MOSCOW, July 8 (Interfax) - Former Russian Defense Minister Igor Rodionov has said he "fully approves" of the initiative of Lev Rokhlin, chairman of the State Duma's Defense Committee, to create a public movement in support of the army, military sciences and the defense industry.

"I am confident that resolute measures are necessary for saving the army, for instance, such as are being proposed by Gen. Rokhlin," Rodionov told Interfax in an exclusive interview.

"When I was the [defense] minister I made the conclusion that the country's political leadership is indifferent toward issues of the country's defense capacity. I realized that the information about the situation in the armed forces which is being submitted to the supreme commander-in-chief is being purposefully distorted by somebody in his entourage in order to destroy the country's defense capacity and retain a position and a place near the president," he said.

Rodionov found it difficult to say how capable the Defense Ministry's new leadership was of implementing military reform without detriment to the country's defense capacity.

"Too little time has passed since the replacement of the Defense Ministry's leadership," he said. "However, I would like to wish it to be more firm, more wise and more resolved when defending the interests of the army."

Before implementing military reform, it is "necessary to weigh political, geopolitical and economic grounds for the admissible limit on a reduction in the armed forces so that we will not go so far with reductions that there will be nothing to restore later," Rodionov said.

He also said his dismissal had been inspired by Defense Council Secretary Yuri Baturin and possibly by First Deputy Prime Minister Anatoly Chubais.

Rodionov said that during their telephone conversation on May 19, President Boris Yeltsin "actually told me about his support for me as the minister." Rodionov said that Yeltsin had decided his dismissal and the dismissal of Head of the Armed Forces General Staff Viktor Samsonov during the May 22 session of the Defense Council "totally unexpectedly". Rodionov said that on May 21, a day before this session, he and Samsonov had turned in the texts of their 30-minute reports they ought to have delivered during the session.

"In particular, I proposed abolishing the structure of Baturin [the Defense Council] so that there would be nobody besides the General Staff with the secretariat made up of military professionals between the president, as the supreme commander-in-chief, and the defense minister," he said. "This proposal and other proposals were naturally disliked by Baturin and possibly by Chubais and they decided to oust the then leadership of the Defense Ministry and the General Staff in order to maintain their own positions and insist on their vision of reform of the army," Rodionov said.

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Johnson's Russia List

#1026

8 July 1997

djohnson@cdi.org