By Oleg Shchedrov

MOSCOW (Reuter) - President Boris Yeltsin, who fired his defense minister and chief-of-staff for dragging their feet over military reform, turned to Russia's youth Friday for support in his efforts to modernize the army.

``The army has lost its traditions and they should be revived,'' the Interfax news agency quoted Yeltsin as telling graduates of a Moscow secondary school. ``We must revive the prestige of the armed forces and their appearence.''

Yeltsin fired Defense Minister Igor Rodionov and Chief-of-Staff Viktor Samsonov Thurdsay, blaming them for sabotage of his plans to turn the huge and largely ineffective Soviet-era military machine into a compact and professional force.

Russia, which faces a range of economic problems and a severe budget crisis, can no longer pay the huge bills of the armed forces.

The military complain that such austerity has damaged the effectiveness of what was once one of the world's strongest armies.

The poor state of the armed forces has also made military service -- theoretically compulsory for all young men -- a very unattractive prospect for the nation's youth.

``You should not get scared of the men in uniform, you should rather envy them,'' Yeltsin told the graduates.

Massive draft-dodging has not only become a headache for the military but has also badly affected national morale.

``Russia's armed forces...must be compact but effective, fully in line with the economic potential of the state,'' Yeltsin told Rodionov's replacement, Gen. Igor Sergeyev, head of the Strategic Missile command.

Yet many analysts agree with Rodionov that army reforms without new spending and investment is a near-impossible task.

The lack of money, however, is as tangible as the army's problems with low pay and rusting equipment. Ministers were due to present plans to parliament Friday for 20 percent spending cuts forced on them by a huge tax shortfall.

But before they got the chance, the Communist-dominated Duma voted overwhelmingly not to listen. The deputies demanded the government present plans to raise new revenue by June 1. Only after that will they consider the cuts.

Later in the day Yeltsin signed a charter intended to fill out details of the Russia-Belarus Union Treaty signed April 2.

Embracing President Alexander Lukashenko, he said: ``This is a special day in the lives of the Russian and Belarus people.''

But the union was a far cry from the milestone event once planned to change the destinies of the two states, though it did contain strong words on defending democracy and human rights.

Kremlin liberals, aiming to stop the authoritarian Lukashenko and his Soviet-era economics from gaining a foothold in Russia, had watered down the original treaty.

Differences later emerged over the charter, with Moscow pressing Minsk to accept a merger so complete it would amount to a virtual takeover of Belarus by Russia, 15 times its size.

The resulting compromise, Lukashenko said before the Kremlin ceremony, meant that the union, which is still to be ratified by both parliaments, contained nothing essentially new.

Yeltsin made clear the two countries would no longer pursue the aim of forming a single state. Supranational bodies, led by Yeltsin and Lukashenko will run the union. Any decision taken by these bodies needs the approval of both presidents separately.

13:11 05-23-97