Crisis talks on Russia's military

Russian President Vladimir Putin has summoned top security officials to discuss what has officially been described as the "worse than critical" state of the armed forces.
His Chief of the General Staff, Anatoli Kvashnin, said at a seminar in Moscow that the country's armed forces were beset by poverty and crime.

General Kvashnin warned that miserly salaries were prompting an increasing number of officers to quit the ranks.

His comments are one of the most dramatic official acknowledgments of the desperate condition of the once-mighty military, which has fallen into decay since the end of the Soviet Union in 1991.