#11
BBC Monitoring
Chief of General Staff urges more money, training for Russian armed forces
Source: Rossiyskaya Gazeta, Moscow, in Russian 14 May 03

Army Gen Anatoliy Kvashnin, the chief of General Staff of the Russian Federation armed forces, was in Brussels yesterday, where he took part in a meeting of the Russia-NATO Council at the level of chiefs of general and main staffs. On the eve of his departure, he gave an interview to Rossiyskaya Gazeta:

[Interviewer] Anatoliy Vasiliyevich, extensive military reform presupposes the complete restructuring of the state's military organization. Are the military alone up to this? Perhaps civilian experts would deal with the task better?

[Kvashnin] Assertions that the military cannot effectively reform themselves have some foundation... Civilian institutions of power have been working on this problem for a long time now, including the president's administration and the Russian Federation government. And the Defence Ministry and General Staff will work in detail on what forces and resources the country needs to guarantee its security...

[Interviewer] As soon as reform is discussed we hear: the next reduction. Is what remains sufficient for the defence of our huge state?

[Kvashnin] There were over 4m men in the Soviet army on 1 January 1990 before the Soviet Union collapsed. By 7 May 1992, there were 2.8m men in the Russian army... Over a 10-year period, our army was again reduced by more than 500,000 men. As of 1 January 2003, 1,162,000 men were serving in our armed forces... In our assessment, the current number of servicemen is sufficient to bring our strategic restraint forces and general-purpose troops up to strength.

[Interviewer] A subject of endless discussion is what kind of army is better, a contract army or one based on a universal call-up? What is more acceptable for us?

[Kvashnin] ... Professionally trained people should, in the first instance, protect our country.

Currently, 51 per cent of the personnel in our army are on contractual service - officers, warrant officers, sergeants and ordinary soldiers. Contract servicemen make up 21 per cent of the total number of ordinary soldiers and sergeants, that is, every fifth soldier is a professional soldier. And there is no single answer here as to which army is more preferable. Not only professional soldiers, but also soldiers called up from the reserve took part in combat action during the war in Iraq. The Americans had around 200,000 of them and the British had 7,000.

[Interviewer] But how will our troops get up to strength with contract servicemen?

[Kvashnin] First of all, all the formations and units at constant combat readiness will be brought 100-per-cent up to strength with them. In the remaining units, only the junior commanders will serve on contracts. They will start to train the conscript soldiers while this form of supplementing manpower operates. When a contract is concluded, preference will be given to those who have served at least six months in the army. But the call-up will be retained for a number of years still. It is now being decided how long men will serve - six months, a year or 18 months - and the General Staff has drawn up the appropriate scientific norms. At least six months is needed to fully master the weapons and hardware. But the section, platoon, company and regiment must still go through combat management and personnel must know how to operate when armed and be able to cooperate with their neighbours under various conditions in elements of combat procedure or operational formation. Time is also needed for this and this needs to be learnt if we really want to have well trained troops and personnel...

[Interviewer] We must assume that the experience of military action in Iraq has not passed the General Staff by. What assessment can be given to this war? Will it influence our military organization?

[Kvashnin] ... The countries in the anti-Iraq coalition, which had more high-tech weapons, created a group of armed forces that had overwhelming technical supremacy over their opponent, including in the air. They had more high-tech weapons. A systematic operation was conducted, which alongside firepower also took the form of a powerful informational and moral and psychological action against the Iraqi army and the civilian population... The coalition forces used high-accuracy weapons a lot - sea and air-based cruise missiles as well as correctable laser-guided airborne bombs. But at critical moments, traditional weapons were used actively... All of this is being subjected to the appropriate analysis and appraisal by the Russian Federation armed forces' General Staff...

If you compare this war with the Russian army's operation in Groznyy in 1994-95, then it should not be forgotten that Russia did not at that time have organized and trained formations and military units. Military units with reduced numbers were transferred to Chechnya. They set up military units from them on the spot but personnel had not gone through the stage of combat management and commanders had not been trained. A striking example of this: the commander of a reduced battalion who had served for 25 years received 500 men under his command in Chechnya. Theoretically, he knew his business but in practice he could not manage the battalion because he had previous only had 24 men under his command... It was not his fault.

So the main conclusion from this war is that we need to build our own armed forces on the basis of the plan approved by the Russian Federation's president in 2001... The army and navy today need, first and foremost, modern weapons and hardware. The current ones are fast becoming obsolete and more and more money is having to be diverted to maintain them. However, insufficient funds are being allocated to purchase new hardware.

The second problem is professionalism. Since 1992 almost up until the year 2000, the armed forces did not engage in any combat training due to a lack of resources. Servicemen were not even being paid their monetary allowances on time. The required flying time for a pilot should on average comprise 100 hours, but our pilots flew at most 6-8 hours a year. Lieutenants who graduated in 1992 have now already become majors and lieutenant-colonels and are commanding battalions. They have engaged in little professional training over these eight years. It is not possible to make real professionals of them in a couple of years. So we have now seriously taken military education in hand. All training programmes have been amended. This year, there will be training for the heads of all the Russian military academies. Today we are persistent in demanding that our troops engage in combat training without any simplifications or indulgences, and this is already producing results...

BACK TO THE TOP    #257 CONTENTS    NEXT ARTICLE