US hails Russia's arrival at Nato table

WILLIAM PERRY, the US Defense Secretary, yesterday welcomed Russia's decision to join Nato's Partnership for Peace (PFP) programme as 'a major event in Nato'. But to some eyes it looks like an effort to prevent Eastern European countries from lining up with existing Atlantic alliance members in what Moscow suspects could turn into an anti-Russian front.

By gaining a voice in the West's main security institution, the Russians may hope to exercise an effective veto over Nato membership for countries such as Poland and the Czech Republic that were once in the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact.

The Russian decision, announced on Thursday, comes at a time when Moscow's foreign policy has become increasingly assertive towards Eastern Europe and former Soviet republics on Russia's borders. President Boris Yeltsin and colleagues such as Andrei Kozyrev, the Foreign Minister, have expressed dissatisfaction with the treatment of ethnic Russian minorities in former Soviet republics and with what they see as a patronising Western attitude towards Russia as a 'junior partner' in world affairs.

For more than a year Russian leaders have made clear they oppose Nato's expansion into Eastern Europe and even regard the Atlantic alliance as an outdated institution. However, the Eastern Europeans - and former Soviet republics such as Ukraine and the Baltic states - fear being left in a security vacuum, and most signed up to PFP as soon as Nato unveiled the scheme.

Inclusion in the plan was a matter of urgency for some former Soviet republics which noted with alarm how leading Russian politicians such as Alexander Rutskoi, the former Vice-President, were calling explicitly for the Soviet Union's restoration. Last Wednesday Moldova became the 12th country to join the programme. It is probable that the Russian leadership decided that the best way to influence Nato's relationship with these aspiring new members was to obtain a seat at the same table.

However, some Russian politicians have nothing good to say about PFP. Vladimir Lukin, a former ambassador to Washington who holds the influential post of chairman of the International Affairs Committee of the lower house of parliament, compared Russia on Thursday to a trapped girl facing rape at Western hands.

Nato envisages PFP as a flexible initiative that will promote military co-operation between the West and former Communist countries but will stop short of detailed security guarantees for the latter. The idea is not to isolate Russia but to reassure the Eastern Europeans that the West accepts it has a stake in their independence.

US officials said this week that Russia's Defence Minister, Pavel Grachev, had not demanded special status for Moscow in PFP. However, Russia's size and military and political weight mean it will be hard to treat in the same way as small states such as Albania.