Putin: Military development should be top priority for Russia

MOSCOW - The development of the armed forces should be a key government priority to ensure stability in Russia, President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday.

Putin indicated that the Russian military must be prepared to handle domestic threats, such as rebels in Chechnya, and external ones - such as international terrorism and a perceived threat from the West.

''Today, the military factor is vital above all for preserving stability in the country, for ensuring its peaceful and progressive development,'' Putin told top military and security officers during a meeting in the Kremlin. ''The defense capability should be a priority of our state.''

A firm advocate of the war in Chechnya, Putin enjoyed strong backing from the military in his presidential election bid. Analysts say Russian generals hoped he would increase financing for the army.

But the cash-strapped government has been unable to give the military more money, and with the Chechnya war dragging on, the top military brass is split over whether Russia should use its scarce funds for conventional weapons or nuclear arms.

Putin ''made a very militarist statement, and now the army will be waiting to see whether they are going to get money,'' independent military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer said.

Putin also alluded to U.S. plans to build a limited national system of missile defense - a project Russia opposes, despite Washington's assurances that the system would be aimed not against Russia, but against states such as North Korea or Iran.

''The main international problem today is the plan to destroy the strategic balance in the world,'' Putin said.

Putin, a former KGB officer, rejected speculation that he is planning to merge Russia's special services into a single, KGB-style system.

''The rumors about a merger, about a restoration of a superstructure, should end,'' Putin said, according to the Interfax news agency.

In Chechnya, meanwhile, Russian artillery targeted the breakaway republic's eastern forests to keep the rebels from crossing into Dagestan and disrupting Russian military exercises there, local officials said. Elsewhere, the rebels kept up small-scale attacks against Russian positions.

Fifteen Russian servicemen were wounded Monday in Chechnya's capital, Grozny, when a remote-controlled mine detonated under their truck, the Interfax news agency reported. That attack occurred on the same day as rebels ambushed a military convoy elsewhere in the city, killing at least three soldiers and wounding 17.

An official in the pro-Moscow Chechen administration said three Russian soldiers were wounded in Grozny on Monday night as rebels attacked six federal checkpoints.

Russian troops were driven out of Chechnya in a 1994-96 war with independence fighters, and Moscow lost control of the region. Troops returned in September after militants based in Chechnya raided villages in the neighboring Russian region of Dagestan, and after about 300 people were killed in apartment bombings the authorities blame on Chechen militants.