Yeltsin Fires Defense Chiefs

President Boris N. Yeltsin fired his top defense chiefs Thursday, lambasting them for resisting spending cutbacks and failing to carry out military reforms.

The abrupt ouster of Defense Minister Igor Rodionov and General Viktor Samsonov, the Chief of Staff of the Russian military, reflects the growing power of Yeltsin government reformers who insist the primary threats to Russia are economic, not military.

Presiding over a rancorous meeting of his top defense officials, Yeltsin took the reformers’ side, declaring that a main goal of military reform is to cut spending on the armed forces.

“By 2000, spending on the armed forces must stand at 3 per cent to 3.5 per cent of the GDP,” the president said. “Now it stands at 5 per cent.”

Turning to his defense minister, Yeltsin gave him a dressing-down.

“I rank your work very low,” Yeltsin declared at the meeting. “Russia cannot afford the current expenditure. You must have pondered over how to get out of this situation and reorganize the army, but you did not do that.”