Lebed Slams Govt, Warns Of Army Mutiny

Lebed, 46-year-old former general, is not a member of Chernomyrdin's government but reports directly to Yeltsin, who may be out of action for months during major heart surgery and might even have to step down before his new term ends in 2000.

Doctors saw the 65-year-old President yesterday to decide if and when to operate to relieve clogged arteries.

Lebed openly covets Yeltsin's succession and told the newspaper he could save the country from collapse if he won it. I have a plan but do not have powers to implement it because those are the powers of the head of state.

 

It is not the first time Lebed has denounced the government. He wrote to Yeltsin demanding that Chernomyrdin revise his 1997 budget last month to give more cash to the defence sector.

The blunt ex-paratrooper, who came third in June's presidential ballot, used apocalyptic rhetoric against both his Kremlin rivals and the Western powers, that sounded very like electioneering.

The government...have buried their head in the sand, he said. But very serious developments are going on. When the Russian army began to break up in 1916, we know what followed.

The demoralisation of the Russian army in World War One was a key factor in the success of the 1917 Bolshevik revolution.

Lebed gave no details of what sort of mutiny he thought might be about to break out in the army. But he appeared to be talking about local unrest in the ranks rather than a generals' coup of the sort he warned of after taking office in June.

People with high professional skills serve in the army. Maybe it is not enough to win world wars but it is definitely enough to slaughter all the lambs, Lebed said.

It was a national disgrace, he said, that the army had not been paid for three months and officers had to take extra jobs.

Officers are in hospital with malnutrition. There is a mass of suicides in the army. People are having to beg and steal, he said. There is no shortage of evidence to back him up.

Young conscripts beg for bread. Officers rent their units to farmers for a share of the harvest. Soldiers sell guns and risk their lives cannibalising warheads for valuable scrap metals.

Plans for post-Cold War reforms, including cutting the armed forces by half a million to 1.5 million men, have made scant progress though Russia's military capacity has been reduced as submarines, missiles and tanks rust into disrepair.

Coincidentally, the official defence ministry newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda (Red Star) headlined its front page yesterday with an article on the rise in suicides among officers.

Apparently referring to Chernomyrdin's government, Lebed said: They have decided to conclusively undermine the armed forces and drown the defence minister.

His office confirmed to Reuters he had given the interview.

On Tuesday, Lebed aides flatly denied he had given an interview to Britain's Daily Telegraph, in which he was quoted saying Moscow would hit German and US industrial interests if the NATO defence alliance admitted East European states.

The London newspaper stuck by its story.

Lebed, promising to take a tough line with NATO officials in Brussels next month, had harsh words for the West, condemning US attacks on Iraq and warning that if that happened to Russia: I would hit back instantly. With everything we've got.