Yeltsin Orders Defense Minister to Don Mufti

President Boris N. Yeltsin on Wednesday gave his country its first civilian defense minister in modern history--a new signal that Russia is moving away from its military superpower past.

But the transformation owed more to sleight of hand than change of heart. To achieve it, Yeltsin simply ordered Gen. Igor N. Rodionov, his serving defense minister, to retire from the armed forces and “become” a civilian minister.

“Gen. Rodionov is relieved from military service because he has reached retirement age,” a presidential decree released by the Kremlin said. Rodionov turned 60 on Dec. 1.

Yeltsin was later quoted by Russian news agencies as saying a civilian would head the Defense Ministry in the future.

“The experience of democratic states shows that a civilian heading a defense ministry can successfully resolve the whole complex of problems of strengthening the defense capability of the state,” Yeltsin said.

He added that Rodionov--appointed to head the ministry in July--would continue to deal with military reform. This includes the planned creation of a professional army in the next few years to replace the unwieldy, underfed, underpaid army of conscripts that Russia inherited from the old Soviet Union.

Yeltsin himself has been out of public view for months and underwent quintuple heart bypass surgery a month ago. The date of his return to the Kremlin has been postponed until the final 10 days of this month, but aides say he is well on the way to recovery.

Bolstering the idea that his health is improving, Yeltsin’s office has announced high-profile meetings with foreign leaders, including a summit with President Clinton in March. Going ahead with the change in Rodionov’s status indicates that Yeltsin is picking up the threads of government work again.

Liberals and moderates have long argued for appointing a civilian to the top defense job, saying it would show that Russia had become more peaceable. Their views have surfaced in recent months after hawks in government were humiliated by the failure of Russian troops to defeat separatists who waged a 20-month war in the southern region of Chechnya.

Prime Minister Viktor S. Chernomyrdin professed himself delighted.

“It is more efficient when the war minister is a civilian person. It is by no means a demotion. It enhances the role of the person of defense minister in the state,” Chernomyrdin said enthusiastically.

Vladimir P. Lukin, head of a parliamentary foreign affairs committee, pronounced Rodionov’s new civilian status “not a bad symbolic gesture,” adding that “the main thing is to continue this tradition and reach the point where people in civilian jackets run the Defense Ministry in the future too.”

But a note of gentle mockery, or more overt skepticism, came from other directions.

“Igor Rodionov was one of the first to come out with this idea that Russia should have a civilian defense minister. He said it even back in the days when he headed” the general staff, Security Council chief Ivan P. Rybkin said. “I think that Igor Rodionov’s prestige will not diminish at all if he takes off his epaulets and puts on a civilian suit. That won’t be his problem. The only problem he will have is finding new civilian clothes, because he has spent all his life in tailor-made military uniforms.”

Pavel Felgengauer, military specialist at Sevodnya newspaper, said he believed that Russia’s need for a civilian defense minister who understood the pressures of democracy and market reform had not been met by Wednesday’s change.

“I do not think this is the right decision. The Defense Ministry needs a team of professional civilians who know how an army has to be organized in the circumstances of a market economy,” he said. “But even if Rodionov takes off his green army jacket, he does not become such an expert. Rodionov is not an efficient, modern lobbyist but an old-style Soviet military professional.”