KOZYREV DENIES EXISTENCE OF NEW MILITARY DOCTRINE.

Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev yesterday denied rumors of the existence of a new military doctrine. "I don’t know anything about such a doctrine," he told reporters before boarding a plane to Oslo. He attributed the rumors to the high level of emotion over the prospective expansion of NATO. "Even conversations about this expansion, and all the more so hasty ones, provoke tension, rumors and fears. Opinions on countermeasures are being voiced in Russia," he said. (1)

Last week the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda published an article which said that the armed forces’ General Staff, in response to the contingency that NATO would expand eastward, had drawn up a new defense doctrine. Reportedly the plan entailed redeploying forces-including nuclear forces-along its western border, and sending troops into the Baltics if those nations joined NATO. Senior military officers appear to be behind these threatening statements. But so far, neither President Boris Yeltsin nor any government official has lent credibility to them.

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