Russian Minister Alleges ‘Creeping Coup’ Plot

A Russian Cabinet minister on Wednesday struck the fiercest blow yet in the protracted Kremlin power struggle, accusing flamboyant security chief Alexander I. Lebed of plotting to seize power by force while President Boris N. Yeltsin awaits heart bypass surgery.

With the 65-year-old Yeltsin’s future ability to rule increasingly in doubt as doctors prepare him for an operation, tentatively scheduled for later this year, a clutch of would-be presidents has begun squabbling over the succession.

Lebed “has decided to move ahead using force instead of waiting for the next presidential election,” Interior Minister Anatoly S. Kulikov told a news conference. “The question is what awaits Russia if Lebed comes to power through a creeping coup.”

Kulikov aired his accusations as U.S. Defense Secretary William J. Perry flew here for a visit intended to persuade the Russian parliament to ratify the START II treaty, which would slash the number of strategic nuclear warheads to one-third of Cold War levels.

But overshadowing Perry’s visit, Kulikov asserted that Lebed has secret plans to create a 50,000-strong elite force, “the Russian Legion,” to “localize political and armed confrontation and destroy the leaders of political, separatist and other organizations.”

He also said Lebed has been plotting with separatists in the breakaway region of Chechnya to back his planned rise to power in Russia. Kulikov said that “strange questions” have been asked about the defensibility of the main television station in Moscow.

“As long as I keep my job, I will resist this to the best of my ability,” Kulikov added in an interview with commercial NTV television.

He said he had submitted documents to Prime Minister Viktor S. Chernomyrdin to prove his claims.

Lebed, who openly declares his interest in the next presidency, is a former paratroop general who was appointed head of Russia’s Security Council this summer.

He has become the country’s most popular politician. But his relentless frankness and a much-publicized series of politically naive outbursts have earned him as many enemies among the elite as friends.

Chief among his foes is Kulikov, whom Lebed has accused of being to blame for Russian misconduct in a war with the Chechen separatists.

Lebed, whose popularity is based on his incorruptibility thus far, has made it plain that he believes the war, now suspended, was waged by generals for personal profit.

Lebed laughed off Kulikov’s allegations, the latest in weeks of mudslinging among Kremlin insiders. “The poor guy has let his tongue run away with him,” Lebed said with a tight smile.

He told Interfax news agency that he will file a slander lawsuit against Kulikov, demanding symbolic damages of 1 ruble (0.02 cents) to prove that “I don’t need his bribe money.”

Lebed said that he had sent the Defense and Interior ministries a request to form regional brigades of 3,000 to 3,500 members so “there would be some sort of strength in the country” and that he had been told that it would be possible to create such brigades in 1999.

These requests were made publicly, Lebed added, insisting that there is no question of mutiny.

“Russia has a president. He is ill. . . . The president has been run down in a most shameless way. I will not permit in principle the temporary weakness of the president to be used against him or against Russia,” he told Interfax.

Yeltsin’s press office said the president is worried about Kulikov’s claims. Yeltsin has demanded that Chernomyrdin and Kulikov provide him with more details.

Chernomyrdin, another presidential hopeful, swiftly announced that he planned a conference with Kulikov and the heads of defense and intelligence today, officials said.

Anatoly B. Chubais, powerful head of Yeltsin’s administration and widely seen as Russia’s unofficial regent since early summer, when the president’s illness began to prevent him from working more than a couple of hours a day, will also take part.

Other public figures greeted the news with a mixture of alarm and disbelief.

Chechen separatists--whose friendship Lebed won in August by negotiating an end to fighting with Russian forces--were quick to sound the alarm, suggesting that Kulikov was trying to undermine the peace process, Interfax said.

Parliament Speaker Gennady N. Seleznyov said Kulikov’s accusations gave the impression of being a practical joke, but he added that the documents Kulikov claimed to have given the prime minister needed to be checked.

Seleznyov called the flare-up a “settling of accounts. . . . Perhaps Lebed . . . wants to walk out slamming the door because he started the [presidential] race too early.”