Russia's embattled defense minister, Pavel Grachev, said Thursday that losses incurred in the war in Chechnya were entirely due to mistakes made by junior officers, Interfax reported.


"We had planned to start it as a surprise and with minimal losses," Grachev said on his arrival in Almaty, the capital of Kazakhstan, for a summit meeting of the Commonwealth of Independent States. "The losses were a result of the absent-mindedness of some low-ranking commanders who expected an easy victory and relaxed."


The comments contrasted with Grachev's boast last November that a war in Chechnya could be settled "in two hours with one parachute regiment."


Alleging that all attacks on him had come from people who wished to see President Boris Yeltsin fall from power, Grachev said his critics were simply unhappy that the army was "on its feet, fighting and carrying out orders.


"We had to destroy a 15,000-strong military force of the enemy in a city with a population of 300,000," Grachev said, adding that Russia wanted "not just to disarm them but also to keep the city's infrastructure intact and ensure that human rights were not violated."


The statement provoked outrage from the Committee of Soldiers' Mothers, critics of the war in Chechnya.


"What is his understanding of minimal losses? One person or a million people?" asked committee member Tatyana Znachkova. "What have our people done to deserve people like this in power?"


Meanwhile, Yeltsin came under harsh criticism from General Alexander Lebed, the maverick officer who commands Russian forces in the Transdnestr region of Moldova.


Lebed called the Kremlin leadership "criminal" because of the Chechnya campaign in an interview with the weekly newspaper Echo of Chisinau, Reuters reported. "The president of Russia should tender his resignation," he said. "Unprepared, untrained boys have been thrown to face bullets. It is a criminal power that sends hundreds of its citizens to certain death."


It was the first time Lebed had called for Yeltsin's removal over the war, although he has hit out at Grachev.


The defense minister has recently been under much scrutiny, not only for human-rights violations and massive civilian losses in Chechnya but also for allegedly holding a secret bank account in Germany and for the alleged involvement of his ministry in the death of Moskovsky Komsomolets reporter Dmitry Kholodov last autumn.


As the press continued to speculate on Grachev's possible dismissal, Yeltsin signed a decree Thursday dismissing deputy defense ministers Colonel General Georgy Kondratyov and Colonel General Matvei Burlakov.


Kondratyov, who had criticized the Russian Army's operation in Chechnya from the beginning, was unofficially relieved of his duties in January, together with generals Boris Gromov and Valery Mironov.


Burlakov has been implicated in Kholodov's murder and in large-scale corruption during the army's retreat from eastern Germany. Although no decree was issued by Yeltsin, Burlakov was stripped of his title last November. Nevertheless, he had continued to perform the tasks of a deputy minister.