Appointing General Igor Rodionov as Russia's new defence minister last month, President Boris Yeltsin called on him to "bring elementary order to the army". The officer corps was "corroded by corruption". The bullying of conscripts was proving "impossible" to eradicate. It sounded like a damning verdict on the record of Mr Rodionov's predecessor, Gen-eral Pavel Grachev, defence minister since 1992. Whether or not Mr Yeltsin recognised as much, it was also a damning verdict on his own willingness to keep Mr Grachev in place for so long. A year and a half of brutal and bumbling warfare in Chechnya (see box) had already made the failings of Mr Grachev, and of the army under his command, horribly obvious to all save Mr Yeltsin himself.
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