GEN Igor Rodionov a career army officer and protege of national security chief Gen Alexander Lebed, was appointed Russian Defence Minister yesterday by presidential decree.
Gen Rodionov (59) was head of the military academy of the Russian armed forces headquarters. Earlier in his career he was in charge of the Soviet Transcaucasus military district and in the mid 1980s commanded the 40th Soviet army in Afghanistan.
He replaces Gen Pavel Grachev, who was dismissed last month, when Gen Lebed was appointed President Yeltsin's national security adviser and secretary of the security council.
Gen Rodionov said his first job would be to "tackle hotspots where our people are dying".
We have to get to grips with the situation in Chechnya, Tajikistan, Bosnia, in order to take the necessary steps," he told ITARTASS news agency.
Gen Lebed, also an Afghan war veteran, praised the new Defence Minister as "an elite general", and the appointment should boost Gen Lebed's influence in the Kremlin.
Gen Lebed, who joined Mr Yeltsin's inner circle on June 18th after coming third in the first round of the presidential elections, thinks Gen Rodionov can ensure order, act against corruption and modernise the armed forces", an aide told Interfax news agency yesterday.
Seven generals allied to Gen Grachev were sacked after Gen Lebed accused four of them of trying to mobilise the army to put pressure on Mr Yeltsin before the second round of the elections on July 3rd.
Gen Rodionov, as commander of the Transcaucasus military district, was in charge of troops who brutally broke up a nationalist demonstration in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, in 1989, killing 20 civilians. He was transferred to another post after the incident.
Observers said the unprecedented delay in naming the new Defence Minister signalled a disagreement between Mr Yeltsin and Gen Lebed over the choice.
Mr Yeltsin insisted that the key criteria for the appointment would be the candidate's ability to modernise Russia's cash strapped and demoralised armed forces and ensure adequate social support for professional soldiers.
One of Gen Rodionov's priorities will be to improve the situation in Chechnya, where Russian forces have been bombarding pro-rebel villages in a new week long offensive which shattered a fragile ceasefire.
An estimated 40,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in the 19 month conflict.
Mr Sergei Markov, a political analyst at the Carnegie Endowment in Moscow, said that Gen Rodionov's appointment was "a great victory for Lebed".
"Yeltsin was against appointing Rodionov for the very reason that he is too close to Lebed."
Mr Mikhail Gerasev, an analyst at the USA Canada Institute in Moscow, said that "a more balanced division of roles in the presidential team would have been preferable".