Russian Chief General Staff to be Sacked?

While we have been busy over here, seems there is a bit of a dust-up that has arisen overseas between President Putin and his CGS, Yuriy Baluyevskiy centered on the INF treaty and Russia’s continued adherence in view of the proposed US European site for a portion of its ballistic missile defense system.  When Secretaries Rice and gates arrived in Moscow earlier last week they were "cordially" greeted by President Putin who proceeded to lecture them both for a good thirty minutes over the pending BMD deployment and threatened to withdraw from the Treaty if the deployment proceeded. 

Of course, he later went to Iran this week to make nice with Ahmadinejad…

 In the interim, Yuriy Baluyevskiy made the following statement as part of an interview: 

 "I would be in no hurry today to demolish this treaty. Its demolition could, in my view, have irreversible consequences." And, generally, according to Baluyevskiy, there is no "compelling need to quit this treaty immediately."

That couldn’t have gone over well in the halls of the Kremlin, and indeed, according to a daily paper in Moscow (the Moscow Gazeta, not associated with gazeta.ru), proceedings may be underway to fire Baluyevskiy… (more below the fold)

Here’s the meat of the Gazeta’s article:

Gazeta’s sources in Arbatskaya Ploshchad believe that Baluyevskiy has overstepped the invisible line of what is permissible and connect this with the in-house situation in the MoD. "Yuriy Baluyevskiy is a combatant general that is respected and popular in the army. Following the departure of Sergey Ivanov, the generals wanted him as minister. Serdyukov will in the MoD never become one of theirs," the source said. According to him, Baluyevskiy’s irritation with Serdyukov was manifested particularly in the past month. On 18 September the minister tendered his resignation in connection with his father in law, Viktor Zubkov, having been appointed premier. On 24 September the president denied Serdyukov his request, but the chief of the General Staff managed to get plenty done in this time. Specifically, on 20 September, during a visit to the 76th Pskov Airborne Division, he uttered sacramental words that will be remembered well in the defense department: the MoD could be led by a woman. In addition, Baluyevskiy identified the range of duties of the defense minister, who must know the problems of the armed forces, and his main function is to "ensure that the men are fed, that they have a new tank."

Gazeta’s sources do not rule out the chief of the General Staff knowing about his imminent dismisal (Colonel-General Igor Bykov, chief of the Main Military Medical Directorate, has as of September been tipped as a candidate for departure together with him), this is why he so boldly pointed out to Putin yesterday the shortcomings in his INF analysis—to the extent of his notions of Russia’s interests.

(source: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty)

In the interrum, the Russian CGS noted in public, "I would be in no hurry today to demolish this treaty. Its demolition could, in my view, have irreversible consequences."

 That couldn’t have gone over well in the halls of the Kremlin, and according to the Moscow Gazeta (not the gazeta.ru) will probably result in the firing of Yuriy Baluyevskiy…more below the fold