Russia's top generals are fighting charges they embezzled millions in government funds, in a scandal that highlights a struggle for power and for the open job of defense minister.
Lawmaker Lev Rokhlin detailed a series of allegedly corrupt construction deals, naming the fired defense minister, Pavel Grachev, and Gen. Konstantin Kobets, a candidate to replace Grachev.Behind the timing of the disclosures, Rokhlin has admitted, is his wish to prevent "certain candidates" - primarily Kobets - from getting the powerful position.
Leading politicians, including new security chief Alexander Lebed, who has pledged a crackdown on corruption, are lobbying publicly for their own choices as defense minister in President Boris Yeltsin's new administration.
The scandal made front pages of leading newspapers Tuesday, with one paper saying a murdered Moscow reporter was among the first to expose the problem. Dmitry Kholodov was investigating army corruption when a bomb exploded in his briefcase in October 1994.
The accusations are a slur on the entire military, Kobets said Tuesday.
Rokhlin claimed that Kobets closed his eyes to a deal in which a construction company founded by his son took state funds to build apartments for officers. The apartments were never built.
Rokhlin, defense committee chairman and himself a retired general, raised the allegations Friday in a report to Parliament.
Gens. Yuri Rodionov and Vasily Vorobyov - also mentioned in the report - proclaimed their innocence.
"Rokhlin had no facts, only inconcrete statements," Grachev told the Nezavisimaya Gazeta newspaper.
Trying to turn the tables on Rokhlin, he said the lawmaker had failed to pay for $23,000 worth of renovations to his apartment.
Kobets said he doesn't even want to be defense minister, although he'd take the job if President Boris Yeltsin insisted.
He said his son had no relation to the construction company, and he insisted that the apartment deal was merely a commercial blunder. He said the construction company agreed to complete unfinished construction, unaware of major project failures, which made it unfeasible.
The dispute was finally settled and the defense ministry is to receive the promised apartments next year, Kobets said. He didn't explain how the state would be compensated for the delay in construction.