PRESIDENT Boris Yeltsin, fighting for re-election in June, has ordered an end to Russia's centuries old practice of military conscription by early 2000, Interfax news agency said.
It quoted Mr Yeltsin's decree as saying that by the spring of that year the Russian armed forces should be formed by "voluntary contracting citizens . . . with conscription abandoned".
Mr Yeltsin's decree said this also referred to "other troops" a clear reference to interior ministry forces, border guards, fire brigades and some other services which rely on conscripts.
Mr Yeltsin's move, which could not be immediately confirmed, would start a long awaited radical military reform and could help sway the votes of millions of parents and potential conscripts, who are reluctant to join the armed forces.
It is likely to be fiercely attacked by his communist and nationalist opponents who have rallied behind Mr Gennady Zyuganov to defeat Mr Yeltsin.
Conscription has long been a symbol of Russia's concept of military service as the "honourable duty" of each male citizen. But the bloody conflict in Chechnya has deprived it of its appeal for many young men, who try their best to escape it.
The last Soviet leader, Mr Mikhail Gorbachev, whose liberal perestroika policy of the 1980s was accompanied by a powerful pacifist movement, reduced compulsory armed service to 18 months from two years. But the Russian parliament reinstated two year service last year.
Interfax said President Yeltsin had also ordered his government to work out ways to make professional army service more attractive through financial benefits and other encouragement's.
Meanwhile, Russian warplanes, helicopter gunships and artillery pounded the villages of Stary Achkhoi and Bamut in southwestern Chechnya yesterday in a continuing offensive against rebel strongholds, Interfax reported.
Rebel leaders quoted by Interfax said they were not planning any attacks on President Yeltsin if he visited the republic this month as planned.
However, Commander Shamil Basayev, a senior field officer who led a mass hostage taking raid inside southern Russia last June, said in an interview on NTV television on Tuesday that he would try to make sure Mr Yeltsin never left the republic alive. Mr Yeltsin's top security advisers have warned him not to visit Chechnya.