Lev Rokhlin was the first of the “Chechen” generals to enter politics and show the Kremlin how dangerous an officer in the opposition could be
Photo: Dmitry Azarov
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The Chechnya Generation
On July 19, Vladimir Putin made extensive personnel changes in the top echelons of the armed forces. Most of those changes were in response to the rebel raid on Ingushetia in June. But there is another motivation discernible in those dismissals. The departure of Anatoly Kvashnin marks the culmination of the removal of the ambitious “Chechen generation” of generalsthose who made their careers in the Chechen Wars.
The Kremlin press service announced the series of presidential decrees on the rearrangement in the military forces on July 19. First, Chief of the General Staff Kvashnin was relieved of his post, replaced by Yury Baluevsky. Then Chief Commander of Internal Troops Vyacheslav Tikhomirov and commander of the Internal Troops of the North Caucasus Military District (NCMD) Mikhail Labunets were discharged. And then places were switched between the commanders of the NCMD and Volga-Ural Military District (VUMD), Col. Gen. Vladimir Boldyrev and Army Gen. Aleksander Baranov, respectively. Finally, Aleksander Belousov was moved up from deputy commander of the NCMD for emergency situations to first deputy minister of defense.
The “Chechen” generals began their ascend to power in late 1994, when first deputy chief of the Main Operative Department of the General Staff Anatoly Kvashnin agreed to take charge of the united forces group in Chechnya and then of the entire NCMD. Several generals had refused the position before he took it. In 1997, Kvashnin, who enjoyed incontrovertible authority among his subordinates in the NCMD, was promoted to Chief of the General Staff. After that, the “Chechen” generation began to make its way up through the military hierarchy.
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| Photo: Mikhail Razuvaev |
| Chief of the General Staff Anatoly Kvashnin was one of the first to rise through Chechnya and one of the last to go |
Chief of staff of the NCMD Viktor Kazantsev became NCMD commander. Gennady Troshev, then commander of the Caucasus-based 58th Army, became head of the eastern group of federal forces in Chechnya, and Vladimir Shamanov, then head of Ministry of Defense troops in Chechnya, became head of the western group. Another member of the “Chechen” brass was Army Gen. Tikhomirov, who was commander of the united group of federal troops in the first Chechen War and who moved up from commander of the Ural Military District to chief commander of the Ministry of the Interior forces in January 2000. Internal forces were given the crucial task of maintaining order in Chechnya, where, officially, the counter-terrorist operation had already been completed. The Ural Military District, which was later merged with the Volga Military District, was put under the control of yet another general from the Caucasus, Aleksander Baranov, who had been chief of staff of the NCMD at the start of the second Chechen War.
At the time, many observers thought that the “Chechen” generals, who had great power in the military and popularity with the voters, could become a political force that civil authorities would be forced to take into account. Gen. Lev Rokhlin, who won glory for himself with the storming of Grozny in the first Chechen campaign, was the first to confirm this when he was included in the top three on the pro-government Our Home Is Russia movement's voter list in the 1995 Duma elections. He went on to set up the opposition Movement in Support of the Army (MSA) and became one of the most vocal critics of the ruling regime.
It's hard to say what success his organization would have had in light of the growing popular mistrust of the government. But, in July 1998, he was killed on his dacha (investigators think he was killed by his wife, although the trial is ongoing). Thereafter, the MSA was headed by former prosecutor and Duma member Viktor Ilyukhin, under whose leadership it lost its independence and turned into an appendage of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation.
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| Photo: Vasily Shaposhnikov |
| Former head of the western federal group of forces in Chechnya Vladimir Shamanov is rebuilding Ulyanov Region |
Things did not change immediately when Putin came to power. There even seemed to be a place in national politics for the “Chechen” generals. Putin named Kazantsev presidential envoy for the Southern Federal District in the fall of 2000 (the NCMD came under the command of another Kvashnin colleague, Gen. Troshev) and Shamanov was elected governor of Ulyanov Region in December of the same year.
Political analysts spoke with ever-increasing fervor of the formation of a powerful new political force in Russia. Besides voter support, such as was displayed in Ulyanov Region, this force was guaranteed the backing of the army, after it had quickly become disappointed in Putin for failing to meet hopes of a fast and dramatic improvement in conditions in the military and even instituting measures to deny the military certain benefits). Moreover, the group's leader, Kvashnin, never hid the fact that he had wider interests than just the military. Even in 1996, when he was commander of the NCMD, he spoke passionately with a Vlast correspondent about the problem of population loss in Siberia and the North and Far East of Russia.
The “Chechen” generals were establishing a real base for an anti-Putin opposition. They lacked the financial and organizational resources to attain power, however. Big business had those resources and, in light of Putin's harsh, if not cruel, treatment of it, an alliance between big business and the “Chechen” generals began to look like a possibility.
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| Photo: Vasily Shaposhnikov |
| Former commander of the North Caucasus Military District and presidential envoy Viktor Kazantsev has disappeared from the public eye |
In March 2001, intelligence officer and Putin adviser Sergei Ivanov was appointed minister of defense. That marked the beginning of the gradual removal of the “Chechen” generals from the military leadership.
In May 2001, Nikolay Kormiltsev, chief commander of the land forces and former commander of the Siberia Military District (SMD), was appointed deputy minister of defense. He was the first general in the Russian Federation to become a deputy minister of defense without having served in Chechnya, and this fact showed definitively that the Ministry of Defense did not consider Chechen service decisive in its appointments.
At the beginning of 2003, Troshev was dismissed as commander of the NCMD. He left with a scandal, publicly refusing to follow the order transferring him to SMD and declaring that he could not “betray” his subordinates. At one time, a general of his stature might have gotten away with that. Under Putin, such willfulness was unpardonable and Troshev was drummed out of the military. But, with Duma elections coming up, the Kremlin could not afford a run-in with a popular military figure whose leftist politics were well known. So Troshev was made an advisor to the president on Cossack affairs, where an eye could be kept on him. To satisfy his political ambitions, he was allowed to run for the Duma on the list of the People's Party, a Kremlin-controlled party doomed to failure. As expected, the People's Party did not gain the 5% of the vote necessary for Duma representation, and Troshev's political future fell under a cloud.
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| Photo: Aleksey Kudenko |
| Former commander of the North Caucasus Military District Gennady Troshev now helps the president with the Cossacks |
In March 2004, Kazantsev was relieved of his duties as presidential envoy and replaced by Viktor Yakovlev, former governor of St. Petersburg and vice premier. No other post was offered to him, and Kazantsev effectively disappeared.
The time came for the rest of the “Chechen” generals in July 2004. Rumors of Kvashnin's departure had been circulating since spring, when the Duma adopted amendments to the law “On Defense” that significantly reduced the influence of the General Staff. The formal reason for Kvashnin's ouster was the reorganization of the Ministry of Defense in July, when the number of deputy ministers and other employees was curtailed. Tikhomirov was forced out at the same time as Kvashnin, after the Ministry of the Interior practically made him responsible for the rebel raid in Ingushetia. Gen. Baranov can consider his return to the Caucasus a demotion with padding. After his service in the NCMD and VUMD, he could have expected to become at least a deputy minister.
At the same time, Belousov received the deputy minister's post in charge of battle-readiness and counter-terrorism. He had been in the North Caucasus only in 2003 as deputy commander of the NCMD for emergency situations and had served in the Moscow Military District previous to that. If the June attack on Ingushetia is considered an “emergency situation,” then Belousov should share the blame for it too. But the Kremlin thought otherwise. Today, Belousov coordinates counter-terrorism activities for all of Russia. Seeing that the new Chief of the General Staff is Baluevsky, who was Kvashnin's deputy commander for several years but never close to him personally, it can be said with assurance that the “Chechen” generals have been deposed.
Peter Stolyarov
All the Article in Russian as of July 26, 2004
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