Yeltsin continues purge of the army

President Boris Yeltsin prepared the ground for a new purge of Russia's armed forces yesterday after a parliamentary report implicated a number of prominent generals in an ever-widening circle of corruption scandals. Most of those named were closely associated with Pavel Grachev, the former defence minister whom Mr Yeltsin sacrificed midway through his re-election campaign.

Seven generals were fired soon after Mr Grachev's dismissal, but the details of flagrant corruption were kept under wraps until after Mr Yeltsin's victory last Wednesday. The armed forces shake-up, accompanied by the dismissal last month of the head of the former KGB and Mr Yeltsin's personal security chief, appeared to boost the position of Alexander Lebed, the new national security chief.

The charges of high-level corruption were made by Lev Rokhlin, a general and a member of the pro-government Our Home Is Russia party in the State Duma (lower house of parliament). He accused Mr Grachev of "wallowing in corruption".

Whilst the charges against Mr Grachev came as no surprise, the political implications of a full-scale clear-out of the army's upper ranks are less obvious. At first sight it would appear to strengthen the hand of Mr Lebed, but other longer-serving members of Mr Yeltsin's administration have indicated that they think he has enough power.

General Rokhlin told parliament that some of the most serious abuses involved a construction company, Lyukon, which was contracted after 1993 to build homes for servicemen. He said a general named Yuri Rodionov signed a request to give defence ministry credits to Lyukon although the company had not met a deadline for a 25-storey building. The request was also signed by General Konstantin Kobets, chief inspector of the armed forces, whose son was a co-founder of Lyukon.

General Rokhlin said one general had transferred $23.1m (pounds 15.5m) from ammunition sales in Bulgaria to a German bank. Another "formed a battalion of slaves ... to earn money for the construction of dachas", including four for himself.