Fought Out
// Anatoly Kvashnin replaced
Reorganization in the Enforcement Sector
Yesterday Vladimir Putin made a number of changes among the siloviki. Chief of the General Staff Anatoly Kvashnin was replaced, as were Chief Commander of Internal Troops Vyacheslav Tikhomirov, commander of the Internal Troops (IT) of the North Caucasus Military District (NCMD) Mikhail Labunets and deputy director of the FSB Anatoly Ezhkov. The new Chief of the General Staff will be Kvashnin's former second-in-command Yury Baluevsky. The first deputy minister of defense will be former deputy commander of the IT of the NCMD Alexander Belousov. Commander of the NCMD Vladimir Boldyrev was transferred to the Volga-Ural Military District (VUMD) and Alexander Baranov was transferred from that district to replace him. The synchronicity of these changes leaves no doubt that they are all related to the rebel incursion into Ingushetia on June 22.
Rear Defense
Minister of Defense Sergey Ivanov arrived at the Kremlin early in the morning. Putin had a meeting scheduled with members of the administration, which had been moved from noon to 10:00 a.m. at the last moment (later it became clear why). Even the journalists were already aware that the Chief of the General Staff was about to be replaced, and the president was expected to announce it at the meeting.
That did not happen, although military affairs were discussed at length.
“Sergey Borisovich, you have made an important decision,” Putin said to Ivanov.
Obviously, Kvashnin's replacement was about to be announced. The minister nodded in readiness to make the announcement.
“Report, please, on guaranteeing supplies to the armed forces,” the president ordered.
“We are working without rest to set up a unified system of rear defense,” the Minister of Defense began.
The other ministers looked around cautiously. No one, it seemed, had imagined such a complicated story about the firing of Kvashnin. Was he really an obstacle to rear defense?
But Ivanov did not so much as mention Kvashnin's name. He cited lots of figures to demonstrate that the country was nearing a definitive conversion to a unified system of rear defense. The system had practically been perfected in the Chechen Republic. (Soon these unprecedented successes in rear defense will be felt on the front lines, of course.)
Then, also not saying a word about Kvashnin, the president asked Minister of the Interior Rashid Nurgaliev about progress in the investigation of the terrorist act in Ingushetia. Things there are moving rapidly. The minister said that more than 20 people had already been arrested in the course of the investigation and more arrests were expected.
“We are getting closer to the actual perpetrators,” Nurgaliev said.
“I met with Ramzan Kadyrov yesterday,” Putin said. (That would have been on Sunday.) “We have to settle all the organizational questions about forming an internal forces regiment in Ingushetia.
Nurgaliev said that all questions had been settled. They just still had to find some actual perpetrators for that too.
The expected announcement was not made at the meeting.
Immediately after the meeting, Putin had another working meeting. Usually, the participants in this type of meeting are made known in advance, but not this time, nor were any cameras or reporters present for it (except the president's personal photographer and cameraman). But the secret was out the second the minister of defense was spotted in waiting room of the president's office whispering with Yury Baluevsky. They were waiting their turns. It was clear who Kvashnin's successor would be.
Then they began saying that the president would announce Kvashnin's replacement at the meeting of the Security Council due to begin in half an hour. But that did not happen either. The president spoke of an equally weighty matter, the fate of the CIS.
While the meeting was in session, the president's press service made public the order replacing Anatoly Kvashnin. The president saw no need to mention the matter at all. He left that to the minister of defense.
The smiling minister approached the press immediately after the Security Council meeting. Without waiting for questions about the meeting, he began to talk about the replacement of his first deputy.
As Ivanov told it, Kvashnin's replacement was an entirely reasonable move that could hardly have been otherwise. He related that his deputy had performed well until he was charged with the preservation of the armed forced. Then he performed splendidly.
“He did a lot for the armed forces at a difficult point in their existence,” Ivanov said. “I am intentionally not speaking of their development right now.”
The president, Ivanov added, is most grateful to Kvashnin.
“That gratitude will be put in written form soon,” Ivanov said.
Ivanov was referring to the decree awarding Kvashnin the Order for Service to the Homeland, Third Degree. The decree was released by the presidential press service about an hour after that conversation.
“The country is in better condition now and we must think about the soldiers of the future,” Ivanov said.
Several information agencies misquoted that sentence as “we must think about wars of the future” (a difference of a single letter in Russian). But the minister did not actually go that far.
Kvashnin will not be facing those new challenges. He will not be preparing the future's soldiers, and will no longer have the right to call himself a soldier. He had to leave to stay out of the way of progress. There were no other claims made against him.
How Anatoly Kvashnin left
Rumors of 57-year-old army general Kvashnin's departure from the post of Chief of the General Staff had been circulating for a long time. It was thought that the administrative reform of the Ministry of Defense would mark his end when, by amendments to the law “On Defense,” the role of the General Staff was significantly reduced, which the ambitious general could not endure. For Ivanov, who had always looked on his deputy with wariness, this was a good excuse to get rid of him.
The replacement of the Chief of the General Staff was originally planned for the end of June. After the rebel raid in Ingushetia, Putin decided combine it with other changes in the enforcement structures. Although the president made no personal accusations against him, Kvashnin cannot help but share in the responsibility for the lack of coordination among the various enforcement structures, for the General Staff had overseen that coordination until recently. He had been in that post so long (almost seven years, the fourth most long-lasting in the USSR and Russian Federation) that he was practically the only high-ranking military figure who was not afraid to deal with Chechnya personally. After the attack on Ingushetia, he lost that advantage.
Kvashnin was prepared to go. Last Friday, he was in Ekaterinburg, where he announced the results of studies that indicated the supremacy of the VUMD over the Moscow Military District (MMD). He was given a picture made out of malachite by Volga-Ural troop commander Gen. Alexander Baranov to remember the occasion by. “If those studies weren't the last ones of my career, I would have taken this for a bribe instead of a gift,” Kvashnin joked morosely. His subordinates also knew of his departure in advance. On Friday evening, First Deputy Minister of Defense Kvashnin called a meeting to discuss the same studies mentioned above, and it was poorly attended by other deputy ministers. He delayed the meeting for half an hour, but even then deputy minister of defense for armaments Gen. Alexei Moskovsky was not present.
According to information obtained by Kommersant, the former Chief of the General Staff was offered the position of deputy secretary of the Security Council. However, Kvashnin refused the position, considering it a demotion, and handed in his resignation from military service instead.
Newly appointed 57-year-old Chief of the General Staff Col. Gen. Yury Baluevsky inadvertently commented on these events yesterday. He told a Kommersant correspondent, “A lot of long-term work lays ahead. I have the will and desire to do it.” It remains to be seen whether he has enough experience, though. In his more than 30 years of service in various staff positions, he has never commanded a regiment, or division, army, or military district. That may have been what recommended him to Ivanovnow the General Staff will be mainly an analytic, not administrative, structure.
It is interesting to note that, several weeks ago, Baluevsky publicly stated that he would not ask the president to extend his term of service when he reached his 60th birthday, but would retire at that time. Thus, he has already selected his term at the head of the General Staff: two and a half years, that is, until January 2007.
The defense minister get a new right-hand man
One of the key figures in the new Ministry of Defense, along with Baluevsky, will be 51-year-old Alexander Belousov, a little-known colonel general who was selected yesterday for the vacant post of first deputy minister of defense. Before that appointment, he had served for a year and a half as deputy commander of the IT of the NCMD for Emergency Situations. He will now be dealing with questions that arise concerning battle training for the forces, safety conditions in the military and battle-readiness of units designated for antiterrorist operations. In other words, he will perform a good part of the functions of the General Staff and will effectively be the minister of defense's right-hand man in matters of troop management.
When Belousov arrived in the NCMD in the beginning of 2003 after being deputy commander of the MMD, many saw him as an interloper passing through their battling District in order to get a promotion and leave again. And so it really went. On June 12, Belousov became a colonel general and yesterday he received an appointment in Moscow. That appointment was, however, preceded by two tours in Chechnya, where the general successfully commanded forces in the mountainous part of the republic during the four-month absence of staff commander Lt. Gen. Boris Bakhin.
Yesterday the president ordered bilateral troop movement between two military districts. Alexander Baranov, a 58-year-old army general, was transferred to the command of the NCMD from the VUMD, where he had been commander since September 2001. From 1999 to 2001, he served as the head of staff of the NCMD and was acting head of staff for the North Caucasus united forces. For his leadership of forces in May 2000, he was awarded the title of Hero of Russia.
In turn, 55-year-old army general Vladimir Boldyrev, commander of the NCMD, was transferred to the post at the same level in the VUMD. He had commanded the NCMD since December 2002, having replaced Col. Gen. Gennady Troshev there. His tenure in the NCMD was blackened by the terrorist act at the military hospital in Mozdok in August 2003, when 50 were killed and 80 injured, although full responsibility for the event was placed on the head of the hospital, Lt. Col. Artur Arakelyan. However, the attack on Ingushetia forced the president to reinforce the sector with reliable personnel under Baranov.
The replacement of Lt. Valery Lyukov, commander of the 503rd motorized infantry, was also made known yesterday. According to RIA Novosti, citing a source in the Ministry of Defense, Lyukov has been moved to another position with a demotion. That is directly related to the events of June 22: his regiment, quartered in the Ingushetian town of Troitskaya, arrived at the site of the battle only after 12 hours, by which time the attackers had fled. All that time, the command of the regiment was trying to come to an agreement with the commands of the military district and IT forces so as not to shoot at each other in the night. When he found out about this during his visit to Ingushetia, the president decided that the indecisive lieutenant had to be replaced.
Taking care of one's own
Chief Commander of IT Vyacheslav Tikhomirov also lost his job. He saw it coming last week, but did not give up hope of staying. Instead, he took sick leave and entered a hospital. In his favor were his pervious accomplishments, the president's favorable attitude toward him and, it has to be admitted, well-grounded claims of minimal responsibility for the IT in the unfortunate performance of forces in Ingushetia during the rebel attack. But the commander tried to argument his case through the press, which, Kommersant has learned, displeased Putin to the extreme.
Nurgaliev, who had long wanted to replace Tikhomirov with a general under his own control, took advantage of the situation. “The commander behaved too independently,” a high-placed officer in the Ministry of the Interior told Kommersant. “When the minister suggested that he remove Labunets (Lt. Gen. Mikhail Labunets, Hero of the Russian Federation and NCMD IT commander Kommersant) and that said someone had to be punished for Ingushetia, he acted up, went into the hospital, and then the publications started. There was nothing for the minister to do but demand his removal.” The final argument against Tikhomirov was his closeness to Kvashnin. It was Kvashnin who had lobbied for Tikhomirov's appointment as chief commander of the IT in January 2000, when Vyacheslav Ovchinnikov was dismissed after a long and unsuccessful storming of Grozny.
Labunets lost his post along with Tikhomirov. Officially the Ministry of the Interior is not commenting on the reasons for his replacement. But they would not have told the real reason for it in any case. That is Putin's great annoyance at the obvious failings of Russian forces in the North Caucasus. Tikhomirov and Labunets will not be expelled from the military and will even be shown gratitude. They will be placed under the minister of the interior and new work will be found for them in the coming months. “Tikhomirov might, for example, become a senator, and Labunets won't disappear either. They are intelligent men, they won't be long without work,” an IT officer commented.
The identity of the next chief commander of the IT was not known yesterday. In the IT, they are hoping to preserve the line of succession, which would mean that Tikhomirov's friend and first deputy Nikolay Rozhkov would take his place. He is now acting chief commander. Nurgaliev is supporting Mikhail Pankov, head of the Main Division of the Ministry of the Interior for the Southern Federal District, for the commander's position. Putin clearly has ideas of his own about who should head the IT in its long counter-terrorist operation in the North Caucasus, and there are reforms looming at the Ministry of the Interior that could result in the IT being removed from its control and transformed into a national guard directly subordinate to the head of state. “We need to settle the question of strengthening the personnel of the interior forces with Ministry of Defense officers who have recommended themselves well in battle,” the president stated at the meeting with members of the administration yesterday before the replacements were made known.
Another dismissal announced yesterday was that of deputy director of the FSB Anatoly Ezhkov. He had been head of the regional operative staff for counter-terrorist operations in the North Caucasus, then headed all FSB operations in that region. Thus, he too was answerable for events in Ingushetia. His position in any case was to be eliminated in the administrative reforms going on in the FSB. Under the presidential decree of July 11, 2004, the number of deputy directors of the FSB is to be reduced from 12 to 4. Ezhkov was transferred to the FSB reserve, where he will probably make a worthy place for himself with reasonable speedmaybe with some loss of stature, but most likely with considerable material benefit.
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Anatoly Kvashnin's career
December 1994After commander of the NCMD Aleksey Mityukhin was dismissed, several generals were offered the leadership of the forces in Chechnya and refused. Deputy head of the Main Operative Department of the General Staff Anatoly Kvashnin, who was one of the drafters of the plan to restore constitutional order in Chechnya, expressed his desire to lead that operation. He was soon after named to the vacant post.
May 23, 1997Boris Yeltsin fired Minister of Defense Igor Rodionov and Chief of the General Staff Viktor Samsonov. Igor Sergeev was named acting minister, and commander of the Far Eastern Military District Col. Gen. Viktor Chechevatov was offered the post of Chief of the General Staff. After a five-minute audience with the president, however, Chechevatov turned down the offer. Kvashnin was made acting Chief and confirm in that post on June 19.
July 16, 1997Sergeev approved a plan drafted by the General Staff under Kvashnin's direction to reorganize the armed forces, combining anti-aircraft defenses with the air force, eliminating the main command of land forces and combining military space forces with the strategic missile forces (SMF). On March 24, 2001, at Kvashnin's initiative, military space forces were again separated from the missile forces and, on December 1 of that year, the main command of land forces was also reestablished, with Kvashnin's support.
November 1998Sergeev, with Yeltsin's agreement, announces the formation of the Russian Strategic Containment Forces (SCF), combining the nuclear components of the SMF, air force and navy. Thus, management of nuclear forces was transferred from the General Staff to the command of the SCF. Kvashnin was strongly opposed to the change. In February 1999, Yeltsin ordered a special commission to be set up at the Ministry of Defense. Under pressure from Kvashnin, the commission declared the project unwarranted.
June 11, 1999During the peacekeeping operation in Kosovo, Kvashnin personally ordered 200 paratroopers, without the agreement of the NATO command, to make a preemptory march from Bosnia and occupy the strategically important Pristina airport, which Alliance forces intended to use for military transport planes and for landing British peacekeepers.
March 29, 2000Kvashnin opens a case against Yury Budanov, reporting personally to the president about the tense situation in Chechnya after Budanov, commander of the 160th tank regiment of the united forces “abused and killed a female resident of the Chechen Republic.” “This is a shameful event for the army,” Kvashnin said in an interview. “Scumbags like that have to be uprooted from the army collective.” On July 25, 2003, Budanov was sentenced to ten years' in a maximum-security penal facility.
July 12, 2000Kvashnin delivered a report before the collegium of the Ministry of Defense on the critical importance of developing conventional forces and reducing the SMF, recommending that the SMF be stripped of its status as an independent sector of the armed forces and incorporated into the air force. Sergeev called those suggestions “criminal stupidity and an threat to the national interests of Russia.” On January 16, 2001, Putin signed a decree on military production that practically enacted Kvashnin's reforms. On March 28, 2001, Sergey Ivanov became the new minister of defense.
Mass personnel changes in the armed forces
June 29, 1995Minister of Defense Pavel Grachev, Minister of the Interior Viktor Erin, FSB director Sergey Stepashin, Secretary of the Security Council Oleg Lobov and Deputy Prime MinisterMinister for Ethnic and Regional Policy Nikolay Egorov declared at a meeting of the Security Council their readiness to “accept responsibility” for the deaths resulting from the attack on Budennovsk by rebel under the command of Shamil Basaev. The next day, Yeltsin dismissed Erin, Stepashin and Egorov.
June 18, 1996Yeltsin accepts Grachev's resignation. The cause of his departure was the appointment of Alexander Lebed Secretary of the Security Council and assistant to the president for national security. Grachev had conflicts with Lebedev, the former commander of the 14th army. On June 25, deputy chief of the General Staff Anatoly Bogdanov, head of the Main Operational Department of the General Staff Viktor Barynkin, head of the Main Department for Training of the Ministry of the Defense Sergey Zdorikov, head of the Main Mobilization Department of the General Staff Vyacheslav Zherebtsov, Ministry of Defense chief of the staff Valery Lapshov, head of the Main Department of International Military Cooperation of the General Staff Dmitry Kharchenko, and deputy commander for armaments of the land forces Vladimir Shulikov also lost their jobs. The firings were attributed to a plot by Lebed to “exert pressure” on the president to restore Grachev to his post.
July 31, 2000Putin dismisses dozens of high-placed Ministry of Defense officials, including head of armaments Anatoly Sintov, head of the Main Department of Chemical Defense Forces Stanislav Petrov, commander of the anti-aircraft defenses of the land forces Boris Dukhov, head of the Main Missile-Artillery Department of the Ministry of Defense Nikolay Karaulov, head of the Central Department of Material Resources of the Department of Defense Alexander Zobnin and head of the Ministry of Defense press service Anatoly Shatalov. The official explanation was a “planned rotation” in Defense Ministry personnel. The press obtained information indicating that the mass firing was the result of a conflict between Sergeev and Kvashnin. Most of those who lost their jobs had sided with Sergeev.
December 1, 2001After preliminary findings were made public from the investigation of the deaths on August 12, 2000, aboard the North Fleet K-141 submarine Kursk in the Barents Sea, 14 high-placed Fleet officers were dismissed or demoted. Among them, Fleet commander Adm. Vyacheslav Popov and chief of the Fleet staff Vice Adm. Mikhail Motsak were dismissed.
Col. Gen. Alexander Vasilevich Beolusov was born on September 8, 1952, in Rovno, Ukrainian SSR. He graduated from the Moscow Higher Troop Command School of the Supreme Council in 1973, from Frunze Military Academy in 1984 and from the General Staff Academy in Moscow in 1995.
In 1973, he was sent with a Soviet platoon to Germany and soon was made a company commander. In 1978, he was transferred to the Central Asia Military District as chief of staff and later became commander of a motorized infantry battalion. From 1984 to 1988, he commanded the motorized infantry and training regiments of the Leningrad Military District (LMD). From 1988 to 1993, he was deputy commander, then commander, of a motorized infantry division. From 1995 to 1999, he served as commander, then chief of staff, of the 35th troop army in Belogorsk, Amur Region. Then he became commander of the 5th troop army of the Far East Military District in Ussuriisk, Primorye Territory. In August 1999, he was appointed deputy commander of the forces of the MMD. In 2003 and 2004, he was deputy commander of the NCMD for emergency situations.
Army Gen. Valdimir Anatolevich Boldyrev was born into a military family on January 5, 1949, in the village of Krasnoyarsk, Uryupinsky District, Volgograd Region. He graduated from the Moscow Higher Troop Command School in 1971, from Frunze Academy in 1978 and from the General Staff Academy in 1992.
He was the commander of a platoon, company, then battalion in the Belorussian Military District and Central Forces Group (Czechoslovakia). In 1978, he became senior officer of the operative division staff of the army group forces. From 1979 to 1985, he served in Mongolia as chief of staff, commander of a motorized infantry regiment and chief of staff of a division. From 1985 to 1990, he was commander of a division in the Baikal Military District (BMD). In 1992, he became chief of staff of the 6th troop army of the LMD in Petrozavodsk. In 1994, he became commander of the 36th troop army in the BMD and, in 1996, first deputy commander of forces in the BMD. Then, in April 1998, he was made chief of staff of the BMD. On December 1, 1998, he was made first deputy commander and chief of staff of the Siberian Military District (SMD). On May 28, 2001, he became commander of the SMD. On December 18, 2002, he became commander of the NCMD, replacing Troshev.
He has been awarded the Order for Military Service.
Army Gen. Alexander Ivanovich Baranov was born in 1946 in the village of Kegeili, Karakalpak Autonomous SSR, (Uzbekistan). He graduated from the Tashkent Higher Troop Command School in 1967, from Frunze Academy in 1991 and from the General Staff Academy in 1991. He served in the Moscow, Volga, Carpathia and Transcaucasus Military Districts and with Soviet forces in Germany. He began with the commander of an intelligence platoon, then of a motorized infantry division, then became deputy commander of the 8th tank army in Zhitomir, Ukraine. From 1991 to 1999, he was chief of staff of the 22nd guard troop army in Nizhny Novgorod, then commander of the 2nd guard army in Samara, then chief of staff of the Volga Military District. In September 1999, he became chief of staff of the NCMD and chief of staff of the unified federal forces in the North Caucasus. On March 28, 2000, he became commander of the VUMD.
He has been awarded the Order of the Red Star and the Order for Service to the Homeland in the Armed Forces of the USSR, Third Degree. In May 2000, he was named a Hero of Russia.
Andrey Kolesnikov, Ivan Safronov, Alexander Zheglov, Sergey Konovalov, Rostov-on-Don
All the Article in Russian as of July 20, 2004
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