There was more than a touch of national pride involved in the dash across Serbia by a company of Russian paratroopers from BosniaHerzegovina. Not many people in NATO may have realised it but yesterday was Russia's national day and the pictures of Russian flags flying from the 15 armoured personnel carriers, jeeps and trucks made the perfect image on television back in Moscow.
The move was made to "synchronise the arrival of the main Russian force and that of NATO" into the northern part of Kosovo, according to the semi-official ITARTASS news agency. Its effects were, however, far more dramatic.
The US special envoy, Mr Strobe Talbott, who had left Moscow without reaching agreement on Russia's role in Kosovo, ordered his aircraft to do a U-turn and head back to the Russian capital for further talks. NATO's supreme commander, Gen Wesley Clark, cancelled a major press briefing in Brussels.
The preparations in Macedonia for the entry of NATO troops into Kosovo were thrown into confusion, with the Russian move adding further complications to a reported rift between the United States and the United Kingdom over whose soldiers would be first to go in. The news agency in its report referred pointedly to the lack of preparedness of "some countries of the alliance". The company of about 150 men is expected to be joined by a further 1,000 Russian paratroops who will depart for the cities of Pristina, Pec and Slatina on six Ilyushin-76 transport aircraft from the Russian cities of Ryazan, Ivanovo and Pskov at 11 a.m. Irish time today.
Russia initially indicated that it would send 10,000 troops to Kosovo. A defence ministry spokesman said yesterday that information on the numbers and time of arrival of the main Russian force would "be made known after a relevant political decision is made".
Russian paratroopers, known as desantniki, have a particularly tough reputation. In their blue berets and striped shirts they make their mark annually in Moscow with a "social gathering" for Paratroops' Day in Gorky Park. This is usually followed by a pitched battle between the soldiers and the massed ranks of the Moscow police force.
The move to send troops in so quickly took Western leaders and military officials completely by surprise. It is understood to have been done as a signal to the West that Russia was a serious player in the Balkans and that it was prepared to make its own decisions independently of NATO. But the contingent stopped short of crossing into Kosovo yesterday and seemed content with having become the first Kfor unit to enter Yugoslav territory.
Russia does not agree to its forces being placed under Western command and has announced that it wants to have its own area of control in the mainly Serb-populated regions in northern Kosovo. NATO opposes this as it believes it could lead to an effective partition of Kosovo into Serb and Albanian sectors.
Col Gen Leonid Ivashov, head of the international section of Russia's defence ministry, was adamant that Russia should play an important part in the Kfor operation. "If the Americans are talking about Russia's major role in the Yugoslav settlement, this role should be reflected in real deeds and not just words. We must not and we will not walk about with our arms stretched and ask for permission to enter Kosovo," he said.
At a meeting with the Austrian Foreign Minister yesterday Russia's Balkan envoy, Mr Viktor Chernomyrdin, said that Russia would have its own "zone of responsibility" along Kosovo's administrative border with Serbia.
