RUSSIAN TANK PROBLEMS.

An armaments chief from Russia’s Defense Ministry said on September 11 that only 25,000-26,000 of the army’s tanks meet today’s standards and that a modernization of the country’s armored forces is not expected until at least 2005. According to the Russian general, the army received a total of about 100 tanks over the past two years — roughly matching the number lost during the war in Chechnya — and the last major procurement of tanks occurred in 1989 when some 3,000 were delivered. (Itar-Tass, September 11) Russian media report, meanwhile, that the country’s tank exports have declined precipitously because no new models have appeared for some ten years. (Radio Russia, September 14)

Yeltsin Reads Bankers the Riot Act.