#12 - RW 11-19-04 - RW Home
RIA Novosti
December 1, 2004
RUSSIAN ARMY GETS NEW RECRUITS

MOSCOW (RIA Novosti military commentator Viktor Litovkin) - The fall military draft in Russia ended on December 1, 2004. This year 176,393 young men between the ages of 18 and 27 who did not have deferments were drafted into the Army.

The overall majority of them have already worn a military uniform. All conscripts were issued winter hats and jackets at assembly points, before leaving for their military units. The Defense Ministry made this revolutionary decision after last year when half-dressed conscripts shuddered on the way to Kamchatka and caught pneumonia. One conscript died.

When the conscription was going on twin brothers Alexander and Dmitry Oparin deserted an elite military unit stationed near Moscow that trains students at the Army Academy with loaded automatic weapons. The brothers were drafted in Chelyabinsk in the spring of 2003. The brothers shot two police officers, stole a car and took two girls hostage. Then they barricaded themselves in a house and fired at the special forces who were trying to capture and disarm them. One boy was killed and the other surrendered.

The main military prosecutor's office is investigating the cause of this inexplicable crime. Although the investigation is not over, the press and the public are conjecturing that the poor psychological conditions in the elite unit drove the Oparin brothers to desert.

The psychological problems from serving in the Russian Army or Navy have been the main topic in all conversations about Russian Armed Forces for years. At a meeting of the Russian military leadership in the middle of November, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said that 11,624 crimes had been committed in the Army and the Navy in the first nine months of the year of which 3,085 were related to desertions. He said that 6,140 servicemen, including 807 officers, were convicted of various crimes and that 932 servicemen died. Only 423 were killed in service, the rest died while off duty. A third of these deaths were suicides.

Whether people recognize it or not, the suicides were caused by low morale in the military. Thirty-four percent of officers have less income per family member than the living wage in the region where they serve. About 90,000 officers' families (25%) do not have permanent housing and the military has not provided housing for 45,500 families. The 2005 defense budget allocates 18 billion rubles (over $600 million) to solve the housing problem, however this is just a drop in the bucket in regard to the military's needs.

Of the money allocated, only 5.6 billion rubles ($200 million) will be spent on housing construction. Nine billion rubles, or $300 million, will be spent on a state housing-certificate program for discharged servicemen. About 1 billion rubles will be spent on a mortgage program for young officers who will sign contracts with the Defense Ministry in the summer of 2005. There will only be about 10,000 new apartments for soldiers next year. In other words, it will take the Army and the Navy at least ten more years to solve their housing problems.

A black joke in the military is that if all of the soldiers were provided housing tomorrow, the military would disband because there would no longer be any incentive to serve. Indeed, it would be impossible to retain officers given their low salaries. For example a platoon commander is paid 4,500 rubles, or $150 and a company commander receives 5,200 rubles, or $175. Many officers are leaving the military. Who will replace them?

Mr. Ivanov noted in a report that over half of all platoon and company commanders in the Volga-Urals and Moscow military districts' permanent readiness units were reserve officers, i.e., former students, who do not have professional and leadership skills. The situation in the Air Force is no better because there are few young pilots. Mr. Ivanov said there was no one in the Navy to appoint as warship commanding officers. People are not interested in these jobs because they do not want to be responsible for military equipment that has not been properly serviced for years or for incompetent servicemen.

Only 20% of those drafted into the military have a primary or 8-year education. Indeed, 112 young men were illiterate. Fifty-three percent have health problems and therefore cannot serve in the Strategic Missile Force, the Main Intelligence Department Special Forces, the Airborne Force, the border guards or the FSB. Twenty percent of conscripts were raised by a single parent. About 33% of conscripts did not work or study before they were drafted. Six percent of conscript-age boys are stopped

by the police before they are drafted. 2.7% are drug addicts, and 5% are convicted of felonies. Few officers will agree to train such conscripts especially because of low pay and inadequate living conditions.

Mr. Ivanov said that if the situation persisted, there would not be any new conscripts for intellectual branches of the military. He appears to be correct.

Contract service will not solve these problems because of a lack of funding. Only two military formations, the 76th airborne division and the 42nd mechanized infantry division stationed in Chechnya became completely manned by contract soldiers this year. Meanwhile, the Moscow and Volga-Urals military districts are unable to recruit the required number of contract soldiers. Each contract soldier serving in Chechnya is paid 15,000 rubles ($500), while those in other regions are paid only 6,000 rubles, or $200. No serious, strong ethical young man wants to serve in the military and live in the barracks for such money. The Moscow authorities are offering 15,000-30,000 rubles ($500-1,000) per month, official registrations and housing to bus drivers.

There are solutions to poor morale in the military. The Russian army must face reality. Russia has changed. It has become a market economy and Russians' mentalities are different. Only competitive wages can attract applicants. However, the Russian Armed Forces still operate according to Soviet norms and there have been ineffective reforms. Consequently, the spring and fall drafts are a traumatic experience for 18-year-old boys without deferments and for their parents.