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Putin to shake-up Russian military

Putin
Putin has said that the army was not working efficiently  

MOSCOW -- Russian President Vladimir Putin held four hours of talks with top officials on a shake-up of the country's armed forces and nuclear arsenal Friday and was said to have made a "balanced decision" on their fate.

Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev, who had been locked in dispute with the head of the general staff over proposals for reform of the nuclear rocket forces, said he was satisfied with the meeting and that talks on military reform were now over.

The officials said the proposals, on which they gave few details, would be worked on and presented to the president for final signature over the next few days.

"The discussions are over, a decision has been made by the commander-in-chief (Putin)," Sergeyev was quoted by Itar-Tass news agency as saying after the talks between Putin and his advisory Security Council.

"It is well balanced and based on the economic potential of the country," Sergeyev added. He said there had never been such deep and complete talks on the fate of the military before.

In one of the few concrete statements, Sergeyev said launch vehicles which carry land-based nuclear missiles would not be phased out early but work to the end of their expected life-span.

Putin had said at the start of the meeting he wanted to end any rows over the reform plans, apparently referring to the dispute between Sergeyev and general staff chief General Anatoly Kvashnin. But it was not clear to what extent the ideas of either man had won over.

A Defense Ministry source told Reuters Thursday the Security Council was likely to urge Putin to cut land-based nuclear missiles and merge the rest of the Strategic Rocket Forces responsible for them with the air force, on the U.S. model.

That would be part of a much larger restructuring of the armed forces from 2001 and could involve cuts in troop numbers from 1.2 million to 900,000.

Kvashnin has favored deep cuts in the Strategic Rocket Forces and a merger with or even absorption into the air force as a way to divert cash to ground troops.

Sergeyev has argued against major missile cuts and for a merger of all three nuclear wings under one command, but not the air force's. Russia has four military branches -- land, sea, air and the Strategic Rocket Forces, which Sergeyev used to command.

Putin said at the start of the talks that the army was not working efficiently and needed a development plan up to 2015.

"Are our armed forces, our whole military component, effective? Unfortunately, they are not," he said.

"The well-being of our citizens as well as the state's security depends on the right solution," Putin added.

The problems of Russia's armed forces have been highlighted several times since the collapse of the former Soviet Union, the army suffering a humiliating defeat in the 1994-96 Chechen war.

A new campaign is now being waged in the rebel region but Moscow's forces have failed to restore full control over the area despite a campaign which has lasted almost a year.

Putin said defense spending was far from perfect, with pilots rarely flying and sailors shore-bound for lack of funds.

But he said it would be wrong to build up a vast arsenal of weapons. That had been one reason for the collapse of the Soviet Union, he said, and many of those weapons were now in enemy hands, being used against Russian troops in Chechnya.

"Therefore we have a most important task before us: to set out a development strategy for the armed forces up to 2015, taking into account our needs and the state's ability," he said.

"We need to make sure that all our actions are absolutely balanced, weighed out and economically founded."

Russia's nuclear arsenal is huge but hard to fund.

Defense experts say Russia has about 750 intercontinental ballistic missiles, most in silos or on mobile launchers. A few dozen are railway-based. All but 20 were deployed more than a decade ago before the Soviet Union collapsed.

There are about 3,500 land-based warheads. Submarine-launched and air-launched cruise missiles or bombs bring the total number of warheads to about 6,000.

The overall number could be cut as low as 1,500, the Defense Ministry source said. That would be in line with or even below Russian proposals for START-3 arms talks with the United States.

Copyright 2000 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.



RELATED STORIES:
Nation mourns as Russia bomb toll rises
August 11, 2000
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June 5, 2000
U.S. envoy hopeful of arms-control compromise with Russia
May 24, 2000

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