President Boris Yeltsin, angered by a lack of military reforms and by high-level army corruption, Thursday abruptly dismissed Defense Minister Igor Rodionov and the head of the general staff, Viktor Samsonov.
Speaking at a meeting of his advisory Defense Council on military reform, he accused the military top brass of doing nothing to reform the army and said many more heads would roll if the situation did not change."I am not simply dissatisfied, I am indignant over the state of reforms in the army and the general state of the armed forces," Yeltsin, clearly outraged, said in televised remarks.
"The soldier is losing weight while the general is getting fatter."
The Kremlin said Yeltsin had appointed 59-year-old Army Gen. Igor Sergeyev, commander of the strategic forces, as acting defense minister.
Rodionov, 60, was appointed last July under pressure from senior generals and security adviser Alexander Lebed, who was also later dismissed.
"You have done a bad job in this direction," Yeltsin told him. "I am not satisfied and must draw conclusions."
Yeltsin, who is commander-in-chief of the armed forces, promised during his re-election campaign last year to end conscription by 2000 and create a modern, professional army.
But the plan has run into a shortage of funds and a marked lack of enthusiasm in the upper ranks.
Rodionov had been at odds with Yeltsin's top defense adviser, Yuri Baturin, over the course of military reforms. The minister said the state must provide more money before change to the underfunded and demoralized force could start.
Baturin, who told Russian news agencies Yeltsin had only decided to dismiss the minister after the Council's meeting had started, has been advocating a different approach. He says reforms should be based on what the state can afford.
Yeltsin clearly backed this point of view.
Also Thursday, Yeltsin rejected a law claiming art seized in Germany at the end of World War II as Russia's property.
Yeltsin returned the controversial bill to the upper house of parliament, the Federation Council, citing "violations of the constitutional procedure" during its adoption, the president's press service said.
No further details were available. A spokeswoman at Yeltsin's office could not immediately explain what violations the president had in mind.
An international debate has raged for years over Moscow's refusal to return the art treasures, becoming the main sore point in Russian-German relations.