By Charles Digges
STAFF WRITER
Kremlin Chief of Staff Anatoly Chubais, during an abrupt visit to St Petersburg Thursday, said a newspaper's report that Chubais oversaw a massive campaign fraud and then orchestrated a cover-up was a psychological burden on President Boris Yeltsin.
The brief and tightly controlled appearance was Chubais' first since Russia's general prosecutor announced he intended to question Chubais over the allegations in Moskovsky Komsomolets published two weeks ago.
Chubais' office billed the trip to St Petersburg, the city where Chubais entered government work, as a courtesy to mark the 90th birthday of Dmitry Likhachev, a literary historian and Soviet-era dissident.
But the visit from the person the press has billed as Yeltsin's right-hand man and Kremlin gatekeeper was practically unannounced, with officials at the governor's office unaware of it, even late the evening beforehand.
"Well what are you talking about?" asked a cross Svetlana Ivanova, Governor Vladimir Yakovlev's press secretary, when asked late Wednesday night about rumors of an impending visit from the Kremlin chief of staff. "Chubais coming to town? That can't be."
But it could. On Thursday Chubais appeared stiff and nervous at a press conference. The 15 journalist in attendance were briefed beforehand by Ivanova, who warned they would be allowed a grand total of two questions, with themes limited to either Likhachev's birthday or "what Yakovlev and Chubais discussed that morning."
Chubais was questioned about the scandal anyway, and said he would answer questions from Yury Skuratov, Russia's general prosecutor, "on any subject he puts to me."
Chubais added that the Moskovsky Komsomolets publication had been "stressful for Boris Nikolaevich [Yeltsin]," adding that "any discord is very stressful for the president."
That publication purported to be a transcript of secretly taped conversations between Chubais and top presidential aid Viktor Ilyushin recorded June 22 in Yeltsin's election headquarters - days after two Chubais aids were detained by security, allegedly for carrying $538,000 in cash out of the White House.
In the transcript, Chubais and Ilyushin indicate such cash was common, and describe Yeltsin's re-election effort as flooded with money far above the legal spending limits.
Ilyushin says he told Yeltsin at one point that "right now, if you want, a minimum of 15 to 20 people can be caught near [the campaign headquarters] who are carrying sports bags with money out of our building."
The two also discuss leaning on Skuratov not to pursue the matter, and Ilyushin calls Skuratov to bully him.
Moskovsky Komsomolets did not say where the transcript came from, but Chubais suggested his arch-rival Alexander Korzhakov, Yeltsin's former chief of presidential security, had planted the documents.
Chubais denied the conversation had ever occurred.
Sergei Markov of the Moscow-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace attributed Chubais' stiff demeanor Thursday to fears that Yeltsin is cooling towards his youthful chief of staff.
"Yeltsin, I am sure, will begin to limit his powers because the [Moskovsky Komsomolets] scandal has a become an embarrassment," Markov said.
As to the concern Chubais expressed about the strain placed on recovering President Yeltsin, Markov said, "It is perfectly consistent with Chubais' logic to paint himself as being so close to the president, especially now that he could be loosing that access."
Last week, Skuratov that Chubais and others named in the report would be interrogated.
Skuratov has not said when those interrogations will begin.
This was the second visit by Chubais to St Petersburg in less than a month.
On his previous visit, Chubais announced his intention to concentrate the authority of the Russian government into a few highly placed hands - including his own - via the creation of the "temporary emergency commission" (VChK) on tax collection, which he described then as a law enforcement body and a "step" toward "consolidating power."
Markov said Thursday that consolidating power in a few hands had indeed been the plan in case Yeltsin were to die during his heart surgery.
But with Yeltsin recovering, Markov said, the president will most likely rein Chubais in.
"The power concentration plans were mainly preparation for the death of Yeltsin, and now Yeltsin will be calling it back during his recovery," said Markov.
Chubais also called Friday's pending vote in the Duma over whether to impeach Yeltsin over the troop withdrawal in Chechnya "illogical."
"When he sent troops to Chechnya, some deputies called for his impeachment," he said. "Now that he has withdrawn the troops, they want to impeach him again."