BUILDING PEACE IN THE BALKANS : Russia-U.S. Alliance Met With Scrutiny, Skepticism

UGLJEVIK, Bosnia-Herzegovina —  On a muddy stretch of land next to a smoke-spewing power plant, Russian paratroopers--with the help of American soldiers--are busy setting up the main base for the 1,500-member Russian contingent of the multinational force attempting to make peace in Bosnia.

The cooperation between Russian and American troops in the 60,000-strong international peacekeeping force is a post-Cold War first. As a result, the joint effort--not seen since World War II--is under microscopic scrutiny, both by North Atlantic Treaty Organization representatives here and by world leaders in distant capitals.

The Russian contingent is being watched even more intensely because it is proving its ability to work with NATO and because many Bosnian Muslims--and some foreign observers--are skeptical of the Russians’ ability to be neutral given their homeland’s historic ties to Serbs and growing nationalism in Russia.

All these circumstances gave Russian commanders plenty to be jittery about last week as wave after wave of Ilyushin and Antov aircraft landed at Tuzla air base, headquarters for the U.S. contingent of the NATO force.

Then, as if matters were not tense enough, the Russian jeep carrying Gen. Nikolai Staskov, the top-ranking Russian in Bosnia, broke down Tuesday while carrying him to meet nine incoming planes.

“Everyone is looking so closely at us. The general is more nervous than a June bride,” said Capt. Gennady Kamnev, who was left with the broken jeep after Staskov changed vehicles and drove on. “If it were just a Russian mission, he would not be nervous.”

A few hours later, as he watched Russian troops march off cargo planes, Staskov--deputy commander of all Russian paratroopers--asserted that U.S. forces are skeptical about working with the Russians, saying, “The Americans are afraid of us--they don’t want to talk to us.”

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American officers denied this and said they are eager to work with the Russians and believe their wariness will dissolve quickly. “The only way this mission is going to succeed is with openness and trust and friendship,” Maj. John Bushyhead, chief American liaison to the Russians, said as he sat in the damp chill of his room on the site of the Russian base in Ugljevik.

When the Russians started arriving, Bushyhead and a small group of Americans were already settled in tents and heatless buildings on the outskirts of this grimy town about 40 miles from Tuzla on the Serbian side of the zone separating the factions.

Bushyhead’s first encounters with his Russian counterparts were icy, he noted, adding: “As soon as I walked up to them, I could see the suspicion in their faces.”

Bushyhead, who speaks Russian well enough to communicate without a translator, added, “The Russian major asked if I was an intelligence officer and if the rest of the Americans were also intelligence officers. I told them that I am an artillery commander and that there’s not a single intelligence officer here.”

Bushyhead realized his first challenge would be to prove to his Russian counterparts that his job would be to help them, not to spy on them. He returned presently to the Russian officers with a stack of documents showing 7,000 minefields in the area that they will patrol.

“It blew their minds that we were sharing intelligence with them,” he said. “I laid out all the interesting stuff on the table--specific locations of minefields and blown-out bridges. Before I left there, they were a lot warmer.”

By lunch, he was invited to share a meal with Russian officers in their mess; by day’s end, he was sitting on a Russian officer’s cot, sharing rationed beef from a can and Swiss chocolate.

As for Russian officers sent here, many said they were aware of the historic significance of their labors with the Americans. “The last time we worked together this way was ‘45,” said Maj. Vladimir Osipenko, who was directing Russian soldiers setting up radio lines. “I think it’s time. We’ve had enough of each other as enemies. We’re all people. We should start treating each other that way.

“I think that this will be the first example of how we will act from now on,” he added.

Whether this mission will become a model depends in large part on how well Russian troops prove their neutrality, experts say. Russian troops face this challenge because many Bosnian Serbs view them as allies and many Bosnian Muslims see them as enemies.

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In an indication of the kind of trouble this could cause, Bosnian Serb forces announced last week that they would not pull back from the “separation zone” by Friday’s deadline, as specified in the peace accord brokered in Dayton, Ohio, in the fall.

Their orders, they said, were to wait until Russian troops took over from Americans forces temporarily deployed in the region. Within hours of the deadline, Serbian forces pulled back, but their threat to not comply showed the Serbs’ preference for their Slavic brethren.

Indeed, “Russians are clearly better,” said Luka Janjic, 33, a Bosnian Serb soldier who had fought in the area for almost four years. “Americans were on the Muslim side. Americans shelled us. Nobody, except the Russians, likes the Serbs.”

The resistance by Bosnian Serbs to pulling back, meanwhile, spoke volumes to Bosnian Muslims living in an area that soon will be patrolled by Russian troops.

“That fact tells everything,” said Muhamed Valjevac, 45, mayor of Simin Han, an area east of Tuzla with a population of 11,500. “How can we have a good opinion about Russians? They were fighting on the Serb side for three years. How can we feel good about having them here now?”

Mistrust of Russians in this region--which had a majority Serb population before the war--runs high because most residents here now are Muslim refugees who were forced out of villages and cities on what is now the Serbian side of the “separation zone.”

Local leaders said the success of the peace accord hinges on whether Russian troops act objectively. If any soldiers from the international peacekeeping force prefer “Serbs or Muslims or Croats, the peace agreement will not work,” said Nazmija Trle, 46, the deputy mayor.

Sevko, 25, a Bosnian Muslim soldier who is a refugee living here, employed a derogatory term for Serb rebels when commenting about the soldiers deployed by Moscow: “Russians are Chetniks as far as I’m concerned. . . . I think that Russians were fighting against me with the Serbs.”

Russian commanders and officers from other countries involved in the NATO-led peacekeeping effort have been meeting with Bosnian Muslim officials, trying to dispel concerns.

“There’s no difference to us between Serbs and Muslims,” insisted Russian Col. Alexei Frolov, 37. “We’re here to fulfill our orders. Our orders are to be neutral. Everything will be OK.”

Despite the Russian assurances, Staskov and other Russian brass in Bosnia are living in and have their headquarters at a motel filled with Bosnian Serb soldiers, who asserted Friday that the site is still their base. An adjacent parking lot was full of Bosnian Serb vehicles and equipment.

And, of course, many Russian enlisted men make no attempt to hide their feelings. “I feel closer to the Serbs because of our historic ties,” Andrei Vlasinko, 21, said soon after marching off an Ilyushin IL-76 at Tuzla air base. “We have a spiritual closeness with them because they also are Orthodox Christians.”

He conceded that it would be “problematic” for Russians troops to be “objective” if fighting breaks out again between Bosnian Serbs and Bosnian Muslims. “But we will find a way to deal with it,” he added.

Some NATO officials admitted that there are some concerns about the Russians.

“I’m not naive,” said Lt. Col. Brynjar Nymo, a Norwegian who is a NATO specialist on the Russian military. “There could be problems if we have heightened tensions in the area. But I’m optimistic enough to believe that’s not going to happen. We can expect the Russians to act professionally.”

While others fret about such global issues as post-Cold War politics and Russian-NATO cooperation, many of the Russian and American troops simply were enjoying the novelty of working together.

Sgt. Jeffrey Berry, 28, of Detroit said he has a new pal--a Russian paratrooper. “I was showing my tattoos to him and he showed me one of his.” The Russian, he said, had “To the airborne” tattooed on the back of his hand. “So every time he had a drink, he was drinking to the airborne!” Berry marveled. “We’re paratroopers too, so I thought that was great.”