Yeltsin Braces for Trouble at Home

By Frank Pellegrini Monday, July 27, 1998
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MOSCOW: Russia's new $18 billion IMF deal comes loaded with a raft of economic strictures, and Boris Yeltsin knows that the Russian people are in for a long autumn of discontent. Time for a new top cop. TIME Moscow correspondent Andrew Meier says Yeltsin's sacking Sunday of his domestic security chief means the Russian president is intent on keeping his government young, strong and in firm control of the populace.

The new head of the FSB (successor to the KGB) will be Vladimir Putin, a former spy in Germany who now serves in Yeltsin's presidential administration. "At 45, Putin is much closer in thinking and age to the new 30-something men who now rule Russia," says Meier. "It reveals the desire of the new generation in power to push the grayhairs from the controls of the security forces" -- and make sure the troops remain loyal and battle-ready for the tough times ahead.