#2 - JRL 6408
Vremya Novostei
August 27, 2002
THE ARMED FORCES GET MOVING
Russia modernizes its Armed Forces
Are military reforms really underway?
Author: Nikolai Poroskov
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]
THE RUSSIAN ARMY AND NAVY HAVE BEEN SURPRISINGLY ACTIVE. OVER 20 EXERCISES IN LESS THAN A MONTH - POST-SOVIET RUSSIA HASN'T SEEN ANYTHING LIKE IT BEFORE. EXPERTS AND SPECIALISTS VIEW WHAT IS HAPPENING AS THE START OF OVERALL RECOVERY FOR THE RUSSIAN ARMED FORCES.
The Russian Army and Navy have been surprisingly active. Over 20 exercises in less than a month - post-Soviet Russia hasn't seen anything like it before. This is the first time in all these years that the military has received enough money "for the only thing it can do in peacetime - learning to fight," to quote Major General Alexander Vladimirov, Vice President of the Military Expert Board. All this activity is not ascribed to any new external threat. Experts and specialists view what is happening as the start of overall recovery for the Russian Armed Forces.
The same assumption is confirmed by President Vladimir Putin's statements yesterday at a meeting with the crew of the large ASW vessel Marshal Shaposhnikov. "We are back at the previous level of combat training functions," the president announced, promising the Navy fully-fledged exercises and regular expedictions. "The Pacific Fleet has always been and will remain one of the guarantors of Russia's interests in the Far East and all over the Pacific," he said.
The nation's leaders are finally paying attention to the military. Defense spending will get a boost of 26% in the 2003 draft budget. "I do not think we should link all these changes to any foreign policy events," says Alexander Sharavin, Director of the Institute of Political and Military Analysis. "The president and the defense minister have been in office long enough to understand that the army disintegrates without combat training."
The military is of the same opinion. "Former leaders of the Armed Forces did not want to waste time on combat training," Vladimirov said. "Soldiers were used as a cheap menial labor force." This situation was one of the factors that promoted the disintegration of the army. This situation has resulted in numerous desertions.
It is the Navy that is supposed to become one of the "testing sites" for a new attitude to military hardware. "We have drawn a program of rearmament of the Navy, a program that can be implemented," the president said.
Putin admitted that the Navy was getting insufficient money and that the state had forgotten about construction of new ships. Implementation of the program, however, "will permit us to retain the Navy and elevate it to a new level entirely."
Sailors took the president's statement in stride, as a new move in implementation of the naval policy. Adoption of the Naval Doctrine was the first step. This document outlines Russia's national interests on the seas, and prospects for development of the Navy. The document having been passed, a presidential decree (September 1, 2001) established the Naval Board to work out naval policy and coordinate the work of all involved ministries and departments.
Another presidential decree (this one dated March 4, 2000) instructed the government to draft a common state program of military shipbuilding for the Russian Federation. The program stipulates construction of new combat vessels.
According to Leonid Strugov, Chief of the State Defense Order Directorate of the Shipbuilding Agency, the program of development of armaments to 2010 also includes several "naval" provisions. This is a classified document, but the Navy has already begun construction of a new corvette (2,000 tons), construction of a new frigate and landing ship will begin in 2003 and 2004, construction of a small patrol ship will be completed in St. Petersburg in 2005, sand a whole series of ships of this class will be built by 2010. Multipurpose nuclear submarines Severodvinsk and Belgorod, plus the strategic Yuri Dolgoruky, are to go into service in 2005. Construction of the Yaroslav Mudry is 80% complete.
Other branches of the service will be reorganized too. Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov says that the Air Force will get a new generation fighter by 2005.
There is more to revival of the military than weapons. "A new personnel policy is needed," Vladimirov warns. "Problems do not orginate with privates, captains, or even colonels. They come from the upper echelons. Military reforms do not mean brand-new tanks or artillery. They mean a new ideology and spirit." Vladimirov believes that the process is underway because new ideologies and attitudes are disseminated in the course of combat training.
Back to the Top
Next Article
August 27, 2002:
#6408
- Back to the Top -