all nuclear weapons from Russia’s neighbors. Before the fall of the USSR the operational area of Moscow’s armed forces extended across 8.65 million square miles, from the Pacific to Western Europe. It has been reduced to the 6.6 million square miles of Russian territory, which shares borders with Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, China, Mongolia, and North Korea.
All the operational maps are out of date. Moscow has lost Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, with their strategic Baltic Sea ports; Moldova, Belarus, and Ukraine in the heart of Europe; the Caucasian states of Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan; and the once loyal “stans,” Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.
The new governments are busy seizing Soviet military assets. There is confusion everywhere. Ships and aircraft are being hurriedly relocated by Russian commanders to prevent them being requisitioned by other republics. On Shaposhnikov’s advice Yeltsin this morning ordered the pride of the Soviet fleet, the enormous and sophisticated new aircraft carrier the
Ukraine’s position on the Soviet military units on its territory was conveyed to Moscow that day in the form of an interview given by Leonid Kravchuk to
With respect to conventional forces, Kravchuk promises that Russian officers will not be expelled, and they will not invite Ukrainian officers serving in the Soviet Army elsewhere to come and serve in Ukraine. “If we went ahead with that, we would have to provide for their return and, consequently, expel people who are living here now. That would involve a great resettlement of peoples and would lead to confrontation…. The quick return of Ukrainians to Ukraine would be unrealistic and would create turmoil in the minds of the 11.5 million Russians living there.”
As for Gorbachev’s recent and frequent complaints that Russians are now finding themselves in foreign countries, Kravchuk comments bitterly that there are many Ukrainians living in Russia, but there is not a single Ukrainian school nor a single newspaper in Ukrainian in Russia, whereas half of all Ukrainian children are taught in Russian-speaking schools in Ukraine.
Shaposhnikov leaves the Kremlin as midnight approaches, relieved at the way things have turned out. Ambassadors and correspondents had been plaguing him with questions about who had political control over the nuclear weapons. As he walks to his limousine, a Russian journalist calls out, “In whose hands is the nuclear button?” “In safe hands,” he replies, with a smile.
In the Penta Hotel across town, CNN executives celebrate their journalistic coup late into the night. The Americans are cock-a-hoop. For the highly combative Johnson, it is “an incredible moment in the lives of all of us.” In the early hours Stu Loory leaves for the Rossiya, the monstrous concrete hotel adjacent to Red Square, where there is a studio with satellite uplink to Los Angeles, so he can appear on CNN’s
The CNN celebrations are interrupted by a call to CNN manager Frida Ghitis from Georgia, where civil war is in full swing.[286] President Zviad Gamsakhurdia is under attack from armed opposition forces in Tbilisi. Christiane Amanpour and Siobhan Darrow and camerawoman Jane Evans have braved gunfire to get to Gamsakhurdia’s dugout in the parliament and have interviewed him under fire.
“It was a crackling call over a satellite phone telling us the interview with the Georgian leader in his bunker was ready,” said Ghitis. “All we had to do now was get the tape back to Moscow so we could show it to the world.”
This would be another global exclusive. As flights in and out of Tbilisi are not operating, a CNN producer in Moscow calls a pilot contact in the Russian air force to make the two-and-a-half-hour flight to Tbilisi and return with the tape immediately. The pilot, a small man in a large fur hat, says he will do it for $10,000 cash. Tom Johnson gives him $5,000 and promises the other half when he returns. The pilot does not show up again for twenty-four hours, by which time BBC has broadcast its own interview with Gamsakhurdia and the CNN Moscow office has broadcast a copy of Amanpour’s interview acquired from a courier who came on a regular flight from another airport in Georgia. When the tardy pilot at last arrives, he demands the other $5,000. CNN staff at first decline, but as he is accompanied by two large, menacing bodyguards, they come to the conclusion it might be unwise to refuse. According to Ghitis, “We paid the money, received the tape, and put it in the trash. The new Russian capitalism was making its way into the old Soviet Union.”
Chapter 27
DECEMBER 26: THE DAY AFTER
The morning of December 26, 1991, is sunny but much colder. The temperature has dropped to 22 degrees Fahrenheit, and icicles have formed beneath the snowcovered roof of the presidential dacha. Gorbachev wakes to find that the Zil limousine is no longer waiting for him in the driveway. Another Yeltsin promise—that he can retain his presidential transport until December 29—has not been kept. With some difficulty Gorbachev’s guards manage to get a spare Zil that, as Chernyaev notes acidly, is “kindly” provided by Yeltsin, so that Gorbachev can return to the Kremlin, where he also has three days’ grace, or so he believes, to clear out his desk and keep last-minute appointments.
The new ruler is making Gorbachev aware of his dependency on the Russian presidential whim. Yeltsin has ordered his security chief, Korzhakov, to single out Gorbachev’s guards and drivers for harassment to make the family leave the dacha as quickly as possible. His rationale, he claims later, is that as sole president he must commandeer the presidential residence right away, no matter what he promised. Barvikha-4 has a military command post and all the communications for the country’s top leader. The supreme commander of the country’s military forces cannot be somewhere without facilities for the nuclear button and the accompanying colonels.
Notwithstanding his new civilian status, Gorbachev is still conveyed at a terrific pace along the reserved center lane of Kutuzovsky Prospekt in the borrowed Zil, with police cars before and behind. When he arrives in the Kremlin, where the Russian flag is fluttering over the Senate cupola, he finds that the attitude of the Kremlin guards, normally deferential, has become distinctly surly. When Andrey Grachev and Anatoly Chernyaev turn up to help Gorbachev with his final duties, they too are made aware that the security people and ancillary staff are under new orders. Grachev observes how they are rudely and deliberately making Gorbachev aware of the change in his status.
The loyal aides are struck by how drawn and out of sorts Gorbachev looks. He is hung over and fighting the aches and discomfort that accompany a bout of flu. Aside from the crushing blow of being forced out of office, he has to concern himself with the emotional turmoil affecting Raisa and the physical disruption in their personal life. He broods about the way he is being kicked out of office as “most uncivilized, in the worst inherited Soviet traditions.”
“They are throwing me out of the dacha, and they are taking the car away,” Gorbachev complains angrily as he enters his office, where a brass plaque on the door still proclaims, “M. S. Gorbachev, President of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics,” and the red flag remains in place behind his desk.
Chernyaev again wonders why Gorbachev still wants to use the presidential office in the Kremlin. It is a temptation for his foes to treat him with disrespect. But he finds it difficult to contradict Gorbachev at such a sensitive time. “He is stubborn and I’m not comfortable to be sharp with him while arguing. He might think that I am being too cheeky, now that he is not a president anymore.”
Gorbachev’s farewell address came too late for the deadlines of the Russian morning dailies, leading Chernyaev to conclude that “not a single newspaper carried the full text of the appeal as everybody is afraid of
