By Andrei Khalip
MOSCOW, May 29 (Reuter) - Russia's ex-defence minister, sacked by President Boris Yeltsin last week for failing to launch far-reaching army reforms, said on Thursday the underfinanced armed forces were in a disastrous state.
``The decay is awful...The army has stopped military training, the fleet does not go to sea, aviation does not fly. Machinery is not repaired and is not being bought. There is one reason -- no money,'' Igor Rodionov told Obshchaya Gazeta weekly.
``Infrastructure is not being serviced, airfields will soon become inoperative. Aircraft already are already unable to take off from 60 percent of airfields... I cannot say what it will all lead to... The forces are on the brink.''
Russian troops were humiliated in a bloody campaign in the rebel region of Chechnya and Moscow withdrew them after almost two years of fighting. Elsewhere, soldiers are demoralised and underfed and officers do not get their wages on time.
Rodionov repeated his earlier warnings that Russia's strategic nuclear forces, especially command systems which have not been revamped for about five years, were a danger.
``They (the command systems) exist because their operational life has been artificially extended. It is very dangerous...It is a number one problem not only for us but for the whole world,'' he said.
Last year Rodionov accused top Kremlin aides of covering up the alarming state of the once-mighty armed forces and warned that the ability to control Russia's huge nuclear arsenals could be in question, triggering deep concern abroad.
The Kremlin hurried to calm the West's fears, sending Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin to check the state of the nuclear forces and command systems.
Chernomyrdin said everything was working fine and his visit to a nuclear missile command centre was shown on television.
Yeltsin, who had once praised Rodionov's openness on the subject, accused him in March of whining with his persistent complaints about the poor state of the armed forces and sacked him last Thursday after 10 months in office.
Rodionov's new bitter remarks are likely to be put down to sour grapes, although they may reopen the arsenals safety issue.
The former minister, charged by Yeltsin last summer with converting Russia's conscript army into a tight professional force by 2000, had blamed a lack of state funding for the failure to launch the reform for which he was sacked.
Rodionov said he had demanded 10 trillion roubles for the initial stage of reform, but that his call fell on deaf ears.
He said the army's budget was slashed by 55 trillion roubles in 1997 from 160 trillion he said the military needed. As a result the army's debts to suppliers and officers amounted to 44 trillion roubles in the first quarter of the year.
``The figures are astronomic. What kind of reform are we talking about, what kind of army reduction? It all needs additional funds,'' Rodionov said.
He urged his successor Igor Sergeyev and others in charge to understand that armed forces reform was part of a bigger, overall reforms and would take 10 to 15 years.
``No one is handling the military reform seriously now. They confined it all to a simple reduction of armed forces and demanded saving money while doing so. It doesn't work,'' he said.
Rodionov also urged a crackdown on corruption in the army, saying that as minister he had not been able to sack generals. ``They should axe with a bang those crooks, those fat generals who had built themselves villas,'' he said.
A number of Russian generals have been sacked for graft 29 recently. Those to be tried include deputy defence minister [sic]
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Johnson's Russia List
30 May 1997
djohnson@cdi.org
