A Russian news Web site has published a report claiming that two former top Soviet military officers visited Iraq less than two weeks before the start of war to advise the Iraqi military leadership.
The report, posted Wednesday on the www.gazeta.ru Internet site, showed three photographs of the two former Soviet generals receiving an award from Iraqi Defense Minister, Sultan Hashem Ahmed.
Though the precise nature of the visit was unclear, one of the generals, Vladislav Achalov, a former Soviet deputy defense minister, acknowledged in a transcript of a brief telephone interview posted on the site that it had taken place shortly before the war.
In the interview, Achalov declined to detail the visit, saying only that he "did not go to drink coffee," and that he and his colleague were "with the minister," less than 10 days before the war began.
"We left on Wednesday, and the war began the next Thursday," he said.
A spokesman for Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs declined to comment. The American Embassy spokesman in Moscow was unavailable for comment on Thursday.
Neither Achalov, nor his colleague, Igor Maltsev, former head of the Soviet Union's Air Defense Forces, currently work for the Russian military. Both lost their jobs in the early 1990s for their roles in the military coup of 1991 and the uprising against former president Boris Yeltsin in 1993.
Other Russians with connections to Iraq, often gained during careers in the Soviet government, visited Baghdad in the weeks before the war. Among them was Yuri Shafranik, head of an obscure oil company called Soyuzneftegaz, who traveled to Iraq in a last-ditch attempt to obtain oil contracts.
Though Russia has long since turned away from Iraq as an ally, its poorly financed military-industrial complex has kept up contacts.
Pavel Felgenhaur, an independent defense analyst in Moscow, said 8,174 Russian military officers, including 92 generals, were stationed in Iraq between 1958 and 1990. Citing statistics from Russia's Defense Ministry, he said 90 percent of Iraq's military equipment and technology was Soviet-made.
"Cooperation with Iraq continued long after 1991," when the UN imposed sanctions on Iraq, Felgenhaur said. "Sanctions were always being violated. That's how Iraq has military potential now."
Achalov is a controversial figure in Soviet history. He led particularly bloody campaigns to quell rebellions in the Soviet republics of Azerbaijan in 1990 and Lithuania in 1991. He backed the 1991 coup against Mikhail Gorbachev, and was jailed briefly for taking part in the 1993 uprising against Yeltsin.
Achalov refused to comment on the Web site report. But two Moscow-based Russian journalists who also spoke with Achalov on Thursday said by telephone this evening that he had confirmed his interview with www.gazeta.ru.
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