MOSCOW, MAY 23 /RIA NOVOSTI'S CORRESPONDENT EDUARD PUZYREV/

For Russia today the most important thing is the military reform, Yegor Gaidar, leader of the Democratic Choice of Russia party, said late on Thursday. He spoke before the Moscow city conference of his party's regional division.

Gaidar approves of the presidential decision on deposing Igor Rodionov as the defense minister and Victor Samsonov as the chief of the General Staff. He said that the "army leadership intentionally sabotaged reforming the army". "The chief national threat for the country is not the expansion of NATO to the East but its own, unreformed, hungry and disgruntled army", Gaidar said.

To him, the economy "can no longer withstand the financial load on maintaining the overstaffed and amorphous army, which is losing combativity". He thinks that only reform can put an end to the unending theft in army structures. "It hurts that the military reform is starting too late. Much time's has been lost. But better late than never", Gaidar said bitterly.

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Johnson's Russia List

23 May 1997

djohnson@cdi.org