#10
Kvashnin: military in critical condition
May 30, 2002
AP
MOSCOW - The chief of General Staff of the Russian armed forces warned
Thursday that the military was in a "worse than critical" condition,
plagued by poverty and rampant theft.
The statement from Gen. Anatoly Kvashnin was one of the most dramatic
official acknowledgments of the desperate condition of the once-mighty military,
which has fallen into decay since the 1991 Soviet collapse.
Kvashnin warned that miserly military salaries were prompting an increasing
number of officers to quit the ranks.
"If we fail to more than double wages, we will have no officers
left," Kvashnin said at a military conference, according to the Interfax-Military
News Agency. "Those in service since the Soviet times will leave, and there
will be no one to replace them."
President Vladimir Putin has ordered the Cabinet to more than double military
wages this year, but net incomes of officers have barely increased because the
government simultaneously stripped the military of tax exemptions and other
privileges. Officers' wages now hover around the equivalent of dlrs 100 a month.
Bad conditions in the military have encouraged widespread embezzlement and
theft of military equipment. In one example, thieves stole 21 metric tons (23
tons) from a store of 170 metric tons (187 tons) of silver the military received
for making and maintaining weapons and other equipment last year, Kvashnin said.
Scavenging of weapons for precious metals has become so prolific in the
military that it has prompted enterprising anonymous publishers to print special
scavenging instruction manuals complete with colorful pictures of missile
components and other weapons parts that can be sold for scrap, Kvashnin said.
Senior military officers are often involved in thefts, said Alexander
Savenkov, the first deputy chief Russian military prosecutor. He said that a
general in charge of food procurement for interior troops in the Siberian
Military District was currently under criminal investigation on charges of
embezzling government funds.
A similar investigation has been launched against a top officer holding a
similar position in the Moscow Military District, Savenkov said, according to
the Interfax-Military News Agency.
The number of military crimes in the first quarter of this year reached
5,600, Savenkov said. Every fifth crime was committed by servicemen who were
drunk, he said.
Putin's plan to abandon the unpopular draft and launch a swift transfer to a
smaller professional army has met stiff resistance of the top brass, who say it
would require a significant increase in the defense budget.
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