Putin has signed a decree dismissing four-star Gen. Anatoly Kvashnin from his posts as first deputy defense minister and chief of the General Staff, the Kremlin's presidential press service announced Monday. Kvashnin was replaced by his deputy, Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky, it said.

Kvashnin has been a champion of diverting resources to the regular army from Russia's high-tech Strategic Nuclear Forces, a policy Putin at first strongly supported. But despite a free hand in resources, troops and Kvashnin has failed to prevent Chechen guerrillas from running amok in a recent series of daring assassinations, including that of the autonomous republic's own strongly pro-Russian President Akhmad Kadyrov on May 9.

Kvashnin's reputation also took a hammering in recent months as a wave of official reports and media investigations revealed Russia's army remains in a miserable state of readiness. And he had also clashed repeatedly with Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, a Putin favorite, because he and his supporters were blocking Ivanov's attempted to slim down the manpower-heavy army.

But Putin's purge reached far further down the chain of command than Kvashnin. The tough Russian president has also fired three of his top generals in Chechnya following a series of militant attacks.

Putin has signed a presidential decree dismissing three-star Col. Gen. Mikhail Labunets, commander of Russia's Interior Ministry troops in the North Caucasus. He has also dismissed Federal Security Service, or FSB, Deputy Director Col. Gen. Anatoly Yezhkov, who was in charge of FSB operations in the North Caucasus, and deputy interior minister and interior troops' commander in chief, Vyacheslav Tikhomirov, the Interfax news agency reported Monday. It cited a source in the presidential press service for its report.

Kvashnin won Putin's confidence with his tough, visionary confident talk about reforming Russia's army and streamlining it to meet the new security challenges of the 21st century. At first, like U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Kvashnin preached the need for a new, lean, mean scaled-down professional army of a far higher professional caliber, which could respond quickly to security threats.

But while Kvashnin could talk the talk, he couldn't walk the walk. In practice, almost nothing was done and a wave of reports have documented the continuing low morale, the miserable levels of training and equipment, and outdated operational doctrine hobbling Russia's still large conventional military forces.

The thoroughness of Putin's purge revealed his anger and frustration at the failure of his team of previously handpicked generals to prevent, deter or end the latest renewed wave of guerrilla violence that has swept Chechnya over the past two months.

Despite having two massive popular uprisings crushed by overwhelming Russian force and firepower at the cost of between 100,000 to 200,000 dead in the past decade, the little, rebellious autonomous republic of 1.7 million people has been rocked by a series of high-level assassinations of prominent pro-Russian leaders.

The most spectacular of these came in May when Kadyrov, Putin's handpicked choice to lead Chechnya back to a peaceful and stable place in the Russian federation, was blown apart by a land mine while he was presiding over World War II Victory Day celebrations at a soccer stadium in his capital city Grozny.

But since then, the killings have continued. Just the day before Putin's shake-up was announced, yet another prominent Chechen supporter of Putin was killed. Tamara Khadzhiveya, an activist in the United Russia Party, was gunned down early Sunday morning in the town of Shali. Masked assailants broke into her home and killed her there.

Khadizhevaya was the chairwoman of the local branch of the party and the sister of prominent pro-Russian Chechen politician and businessman Salambek Khadzhiyev. The militants had slain two of her relatives, both policemen in the past three months.

Kvashnin and his troops and security services failed to make even a dent in the killings. Strikingly, to replace the chief of staff, Putin turned to a veteran of service in the Caucasus.

The Kremlin's presidential press service said and 57-year-old Baluyevsky had commanded the North Caucasus military district earlier in his career. Baluyevsky also held important command positions in the South Caucasus and served for the past seven years as Kvashnin's deputy, Interfax said.

Russian forces, for all their vast numerical superiority and toughness have been repeatedly taken by surprise by the latest wave of guerrilla attacks. Despite their decade-long intimate familiarity with full-scale military operations in Chechnya, they have failed to penetrate the inner circles of the current guerrilla network to any discernible degree.

Russian Special Forces have proven tough and fast reacting in their ability to hunt down and destroy some guerrilla bands. They have killed almost 20 guerrillas in two major clashes this weekend alone. But army and police regular forces have repeatedly been caught with their pants down.

Back in May, 90 people were killed in a massive series of guerrilla attacks in neighboring Ingushetia.

Putin will now demand that Baluyevsky put together a new command team to succeed where Kvashnin and his colleagues failed. The new commanders won't be stinted on resources or prevented from resorting to ruthless measures. But successful new thinking may be harder to come by.

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