvert the Lithuanian 

political system and claimed the Russian mafia was not a problem. 

American diplomats—no longer in government—and others 

knowledgeable about the region, however, were of the opposite 

opinion. After revelations about massive Russian intervention in 

Ukraine in the 2004 presidential race there, the claims made by 

Lithuanian leaders like Landsbergis clearly deserve a second look. 

In the opinion of conservatives in Lithuania, however, Brussels 

and Washington, in their courtship of Putin, would prefer not to 

acknowledge Russian attempts to subvert an allied country.

But just how do the various actors associated with Iron Troikas 

interact? Is it plausible that Russian officials in league with criminals, 

economic warlords, rogue military personnel, as well as “local” 

individuals who represent the Old Nomenklatura and New Oligarchs, 
45

are collaborating in a well-orchestrated campaign to subvert the four 

countries in the region? Or perhaps there is another explanation: 

these individuals and groups are working along parallel lines and at 

times seemingly cooperate to achieve diverse objectives but do not 

represent a single, unified entity.

Events associated with the Lithuanian presidential crisis provide 

a plausible answer to these questions. In the spring of 2004, Lietuvos 

Rytas ran a series of articles based upon interviews with Yevgeny 

Limanov. The name is a pseudonym for a former Russian KGB 

operative who a decade ago was assigned to get involved in business 

affairs that promoted the interests of his superiors. Now living in 

the French Alps, he has provided insight into how Russian criminal 

gangs, economic warlords, and government officials (Russian and 

“local”) work along parallel lines, or together, to promote their 

economic interests in countries that formerly were in the USSR’s 

sphere of influence.

These associations of interests are led by the “Ultra-Patriots.” 

They represent the hard-core leadership or controlling groups of 

cadres; i.e., individuals associated with the “power ministries,” but 

who at times may operate independently of those ministries—e.g., 

the Ministry of Defense. The second tier is comprised of “Trustees”—

i.e., individuals who do not belong to government agencies nor are 

they entrusted with inside information, but they work closely with 

the “Ultra-Patriots.” 

A third group is comprised of “Agents”—involved in a variety of 

activities—who may not know who they work for and are clueless 

about the ultimate goals of the people at the top of the pyramid. 

They simply expect to derive economic or political benefits from the 

relationship.

Limanov observes, “I have no doubt that Almax is one of many 

organizations that works under orders from special services or some 

groups of ‘Ultra-Patriots’ and represents their interests.” He is not 

certain whether Ana Zatonskya, an Almax employee who worked 

both in the Paksas campaign and later arrived in Lithuania to prevent 

his impeachment, is directly working for the Ultra-Patriots or is a 

mere Trustee. But he would not be surprised if she belonged to the 

former. Of Borisov, Limanov says, “I know for sure that he is directly 
46

connected to the GRU group of Ultra-Patriots . . . not as an officer on 

the payroll but as a Trustee.” Finally, he believes that Paksas was 

under the control of Borisov without knowing that he was being used 

as a pawn to help Russian interests gain access to the highest reaches 

of the Lithuanian government. Moscow, however, had been watching 

him for years and concluded that he could be easily compromised. 

Limanov has reached these conclusions on the basis of sources that 

he is currently associated with and that belong to strategic agencies 

in Moscow—they are not based on past relationships.79

A lot more work needs to be done to determine how Iron Troikas 

function, but if one accepts that the Russian government is seeking 

to exploit them to promote Moscow’s foreign policy and security 

goals, what are they? Five goals come to mind.

1. Moscow’s activities in the East Baltic Sea Region are driven 

by mundane commercial considerations. That is, they hope 

to consolidate Russian economic interests through former 

Soviet-bloc countries and use them as a pathway into the vast 

EU market.

2. The Kremlin wants to punish the four countries for joining 

NATO and to discredit them in the eyes of former Soviet 

entities that contemplate EU/NATO membership.

3. The Russian government hopes to use Iron Troikas to influence 

the activities of the four countries within the EU and NATO; 

for example, to marginalize them so that they are incapable of 

serving U.S. interests in both bodies. 

4. Russia remains wedded to the idea that it can Finlandize 

them; that is, to gain virtual control of their foreign policies. 

5. Moscow hopes to destabilize all four of them and to force 

them back into Russia’s sphere of influence.

Most observers of Russia and the East Baltic Sea Region would 

agree that the first three objectives are plausible; indeed, facts on 

the ground already support them. They also might concur that the 

siloviki would like to achieve the fourth and fifth goals, but there is 

no evidence that efforts to achieve them are underway—nor are they 

achievable. 
47

On the basis of the analysis provided here, the evidence supports 

the proposition that Kremlin operatives have made an effort to 

achieve all five, although with limited success. But there is no 

indication that they will desist in their efforts, and the West must 

respond accordingly. Since the Kremlin planners view Iron Troikas 

as instruments to advance Russia’s security interests, it behooves the 

West to think of them in military terms and not to dismiss them as 

economic or law enforcement threats. 

Concluding Remarks and Recommendations.

Since the strikes on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, the U.S. 

defense community has been preoccupied with the GWOT and 

has paid little attention to Russia. The time has come, however, to 

look at potential threats associated with developments there. While 

policymakers and scholars may squabble over the proper term to 

describe Russia—e.g., whether it is or is not a “failed state”—it is 

grappling with a range of problems that explain why many analysts 

deem it “unstable.” Namely, a war that started a decade ago in 

Chechnya is still raging—with civilian and combatant casualties 

numbering in the tens of thousands—and the insurgency is spreading 

over wide areas of the Northern Caucasus. Neither the military 

nor the law enforcement agencies have demonstrated the capacity 

to deal with it. At the same time, the world’s largest geographical 

state is losing about 500,000 people per year, while situated below 

Russia’s resource-rich regions in the Far East are 1.3 billion land 

and commodity hungry Chinese inhabitants. In several decades 

they may gain de facto, if not de jure, control of this area. One could 

cite other examples of why many analysts believe Russia’s future 

is problematic: crime, corruption, a public health crisis, uneven 

economic development and income inequality, to name several 

serious and protracted internal problems.

It is plausible that, with the help of vast profits secured through the 

sale of its energy assets, Russia will address and resolve the myriad 

problems that threaten its internal security. But U.S. defense planners 

cannot ignore the possibility that the situation can get much worse, 

and, like their Soviet predecessors, the ruling elite proves incapable 

of preventing fragmentation of Russian society. If this outcome came 
48

to pass, it would have significant implications for the international 

community, and the security implications associated with it would 

far exceed any threat that could conceivably occur as a consequence 

of anti-American terrorist actions.80

As a consequence, it behooves the U.S. Army to undertake a 

comprehensive assessment of various futures that are associated 

with an unstable Russia. And yes, even if one doubts the plausibility 

of a Russia following the lead of the USSR, the security implications 

of that colossal outcome are so far-reaching and ominous, it cannot 

be ignored.

There is a new threat from the East, however, that is existential. 

It involves the activities and actors associated with Iron Troikas that 

jeopardize the security of American allies in the EBSR. U.S. security 

analysts have ignored them because they do not involve traditional 

military operations—no tanks are crossing borders nor are cities 

being devastated by air strikes. What is more, the four countries 

under scrutiny have found a safe harbor in NATO, so nothing really 

bad can happen to them, at least at the hands of an outside military 

force. Widespread corruption and criminal behavior, the primitive 

activities of economic warlords and the complicity of local economic 

and political elites in promoting Moscow’s goals are unfortunate; 

but they are by-products of the difficult transition from a closed to an 

open society. Over the long run, all of them will become attenuated, 

and in the meantime, EU and NATO membership will provide 

protection to the countries threatened by Iron Troikas. 81

Finally, Western analysts have ignored Iron Troikas in the 

EBSR in the conviction that the countries in question all enjoy 

“democratic consolidation” and cannot be subverted by hostile 

foreign intervention. All four have conducted numerous free and 

open elections since the collapse of communism, and the rule of 

law prevails in spite of the aforementioned scourge of corruption. 

With Paksas’s impeachment, Lithuania faced a serious political crisis 

but resolved it within its constitutional and legal system. Perhaps 

the Russians tried to meddle in the country’s internal affairs in the 

hope of subverting the Lithuanian government, but that did not 

happen.82

The events surrounding the Paksas affair, however, suggest 

Moscow came very close to subverting that country’s democratic 
49

institutions. Missing from Western assessments of the crisis are the 

following caveats. Had Paksas not made the colossal blunder of 

announcing the weekend before his impeachment that he had agreed 

to give Borisov a high post in the president’s office, he probably 

would have escaped impeachment. This is the view of Seimas staff 

members that I had interviewed days after Paksas was impeached. 

The votes favoring his ouster were only passed by a margin of 2, l, 

and l respectively. 

If Paksas had remained in power, a former member of the GRU 

would have direct ties to the president’s office even if he did not 

hold an official post there. This is a man who had been accused of 

negotiating with the government of Sudan, which both the EU and the 

United States have declared a terrorist state. In 2001, he helped Sudan 

acquire Mi-8T helicopters.83 Some news accounts and the SSD memo 

indicated that American intelligence sources reported that Borisov 

had attempted to do business with Saddam’s Iraq as well. Efforts to 

deport him have failed because the law enforcement agencies and 

courts have not acted in a concerted manner. Both remain riddled 

with corruption and have difficulty addressing important security 

matters even though there are honest and patriotic individuals 

associated with them. And, of course, wealthy individuals accused 

of crimes in democratic societies can manipulate legal procedures to 

their advantage for a long time.84

What is more, conservative politicians like Landsbergis and 

former Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius claim that the Almax plan 

discovered in Borisov’s villa outside of Vilnius represented nothing 

less than a plan to subvert Lithuanian democracy. It is noteworthy 

that Lithuanian commentators, who frequently dismiss Landsbergis’ 

warnings about Russian influence as “excessive,” consider Russian 

involvement in the Paksas affair and the Almax document in much 

the same terms as the old Sajudis leader.85

 Lithuanian observers believe that criminal organizations—both 

Russian and Lithuanian—as testified to by phone taps, would have 

found a friendly reception among some elements of the president’s 

office had he remained in power. Some individuals under surveillance 

spoke openly about removing officials who could not be compromised 

such as the popular “Chief of Police” Vytautas Grigaravicius. Recall 

that the crisis first surfaced when the director of security, Laurinkus, 
50

revealed that the president’s national security advisor, Remigijus 

Acas, had ties with Russian mobsters. Laurinkus claimed that Paksas 

had been informed of allegations regarding Acas’s ties to the mafia 

but ignored them. Many questioned the appointment of Acas, a 

businessman who managed a Lithuanian-Russian joint-venture in 

Belarus, since he had no experience relevant to his post.

If Paksas had escaped impeachment, then one must ponder how 

NATO officials might have responded. For example, could classified 

material be shared with Lithuania when the president was accused of 

security leaks, when close political supporters were deemed Russian 

security agents, and when members of his own staff were linked to 

international criminal elements?86

When a comprehensive assessment of Lithuania’s political crisis 

and the work of Keith Smith and Janusz Bugajski are taken into 

account, there is ample evidence suggesting that Iron Troikas are a 

threat to U.S. allies, and the American security establishment must 

acknowledge this fact. Many analysts, journalists and politicians in 

the region have expressed alarm about their inability to deal with the 

Russian subversive campaign to undermine their political systems. 

During the height of the Paksas scandal, for example, I received an 

e-mail from an otherwise cool-headed journalist who lamented: 

“I’m really not convinced that Lithuanian democracy will survive. 

I should say I am very afraid that it will not survive . . . that’s why 

I am so worried (about) U.S. apathy and indifference in this case. 

Lithuania is too weak to confront these dangers alone.”87

Conservatives in particular have been dismayed by Washington’s 

refusal to acknowledge Russian attempts to subvert Lithuania’s 

political process. How can the United States remain silent, they ask, 

when Putin savages the same democratic institutions in Russia that 

the United States is seeking to establish in Iraq? Clearly, the imperialminded in Moscow, who deem the Baltic democracies an integral 

part of Russia’s geo-political space, are encouraged by Washington’s 

failure to confront Putin on this matter. This explains why many 

conservatives in Lithuania speak about “another Yalta.” 88

Their counterparts in Poland are not happy with Washington’s 

indifference toward their grievances either. In this connection, the 

new government of Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz will 

not be shy in pressing Washington to pay more attention to Russian 
51

policies that rile the waters with Poland. Radek Sikorski, the articulate 

former AEI director of the New Atlantic Initiative, has been named 

defense minister. Sikorski, although identified as a Reaganite, has 

expressed displeasure with Washington’s failure to provide Polish 

enterprises with Iraqi redevelopment funds, and he can be expected 

to challenge the United States should it continue to disregard what 

he deems anti-Polish policies emanating from Moscow. 89

In spite of being disheartened by Washington’s silence on Iron 

Troikas, security officials in the EBSR are even more disenchanted 

with their European EU allies. They lament that neither the EU nor 

the major states associated with it—France, Italy, Germany, and the 

United Kingdom—are prepared to confront Russia and acknowledge 

the Kremlin’s efforts to compromise them. Desperate for Russia’s 

energy, they do not want to provoke a row with Putin. The Balts and 

the Poles, in particular, have expressed concern about Germany’s 

plans to build a pipeline under the Baltic, while not even bothering 

to consult them on this vital matter. As a consequence, they look to 

the United States to address the “new threat from the East,” because 

they have nowhere else to go.

Of course, any truly effective response to Russia’s stealth 

imperialism must involve a joint EU-U.S. effort to put Putin on notice 

that threats to Poland and the Baltic states will not be tolerated. 

Consequently, just as the United States took the lead in encouraging 

European countries to support the latest round of NATO enlargement, 

it will have to take the initiative on this matter as well. Measures 

taken to cope with the threats associated with Iron Troikas must be 

holistic, and the Americans and Europeans must back their words 

with actions. While there may be many branches of the American 

government associated with this enterprise, it is predicated on 

the assumption that it is a security problem that cannot be treated 

piecemeal or via ad hoc measures. 

On the economic front, the time is long overdue to acknowledge 

that the West must develop a comprehensive energy security 

program; energy security can no longer be treated as a matter of the 

free market alone. In London’s Financial Times, hardly a mouthpiece 

for left-wing orthodoxy, Phillip Ellis, an advisor to The Boston 

Consulting Group, writes. “Energy security, including energy at 

affordable prices, is a basic public need that cannot be met purely by 
52

market forces when a country is short on domestic energy reserves.” 

Moreover, “The passive role that government has played in energy 

security since the Thatcher-Reagan revolution is a luxury we can no 

longer afford.”90

If the Americans and Europeans are going to deal with the 

vulnerability of the Western alliance to energy blackmail, whatever 

its source, they must develop a global energy security strategy; 

failure to do so will place the security of all Western democracies at 

risk. This means, of course, addressing the controversial question: 

“In light of the critical role energy plays in the economic vitality of 

the Western democracies, can we allow free market forces alone to 

determine the availability and price of this strategic resource?” The 

answer is obviously a resounding “No!”

A stable supply of energy represents the center of gravity in 

determining the outcome to the most pressing security issues in the 

21st century. By definition, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting 

Countries (OPEC) as a cartel is in direct violation of free market 

principles. But, as we have indicated, so is Russia. Consequently, by 

itself, a free market response to the problems that they promote is 

inappropriate.

Turning to less dramatic responses to the Iron Troikas threat, Keith 

Smith writes, “The EU’s focus has been upon increasing supplies 

from Russia instead of on the conduct of Russian companies in the 

region.” Individual EU countries have chosen to deal with Russia 

on a bilateral basis and to ignore complaints from East European 

members about Russia’s harmful economic policies. Here he mentions 

the proposed gas pipeline that will run under the Baltic Sea from 

Russia to Germany. Since he first wrote about it, German and Russian 

officials have moved forward toward finalizing an agreement; one 

that the Poles and Balts have condemned because it is directed at them 

and has no economic justification. Their counterparts in Berlin have 

ignored their complaints, and this response will encourage Putin to 

look toward the future with the expectation that his energy card will 

serve as a wedge within the EU. At the same time construction of the 

North European Gas Pipeline will undermine efforts to develop a 

pan-European energy policy.91

Smith devotes a long detailed analysis of what should be done 

to cope with Russia’s playing the energy card at the expense of both 
53

EU and NATO members in the EBSR. Brussels must reconsider 

measures that compromise the ability of the four countries to cope 

with Russia’s predatory economic policies; for example, the closing 

of Lithuania’s nuclear power complex at Ignalina (assuming it is a 

safe facility) and efforts on Brussels’ part to reduce their dependency 

upon Russia, such as making it more feasible to purchase petroleum 

from Norway.

The single most important measure that the EU could take is to 

have Russia sign the EU’s energy charter, “which requires the parties 

to be more transparent and competitive in their business dealings 

with member state companies. Transneft should be required to give 

up its monopoly pipeline to the West, and, along with Gazprom, 

should be made to allow other gas companies to use its pipeline 

system, particularly in the case of spare capacity.”92

Directing his attention toward Washington, Smith observes. 

“The United States has not had a well-documented policy focused 

on countering the dubious business practices of Russia’s energy 

companies. Nor has much attention been paid to the growing 

potential for these firms and the Kremlin to undermine the new 

political and economic systems that emerged from the collapse of 

communism in East Central Europe.” 93

This posture cannot help sustain positive attitudes toward 

Washington on the part of the people in New Europe. It has not 

escaped leaders there that while the U.S. Congress sabotaged a deal 

in 2005 that would have resulted in China gaining control of Unocal, 

a relatively small American oil company—justifying it by citing 

negative national security consequences—its members have said 

little about Russia’s energy domination of four close allies.

Among specific measures the United States must take to reduce 

New Europe’s energy dependence upon Russia, Smith provides the 

following. The U.S. embassies in all four countries (and he includes 

Ukraine) must conduct studies to determine their energy dependence 

on Russia, and the findings should be used in negotiations with the 

EU to determine how that dependency can be reduced. The United 

States must take a host of measures to encourage greater transparency 

on the part of Russia’s energy giants—including closing markets to 

those Russian companies that do not practice it. With the EU, the 

United States should press Russia to adopt real privatization policies 
54

in its energy sector, and both should fund expensive regional projects 

to help meet the energy needs of all five countries as well.

Turning to recommendations pertinent to the diplomatic and 

political dimensions of the Iron Troika threat, it is imperative that 

the West,in its relations with Russia, acknowledge their existence. 

Developing a cooperative relationship with Russia is a vital U.S. 

goal, but in approaching it, we cannot fantasize about Russia’s true 

nature. Few serious observers of Putin’s Russia would agree with 

Barnett’s assessment that Russia is a Core state—that is, one where 

values shared by other democracies are cherished. This is certainly 

not the case of the ruling elite or, for that matter, of most ordinary 

Russians. The rule of law in Russia is a shame, pure and simple.

What is more, Russia, through its predatory economic policies, 

is violating the very norms of behavior that are prerequisite to 

membership in the G-8 (the United States, Japan, Germany, France, 

the United Kingdom, Italy, Canada, and Russia) and WTO. The 

evidence that has been provided above clearly indicates that it is doing 

so through Iron Troikas. Russia will host the next G-8 meeting in St. 

Petersburg, and that event provides an opportunity for the United 

States to demand it subscribe to the rules that govern membership in 

both—rules that Russia is violating on a systematic basis. There will 

be powerful Western economic interests that oppose this “radical” 

gesture, but the time has come for the American security community 

to take a stand. 

The United States must confront Moscow on its manipulation of 

Iron Troikas at the expense of American allies. Not to do so will send 

mixed signals to the Kremlin, lead to failed policy initiatives, and 

undermine cooperation between both sides that is based on a sound 

assessment of facts on the ground. 

At the same time, Washington must put Poland and the Baltic 

countries on notice that the failure to fight corruption and crime and 

the complicity of local economic and political elites in promoting the 

siloviki’s imperial objectives—even though greed and not treason 

may be the basis for their complicity—cannot be tolerated. The New 

European countries seeking NATO membership were required to 

adhere to certain principles in keeping with democratic practices. 

Why should these same principles be ignored by member states after 

they join NATO? 
55

In spite of impressive gains in building civil society, the 

nongovernment organizations (NGOs) in all of the former communist 

states of Europe are too weak to perform activities that serve—as they 

do in Old Europe—as checks on private and public corruption. Their 

members may be as honest and determined as their counterparts in 

Old Europe, but they simply lack the financial resources and public 

acceptance to function the way NGOs do in America or the United 

Kingdom. Take, for example, the issue of transparency in both 

the public and private sectors. Various NGOs like Transparency 

International have affiliates in all four states, but their budgets are 

woefully inadequate to deal with the enormity of the problems they 

are obligated to oversee. Furthermore, the law enforcement agencies 

and courts have found it difficult to deal with economic and political 

corruption and the activities of criminal organizations. This situation 

feeds wide-spread political alienation among the citizens of these 

countries, and that affliction, in turn, makes it more difficult to 

address the former pathologies.

By contrast, business and criminal interests that violate democratic 

norms and engage in illegal behavior have enormous sums of money 

to negate efforts on the part of government to hold them accountable. 

The ability of these powerful interests to influence the courts, as 

well as the legislative and executive branches of government, also 

explains why Central and Eastern European governments often 

are not up to the challenge that their counterparts in more mature 

democracies undertake. Clearly, financial and technical assistance 

from the United States and Europe are needed here and should be 

forthcoming since the problem involves security issues relevant to 

NATO and not just several member states.

Making clear that the United States is concerned about this 

matter will go a long way in helping EBSR officials mobilize a wider 

spectrum of their populations to fight for greater transparency and 

openness in the public’s business. Of course, Brussels is even more 

important here since it has the right to look closely at how member 

states are using EU development funds and other financial grantsin-aid such as agricultural subsidies. But once the United States, 

with its enormous capacity to influence developments in Europe—

through its media and academic and research institutions and not 
56

only through political channels—acknowledges the existence of Iron 

Troikas, the EU will find it more difficult to ignore them.

Turning to the security dimensions of the Iron Troika threat, an 

assessment of their activities in the EBSR suggests an important twofold conclusion. First, Bugajski’s claim that Russia is practicing a 

new form of imperialism throughout Central and Eastern Europe 

is justified. On the basis of this initial assessment of Iron Troikas, 

it is evident that Kremlin planners hope to achieve the following 

goals, all of which are detrimental to U.S. security interests in New 

Europe.

• To foreclose the possibility that New European states will join 

another U.S.-led military action akin to the one in Iraq. Their 

military contribution might be marginal, but consider the 

difficulty an American president would encounter among his 

own electorate if the participation of allied countries was not 

forthcoming in what was billed as a “multilateral” operation.

• To promote a common EU defense and security policy that is 

in keeping with the worst fears of American analysts; that is, 

one that would undermine NATO’s viability as an effective 

military alliance.

• To preclude the transfer of bases, access and transit rights 

from Old to New Europe by turning public opinion in Eastern 

Europe against these initiatives.

• To undermine efforts to expand the zone of democracy in 

areas “further East,” such as Ukraine and Belarus, by denying 

activists in those countries, and NGOs in neighboring ones, the 

opportunity to aid and abet “democratization campaigns.”

• To convince local economic and political elites that they must 

reconcile with Russia—a powerful country that they share 

borders with, not the United States thousands of miles distant 

from them on the North Atlantic Continent. Ultimately, 

this will mean making security compromises in return for 

profitable business opportunities.

• To exploit linkages established during the Soviet era to 

penetrate the security establishments of Poland and the Baltic 

countries. Los has found evidence to this effect, and Bugajski 
57

has observed: “In July 1999, Polish counterintelligence agents 

arrested three Polish army officers on charges of spying for 

Russia since the early 1990s. All three were colonels in military 

counterintelligence, the nerve center of Poland’s armed forces, 

and were unmasked by a double agent.”94 Now one can 

presume with passage of time and the departure of Sovietera military personnel in all four countries, such activities on 

the part of military personnel and security operatives will be 

rare. Nonetheless, the problem cannot be ignored. Indeed, 

one of the first steps that the new conservative government 

in Warsaw took after it was installed in November 2005 was 

to disband The Military Information Service and to replace 

the heads of two civilian intelligence bodies because the 

authorities had reservations about them.95

There is a second threat that does not involve the complicity of 

the Kremlin, but it involves most of the key actors and circumstances 

associated with Iron Troikas. Included here are criminals, economic 

warlords, and “local” actors operating in environments afflicted by 

remnants of the old Soviet system that may provide terrorists with 

dangerous weapons, including those with the capability of killing 

large numbers of people. In this instance, however, there is no 

conclusive documentation to support the claim that criminals are 

aiding and abetting terrorists.

In any event, defense analysts must acknowledge that criminal 

activities are worthy of attention by military establishments. In 

Estonia’s national security planning document, one can read the 

following. “Against a backdrop of a reduced military threat, rapid 

changes in the international arena in economy and in technology 

have brought a number of so-called new, non-military risks to the 

fore.” Included here are “international organized crime.” Meanwhile, 

we see much the same concern on the part of Lithuanian military 

planners. “Lithuania does not face immediate foreign military threats. 

Nonetheless, numerous new challenges to the country’s security 

have arisen over the past decade.” “Organized crime, trafficking, 

and smuggling” are mentioned here.96 Working with allied defense 

analysts, those in the EBSR must gain a clearer idea of how criminal 

activities figure into their military planning and operations.
58

It remains to be seen just how criminal organizations are working 

with potential terrorists, but even if the clear linkage between 

organized crime groups in the region and terrorists’ organizations 

operating outside of the EBSR cannot be documented (as yet), the 

following observation is worthy of consideration. As noted above, 

criminals have been involved in the sale of arms and military-related 

material. The people selling these items are hardly individuals who 

do background checks on their customers. And there is documented 

proof that weapons that are being sold by criminals are not merely 

hand guns nor are the sales restricted to Europe as was documented 

above. According to Holtom, “In 1995, two Lithuanian citizens, 

acting as brokers for the Bulgarian arms firm Armimex, were caught 

in a U.S. sting operation after having successfully demonstrated their 

abilities at diverting weapons . . . The publicly available details of the 

sting clearly demonstrate the way in which arms brokers operate 

from a variety of locations, use corrupt officials, front companies, 

flags of convenience and circuitous routes with weak customs and 

border controls to supply ‘undesirable end-uses’.” The weapons in 

question were ground-to-air missiles.97 Like its Estonian, Latvian, 

and Polish neighbors, Lithuania has laws regulating arms transfers, 

but since the problem is international in scope, it does not possess 

the resources to deal with them.

As in Soviet days, the “Baltic corridor” is being exploited by 

criminals who transfer contraband from east to west. For example, 

Jonas Kronkaitis, the former commander of Lithuania’s armed 

forces, asserts that drugs from Afghanistan—presumably shipped by 

individuals associated with terrorist organizations there—are passing 

through Lithuania. This pathway for drugs from the Far East through 

Lithuania to Europe has been alluded to by Roman Kupchinsky, who 

for years was Radio Free Europe’s principal investigator of criminal 

matters in Russia and Eastern Europe. He has written about a “Silk 

Route through Russia to Lithuania which acts as a hub for the heroin 

trade to Poland and Scandinavian countries.”98

A lot more work must be conducted to determine the relationship 

between organized crime and terrorism in Central and Eastern 

Europe, but the U.S. security community must recognize that Iron 

Troikas represent a “new threat from the East.” Moreover, this threat 
59

must be treated holistically. Iron Troikas involve a host of activities 

that are not directly military ones, and many of the players involved 

are not military personnel. Consequently, Army analysts are inclined 

to dismiss them as “not in keeping with our mission.” For reasons 

mentioned above, this posture is no longer warranted. Also, the “local” 

law enforcement agencies do not have the expertise, intelligence, or 

manpower to deal with the large, powerful, and deadly criminal 

organizations—often in league with rogue military personnel—that 

thrive throughout the former communist lands of Europe. Because 

they often operate with or are integral to the activities of powerful 

economic interests, Russian criminal organizations have massive 

financial resources at their command. What is more, the criminal 

networks, Russian and “local” that have worked together for many 

years, operate throughout Eurasia. It is through such entities that 

conventional arms are proliferating throughout Eurasia, and it is 

through them that WMD may one day find themselves in the hands 

of terrorists who will strike Europe or the United States with them. 

The U.S. Government estimates that there are 18,000 to 19,000 

tactical nuclear weapons located in Russia. Unlike strategic nuclear 

weapons, there is no U.S.-Russian agreement regarding their status. 

Consequently, American analysts have expressed concern about 

terrorists gaining control of nuclear arms and other WMD. For 

example, Mark Helmke, a Senate Foreign Relations Committee 

staffer, has warned. “We have to understand the sense of urgency 

here. It is remarkable that no terrorist in the past 10 years has been 

able to get a hold of and use any of the nuclear, biological, or chemical 

weapons that are spread all over the former Soviet Union.”99

The U.S. security community must devote more time in 

determining the character of Iron Troikas to better understand 

the threat they represent and how that threat can be addressed. 

At the same time, the military establishments in the EBSR neither 

have the resources to cope with them, nor, like their American 

counterparts, have they concluded that Iron Troikas are relevant to 

their activities. Consequently, Washington must develop programs 

that can be conducted bilaterally or through NATO to help allies in 

New Europe better cope with this “other than war” threat to their 

security. Assessments must be made concerning what additional 
60

financial and other resources are needed to enable the New European 

countries to deal better with the threats associated with Iron Troikas. 

This is a vital security matter in New Europe and must be addressed 

as such. 

In this connection, the U.S. military must reconsider the 

importance of the EBSR as a potential theater of strategic operations 

for the following reasons:

• The region provides the U.S. military with air, ground, and 

sea access to areas adjacent to Northwest Russia (including 

Kaliningrad), Belarus, and Ukraine where latent security 

issues may become manifest in the near future and access to 

the EBSR will become even more vital than it is today.100

• Unlike other regions that have been identified as potential 

theaters of strategic operations close to Eurasia—the Caucasus 

and Central Asia—the governments in question are stable, the 

populations are pro-American, and the prospects that U.S. 

forces may become embroiled in violent civil disturbances are 

remote.

• As plans for transferring bases and staging areas from Old 

to New Europe are being considered—because of a changing 

political climate in the former area or for operational reasons—

the ESBR offers a number of advantages. In addition to the 

air, ground, and sea transit routes that cover the EU-NATO 

frontier and Russia, the political elites in all four countries 

have demonstrated that they are favorably disposed to bases 

and installations being relocated on their territory. 

• Since the collapse of the USSR, the region has been a corridor 

through which criminal organizations have operated in 

transporting east to west—and as far as the United States—all 

manner of contraband, including weapons. 

In conclusion, under Washington’s leadership, NATO must 

provide a comprehensive response to this “other than war” security 

menace to member states in New Europe. It must respond with 

greater alacrity than it has to date to the requirements of the military 

establishments in the EBSR. In this connection, Radek Sikorski has 

urged the United States to expand its military assistance to Poland. He 
61

said, prior to being named that country’s defense minister, “Poland 

can’t afford to subsidize the U.S. any more. We were hoping that the 

U.S. would help us organize our army and share this burden, but it 

has not materialized. I find it odd that the United States doesn’t want 

to show that it pays to be America’s friend in need. If that’s how you 

treat your friends, you will have fewer of them in the future.”101

The U.S. Army has a long and substantial presence in Europe 

and it enjoys close relations with the military establishments of 

the four countries under scrutiny. It has civil affairs, intelligence, 

police, and other units that deal with arms transfers to develop—

along with civilian agencies in the U.S. Government—a response to 

Iron Troikas. It should employ all of these assets in addressing this 

“unconventional” threat. Toward this end, it should utilize the IMET 

program, the Marshall Center, and the Defense College at Tartu to 

help the Polish and Baltic military establishments better understand 

the threats posed by Iron Troikas and find solutions to them.

ENDNOTES

1. Thomas P. M. Barnett, The Pentagon’s New Map, New York: G. P. Putnam’s 

Sons, 2004. Barnett claims that the world is comprised of Core States that adhere 

to the rules of the international order and Gap States that do not. For reasons that 

will be revealed below, we will see why he is mistaken in his including Russia in 

the first category; that is, identifying it as a Core State.

2. Paul A. Goble, “Russia as a Failed State: Difficulties and Foreign Challenges,” 

Baltic Defense Review, Vol. 2, No. 12, 2004, pp. 78-79. 

3. For a discussion of Chechnya and the spreading conflict in the Caucasus, 

see Anatol Lieven, Chechnya: Tombstone of Russian Power, New Haven and London: 

Yale University Press, 1998; Neil Buckley, “Russia faces spreading threat from 

insurgents,” Financial Times, October 17, 2005. Buckley reports that the successor to 

the assassinated Chechen president Aslan Maskhadov, Abdul-Khalim Sadulayev, 

“has made clear his aim to spread the decade-long conflict in Chechnya across the 

region and gain the support of populations in Russia’s other six north Caucasus 

republics”; Masha Lipman, “Putin’s Spreading War,” Washington Post, October 17, 

2005; Alan Cullison, “Kremlin’s Heavy Hand May Be Fanning Extremism,” Wall 

Street Journal, October 17, 2005; Nick Patrick Walsh, “Chechnya Dispatch,” The 

Guardian, September 16, 2005.

4. Goble, p. 78; Julie Da Vanto and David Adamson, “Russia’s Demographic 

‘Crisis’: How Real Is It,” Rand Issue Paper, July 1997; and Otto Latsis, “Russia Faces 

Demographic Disaster,” Mosnew.com, September 9, 2005.
62

5. For a discussion of the Russian military’s varied problems, see Peter Baker 

and Susan Glasser, Kremlin Rising: Vladimir Putin’s Russia and the End of Revolution, 

New York: Scribner, 2005, pp. 197-206. For a comprehensive view of the Russian 

military, see William Odom, The Collapse of the Soviet Military, New Haven: Yale 

University, 1998. 

6. For an excellent discussion of Khodorkovsky and his troubles, see Baker 

and Glasser, pp. 333-353.

7. Anders Aslund, “Putin’s Decline and America’s Response,” Carnegie 

Endowment for International Peace, Policy Brief # 41, August 2005; see also Richard 

N. Haass, “Dividends handling Russia wisely,” Financial Express (India), October 

20, 2005. Haass writes, “High energy prices are a boon to Russia’s economy, but, as 

is often the case in oil-and-gas-rich regimes, they can be a burden as well, feeding 

corruption and discouraging real economic activity.”

8. One of the few exceptions was Zbigniew Brzezinski, who correctly predicted 

that the failure of the Kremlin leaders to resolve “the nationalities question” would 

help precipitate their demise. See his, “The Soviet Political System: Transformation 

or Degeneration,” in Zbigniew Brzezinski, ed., Dilemmas of Change in Soviet Politics, 

New York: Columbia University Press, 1963, pp. 1-24. For a more contemporary 

discussion of the reasons behind the USSR’s collapse, see Mark R. Beissinger, 

Nationalist Mobilization and the Collapse of the Soviet State, New York: Cambridge 

University Press, 2002. The author notes the important role that the Baltics played 

in this historical event; see pp. 57-69.

 9. The November 2005 elections in Azerbaijan were deemed fraudulent by 

the international community, and opposition activists took to the streets in its 

aftermath, but to no effect; they did not reach the numbers that led to a reversal 

in the elections’ outcome as had occurred in Ukraine. Peter Finn, “Rally Does Not 

Become A Revolt In Azerbaijan,” Washington Post, November 10, 2005.

10. For two current but conflicting assessments of Putin’s rule—in addition 

to Aslund’s work cited in endnote 7—see Dmitri Trenin, “Reading Russia 

Right,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, October 2005; and James 

M. Goldgeier and Michel McFaul, “What To Do About Russia?” Policy Review, 

Hoover Institution, October-November 2005. 

11. Janusz Bugajski, Cold Peace, Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and 

International Studies, 2004.

12. Ibid., pp. 1-2.

13. Ibid., p. 219.

14. Ibid., pp. 219-20.

15. For an overview of American strategic interests in Central Asia, see Stephen 

J. Blank, After Two Wars: Reflections on the American Strategic Revolution in Central 

Asia, Carlisle Barracks, PA: U.S. Army War College, Strategic Study Institute, July 

2005.
63

16. For a discussion of Polish attitudes toward the United States, see Radek 

Sikorski, “Defense Reform in Europe: The Case of Poland,” European Outlook AEI 

Online, August 10, 2005. In background discussions with Baltic diplomats, they 

mentioned to me that many of their EU partners were not happy with their “proAmerican” policies on a range of issues—Iraq, Ukraine, and Belarus.

17. Bill Gertz, “Russia Transfers Nuclear Arms to Baltics,” Washington Times, 

January 3, 2001.

18. For a discussion of the problems and prospects of replacing Lukashenko, 

see Richard J. Krickus, “Losing Lukashenko,” Moscow Times, April 15, 2005; see also 

Grzegorz Gromadzki, Vitali Silitski, and Lubos Vesely, “Effective Policy Towards 

Belarus: A challenge for the enlarged EU,” Stefan Batory Foundation, April 2005; 

Belarus: Bi-weekly News Digest, CSIS, May 30-June 10, 2005.

19. In late October 2005, the Volcker Committee that was authorized to look into 

corruption associated with the UN’s oil-for-food program produced its findings. 

The Economist reported: “One of Saddam’s schemes involved awarding allocations 

of oil to individuals and organizations that Iraq believed would support its case 

politically.” Vladimir Zhirinovsky was cited as one of these individuals. See “A 

Grim Reckoning,” Economist.com, October 31, 2005. For a discussion of divisions 

with the siloviki, see Greg Walters, “Study: Siloviki Struggle for Assets Not Over,” 

Moscow Times, June 27, 2005.

20. For a detailed and insightful discussion of the siloviki by two Washington 

Post reporters, see Baker and Glasser, pp. 251-271. For a discussion of why the 

influence of the siloviki is exaggerated, see Dmitri Trenin, endnote 10.

21. “Checkists in the Corridors of Power,” Novaya Gazeta, July 2003.

22. Baker and Glasser, pp. 129-130.

23. Bugajski, p. 140.

24. Irina Kobrinskaya, “Love and Hate: Polish-Russian Relations Marred by 

Russian Unpredictability and EU and NATO Uncertainty,” Polish News Bulletin, 

February 3, 2005. 

25. Bugajski, p. 140.

26. Adrian Karanycky, “Ukraine’s Orange Revolution,” Foreign Affairs, March/

April 2005, pp. 35-52.

27. Igor Torbakov, “What Is Behind The Growing Tension in Russian-Polish 

Relations?” Eurasia Daily Monitor, August 12, 2005.

28. Angus Reid Global Scan, June 5, 2005.

29. Address of Vaira Vike-Freiberga to the foreign diplomatic corps in Riga, 

Latvian Foreign Ministry, January 14, 2005.

30. See endnote 17.

31. Keith Smith, Russian Energy Politics in the Baltics, Poland, and Ukraine,

Washington: Center for International and Security Studies, December 2004, p. 9.
64

32. Ibid., p. 11.

33. Ibid., p. 10.

34. Ibid., p.14.

35. Ibid., p. 17.

36. Ibid., p. 14. There is, however, some indication that some leaders in the 

energy community do not always bow to pressure from the Kremlin. For example, 

it was reported in the spring of 2005 that both Rosneft and Gazprom resisted—

because the business climate did not warrant it—government pressure to be 

more active in Chechnya. Andrei Smirenov, “Assassination in Dagestan Damages 

Kremlin Attempts To Attract Foreign Investment For the Caucasus,” Eurasia Daily 

Monitor, May 26, 2005.

37. In discussions with German foreign policy analysts in 2002, the author was 

told by them: “We have little impact upon German foreign policy towards Russia, 

the business community is dominant here.”

38. David E. Hoffman, The Oligarchs: Wealth and Power in the New Russia, New 

York: Public Affairs, 2001. See also Martin McCauley, Bandits, Gangsters, and the 

Mafia: Russia, the Baltic States and the CIS, Harlow, England: Longman, 200l; and 

CSIS Task Force Report, Russian Organized Crime and Corruption: Putin’s Challenge, 

Washington, DC: CSIS, 2001.

39. Baker and Glasser, pp. 78-98.

40. For Khodorkovsky’s misdeeds, see Ibid, pp. 337-338.

41. This is the opinion of Keith Smith who has continued his analysis of Putin’s 

exploitation of Russia’s “energy card” to achieve foreign policy and security 

objectives; e-mail communication, November 17, 2005.

42. “Mixing Oil, Gas and Politics,” Economist.com, June 20, 2005; Kim Murphy, 

“As Gazprom Grows, So Does Russia’s Sway,” Los Angeles Times, October 16, 2005. 

In his article, Murphy argues that, by Russia’s threatening to raise gas prices, the 

new government in Kyiv quickly adopted a more accommodating posture toward 

Moscow.

43. Smith, p. 41.

44. Keith Smith, “Mazeikiu Nafta: Controversy and Corruption,” Vilnius 

Monthly, Issue No. 8, 2005, pp. 10-13.

45. Smith, Russian Energy, p. 43.

46. It is noteworthy that Victor Chernomyrdin, the former prime minister 

and Gazprom director, is the Ambassador to Ukraine. Taking these appointments 

together, we clearly see the link between Russian energy and vital foreign policy 

concerns on Moscow’s part.

47. Smith, Russian Energy, p 44.

48. Bugajski, p. 145
65

49. Wanda Jelonkiewica, “PKN Orlen: Quest for Oil,” The Warsaw Voice Online, 

September 1, 2004.

50. Polishnews.com, July 2, 2005. 

51. Bugajski, pp. 117-118.

52. Hoffman, p. 9.

53. Ibid.

54. See Transparency International Corruption Press Release Perceptions Index 2005,

October 18, 2005. It shows that Estonia scores most favorably of the four countries, 

getting a score of 6.4 (with the highest score being 10), while Lithuania scored 4.8; 

Latvia, 4.2; and Poland, 3.4. Keep in mind that Estonia has had a smaller number of 

Old Nomenklatura still in power, while the same cannot be said for Lithuania and 

Poland. Indeed, in the elections of 2005, the right rode back to power in Poland, 

because its message that the “old communists” were responsible for widespread 

corruption there resonated with the voters. See also “Corruption Manifestation in 

the Selected Counties and Municipalities at a National Level in 2004,” Lithuanian 

Branch of Transparency International, Vilnius, 2004. See also Aaris Jansons, “Pirates 

of the Baltics,” Transitions Online, March 21, 2005.

55. Paul Holtom, Arms transit trade in the Baltic region, London: Saferworld, 

2003, p. 31.

56. Ibid., p. 41.

57. Ibid., p. 52.

58. Ibid., pp. 64-65.

59. This discussion of Kaliningrad is derived from my book, The Kaliningrad 

Question, Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002.

60. Moscow also attacked the Baltic countries for not living up to agreements 

under the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty. The Lithuanian 

government’s response is:

Russia’s failure to comply with its 1999 Istanbul commitments constitutes 

the obstacle for the entering into force of the adopted CFE Treaty. Although 

not being part of the CFE Treaty, we fully concur with the position of 

NATO that the fulfillment of the remaining Istanbul commitments will 

create the conditions to move forward on the ratification of the Adapted 

Treaty. Lithuania retains its position to seek to accede to the adapted CFE 

Treaty, when this enters into force. We will be doing so not because of 

our NATO membership, but because the participation in the multilateral 

arms control and confidence building regimes suits our security policy 

objectives, consistent with the National Security Strategy.

Statement from the Embassy of the Republic of Lithuania, Washington, DC, 

January 2004.
66

61. Joan Barth Urban, “The Post-Communist Left: Divergent Trajectories, Shared 

Legacies,” in Jane Leftwich Curry and Joan Barth Urban, The Left Transformed In 

Post-Communist Societies, Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003, p. 245.

62. Jane Leftwich Curry, “Poland’s Ex-Communists: From Pariahs to 

Establishment Players,” Curry and Urban, p. 36.

63. Ibid., p. 33.

64. For a discussion of the Lithuanian left, see Algis Krupavicius, “The Leftwing Parties in Lithuania, 1990-2002,” Curry and Urban, pp. 99-136.

65. Urban, p. 246.

66. Author’s discussion with business people in Lithuania conducted over the 

past 8 years that I have been writing a column on world affairs for Lietuvos Rytas, 

Lithuania’s leading national daily.

67. Maria Los, “Reshaping of Elites and the Privatization of Security: The Case 

of Poland,” Power Institutions in Post-Soviet Societies, An Electronic Journal of Social 

Science, May 13, 2005, p. l.

68. Ibid., p. 5.

69. Ibid.

70. Ibid., p.9.

71. Ibid., p. 6.

72. I experienced this in discussions with analysts writing about Russian 

energy interests.

73. See Richard J. Krickus, The Presidential Crisis in Lithuania: It’s Roots and 

the Russian Factor, Washington, DC, East European Studies Occasional Paper, 

Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, November 2004, pp. 12-15. 

Also for a more optimistic assessment of the scandal, see Terry D. Clark and Egle 

Versikiene, “Paksas-Gate: Lithuania Impeaches A President,” Problems of PostCommunism, May/June 2005, pp. 1-8.

74. For a discussion of Russia’s penetration of the Lithuanian political process, 

see Arturas Rozenas and Audrius Baciulis, “Sunkus atsisveikinimas su Rusija” 

(Difficult Farewell To Russia), Veidas, March 11, 2004.

75. For the most comprehensive discussion of the Lithuanian presidential 

political crisis, see Raimundas Lopata and Audrius Matonis, Prezidento Suktukas

(President in a Tailspin), Vilnius: Versus Aureus, 2004.

76. Richard J. Krickus, Showdown: The Lithuanian Rebellion and the Break-Up of 

the Soviet Empire, Washington and London: Brassy’s, 1998, pp. 140-141.

77. See the Lithuanian website Delfi.lt, November 1, 2003. It carried in English 

Laurinkus’s memo, “Regarding the Negative Tendencies that are a Threat to the 

State’s National Security.” The memo was published the same day by the national 

daily Respublika.
67

78. Interview, Vytautas Landsbergis, April 2004.

79. Marius Laurinavicius, “Maskvos Tinklai Supanciojo R. Paksui Rankas ir 

Kojas” (Moscow’s Web Tying R. Paksas’s Arms and Legs), Lietuvos Rytas, July 23, 

2004.

80. The current practice of denial recalls the failure of American policymakers 

to recognize as late as mid-1991 that the Soviet Union was imploding, and Mikhail 

Gorbachev’s days were numbered. This myopia was driven by the conviction that 

a USSR intact was better than one in disarray, and that while Mikhail Gorbachev 

was not exactly a democrat, the people waiting in the wings to replace him “were 

worse.” Gorbachev was providing stability to the USSR at a time when it needed 

it most. It was thinking along these lines that led to President George H. W. Bush’s 

“Chicken Kiev” speech in the summer of 1991 when he urged the Ukrainians not 

to bolt from the USSR. More recently, Paul Goble has noted that if one speaks of 

Russia as a failed state, then the “question . . . inevitably arises as to who is in 

control of that country’s nuclear stockpile. It is one thing to talk about a failed state 

in a place like Somali or Eritrea; it is quite another to talk about it in the case of a 

country with the second largest nuclear arsenal in the world.” Goble, p. 78. At the 

same time, many analysts dismiss preoccupation with internal developments in 

Russia. This is in keeping with the realist conviction that the domestic character of 

a state is of little interest to us, only its foreign behavior is. Nikolas K. Gvosdev and 

Dimitri K. Simes make the case succinctly. “Doesn’t the United States already have 

enough problems to deal with in the world? Osama bin Laden and Abu Musab AlZarqawi remain at large, our work in Afghanistan and Iraq remains incomplete, 

and North Korea and Iran are both poised to become nuclear powers. So why do 

so many think Russia’s daily twists and turns are our biggest problems?” See their 

“Rejecting Russia?” The National Interest Online, June 28, 2005, p. l. In assessing the 

realist approach to Russia, we should keep in mind that most American analysts 

failed to anticipate the USSR’s demise precisely because they ignored the domestic 

character of that entity. Had they done so, the United States might have responded 

to the post-Soviet period in a manner more favorable to the democrats there than 

it did. A window of opportunity briefly opened after the USSR’s collapse, and it 

afforded the West the prospect of influencing developments there—if only on the 

margins—while the Soviet elite were despondent and in disarray.

81. Lithuanian authorities, however, were put-off when an armed Russian 

Su-27 fighter crashed on Lithuanian territory on September 15, 2005, and NATO 

aircraft only detected the incursion into Lithuanian airspace after the pilot ejected 

from the aircraft and it was plunging to earth. See more in Vladimir Socor, “Moscow 

Sees Su-27 Crash As Opportunity For NATO Cooperation,” Eurasia Daily Monitor, 

October 17, 2005. 

82. This was the reaction that I received upon presenting my findings at two 

briefings at the Woodrow Wilson Center in 2004. On one occasion, a member of 

the audience, a former State Department official, observed that he found it rather 

strange that I was talking about Russian attempts to subvert Lithuanian democracy 

when it just entered NATO. 
68

83. See Paul Holtom, “The Baltic States, Arms Brokers and Diversions of 

Arms,” unpublished paper awaiting publication, p. 9. It should be acknowledged, 

however, that Borisov did not break any law, but it is also noteworthy that, in 

spite of having his Lithuanian citizenship nullified, he remains in the country. 

Here is just another indication of how the legal system in all former communist 

countries has been exploited by people committing crimes. In this connection, see 

the endnote 84.

84. Major General Jonas Kronkaitis, former commander of Lithuania’s armed 

forces, has observed: “Whatever case you study is some how controversial or 

politically connected, you will see that such cases normally don’t reach a clear 

resolution, they normally die at the prosecutor’s office or in the courts of old age.” 

See Aage Myhre, interview, “Lingering Nomenklatura,” Vilnius Monthly, No. 6, 

2005, p. 13.

85. Interviews with Seimas staff members and journalists, April 2004.

86. In the special election to replace Paksas, the leader of the left-leaning 

Farmers and New Democracy Union, Kazimiera Prunskiene, lost to Adamkus 

in a run-off election. She had been prime minister during Lithuania’s struggle 

for independence in the early 1990s, but left the government under mysterious 

circumstances. More recently, her opponents have accused her of pro-Russian 

bias, alleged that she had been a KGB agent, and claimed that she had attended to 

Moscow’s concerns through business dealings associated with the Ignalina nuclear 

power plant. Russian commentators indicated that Prunskiene would be the best 

choice for them, although she rejected the “pro-Russian” label that her opponents 

had fixed upon her. She said that she would continue the country’s pro-Western 

foreign policy course and maintain good relations with Washington. Her words 

were greeted appropriately with skepticism. Several days prior to the election, she 

met with Stephen Mull, the U.S. Ambassador to Lithuania. She said she opposed 

the war in Iraq and favored withdrawing Lithuania’s troops stationed there but 

would follow the course that the government had taken. Immediately afterwards, 

she met with reporters and indicated the opposite. Specifically, she would follow 

the EU’s lead on Iraq and pay close attention to public opinion to consider what 

policy she would adopt. Pro-American analysts did not take much comfort in these 

words since she undoubtedly was talking about the French and German position 

on Iraq. Also, since 67 percent of the people polled favored the withdrawal of 

Lithuanian troops from Iraq, it was clear she could follow their preferences if able 

to do so. She lost the election to Adamkus by a five-point margin, but had she 

been elected, it is likely she would have used her authority to achieve a troop 

withdrawal. She probably would have failed, since the ruling parties are not 

prepared to break with the United States on the foreign policy front. Those who 

held high positions in the former Soviet government, what’s more, would prefer 

not to call attention to themselves by openly breaking with Washington. Besides, 

the foreign capital that most intrigues them is Brussels, the source of a huge pile of 

development funds. 

87. Private communication, February 3, 2004.
69

88. In discussing this matter with the former conservative prime minister, 

Andrius Kubilius (October 21, 2005), I asked him why he and his colleagues did 

not press this matter more forcefully with Washington. He responded that, because 

the U.S. administration had indicated it wanted to cooperate with Moscow on a 

host of issues mentioned in this monograph, he did not think it prudent to do so.

89. See Shawn Macomber, “The New Sikorski Initiative,” The American 

Spectator, November 2, 2005; and Monika Scislowska, “Conservatives Take Power 

in Poland,” Washingtonpost.com, October 31, 2005.

90. Phillip Ellis, “The State Must Be Responsible for Energy Security,” Financial 

Times, September 15, 2005.

91. For a discussion of the GNP dispute, see Federico Bordonaro, “GermanRussian pipeline plans upset neighbors,” INS Security Watch, September 28, 2005, 

pp. 1-4.

92. Smith, Russian Energy, p. 65.

93. Ibid., p. 59.

94. Bugajski, p. 148. 

95. See “Lenkijos politiku nesutaike net arkivyskupas” (Even the Arch-Bishop 

could not reconcile Polish politicians), Lietuvos Rytas, November 2, 2005. The truth 

is that one can even find intelligence operatives in mature democratic countries like 

the United States who will spy for a foreign power. Also, some may inadvertently 

participate in activities that are economically attractive and not judged subversive 

under conventional circumstances.

96. Quoted in Pual Holtom, “The Gatekeeper ‘Hinge’ Concept and the 

Promotion Of Estonian, Latvian And Lithuanian New/Postmodern Security 

Agendas,” unpublished paper awaiting publication, 2005, p. 305.

97. Ibid, p. 17.

98. Conversation with J. Kronkaitis, October 2005; and see Roman Kupchinsky, 

“Special Issue: The Globalization of Narcotics,” RFE/RL Organized Crime and 

Terrorism Watch, June 5, 2003, p. 4.

99. See Dmitri Litovkin, “Senator Nunn Against Russia. He Wants To Control 

Tactical Nuclear Weapons,” Izvestia, June 1, 2005. The Helmke quotation can be 

found in Philip Turner, “Former Soviet Nukes Still a Threat,” UPI, June 3, 2005.

100. Deployment of U.S.-NATO military assets to the region may be required 

in response to developments in both Belarus and Ukraine. In the first case, many 

analysts believe that the presidential election scheduled for March 2006 will 

result in popular protest as Lukashenko denies a free and fair race. Unlike his 

counterparts in Georgia and Ukraine, he will crush any attempt to achieve a “colored 

revolution” in his country of 10 million people. Consequently, tensions between 

the government in Minsk and its neighbors—Poland and Lithuania in particular—

are likely to escalate. In the summer of 2005, the Polish government claimed that 

Lukashenko was violating the human rights of Belarus’ 400,000 Poles. As the 
70

election approaches and Lukashenko continues to oppress the opposition, one can 

anticipate that strains between the West and Russia on the Belarus Question will 

become sharper. The real threat to Belarus’ sovereignty, however, is manifested in 

efforts on the Kremlin’s part to develop a “union” with this fellow-Slav country. 

Indeed, there are many people in Belarus who will not take to the streets to oust 

Lukashenko, but there may be many more who will do so in face of a Russian 

takeover of their country. Also in the September of 2005, Ukraine was stricken 

by a political crisis when President Viktor Yushchenko fired the government of 

Yulia Tymoshenko. He took this drastic step because he said some members of 

her government were corrupt, but analysts used the occasion to express doubts 

about his own leadership. As his popularity declined and the team that fought for 

his election in 2004 turned against him, pundits questioned how long he would 

remain in power. All of the problems prior to the Orange Revolution that led 

analysts to conclude that the country was unstable—a large Russian population, 

pro-Soviet sentiments among many Ukrainians, a powerful Russian-oriented 

business class, corruption, etc.—remain in place. Under these circumstances, many 

Ukrainian-watchers have expressed doubts about the country’s future. Of course, 

in contrast to Belarus, turmoil in Ukraine with a population of almost 50 million 

and territory the size of France poses even more serious consequences for stability 

in an enlarging Europe. To make matters even worse, the crisis occurred amid 

reports that Gazprom would raise the price that Ukrainians paid for natural gas. 

Under existing circumstances, it is remote that the United States and/or NATO 

will respond in some military manner to developments in either country. But there 

is no reason to foreclose contingency planning along these lines. Such planning 

may become more relevant because of developments within both countries or 

within Russia itself.

101. See Scislowska, p. 2.