MOSCOW HAS MISGIVINGS ABOUT PLANNED EU MILITARY FORCE.

The Russian Defense Ministry, like its U.S. counterpart, has reacted cautiously in recent weeks to a plan by European countries aimed at creating an EU crisis force of some 60,000 troops. But Moscow’s concerns, not surprisingly, are exactly the opposite of those held by U.S. security officials. In remarks made on December 6, as EU leaders prepared to formally approve plans for the EU crisis force, the head of the Russian Defense Ministry’s administration for cooperation with foreign armies warned that Moscow would welcome the new force only “if it does not become an addition to NATO [and] is not a part of the alliance’s overall plans.” Colonel General Leonid Ivashov urged European leaders to resist what he said was U.S. pressure to fully subordinate the new EU force to NATO and to simultaneously maintain NATO as Europe’s primary military security structure.

Ivashov reiterated those sentiments yesterday. He told reporters that, although Moscow is watching the creation of the EU force “with interest,” it will consider different forms of cooperation with the EU force only if it is created with a goal toward reducing–and not augmenting–NATO’s role in Europe (AP, Russian agencies, December 6; Itar-Tass, December 22).

Ivashov is a notorious Russian hardliner who appears to be among those driving Moscow’s current policy of nonengagement with NATO. Russia cut off relations with the alliance following the launching earlier this year of NATO air strikes against Yugoslavia and has continued to limit official cooperation with NATO to the peacekeeping missions in Bosnia and Kosovo. The United States has expressed its own reservations about the new EU force precisely on the grounds that it could weaken the NATO alliance and US defense ties to the continent.

FATHERLAND-ALL RUSSIA CREATES THREE DEPUTY GROUPS FOR NEW DUMA.