MOSCOW, Feb 8, 2001 -- (The Russia Journal) Increasingly worried by evidence coming to light of environmental contamination in Kosovo and cases of leukemia among NATO peacekeepers serving there, the Russian military has begun checks of its own peacekeepers and wants the international community to give more attention to what has become known as Balkan Syndrome.

Defense Ministry spokesman Col. Vadim Tarasov said that medical services are now carrying out blood tests on all Russian peacekeepers in Kosovo. Any peacekeepers whose tests reveal abnormalities will be sent to the Russian group's hospital in Kosovo Pole, near Pristina, the region's capital.

More than half the peacekeepers have already been tested, but so far no cases of the illness have been found.

At the same time, Russian troops are measuring pollution levels and identifying contaminated sites and areas in the districts where they are stationed. More than 1,000 measurements have been taken so far. The Defense Ministry press service says that background radiation in the tested areas doesn't exceed normal levels.

The Defense Ministry also began medical checks in Russia itself of soldiers and officers previously stationed in Kosovo and Bosnia. Most of these are paratroopers over the last seven to eight years, 70 percent of Russian paratroopers have spent some time in the former Yugoslavia.

The head of the paratroopers' medical service, Col. Andrei Goryachev, said his service had information on all cases of leukemia detected among the paratroopers. So far, 10 cases have been revealed, but none involve paratroopers who served in the former Yugoslavia.

Meanwhile, another Russian soldier who served with the peacekeepers in Kosovo was diagnosed with a disease similar to leukemia Viktor Dolgikh, a cook at the Slatina military airfield. He worked in a military kitchen near the Yugoslav army underground airfield, which was bombed by NATO planes.

I was in this part of Kosovo myself last autumn, and I saw the traces left by the bombing. Military environmental specialists said that deep-penetration bombs had been used against the underground airfield, while armored vehicles defending the airfield were subject to airstrikes with shells reinforced by depleted uranium.

Dolgikh doesn't rule out that he could have been contaminated by radioactive particles from the depleted uranium when he handled stones or pieces of metal near the airfield. The Defense Ministry press service said careful checks are now being made of the area around the airfield, including the kitchen where Dolgikh worked.

There is, as yet, no evidence of contamination in the area, nor does the Russian military have evidence of any link between NATO's use of depleted uranium shells in former Yugoslavia and the cases of leukemia in soldiers serving there.

But the head of the Defense Ministry's environmental safety service, Lt. Gen. Boris Alexeyev, said this doesn't mean that a link doesn't exist. Alexeyev said depleted uranium was most heavily used on the border between Albania and Kosovo, where a Yugoslav motorized infantry division was deployed. Italian troops were later deployed in this same region, and it is they who have the greatest number of leukemia cases.

Alexeyev's conclusions are shared by German specialists. Russian military environmental experts recently visited a research center in Germany that was conducting studies on the effects of depleted uranium and its isotopes on people. Russian and German specialists began their investigations before news of the so-called Balkan Syndrome made its way into European media and public life.

Alexeyev said Russian peacekeepers are now taking preventive measures in light of the increasing number of leukemia cases among NATO soldiers. Equipment is being checked for radioactive contamination and a ban on buying food from local people has been introduced. Specialists equipped with alpha-spectrometers have been sent out to help carry out contamination studies of the region.

According to the Chief Military-Medical Department, the Military-Medical Academy is carrying out studies on the effects of depleted uranium on the human body. The results of the studies will be made available to the public and the media.

The Defense Ministry also wants to raise international public awareness of the Balkan Syndrome issue. Speaking with journalists, Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev said that the ministry wants to "take up the Russian president's proposal to hold a conference of experts organized by the OSCE [Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe] and the United Nations, to give professionals the chance to objectively establish what risks these weapons carry for people's lives."

Sergeyev said he thought there would be a lot more discussion to come on this subject.

"I don't think the environmental catastrophe in Kosovo is something that has been invented and seized upon for political aims," Alexeyev said. "Back in 1999, when NATO began airstrikes against Yugoslavia, the Russian military was warning that these actions could have severe environmental consequences. Now we have the results people with leukemia, contaminated territory and so on. You can't hide these things, and we're now talking about them quite openly," he said.

(C)2001 The Russia Journal