YUSHENKOV WORRIED BY RUSSIAN MILITARISM.

The defense ministry’ssuccess in extending the term of military service, and canceling academicdeferments, “indicates its intent to preserve a mass army preparing for war,”Duma defense committee chairman Sergey Yushenkov told Kuranty May 23.Yushenkov, himself a reserve colonel and a member of Russia’s DemocraticChoice party, said the defense ministry had been able to do this thanks to thesupport of the communists and Zhirinovsky’s nationalists. He added that “ourlatest foreign policy steps aim to revive the cold war and to create enemies onall our frontiers in order to justify the existence of a large military establishment.” Yushenkov complained that the military budget is still larger than the portionsof the budget devoted to the civilian economy and social sector combined.Such an imbalance was possible only because of the military’s secretiveness,which “helps the authorities to continue arbitrary rule…using [foreign] militarythreats as a scarecrow” and allowing the Russian commander “excellentconditions for corruption and fraud.”

Reformist Paper Suspends Publication.