GROMOV BLASTS GRACHEV, YELTSIN.

Col. Gen. Boris Gromov, who is currently an aide at the foreign ministry while in “exile” from the defense ministry, told Podmoskovnye izvestiya June 9 that his difficulties with defense minister Pavel Grachev arose from Gromov’s refusal to participate in the October 1993 assault on the Russian parliament. And, Gromov said, their differences had been exacerbated by Gromov’s opposition to the war in Chechnya as well as other, more minor irritants. Gromov said that Grachev had been a good divisional commander in Afghanistan but was clearly unqualified to be defense minister, lacked military honor, and was “very vindictive to those who doubt his greatness.” Worse, Gromov said, Grachev was loyal to the president rather than the state itself. It is “not my duty to be with those who have destroyed the Russian army or with those who have stained themselves with blood in Chechnya,” Gromov said. In a transparent attack on Yeltsin, Gromov said that he hoped that in the upcoming elections “people will vote for those who are able to take Russia out of its present deadlock,” adding that he would “give really good thought” to running for president himself.

Gromov: Only Our Missiles Make Us A Great Power.