#14 - RW 261
Izvestia
June 10, 2003
MERIDIANS AND PARALLELS
Russian Navy conquering the world again
AN UPDATE ON THE CONDITION AND PROWESS OF THE RUSSIAN NAVY.
Author: Dmitry Litovkin
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]

IN LESS THAN A YEAR THE RUSSIAN NAVY HAS EXECUTED A SERIES OF LARGE-SCALE EXERCISES THAT WERE NOT MISSED BY THE WORLD

IN LESS THAN A YEAR THE RUSSIAN NAVY HAS EXECUTED A SERIES OF LARGE- SCALE MANEUVERS THAT WERE NOT MISSED BY THE WORLD. ONE EXERCISE TOOK PLACE IN THE CASPIAN SEA; THE OTHER HAS JUST ENDED. RUSSIAN SHIPS RETURNED TO THE INDIAN OCEAN TO DRILL JOINT MANEUVERS WITH THE INDIAN NAVY... NEW PLANS ARE BEING CHARTED NOW. THE RUSSIAN FORCES IN THE FAR EAST PREPARE THEMSELVES FOR THE EXERCISE TO TAKE PLACE IN THE PACIFIC THIS AUGUST.

"No sailor will venture comments on the exercise before he is safely back home," this correspondent was told by a source close to Navy Commander Vladimir Kuroyedov in response to the request to say something about the recent sortie to the Indian Ocean. The missile cruiser Moskva of the Black Sea Fleet and big ASW ships Marshal Shaposhnikov and Admiral Panteleev of the Pacific Fleet executed it. A similar response was received in answer to the request to dwell on the plans for the future. Soon after that Kuroyedov himself left for Kaliningrad to keep an eye on preparations of the exercises to be organized for ships of the Baltic and Pacific fleets.

Large-scale maneuvers of the Pacific Fleet are planned for August too. Chief of the General Staff Anatoly Kvashnin even made a trip to Vladivostok to monitor one phase of the preparations. It may be added that the Russian ships have not yet returned from the Indian Ocean.

The Navy found itself abandoned when the Soviet Union collapsed. A mess with definition of Russia's national interests on the world's oceans and under-funding resulted in a situation when construction of new ships was curtailed and those ships already built were sold abroad. The state defense order for the Navy in 1990 was down to one- twentieth of what it used to be in the past. The ratio of naval spending in the military budget went down from 23% to 9.2%. Sources who know what they are talking about say that less than 5% really materialized.

The number of ships went down from 428 to 273, that of ships on duty from 210 to 28, manpower from 424,000 to 169,000. Mediterranean, Indian, and Pacific squadrons of ships were disbanded. Naval aviation was effectively grounded by the loss of its bases in Cuba, the Mideast, and Africa. The Navy became coastal. Strategic nuclear submarines made 80 sorties to their stations and surface combatants 125 in 1985. Ten years later these figures were down to 18 and 45 correspondingly.

According to Admiral Viktor Kravchenko, Chief of the Navy General Staff, all of that led to the situation when the country could not maintain security of its maritime economic activities and all but stripped it of the chance to ameliorate the situation in future.

Russia has borders with 18 countries on land and with 127 in the sea. In well-developed countries the navies get between 20% and 30% of the national military budget. US and other NATO navies have twelve nuclear submarines constantly patrolling their stations in the strategic areas adjacent to the Russian territory. All in all, there are over 130 surface combatants and submarines of more than 20 countries on combat duty at sea every day.

Reappearance in the Indian Ocean is a signal that Russia also has its interests in the world's oceans and that it does have something to defend them with.

Before 2001, Russia did not have a single satellite above the Asian-Pacific region. It did not control the situation there and could not even send its ships and aircraft to the region. Everything changed last year when the Space Force launched a satellite to a geo- stationary orbit. The satellite in question is an element of the missile attack early warning system. Specialists do not rule out the possibility that apart of being an electronic eye, the satellite may also provide data for strategic missile-carrying aircraft, ships, and long-range guided missiles (over 3,500 kilometers).

According to Space Force Commander Anatoly Perminov, there will be at least 60 - 65 military satellites and 15 - 16 dual application satellites in geo-stationary and other orbits within the next two or three years, and the group will be increased to 70 military and 30 civilian satellites over the next five years. According to the military, n army in the world can hope to be effective without satellites.

Russia will make some changes in armaments as well. Weapons will be universal, capable of being adapted to all ships of all projects. Moreover, they will be constructed in such a manner so as to make their future modification easier. All of that is to happen before late 2004 when the Navy sums up the contest for construction of long-range oceanic combatants.

Russia's Navy is to be rearmed, President Vladimir Putin said on his tour of the Russian Far East last October. According to the president, "Russia has a program of rearmament" and "its implementation will elevate our Navy to a wholly new level."

(Translated by A. Ignatkin)

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