Relations between Washington and Moscow are growing colder every day. The list of issues toward which Russia and the United States have diametrically opposed approaches is a very long one. It includes the new American administration’s plans to deploy a national missile defense system that would cover the whole country, and its attempts to prevent Russian arms supplies to Iran at all costs. The arrest of former Kremlin Household Affairs Department head Pavel Borodin has only increased the mutual misunderstanding.

One would imagine that this cooling in relations would also be felt in Kosovo, where Russian and American soldiers are serving together. But this isn’t the case. The Russian paratroopers’ 13th Tactical Group, commanded by Lt. Col. Oleg Rekin, is stationed in one of the hottest spots in Kosovo. Together with American soldiers, the Russian paratroops control 75 km of the administrative border with Serbia. Just beyond the KFOR checkpoints begins the so-called security zone, where neither the international peacekeepers nor Serbian soldiers have the right to enter. Albanian extremists turn this situation to their advantage, concentrating their forces in the zone and stockpiling weapons in order to try wresting the Presevo Valley from Serbia.

There is only so much the KFOR soldiers can do. They don’t have the right to detain unarmed people crossing the administrative border. But they have caught about 60 armed Albanian extremists and have several times intercepted convoys of arms and ammunition for Albanian extremist detachments. The Albanians know full well that if fighting flares up again, the only people who would be able to attempt to stop further bloodshed are the KFOR soldiers. This is why a joint Russian-American patrol came under fire in December.

Both the Russian and American soldiers agree they could come under fire from Albanian fighters at any minute. For them, cooperation isn’t the privilege of politicians, it’s a daily necessity. While I was in Kosovo, Russian and American subdivisions were holding tactical training exercises using the scenario of urgently reinforcing Russian checkpoints. Rekin said they were able to develop a single military command system during the exercises.

This kind of ongoing work is perhaps just as important for the soldiers as fulfilling their military mission in Kosovo. At a time when relations between Russia and the NATO countries are cool, their soldiers are learning to fight alongside, rather than against, each other.

But not everything in this picture is so rosy. In developing joint procedures for work with the Americans, Rekin and his superiors are busy reinventing the wheel. Five years ago, when NATO and Russian forces were preparing for operations in Bosnia, a group of officers at Russian General Headquarters under Gen. Leonty Shevtsov drew up documents that combined the military regulations of both Russia and the United States. The Russian brigade incorporated into the American division in Kosovo worked in accordance with these documents. But in spring 1999, Russia withdrew its brigade from operative subordination to the Americans. A year and a half has proved enough to forget the positive experience .

The current command structure in Kosovo is such that the only way the KFOR commander, Italian General Carlo Cabigiosu, could think to describe it was "intricate." What actually happens is that before Rekin’s group can carry out an order from the KFOR commander-in-chief, the order goes first to Brussels and then to Moscow. The soldiers can act only after diplomatic consultations.

This type of system works only so long as things are quiet. In an emergency situation, Rekin would either be forced not to take action at all, or to take full responsibility upon himself. When asked what he’d learned from the Americans, Rekin’s embarrassment was noticeable. Though he is an officer who has spent the last three years fighting in various conflict zones, he was clearly afraid of making a political mistake.