The Times (UK)

1 July 1997

[for personal use only]

RUSSIAN MILITARY WARNS YELTSIN OF MUTINY OVER CUTS

From Richard Beeston in Moscow

THE Russian military establishment has given President Yeltsin a warning that he faces the first mutiny in the armed forces for nearly two centuries if he goes ahead with unpopular reforms to slash the number of men in uniform.

Threatened with the loss of 600,000 troops under plans currently being drawn up by General Igor Sergeyev, the newly-appointed Defence Minister, several retired generals have urged serving officers to "take the matter into their own hands".

The issue came to the surface last week when General Lev Rokhlin, a popular former combat officer who now heads the parliamentary defence committee, issued a damning seven-page open letter to Mr Yeltsin blaming him for the destruction of the armed forces.

General Rokhlin, who commanded Russian troops during the bloody capture of Grozny, the Chechen capital, before running for parliament in a pro-Yeltsin faction, said he had been forced to act to prevent the collapse of the armed forces.

"You fooled the nation and the military, failing to fulfil your pre-election promises," said General Rokhlin, whose outburst may cost him his position in the Our Home is Russia faction. "You have destined the armed forces to destruction."

In the letter, General Rokhlin predicted that if the military was weakened any further, Russia would lose control of the Far East and Siberia in the next century. He said Russia's future as a nuclear power was also under threat, and blamed Mr Yeltsin personally for the disastrous military campaign in Chechnya.

By far his most inflammatory remarks were addressed to serving officers. He advised them to mobilise and issue the Kremlin with demands. "Unite, elect your leaders and demand that your legitimate rights be exercised," he said. "Do not hope that someone else will do this for you. Our unity in resisting the disintegration of the army is the guarantee of our success."

Not surprisingly, the comments sent a chill through the Kremlin. Although there has not been a military insurrection since the Decembrist uprising of 1825, the present lamentable state of the armed forces could provide a fertile ground for mutiny.

General Sergeyev, whose plans to reduce the armed forces from 1.8 million to 1.2 million must be completed by July 25, on Sunday denounced the letter as incitement "to revolt".

"We now have to choose between a large but insufficiently capable army, or a smaller but combat-ready army," he said, defending his plans, which propose radical measures such as merging the army and navy . "I think the choice is clear."

However, the military establishment has yet to be persuaded. Most commentators believe that General Rokhlin was prompted to take action at the behest of powerful senior officers in the military, who may be among the first to be sacked under the reform plan.

Senior figures in politics and the military have been eager to line up alongside General Rokhlin. He has won the backing of General Aleksandr Lebed, the former paratrooper and presidential candidate, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the ultra-nationalist leader, and leading communists, like Viktor Ilyukhin, the chairman of the parliamentary security committee.

"Rokhlin is right, the army is going to pieces," General Lebed said. "This is clear even to those who are far from the army. It is clear that the Commander-in-Chief [Yeltsin] is not competent."

Although in the past there has been talk of rebellion in the armed forces, there is so far no evidence of any serious conspiracy, despite unpaid wages, low morale, and a sharp rise in the number of suicides among both soldiers and officers.

Nevertheless, the Kremlin cannot afford to be complacent after the rabble-rousing remarks by General Rokhlin.

*Promise to pay: Viktor Chernomyrdin, the Prime Minister, vowed to press ahead with military reform. He told military academy graduates at a Kremlin ceremony that he had been instructed by President Yeltsin to pay all debts to the forces over the next two months. He did not say where the money was coming from.

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Johnson's Russia List

#1001

1 July 1997

djohnson@cdi.org