Reuters/Interfax

25 July 1997

YELTSIN OFFERS ARMY SYMPATHY, SAYS REFORM ONLY HOPE

MOSCOW -- President Boris Yeltsin said on Friday he deeply sympathized with Russia's hungry soldiers and unpaid officers but said drastic reforms were the only way of relieving their sorry plight.

"My heart aches for our hungry soldiers, for our officers who do not receive their remuneration on time, for their families roaming about for years with nowhere to live," Yeltsin said in a regular radio address to the nation.

"My heart aches over the constant fall in the prestige of the military profession. This is why I have taken the situation in the armed forces under my personal control," he said.

Yeltsin said plans to merge some units, privatize some Defense Ministry property and to pare back troop numbers by half a million to 1.2 million by the end of 1998 would help restore the effectiveness of Russia's once proud military machine.

However, Interfax quoted him as saying he understood recent reform decrees aroused opposition among some politicians and generals. Yeltsin said when he signed the decrees he realized that "such a fundamental, gigantic undertaking as reform of the country's entire military organization will most surely arouse controversy."

Yeltsin has come under fire recently for the miserable state of the armed forces, drawing criticism from Duma Defense Committee head Lev Rokhlin and former Defense Minister Igor Rodionov.

The 66-year-old president, who is vacationing at the Volga river resort of Volzhsky Utyos in central Russia, repeated his pledge to pay off all wage arrears to the military by September.

"One thing is clear, reform has really begun...There will be no stoppages. The main thing now is not to lose tempo," he said.

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Johnson's Russia List

#1083

25 July 1997

djohnson@cdi.org