#7
gazeta.ru
April 24, 2003
Government sides with generals over military reforms

The Russian government on Thursday eventually endorsed long-term military reform plans, which, its authors believe, if successfully implemented, will pave the way towards a radical reduction in the term of army service for conscripts, and the creation of a strong professional army.

The Defence Ministry and other security structures in the country ''are ready to consider the question of reducing the length of compulsory military service from two years to one,'' Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov told journalists after the cabinet session on Thursday.

Ivanov said that if the length of compulsory military service were to be reduced, conscripts would spend six months at a training centre. For the remaining six months the conscripts would be attached to regular units, not permanent-readiness units, which are to be manned by professionals.

Furthermore, the reform plan provides for citizens from other former Soviet republics - members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) - will be permitted to serve in the Russian army. The government on Thursday has approved the Defence Ministry's proposal to that effect.

After three years of service such volunteers would be granted Russian citizenship, Ivanov said. He recalled that under the current law on citizenship other applicants are required to have lived on Russian territory for five years to be granted citizenship.

Besides, after having served three years on a contract basis, volunteers will be offered an opportunity to get additional education, including higher education in colleges and universities, on preferential terms.

The military agency, however, has no plans of forming the so-called ''foreign legion'': there will be no separate units manned by non-Russians. Foreign recruits will be distributed evenly among regular military units.

Apparently, the ministry officials hope that by attracting foreigners to join the Russian armed forces it will become possible to cut the term of service for Russian conscripts. Earlier Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov said he considered 1 year to be an optimal term of service.

Following the Thursday cabinet session, at which the ministry endorsed the federal target-oriented programme for transferring the national armed forces to the contract-based principle of recruitment, the defence minister agreed that in the future the term of service for conscripts could be reduced from 2 years to 1. Such a radical reduction will be possible ''if the military reform plan is implemented in full by the end of 2007'', he said.

Ivanov went on to say that women will be permitted to serve in the Russian army in combat roles. Women will be granted the right to serve under contract in the Russian army in certain posts of a ''combat nature'', Ivanov reported. In this case, female contract soldiers will enjoy the same rights as men.

Furthermore, Ivanov reported, the Defence Ministry plans to have the formations and units stationed in the North Caucasus transferred to the contract basis of recruitment in 2004-05.

In the period from 2004 to 2007 it is planned to switch to a contract basis the military units and formations on permanent standby, which, in the opinion of Defence Ministry specialists, ''substantially affects the combat readiness of the country''. Starting in 2008, the number of formations and units serving on a contractual basis will be on the rise.

An alternative plan of military reform elaborated by the Union of Rightist Forces in cooperation with Yegor Gaidar's Institute for Economy in Transition was rejected. The programme endorsed on Thursday was prepared by the General Staff of the Defence Ministry.

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