Asia Times: Empty coffers breed millennium bug fears



	March 03, 1999	atimes.com

Central Asia / Siberia

Empty coffers breed millennium bug fears
By Sergei Blagov

MOSCOW - As the new millennium comes ever closer, there is growing concern in Russia that the country cannot cope with the so-called Y2K bug.

The ultimate nightmare is the possibility of computer generated faults affecting Russia's nuclear missiles. Other potential technological repercussions - ranging from heating and power cuts during the freezing Russian winter to banking disasters - seem unimportant when compared to the nuclear problem.

Russia's ability to react quickly to the problem is a matter of debate given the state of the nation's economy.

Alexander Krupnov, chairman of the State Communications Committee, has announced that Russia will need up to $3 billion to combat the Y2K bug. Earlier, two of Krupnov's deputies - Boris Ponomarenko and Alexander Volokitin - had come up with a much lower estimate, saying Russia would need just $200 million-$300 million.

Whoever is right, some Russian firms will still profit from the fears associated with the year 2000.

''We are offering corporate clients a wide range of services to tackle the Y2K bug,'' says Larisa Denshikova, marketing manager of TerraLink Technologies Corp.

The company is the Russian outlet of a Canadian firm that distributes networking-oriented products. ''Being a systems integrator, we expect a lot of business on the eve of the millennium,'' Denshikova said.

The ''Y2K budget'' of just one Russian outlet of a major multinational could amount to millions of dollars, Sergei Doshchenko, expert with Andersen Consulting in Moscow, told IPS.

Not everyone, however, is convinced of the urgency associated with Y2K-related problems.

''We have still to outline our corporate strategy to deal with any Y2K problem,'' Vladimir Bazylev, the president of Moscow-based company SOLITON-NTT, admitted. The company manages Russia's first home-grown venture capital fund, United Company For Venture Innovation Finance (UCVIF).

The Russian defense ministry has given repeated assurances that the Y2K bug could never trigger a launch of nuclear missiles by disabling command computers and panicking officers into suspecting an enemy first strike.

Defence Minister Igor Sergeyev, the former head of Strategic Command, declared that Russia's nuclear missile systems were bug- free as they used ''special'' computer technology.

Observers noted, however, that a group of Pentagon experts visited Russia earlier this month to discuss solutions to millennium computer problems. Furthermore, the CIA has warned of Y2K problems in Russia.

On February 24, General John Gordon, deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency, told a Senate Armed Services Committee that Russia lacked the time and funding to address the issue.

He predicted Russia could have some difficulty with the early warning systems it uses to monitor foreign missile launches, but said the CIA did not foresee a danger of unauthorized launch of Russian ballistic missiles, or nuclear weapons going off due to Y2K problems.

According to the CIA, the Soviet-designed nuclear plants could have some problems. Russia's vast oil and natural gas pipeline network could also face possible Y2K outages. Nonetheless, there has been no indication of any budget allocation to tackle the bug.

In January, Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov set up a government commission to tackle the issue. The new body supposedly would co- ordinate efforts by central and local government, state and private institutions to combat the millennium bug.

And while 15 of Russia's 89 regions did not even bother to send representatives to Y2K seminars funded by the World Bank, the institution ranked Russia among the countries with ''medium awareness'' of the problems posed by the Y2K computer bug.

Observers believe there is every possibility that Russia's efforts to combat the millennium bug could end up in a new round of begging for international aid, followed by yet another fight among bureaucrats for extra funding from already empty state coffers.

(Inter Press Service)