MILITARY FURIOUS AT YELTSIN’S SUPPORT FOR COUNTRY’S "SECOND"ARMY

Publication: Monitor Volume: 1 Issue: 45

. Krasnaya zvezda on June 30 sharply criticizedthe Russian government for cutting the army while increasingsupport for "other kinds of troops"–such as the borderguards and interior ministry forces. Not only do these forcesnumber almost 50 percent of the army’s total, and not only arethey better paid and supplied, the Russian military paper noted, they cost the country enormous sums because of the duplicationsin the chain of command. Krasnaya zvezda said it was obviousthat some politicians were happy with this division of the armedforces into "two armies," but the paper noted thatsuch an arrangement would inevitably lead to disasters like theone at Budennovsk. Other publications are supporting the military’sconcerns: Vek (no. 25) noted that the government had notpaid the army some 12 trillion rubles of its Duma-approved budget; and Ogonek (no. 26) warned that the country’s relianceon the draft was a mistake: By early in the next century, theweekly said, a very high percentage of draftees will come fromnon- Russian areas within the Russian Federation.

Security Officials Furious at Yeltsin’s Cuts of CounterterroristGroups