MOSCOW, January 22 (AVN) - President Vladimir Putin has handed the command over the Chechnya campaign to Colonel-General Nikolai Patrushev, Federal Security Service (FSB) chief, a high-ranking official in the General Staff main operations department told the Military News Agency on Monday.
This decision has been awaited since the main rebel forces were destroyed as a result of full-scale hostilities in Chechnya, the official said. Rebels started operating in small sabotage and terrorist groups and are not capable to withstand full-scale clashes with federal military units.
The original plan was to put the Interior Ministry in charge of the operation, the official said. But Putin made another decision and the Defence Ministry believes he was right. The main task at the moment is to eliminate the rebel leadership, and this is within the competence of the FSB which has the needed forces and equipment to do it. Armed Forces units, Interior Ministry units and policemen will stay in Chechnya and accomplish their organic missions in accordance with Patrushev's plans.
Putin's aide Sergei Yasterzhembsky and Colonel-General Yuri Baluevsky, first deputy chief-of-staff and head of the main operations department, are expected to clear out the situation at a news conference that started in Moscow at 13.00 Moscow time (1000 GMT).