 The commanding officer of the Army, General G. I. Yakovlev, was openly supportive of the newly created PMR.He participated in the founding of the PMR, served in the PMR Supreme Soviet and accepted the position as the first chairman of the PMR Department of Defense on 3 December 1991, causing the Commander-in-Chief of the CIS armed forces, Yevgeny Shaposhnikov, to relieve him of his rank and service in the Russian military.Yakovlev's successor, General Yuriy Netkachev has assumed a more neutral stance in the conflict.