June 8, 1997

MOSCOW (Reuter) - Most officers in the struggling Russian armed forces are planning to quit military service when their current contracts expire, Interfax news agency quoted a Defense Ministry expert as saying Sunday.

``This intention is prompted by their miserable existence and lack of any prospects for the future,'' the unnamed expert said citing results of a recent sociological study conducted by the ministry. The expert did not give any precise figures.

The five-year contracts signed by the officers after post-Soviet Russia set up its armed forces in 1992 will start expiring later this year.

The Defense Ministry study showed that 61 percent of the officers are suffering from chronic financial problems and 29 percent are existing beneath the poverty line, Interfax said. A Russian army colonel gets less than $200 a month.

President Boris Yeltsin, enraged by the lack of progress in reforming the huge, expensive but ineffective Soviet-era military machine into a compact well-armed force, replaced his Defense Minister and Chief-of-Staff last month.

The fired minister, Igor Rodionov, has defended allocating more funds to the armed forces, who he said were close to collapse both technically and in morale.

Yeltsin has ordered the new minister, Igor Sergeyev, to shrink the armed forces to fit into Russia's tough financial reality.

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Johnson's Russia List

8 June 1997

djohnson@cdi.org