#5
Nezavisimaya Gazeta
September 12, 2002
AN EXTREMELY NEGLECTED SECURITY ISSUE
Building a new army is easier than reforming the old one
Author: Vadim Soloviov
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]

THE RUSSIAN ARMED FORCES HAVE MANY PROBLEMS. DEFENSE MINISTER SERGEI IVANOV WAS INVITED TO THE LOWER HOUSE TO PRESENT EXPLANATIONS OF CONDITIONS IN THE ARMED FORCES. HE SPOKE WITH DUMA MEMBERS FOR TWO HOURS, MENTIONING MILITARY FUNDING, CHECHNYA, AND GEORGIA.

Analysis of Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov's report to parliament

Back in Moscow after the summer vacation, Duma deputies dedicated their first meeting to an issue which must have seriously concerned them: the Armed Forces. There is something to make one shudder: 118 victims in the MI-26 transport helicopter crash, as many as in the Kursk submarine disaster and in similar relatively peaceful conditions. More than 50 conscripts deserted in Volgograd, unable to tolerate their officers' cruelty. The utter degradation of the Armed Forces is plain to see. Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov was invited to the lower house to present explanations. Forty-seven deputies (mostly members of the Union of Right Forces and Yabloko) wanted an open hearing - but the Duma Council turned down the demand.

Lawmakers say that Sergei Ivanov did paint a true picture of the crisis the Armed Forces are in. All facts are known and have been known for a long time already. Shortage of housing is the worst problem. A fifth of officers' families (over a million people) do not have an apartment of their own. Social insecurity is admitted to be the major source of crime in the Army and Navy. Almost 23,500 crimes were registered in the Army and Navy in 2001, the prosecutor's office describing half of them as serious crimes.

Illegal arms trading is another serious factor affecting the general situation. Almost 54,000 light weapons are officially missing. The underworld gets weapons and ammunition from conflict zones and manufacturers, but most frequently from military units.

There can no longer be any doubt that officers aren't interested in proper and adequate performance. According to official data, over 3,000 incidents of cruelty in the barracks were registered in the troops in 2001. According to unofficial reports, this figure should be multiplied an order of magnitude.

As a rule, it is junior officers who work with soldiers in the barracks, but even they concentrate on their own survival much more than on maintaining law and order in the units. Meager salaries prevent half of officers from having a family. Up to 45% of officers cannot afford proper meals, up to 70% cannot affor new clothes and footwear, and 72% never go to the movies or theaters.

The quality of conscripts leaves much to be desired as well. A third of conscripts have police records. Almost 90% of conscripts are regular drinkers... All these and other factors generate conflicts and affect discipline.

In describing Ivanov's report, Nikolai Bezborodov (a retired major general and Deputy Chairman of the Defense Committee) called it "the most objective report on the true condition of the Armed Forces over the last nine years."

The report itself was made up of three parts. The minister assessed the combat readiness of the Army and Navy in the first part, outlined financial problems in the second, and analyzed the situation in the Caucasus in the third.

According to Ivanov, only the Strategic Missile Forces are fit and adequate to their tasks. The situation is particularly severe in the Ground Forces, which include only 50 permanent combat readiness units.

The minister is certain that this situation is due to chronic funding shortages. Until recently, only about 28% of all funding the Army and Navy got was spent on their development, while 72% was spent on salaries and maintaining a minimal level of combat readiness. The conscription situation has had its effect on the general state of affairs too. These days, only 11% of draft-age youths are called up.

Better funding is the key. Ivanov admits that the state has been doing all it can; but even so, more is needed. Defense spending is supposed to be 380 billion rubles next year (a 30% rise compared to this year), but only 80 billion rubles of this is specified in budget items. The remaining 300 billion rubles is in the classified part of the military budget. Duma deputies wanted to know how the money would be spent, and the minister obliged.

Ivanov artfully distracted lawmakers from the true situation in the Armed Forces and drew their attention to military-political problems. Deputies wanted to know exactly what the Defense Ministry has been doing to normalize the situation in the Army and Navy, but Ivanov never said a word about that.

The minister spoke at length about Chechnya, and managed not to offer a specific plan of stabilization. Relations with Georgia were mentioned as well. After the meeting, some deputies even quoted Ivanov as saying that "there is no state of Georgia as such, there is just a territory criminals use as a shelter."

"This was the first time I heard such a precise and uncompromising evaluation of what is happening on the Russian-Georgian border," Oleg Morozov said.

Ivanov begged Duma deputies to leave defense spending alone as the draft budget passes through the Duma, and even asked them to find additional sums to pay debts to arms producers for the state defense order.

The meeting lasted almost two hours, and Ivanov answered some questions. Lawmakers were divided in their opinions of the meeting afterwards: some decided that the Armed Forces are being reformed, others drew the opposite conclusion. A certain apathy about the military reforms has been growing in the corridors of power. Anatoly Chubais was particularly cynical about it when he sneered that the military reforms were particularly successful when the army was at war. Indeed, the war in Chechnya has lasted for five years, reorganization of the Army and Navy has been the talk of the day, and there is nothing to show for it. In other words, Russia has a military that defies all attempts at reorganization.

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