#10
Moskovsky Komsomolets
November 22, 2001
IN CAMOUFLAGE
Putin loves the army, but his love brings few benefits
Author: Viktor Sokirko
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]

DURING HIS ELECTION CAMPAIGN, VLADIMIR PUTIN RELIED MOSTLY ON THE ARMY, AND SHOWERED IT WITH ALL SORTS OF GESTURES AND PROMISES. UNFORTUNATELY, PROMISES ARE ALL THEY TURNED OUT TO BE. PROMISES TO BE MADE AND PROMPTLY FORGOTTEN, SINCE MILITARY PERSONNEL HAVEN'T SEEN MANY REAL BENEFITS WITH PUTIN IN POWER.

Vladimir Putin's promises to the army haven't been kept

WHEN HIS ELECTION CAMPAIGN WAS UNFOLDING, VLADIMIR PUTIN RELIED MOSTLY ON THE ARMY, AND SHOWERED IT WITH ALL SORTS OF GESTURES. HE FLEW COMBAT PLANES, WENT OUT TO THE SEA IN SUBMARINES, AND PROMISED HIGHER SALARIES. ALL THIS WAS ACCOMPANIED BY ALL THE CORRECT WORDS ABOUT SECURITY, NECESSITY TO BOOST THE NATION'S DEFENCE CAPACITY, AND A BETTER LOT FOR SERVICEMEN, WHO SURELY DESERVE IT. UNFORTUNATELY, PROMISES ARE ALL THEY TURNED OUT TO BE. PROMISES TO BE MADE AND PROMPTLY FORGOTTEN.

The best disciplined part of society by definition, the military performs its duties but dissatisfied muttering get louder and louder. The army will not march the streets with hand-painted slogans of course, but no one is going to keep officers in the Army and Navy. Even the much publicized reorganizations and reductions are not needed. What with the ongoing staff drain, the Armed Forces will cease to exist entirely on their own. Statistical data already shows that officers resigning the services far outnumber graduates from military educational establishments who come to the Armed Forces every year.

The army has a lot of grudges to nurture and feel slighted. Most of them are grudges against the president aka supreme commander-in- chief. The most banal of them concern the so-called social protection of servicemen - salaries, flats, prestige of military service. At first, when Putin was making promises, even the worst skeptics still remembering Boris Yeltsin and his wild promises trusted him. When the president himself is talking the necessity of restoring prestige of the Armed Forces, something surely should change in the complicated relations between the army and the state. Thousands of resignations were cancelled then. Disappointment was quick to follow...

No higher salaries for the military. Promises were made to raise salaries by 20% as of September 1. Salaries were not raised. These days, servicemen are promised higher salaries again in return for no more benefits - on the president's(!) initiative. Privileges will become history on January 1, salaries will be raised on July 1. If ever. Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov complains that the falling oil prices are going to affect the revenues part of the budget. It means that someone will be left without money. Who do you think? make three guesses and the first two do not count. The army has already guessed.

The situation with flats is not any better. Nothing has been added to the meager tenement construction budget of the Defense Ministry.

Russian generals have long been disappointed with Putin. Of course, they do not complain of empty wallets and no flats to live in. Generals have much more serious grudges. Appointing an officer from secret services to the pinnacle of uniformed power in Russia, the president made his distrust of the military plain. With all respect to Sergei Ivanov, he knows the army and problems of the service only on the level of a secretary of the Security Council instructed to draw up the plan of reorganization of the Armed Forces. It is probably difficult for Ivanov to command the army h does not know, but it does not seem to matter to the president. What matters is that he put his own man to the post of the defense minister.

The president met with generals on the eve of his trip to the United States. He delivered a speech, quite smart and correct. The president specified the priorities in the light of new threats and challenges to national security - improvement of the command and control structure, structural optimization of the Armed Forces, concentration of resources on priorities, higher combat and operational readiness of the troops, social problems of servicemen. Everything, in other words, the national leaders have been trying to accomplish these last ten years. Generals only shrugged - why bother with repeating all this?

Even the visit itself of the president to his American opposite number generated a new wave of disconsolate muttering in the Defense Ministry. The military has not come to yet from withdrawal from the bases in Cuba and Vietnam. Not very important assets from the military point of view, they nevertheless were elements of prestige and something enabling Moscow to wield at least some influence in the respective regions of the world. "Withdrawing from the bases, we should have got at least something in return," sources at the General Staff say. The generals are stunned now that Putin intends to reduce nuclear arsenals without a treaty, only on the basis of his partner's promise to follow suit. "At least Yeltsin promised to insert new coordinates into missile computers. This is different now. If the Americans build their anti-ballistic missile defense system, we will remain without missiles altogether," sources from the Defense Ministry sigh.

In short, the supreme commander-in-chief fell out of love with the army without bothering to fall in love with it in the first place. What can he expect from the army now?

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