MOSCOW — A top Russian general said yesterday that Moscow may unilaterally opt out of a Soviet-era arms reduction treaty with the America, Russian news agencies reported.

General Yuri Baluyevsky, the chief of the Russian military’s general staff, was quoted by ITARTass and Interfax as saying that Russia could pull out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, negotiated between Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and President Reagan in 1987.

He said the decision would depend on the America’s actions with its proposed missile defense system, parts of which Washington is seeking to deploy in Poland and the Czech Republic.

The treaty eliminated an entire class of medium-range missiles that had been based in Europe.

General Baluyevsky’s comments come after President Putin said on Saturday that the INF treaty no longer serves Russia’s interests.

[Meanwhile, the Bloomberg News agency reported yesterday that Russian Mr. Putin promoted Sergei Ivanov to first deputy prime minister from defense minister, giving him the same rank as his main rival to replace Mr. Putin next year.

Mr. Putin’s announcement of Mr. Ivanov’s promotion was broadcast on Russian television yesterday. The presidential press service could not immediately be reached for comment.

“The successor’s name is still unknown but Sergei Ivanov has a very good chance,” Olga Khrystanovskaya, a Moscow-based analyst of the Russian political elite, said in a telephone interview. Mr. Ivanov’s promotion “allows him to become a more wide-ranging politician.”

It also places Mr. Ivanov, 54, on the same level as the other first deputy prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev, 41. The two men are frequently cited by Russian press as the front-runners to succeed Mr. Putin, who’s also 54. The country is scheduled to hold a presidential election in March 2008, and Mr. Putin is barred by the constitution from standing for a third consecutive term.

Mr. Ivanov has support from the powerful group of former KGB Soviet security-service agents who wield the most influence in Mr. Putin’s government, unlike Mr. Medvedev, Ms. Khrystanovskaya said.

“Ivanov is a strong figure. He is part of the politburo of security hawks who decide everything.” Messrs. Putin and Ivanov both served in the KGB.

Mr. Ivanov’s rise through Russia’s state structures has tracked Mr. Putin’s. He became deputy director of the Federal Security Service, or FSB, the main successor to the KGB, when Mr. Putin was appointed the service’s director in 1998. He then rose to head Russia’s Security Council in November 1999 when Mr. Putin left that post to become prime minister and then president the next year.

Mr. Ivanov has taken a tough line with America, criticizing U.S. bases in Central Asia after the September 11, 2001, attacks and American plans for a missile defense shield in eastern Europe.

Mr. Medvedev, who worked with Mr. Putin in the St. Petersburg city administration after the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991, courted Western investors at the Davos economic forum last month. He is currently tasked by Mr. Putin with raising the standard of education, housing, and health care in Russia.]

Meanwhile, Estonian lawmakers yesterday narrowly approved a bill calling for the removal of a Soviet war memorial from their capital, ignoring Moscow’s warning of “irreversible consequences” for relations between the two countries.

In a 46–44 vote, lawmakers in the 101-member assembly approved the Law on Forbidden Structures, which prohibits the public display of monuments that glorify the five-decade Soviet occupation of Estonia. Eleven lawmakers were absent or abstained.

The Bronze Soldier, a six-foot statue in downtown Tallinn, has become a rallying point for Estonia’s ethnic Russians, who make up about one-third of the Baltic country’s 1.3 million residents. The statue was erected in 1947 as a tribute to Red Army soldiers who were killed fighting Nazi Germany.

Many Estonians see it as a bitter reminder of the hardships and repression they endured under decades of Soviet occupation. For Russians, the Red Army’s crucial role in defeating Nazi Germany remains a cherished point of national pride.

Plans to remove the statue have infuriated Moscow, which accuses Estonia and neighboring Latvia of discriminating against Russian-speakers.

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said passing the bill was a “grave mistake, a sacrilegious action which is unacceptable in today’s Europe,” Russian news outlets reported.