#15 - RW 265
Roundtable Discusses Key Aspects of Russian Military Reform
Trud
July 8, 2003
Article by Pavel Anokhin:
"The Protector Asked For Protection"

Massive reequipping of Russia's Armed Forces will not begin for a long time.

The country has taken up military transformations. How successful will they be? What plans and possibilities does the state have in this account?

The situation which has developed was analyzed by political and military

figures, who held a roundtable discussion at the Center for Strategic Developments entitled "Military Reform in Russia: Problems and Prospects."

Improving the level of military management and the quality characteristics of the Armed Forces, a proportional division of the branches and types of troops, the changeover to contract service -- these, in the opinion of specialists, are the main goals of the country's military reform. First Deputy Chief of General Staff of the RF Armed Forces Col-Gen Yuriy Baluyevskiy reported that a document on the future development of the Armed Forces through 2010 has already been drawn up, and a detailed workup of the strategy for their development through 2015 has been started. According to him, today the Russian Armed Forces has ten permanent-readiness divisions and six permanent-readiness brigades, which are ready to perform their missions at any time in any place.

"After 2005," the general emphasized, "a changeover to more massive purchases of new equipment for units and formations of the general-purpose permanent-readiness forces will take place... say we have several units and formations equipped with modern weapons in 2007-2010, then already today this is a basic military-technical priority." Baluyevskiy noted that after 2005, permanent-readiness units will receive advanced weapons, "and not one weapons model in each unit, but more massively." Nevertheless, the question of financing the 2004 state defense order provokes discussion today, the colonel-general reported. "This has caused the General Staff to start finalizing the State Arms Program,

which is calculated for the period through 2015."

The participants of the roundtable devoted close attention to the 76th VDV (Airborne Troops), where an experiment in changing over to a contract-manning principle is in progress. "The key issue is the training of the sergeants," believes the chairman of the State Duma's Committee on CIS Affairs and Countrymen Relations, Andrey Kokoshin. "It is essential to create some kind of a Russian sergeants' academy, which could maximally take into account the positive

experience of the existing training divisions in which sergeants are trained as well as that experience accumulated in the process of changing over Russian army units to a contract-manning principle."

Commenting to Trud, State Duma Defense Committee member and a former deputy aviation division commander, Col Yegeniy Zelenov said, "There will be more than 100,000 contract soldiers in the Russian Army by the end of 2007. Only volunteers should serve in 'hot spots.' However, Russia should have dual manning of its army -- contract and draft. Draftees are our mobilization reserve. In addition, a young person should know from experience what military service is before making the decision to sign a contract."

In the opinion of Yevgeniy Zelenov, the massive delivery of modern equipment into the troops after 2005 is still an unrealistic goal. Therefore, in parallel with refitting the Army with new equipment, it is necessary to modernize the old, bringing it up to the level of the best models of modern arms. This will allow us not to break ourselves financially.

In a conversation with Trud's correspondent, Yuriy Vorslov, head of the Leningrad regional department of the Russian Military Brotherhood, expressed concern about the social protection of servicemen. "All military equipment is serviced by people," he noted. "Therefore, protecting the rights of servicemen, raising the Army's prestige, and ensuring the high morale and combat spirit of the man in uniform should be the key issues of military reform. This will require significant financial investments, but without effort in this direction,

military reform will turn into an imitation and empty declarations. A serviceman's pay should correspond to his social status, responsibility, and the burden of professional tasks, yet in the new draft budget not one kopeck is designated for increasing the pay of servicemen. Is this not a negative factor of military reform?

In the opinion of Yuriy Vorslov, an acute problem, which the state is little concerned about, is the "situation with those who will fall under reductions from the Army. It is essential to expand professional retraining centers for those discharged into the reserves and create new jobs. The social protection of the 'protectors of the motherland', which we like to call the military during times of triumph, must be an effective part of state policy. Otherwise the motherland will turn into a stepmother."

CDI Russia Weekly #265 ~ Contents  •  Next