President Boris Yeltsin has dismissed the head of Russia's arms-trading monopoly, Yevgeny Ananyev, who's been in the job for just over a year.

A Kremlin official said he will be replaced by Grigory Rapota, a former KGB official and a long-time assistant to the Prime Minister, Yevgeny Primakov.Mr Ananyev has been sharply criticised by the new government following a drop in Russian arms exports over the last year