MOSCOW, JUNE 25. /RIA Novosti correspondent Alexei Meshkov/. The appeal to the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, circulated by Lev Rokhlin, the chairman of the Duma committee on defence, does not reflect the opinion of the leadership of the Defence Ministry and the armed forces command, a high-ranking ministry official told a RIA Novosti correspondent. He asked not to be identified.

According to him, today both the ministry and the generals and the overwhelming majority of officers want to see reforms in the army and navy, because "they alone can take the Russian armed forces out of the present, far from the best, condition, preserve them, and make them truly battle ready so as to reliably ensure the security of the state and raise the prestige of the servicemen again." The source stressed that over the last month more has been done in the work of reformation than during the entire previous year.

A political "cackle" won't rectify the situation, believes the official. In his opinion, it may lead only to the dragging out of the process of the reformation of the army, which is ultimately fraught with very negative consequences for the Russian armed forces and for the country as a whole.

`On Tuesday General Rokhlin circulated an appeal in which he laid upon the Russian president the personal responsibility for the war in Chechnya and accused him of having done nothing over the last six years for the strengthening of the security of the country and the armed forces. He also called upon armed forces personnel servicemen to hold officers' meetings, work out "lawful demands" and submit them to the president, government, federal assembly as well as to the supreme and constitutional courts.

Rokhlin also asserted that he had circulated the appeal "on the instructions of the defence committee." However, a member of the Duma committee on defence, Sergei Yushenkov, refuted this assertion of the general. Yushenko, in particular, declared that the appeal "collectively was not discussed and was not approved at a meeting of the committee" and is effectively the personal initiative of Lev Rokhlin. In addition, Yushenkov thinks that it is contrary to "the current law on defence."

First Vice-Speaker of the State Duma Alexander Shokhin declared on Tuesday that Rokhlin's appeal was "an actual call for disobedience."

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Johnson's Russia List

25 June 1997

djohnson@cdi.org