Monthly Archives: April 2010

Rearmament Tempo Less Than 2 Percent Per Year

Posted on April 17, 2010 | Leave a comment

Vasiliy Burenok

Vasiliy Burenok told a round table at the ‘Army and Society’ exhibition in Moscow Friday that the current pace of Russian force modernization, not more than 2 percent, won’t support the transition to a ‘new profile’ military.

Burenok is Director of the Defense Ministry’s 46th Scientific-Research Institute (46 NII).  The 46 NII is a lead organization involved in formulating the State Armaments Program (GPV) and State Defense Order (GOZ).  It works on military-technical policy documents and program planning methodologies.  Burenok is a member of the Scientific-Technical Council of the RF Government’s Military-Industrial Commission (VPK).

Reviewing history a bit, Burenok told his audience, at the beginning of the 1990s, the rearmament rate was 5-7 percent annually.  But, between 1991 and 2000, financing for new arms and equipment declined more than 50 times, leaving only enough money to maintain existing weapons.

Burenok concludes to get the army to the ‘new profile’ it’s essential to introduce 9 percent new equipment every year, and for some services and combat arms, up to 11 percent.

This 9 to 11 percent is, of course, the difficult target President Medvedev set at the Defense Ministry Collegium.  Burenok indicated just how difficult–going from less than 2 to an 11 percent annual renewal rate.

Armaments Chief and Deputy Defense Minister Vladimir Popovkin also addressed the ‘Army and Society’ round table.  He said GPV 2011-2020 will go to the president for approval in June.  The new GPV will be accompanied by yet another new Federal Targeted Program for OPK Development.

Popovkin said a number of systems won’t be produced under the new GPV.  They include short-range tube artillery, and BTR-80, BMP-2, and BMP-3 combat vehicles that soldiers are afraid to ride in.

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Posted in Defense Industry, Force Modernization, Serdyukov's Reforms

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Shamanov Wants Aviation Back

Posted on April 16, 2010 | 3 comments

VDV Commander General-Lieutenant Vladimir Shamanov told ITAR-TASS today that the airborne troops need their organic light transport aviation back because its absence is complicating their training.  He says:

“The results of the air-assault training of the VDV in the first quarter of this year show that the transfer of light aviation to the Air Forces is stalling the system.”

As an example of this, Shamanov said light aviation fulfilled only 60 percent of planned jump training at the VDV’s Omsk Training Center.  He said its commander has asked to continue jumps until 7 May.

Shamanov said the VVS ban on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday flights was making the VDV a hostage.  He continues:

“We’ve already had cases.  The VVS command allocated one helicopter each for jumps by our Spetsnaz and communications regiments near Moscow.  However in practice it turned out that the regiment having clear priority, the Spetsnaz regiment, could use the helicopter coming from Levashovo in Leningrad Oblast for jumps in all for only a half day out of five for purely aviation reasons, at the same time as the second, communications regiment, with the other helicopter coming from Ryazan, jumped for a full week.”

“We’ve sent the Genshtab our proposals to create organic sub-units of light aviation in the VDV.  Unfortunately, there’s no hope for them since no answer has been received from the  Genshtab, but we will continue to assert our position.” 

A VDV spokesman said last year, when they still belonged to the VDV, An-2s supported 140,000 jumps in combat training, and the VVS’ Il-76 medium military transport aircraft only 35,000.

The VDV’s light transport force had 7 squadrons of Mi-8 helicopters and An-2 and An-3 aircraft and three airfields until the General Staff Chief’s 1 January directive transferred them to the VVS.

Shamanov also repeated his past calls for each of his three air-assault formations to have its own regiment of 20 combat and 40 transport helicopters.  He said a proposal to this effect is being prepared.  An interlocutor told ITAR-TASS:

“Having organic helicopter regiments in the VDV’s air-assault formations undoubtedly would raise their air-mobility, fire power, responsiveness of command and control in combat conditions, and in the course of combat training.  So the formation commander, who gets a helicopter regiment, could independently, when he considers it necessary, without turning to the VVS command, decide to have air-assault training for personnel including helicopter jumps.”  

Recall the early January Genshtab directive that transferred all aviation units in other services and arms, with the exception of RVSN, to the VVS. 

Shamanov’s complaint and appeal for a change is interesting.  He isn’t one to be afraid to demand special treatment.  He warded off the change from divisions to brigades in 2009.  

Shamanov last publicly lobbied for an upgraded VDV rotary wing component, both attack and transport helicopters, in late 2009.  The Ground Troops would also like army aviation, which they lost to the VVS in 2002, returned to them.  ITAR-TASS noted that former Ground Troops CINC Army General Boldyrev said as much last September.  He wanted helicopter regiments for air-assault brigades that belong to the military districts.

The organic aviation issue will be another place to watch for a possible policy about-face.

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Posted in Air Forces, Ground Troops, Serdyukov's Reforms, VDV

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Yesterday’s Military Crime Report

Posted on April 15, 2010 | Leave a comment

The number and details of military crimes reported in yesterday’s press were above average and more interesting than usual.  They illustrate the kinds of pathologies the Defense Ministry confronts on a daily basis.

From Toglyatti, a noncombat loss.  An army conscript hung himself.  The military has reported nothing suspicious about this, except that the young man had transferred to this unit from another.  Conscripts sometimes obtain transfers to escape hazing, dedovshchina, etc.

From the MVO, the district’s chief of staff, first deputy commander of Rocket Troops and Artillery, one Colonel Aleksandr Zemlyanskiy, stands accused of using a conscript to guard and do household chores at his dacha in Moscow Oblast for five months last year.  The RF Prosecutor’s Investigative Committee’s Military Investigative Directorate investigated Zemlyanskiy’s case.  That’s a lot of investigating.  The colonel faces up to 4 years in prison.

From Reutov near Moscow, the personnel chief for an MVO unit, one Lieutenant Colonel Dmitriy Vasin, stands accused of demanding bribes in exchange for performing normal duties.  Obtaining the next military rank cost 15,000 rubles, an expedited dismissal from the armed forces cost 70,000 rubles.  For an extra 20,000, officers could get dismissed from the service and keep a place in the unit’s line for permanent housing.  Vasin could get 5 years.

From Chechnya, the SKVO, the finance chief of a unit got 4 years for exceeding his authority by paying out 3 million rubles to ten individuals with a court order for back combat pay owed to them.  The finance chief did not seek his commander’s permission to issue the pay although he knew their court documents were forgeries.

From the DVO, near Khabarovsk, a former unit commander got a year for extorting 3,000 rubles a month from an officer put outside the TO&E on health grounds, but kept on the unit’s books since he lacked permanent housing.  The 3,000 was the price for keeping him on the books, without him having to report to the unit every day.   

In the DVO, a lieutenant forced 9 contractees to work unpaid for four years in a private security company called “Deon.”  And he also stole their military pay amounting to 3 million rubles over time.  He beat one of the men.  The lieutenant got a 4 year sentence.

Lastly, again from the DVO, Novaya gazeta reports today on a case from 2008.  The VSU has started a criminal case against a former deputy regiment commander for socialization work, one Lieutenant Colonel Novokhatniy. 

He abused a handcuffed conscript on the parade ground in front of 500 men.  No one tried to stop it, and one of Novokhatniy’s subordinates videotaped the incident (you can view it on the Novgaz link). 

Local authorities complained about lawlessness, fights, and even murders at the regiment in letters to the Defense Minister, General Prosecutor, and DVO Commander:

“The condition of discipline in the unit can’t stand any criticism, it’s time to defend the civilian population from the contingent sent to serve here.”

One officer finally complained to the regiment commander and military prosecutor, and Novokhatniy punched him.  But all the incidents were hushed up, and Novokhatniy actually ran and won election to the rayon assembly for the South Kurils as a member of the ruling United Russia party. 

At some point, the officer who was punched turned the videotape of the incident over to the DVO’s VSU.  And the VSU came after Novokhatniy, who readily admitted his actions, as well as a couple of his cronies.

All in all, a remarkable day of military crime reports; not a typical day exactly, but remarkable, and lamentable.

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Posted in Crime and Corruption, Law, Order, and Discipline, Military Housing

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BSF Expects Frigates and Subs

Posted on April 14, 2010 | Leave a comment

To counter recent predictions of the fleet’s demise, a BSF staff source today told RIA Novosti 3-4 frigates and a similar number of diesel-electric submarines would meet the fleet’s needs in the coming five years.  He pointed to the Admiral Gorshkov class frigate at Northern Wharf and proyekt 677 submarine Sevastopol at Admiralty.

The source said:

“In the course of the next five years, new class frigates and diesel-electric submarines will be included in the order-of-battle of the Black Sea Fleet.  The need to replenish the BSF order-of-battle is caused by the decommissioning of obsolete ships of various classes.”

He said new ships would also support the fleet’s full participation in exercises with NATO and Ukraine, and also exercises and long-distance cruises planned by the RF Navy’s command.  He noted that the renewal of the BSF’s ships in no way would contradict the provisions of Russia’s basing agreement in Ukraine.  He called Russia’s plans transparent and a subject for discussion in the sessions of the Russian-Ukrainian BSF sub-commission.

These hopes are basically the same as those expressed back in February when another source said 2 frigates and 3 submarines.

Other media today reported the possibility that Moscow could get a base agreement extension in return for higher rent payments or lower gas prices for Kyiv.

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Posted in Naval Modernization, Navy

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Policy To-and-Fro on Military Police

Posted on April 13, 2010 | Leave a comment

State Secretary and Deputy Defense Minister Nikolay Pankov probably didn’t surprise a lot of people when he announced the latest Defense Ministry flip (or flop this time?) on the military police issue last week.

 Pankov announced that:

 “The Defense Ministry has found the establishment of military police inexpedient at this stage of Army and Navy reform.  Directive documents on the establishment of military police in the Russian Army have been suspended, and orders on the formation of these structures in the military districts and the fleets have lost force.”

 Later, the press quoted Pankov differently:

 “I wouldn’t say it so categorically – this work is suspended for now.”

But he didn’t elaborate on the Defense Ministry’s reasons for stopping or suspending the effort at this moment.

Military police units are, or were, supposed to stand up in 2010.  Their mission was to maintain order and discipline, and prevent hazing and other barracks violence and crime, primarily thefts of military property.  A military police department started working in the Defense Ministry’s Main Combat Training and Troop Service Directorate last December, drawing up plans and training programs for the new MP units.

In early February, a Defense Ministry representative denied press reports that Defense Minister Serdyukov had suspended work on the military police force.  But a source in the Defense Ministry’s press service told the media that “the documents establishing it have been sent to the appropriate legal directorates for reworking.”  He said that forming the military police would require amendments in federal legislation beyond the Defense Minister’s purview.

The back-and-forth, on-and-off nature of Russia’s yet-to-be created military police calls into question the Defense Ministry’s capacity to formulate and implement policies, or at least to do it so its doesn’t  look foolish.  Why would any military district commander or brigade chief of staff hurry to introduce any new policy or regulation that might just be overturned 6 months from now, or never implemented at all? 

As with the rumored halt in February, the latest stop may in fact be related to legal issues, but they usually only become an obstacle when they’re really protecting someone’s bureaucratic empire.  In this case, the military prosecutor and MVD are obviously very interested parties when it comes to devising a military police policy.  And they are pretty big hitters vis-à-vis the Defense Ministry.

The Defense Ministry already has plenty of people and organizations involved in military law enforcement, but they seem unable or unwilling to organize and cooperate to do the job.  Existing military law enforcement mechanisms could be made to work properly. 

Another sticking point may continue to be who will be in charge of a new military police force.  The prosecutor and MVD probably don’t want military police to answer to the Defense Ministry.  Military commanders could misuse or corrupt military police who would be enforcing laws on those commanders as well as ordinary servicemen.

Svpressa.ru talked to Anatoliy Tsyganok in this vein.  He said:

 “It once again attests to poorly thought-out reforms, zigzagging from side to side, senseless expenditure of resources needed for reequipping the army, and social programs.”

From the get-go, Tsyganok was against spending a ‘not small’ amount of money on a new structure seen as a panacea for all the army’s ills, at a time when the existing military command structure should be able to handle military police functions.

Tsyganok continues:

“. . . I came out not against military police per se, but against the dissipation of resources allocated for army reform:  the fact that they change conscripts for contractees, but then reverse this, the fact that they bring Yudashkin to design uniforms, but then chuck it, now here’s the confusion with military police.  It’d be better to use these resources on weapons for the army.  Russia’s military-industrial complex exports 90 percent of its production.  Aircraft to China and India, helicopters to Latin America and Middle Eastern countries.  Automatic weapons to Venezuela.  But the Russian Army scrapes by with old weapons.  At the same time money is invested in not well thought-out projects.”

“At present our servicemen who have violated order or broken the law are sent to do their time in basements, in special trenches, in storage areas.  Serdyukov doesn’t have financial resources even to build apartments for officers, there can’t even be talk about guardhouses.”

 “Now order among the troops is controlled by commandant (komendatura) forces, commandant patrols, commandant platoons and regiments, internal details; military traffic police structures are active.  This is a huge force.  For example, in Moscow there are 10 districts.  An integral commandant regiment patrols every district.  And is this little?  But military prosecutors, special departments [OO – FSB men—особисты or osobisty, embedded in large military groupings, units, and garrisons] also exist to maintain legal order in the army.  We need to force all this organizational and personnel mass to work effectively.  But for this the Defense Ministry itself needs to work effectively, and not spend money on schemes.”

 “The Defense Ministry leadership in answer to criticism about rampant crime in the army created nothing but the appearance of vigorous activity.  It’s hard to keep order, but forming something else at the expense of budget resources is easy.”

 “The failure of the project was sealed in its very organizational basis.  They proposed to subordinate the military police to the Defense Ministry in the person of the first deputy minister.  The fact is the very same operational structure of military control and repression would wind up in the hands of military leaders themselves.  This is a criminally corrupt thing.  Any Defense Minister, major troop commander, or independent unit commander could arrest on any pretext and end the contract of any inconvenient serviceman.”

Tsyganok kind of skirts around the issue without saying so, but it may be there’s not enough money to pay for building a military police force.

 Interfaks cited Duma Defense Committee Deputy Chairman Mikhail Babich, who called on the Defense Ministry to be more cautious about making changes in the armed forces and to avoid revoking its own decisions, as may be happening in the case of military police.  Babich is a somewhat critical and independent-minded member of Putin’s United Russia party.  He also said armed forces reforms require serious budget expenditures, so every time this or that program is dropped, the reasons should be closely studied and analyzed.  He concludes:

“I think the Defense Minister should hold to account those who were responsible for drawing up and implementing programs deemed unsuccessful.  First of all, this means the federal targeted program for recruiting professional sergeants in 2009-2015, which has not really started and the allocated money was spent on different purposes.”

Babich goes on to note that it’s still unclear what’s happening with Russia’s 85 permanent readiness combined arms brigades that replaced divisions in the Ground Troops.

“The Defense Ministry is keeping silent about this but it’s already clear that plans to establish permanent readiness combined arms brigades have fallen through.  As a result, it’s been decided to divide them into three types:  heavy, medium, and light.  Yet again everything is being done by rule of thumb.”

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Posted in Crime and Corruption, Law, Order, and Discipline, Military Law, Serdyukov's Reforms

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The Trouble Brigade

Posted on April 12, 2010 | 2 comments

Trouble at the Gate (photo: tv100.ru)

Things go from bad to worse for the LenVO’s troubled 138th Independent Motorized Rifle Brigade, based at Kamenka.  A possibly armed standoff involving Dagestan natives outside one battalion, a suspicious suicide, two noncombat losses in live fire training at night, the list goes on . . .

At mid-day Saturday, 20 men from Dagestan’s diaspora living near the area showed up at the gate of one of the brigade’s battalions in Sapernoye.  They were seeking revenge on a lieutenant, himself a native of Dagestan, for some unidentified reason.  The unit fired warning shots, and local police came and detained some of the men, and dispersed the others.

Newsru.com put the number of men from Dagestan at 40, with 18 detained by police.

A law enforcement source told Gazeta.ru that a dispute between a former contractee from Dagestan, living in area, and the lieutenant from Dagestan was the reason for the incident, but the nature of the dispute between the two men is unclear.

The battalion commander came to the group of men, and tried to talk with them, but after some talking they again tried to get through to the battalion’s barracks.  ITAR-TASS reports he was escorting two of the men to the barracks to try to resolve the situation when the others tried to enter the base.  The commander then raised the unit’s alarm, and warning shots were fired.  The nearest police had to come from Priozersk, 50 kilometers away.  Before the incident at the gate, there was apparently a fight between two groups of Dagestan natives at a school.  The Priozersk police deny reports that the group at the gate was armed.

The LenVO Commander reportedly came to Sapernoye and talked to local elders from Dagestan.  Locally registered residents originally from Dagestan apparently tried to stop this group of men who are reportedly unregistered ‘transients.’

In Sapernoye, they say the men beat battalion commander Andrey Myshyakov; he declined to comment, but said everything was fine with him.  Newsru.com reported that he suffered moderate head injuries after the beating.  ITAR-TASS also says he was beaten and hospitalized in stable condition.  Its source is the press service of the Military Investigative Directorate (VSU) of the RF SKP.

Gazeta.ru says that police and FSB military counterintelligence officers are on the streets of Sapernoye.  The investigation into this incident continues.

There was an earlier incident, in August 2005, in which two lieutenants found a conscript from Dagestan dressed in civilian clothes in a local bar.  When they ordered him back to the barracks, the situation escalated into nearly three nights of fights at the bar.  Four lieutenants were beaten, and the Dagestan natives apparently called for reinforcements from their kinsmen in St. Petersburg.

Also over the weekend, the 138th Brigade revealed the reported suicide of a conscript who was working as a bookkeeper for the brigade.  He had an honors degree from the Kaluga Budget and Finance Academy.

Investigators have reliably determined that he didn’t kill himself because of poor relations with other servicemen, and his family and friends say there’s no way he’d have hung himself.  St. Petersburg’s ‘Soldiers’ Mothers’ believe his ‘suicide’ could be connected with his work in the brigade’s finance section, where nothing happens without machinations.  They believe he may have learned about irregularies in the formation’s finances.

On the night of 8-9 April, two 138th brigade lieutenants were killed in a tank fire accident on its Bobochinskiy Range.  Apparently, a junior sergeant commanding a tank lost orientation and fired into the rear part of the range, directly hitting its central fire control point and killing the two officers.  A host of investigators continues to examine the circumstances.  The press noted a September 2008 incident in which an MRL fired off range, putting one rocket within 50 meters of a highway, damaging a vehicle but not harming its occupants.

Finally, the aftermath of sergeants beating conscripts in the brigade this fall . . . recall that the Defense Ministry did a vertical stroke on the brigade’s leadership for this, 8 officers were dismissed, but that’s not all.

It’s come to light since that, on his way out, the soon-to-be ex-brigade commander and other dismissed officers managed to receive hefty bonuses of 2-3 million rubles.  Officers who kept their posts got nothing.  For his misuse of his soon-to-be ex-post and the brigade’s finances, the former brigade commander could get 4 years in prison.

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Posted in Law, Order, and Discipline, Training and Exercises

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5th Generation Engine Delayed?

Posted on April 9, 2010 | Leave a comment

Work at NPO Saturn

Marker.ru yesterday wrote about NPO Saturn, FGUP Salyut, OAK, ODK, the Defense Ministry, and development of a fifth generation engine for Russia’s fighter aircraft.

Salyut believes it has basically defeated Saturn in the Defense Ministry’s tender to produce a fifth generation engine for the PAK FA, but Salyut fears development will be given instead to the newly created ODK, the United Engine-building Corporation.

Meanwhile, in OAK–the United Aircraft-building Corporation, they think the Defense Ministry may be considering not making a new engine for the first PAK FA model, and instead concentrating engineering resources on development of a 5th generation engine for future modifications of the new fighter. 

Salyut believes it decisively beat Saturn in the tender’s first phase, but the Defense Ministry has not announced the second and conclusive phase possibly because, according to Salyut’s Dmitriy Yeliseyev, the issue of creating the fifth generation engine was automatically decided when Saturn joined ODK.  But Salyut will insist on completing the tender process to decide who will be lead designer for the 5th generation fighter’s engines.

Yeliseyev says:

“We understand that general direction of the work to create an engine for PAK FA will be under ODK, but we also believe the tender is needed to even decide who will develop the gas generator for the future engine, and basically decide who will drive work on the engine for PAK FA.”

Salyut is now focused on modernizing the fourth generation AL-31 engine.  But test models of PAK FA have Saturn’s 117 engine, a modification of the AL-31.

OAK representative Konstantin Lantratov says the fifth generation engine has fundamentally new requirements, particularly in the areas of radar and infrared signature reduction.  OAK believes the Defense Ministry is not announcing the conclusive phase of the tender to build PAK FA’s engines because it’s waiting for the aircraft’s test results with its current engines.

Marker.ru asks is it necessary to make a 5th generation engine right now?  Wouldn’t it be better to concentrate work on producing engines for aircraft that will follow the PAK FA?  If a new engine starts development today, it will be ready in 5-7 years, about the time modernized or other variants of the PAK FA will be appearing [of course, this assumes the original PAK FA is successful and operational pretty quickly].

OAK’s Lantratov seems to think the Defense Ministry should decide now, if it wants to pay for new engines, and is willing to risk paying and not getting the right results.

Marker.ru consults CAST’s Konstantin Makiyenko . . . he thinks the Defense Ministry has no reason to hurry.  ‘Deeply modernized’ fourth generation engines from Saturn and Salyut are meeting VVS and PAK FA requirements, at least during the test phase.

He thinks a real 5th generation engine is 10 years away.  The need for more powerful engines will arise as other variants (2-seat, strike, naval, etc.) of the PAK FA appear.  Over their life cycles, aircraft get heavier and thrust has to keep pace, so more powerful engines would need to appear around 2020 anyway.

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New Chief of Defense Minister’s Apparat

Posted on April 8, 2010 | Leave a comment

Mikhail Mokretsov (photo: RIA Novosti)

Yesterday’s press announced that Mikhail Mokretsov, ex-Director of the Federal Tax Service (FNS) and long-time colleague of Anatoliy Serdyukov, will be the Defense Minister’s Apparat Chief.  

Kommersant says Serdyukov had largely kept his old team in place, and still influenced personnel decisions in the Finance Ministry’s FNS.  And the FNS has been a stable supplier of high-level cadres for Serdyukov’s Defense Ministry.  Along with ex-deputy directors of the FNS Dmitriy Chushkin and Yevgeniy Vechko, not less than 10 other highly placed former tax service officials have come over to Serdyukov’s Defense Ministry. 

Kommersant indicates this may represent the end of Serdyukov’s ‘agreement’ with Finance Minister Kudrin to leave his old cronies in place in the FNS for three years.

Mokretsov’s work in the tax service has drawn some praise.  Deputy Chairman of the Duma’s Budget Committee Andrey Makarov says the Defense Ministry can use another strong manager like Mokretsov, and he adds:

“The main thing in reforming the army is to stop the stealing.  Control and auditing are essential there.”

Perhaps playing the provocateur, Gzt.ru suggests that some in the Genshtab see Mokretsov’s arrival as a precursor to Serdyukov’s departure from the Defense Ministry.  Under this scenario, Serdyukov would be preparing Mokretsov to take his place as Defense Minister when he moves to a higher post.  But a PA source denied any prospect for a change of Defense Minister and specifically ruled out Mokretsov’s chances.

Mokretsov will occupy a long-vacant post.  Its last occupant, Andrey Chobotov left with former Defense Minister Sergey Ivanov when he became Deputy Prime Minister.  Chobotov apparently works in Ivanov’s office and in the government’s Military-Industrial Commission (VPK).  Since Chobotov had the job, the apparat has been considered a Defense Ministry ‘service’ [not to be confused with an armed service] and this brings its chief the title of Deputy Defense Minister.

According to Gzt.ru, retired General-Lieutenant Andrey Kazakov has been the acting apparat chief since Chobotov’s departure.  Kazakov has served in the Defense Minister’s apparat, primarily as Chief of the Defense Ministry’s Affairs Directorate, since at least 2001.

The apparat chief wields serious power–at least within the administrative system.  According to Gzt.ru, he is not simply the Defense Minister’s right hand.  He’s a chief of staff and critical gatekeeper whose agreement is necessary to get documents signed and decisions made.  This power is largely unofficial, deriving from personal proximity to the Defense Minister.

The apparat chief’s official, statutory powers are more modest.  Mil.ru lists six official elements under him.  The Expert Center of the RF Defense Minister’s Apparat is something of a ‘think tank’ preparing analytical information and reports on military-technical policy, force structure, and force development, under the Defense Minister’s direction.  The Main Legal Directorate of the RF Defense Ministry has been reinvigorated of late, and its role is self-evident.  The above-mentioned Affairs Directorate serves as property manager and business agent for the Defense Ministry in Moscow.   The Directorate of State Assessment of the RF Defense Ministry is responsible for ensuring that military infrastructure complies with an array of government regulations.  The apparat also includes, without explanation, Inspection of State Architectural-Construction Oversight and the Management Directorate of the RF Defense Ministry.

Gzt.ru got our old friend Leonid Ivashov to comment on yesterday’s news.  Ivashov hates to contemplate the idea of career growth for Serdyukov, and he thinks the idea of Serdyukov putting Mokretsov in place behind him is ‘patently untenable.’  He holds even less back than usual when he says:

“If the task is to destroy the country the way Serdyukov has destroyed the army, then such an appointment is possible.  Serdyukov is a destroyer.  And the fact that they are dragging their nonprofessionals into the [Defense] Ministry supports this.  It’s very sad that the Defense Minister of our country is first when it comes to being an example of corruption and disrespect for the army.  Mokretsov can’t help Serdyukov straighten out financial flows which go through the military department.  But he will absolutely help him steal from them.”

Ivashov goes on to complain about Serdyukov’s commercialization of Defense Ministry functions, e.g. turning rear services into Oboronservis.

Vitaliy Shlykov, who views Serdyukov favorably, sees the Mokretsov move as promoting creation of a civilian Defense Ministry that still doesn’t exist.  And Shlykov doesn’t see Serdyukov leaving the Defense Ministry since it is, in many ways, a higher post than a deputy prime minister with a portfolio, who doesn’t really run anything.

Today’s Vedomosti intimates that Mokretsov will focus on auditing the State Defense Order on the heels of Prime Minister Putin’s remarks this week about corruption, waste, and poor results in the OPK .

More about Mokretsov specifically . . .

He joined the tax service in 2000, moving quickly from department chief to deputy director of the Tax Ministry’s Directorate for St. Petersburg, deputy director of the Directorate for Moscow, and Chief of the Directorate for International Tax Relations.  In 2004, he became deputy director of the renamed Federal Tax Service under Serdyukov, and Director of the FNS in February 2007 when Serdyukov left for the Defense Ministry.  

The 49-year-old Mokretsov was born in Udmurtiya, and graduated in 1984 from the Leningrad Financial-Economic Institute.  He was called up after graduation and served two years as a finance officer in the Soviet Army.  Between 1986 and 2000, he worked in unnamed government and commercial enterprises in St. Petersburg.

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Posted in Command and Control, Crime and Corruption, Military Leadership, Serdyukov's Reforms

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Update on Military Corruption, State Losses, and Crime

Posted on April 6, 2010 | Leave a comment

Main Military Prosecutor (GVP) Sergey Fridinskiy observed last week that it will only be possible to deal with corruption when not just the law enforcement organs, but also responsible officials in the military command hierarchy become involved in fighting it.

At last week’s coordinating conference on fighting corruption in the armed forces and other armed formations, Fridinskiy reported that, in January and February, military corruption cases increased by 10 percent over year ago figures, and material losses to the state in those first months of 2010 were 5 times greater than in 2009.  Inflation and an increased volume of arms purchases were cited as contributing to the spike. 

In 2009, corruption cases increased 5 percent in military units.  Fraud and forgery cases increased 50 percent, but misappropriation, embezzlement, bribery, misuse, and abuse of authority also grew. 

Fridinskiy said:

“For such crimes, 543 officers, including some higher officials, were convicted last year.  Last year military prosecutors uncovered nearly 7,500 violations of the law in this area, more than 2,000 responsible individuals were held to varying degrees of accountability in connection with 540 warnings delivered about unacceptable legal violations.”

Fridinskiy maintains that corruption doesn’t just have a negative economic impact, it also has an extremely demoralizing effect on military units.  He noted that the State Defense Order (GOZ) and the provision of social benefits to servicemen are trouble areas for military corruption.  He said:

“Placing a barrier against incidents of illegal and mismanaged expenditure of budget resources allocated for reequipping troops with new arms and military equipment, but also providing housing to servicemen, people discharged from military service, and family members is one of the complex, but principle tasks.”

Fridinskiy said a systemic fight against corruption was particularly important at a time of rising expenditures on the defense budget and rearmament.  He cited improved legislation, departmental regulations, reduced opportunities for misappropriation, guaranteed transparency and competition in tenders and state contracting as possible measures.  He continued:

“It’s also important to strengthen the role of control-auditing organs at all levels, to raise the level of inter-departmental  coordination, to conduct active propaganda work necessary to create an atmosphere where corruption is unacceptable.”

Fridinskiy reportedly proposed changing the existing GOZ system:

“We’re now working in the first place on putting systematic changes into the purchasing system so that prices will be down to earth, and not astronomical, so that it will be possible to organize this work in the bounds of current demand for purchases, and in order that not only the purchaser, but also those performing the work will bear responsibility for what they are doing.”

Representing the Defense Ministry, State Secretary and Deputy Defense Minister Nikolay Pankov reported that his department has created a special financial inspectorate sub-unit to exercise control on the use of its resources:

“Finance specialists, economists, mostly not from the armed forces, have been asked to join the financial inspectorate, and my presentation today concerned the effectiveness of the work of the financial inspectorate.  All the results that the financial inspectorate turn up are given to the organs of the military prosecutor.”

Recall, of course, that the Defense Ministry claimed it had a major anticorruption drive in progress this winter.  Maybe these are some of the results.

Attendees at GVP conference included representatives of the Federation Council, Duma, Military Collegium of the RF Supreme Court, Military-Investigative Directorate of the RF Prosecutor’s Investigative Committee, Ministry of Defense, MVD’s Main Command of Internal Troops, Ministry of Emergency Situations, and the FSB’s Border Service and Department [once Directorate?] of Military Counterintelligence.

Chief of the GVP’s Oversight Directorate Aleksandr Nikitin  repeated an earlier publicized statistic on a 16 percent reduction in military crime last year.  Nikitin credited widespread GVP preventative measures for the decline in crime.  He also noted the induction of more conscripts with higher education and supplementary performance pay for commanders as positive factors.  According to him, with the extra money, young commanders have started to pay more attention to ensuring order in their units.  Nikitin also says the overwhelming majority of the country’s military units generally function without crime or other incidents.

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Posted in Crime and Corruption, Force Modernization, Military Housing, Military Law, Military Leadership

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Viktor Litovkin on BSF

Posted on April 4, 2010 | Leave a comment

Writing in Friday’s Nezavisimaya gazeta, Viktor Litovkin talked about the procurement of proyekt 20380 corvettes from Piter’s Northern Wharf.  The second unit Soobrazitelnyy was just launched, and three more have been laid down, but it’s not clear when they’ll enter of the order-of-battle.  A total of 20 are planned, but the specialists say everything depends on financing.

Then Litovkin turns to last week’s reports of imminent decommissioning for Ochakov, Kerch, etc.  He says this’ll leave the BSF with about 40 ships (12 of which are either in repair or a ‘conservation’ status).  He puts the average age of the remaining fleet units at 25-30 years, and the youngest are its proyekt 1239 small air cushion missile ships.

As far as capabilities go, the BSF is still stronger than Ukraine and Georgia (at least), but there is a question as to whether it can defend the country’s interests.  But maybe it doesn’t have to be so powerful when the country still has the RVSN, and the BSF wasn’t really challenged in the August 2008 war with Georgia, and it can still show the flag in the Mediterranean, defend the country’s economic zones, and participate in antipiracy operations off the Horn of Africa.  No one would take it into their head to compare it with the U.S. 6th Fleet.

But still Litovkin wants to answer why the BSF reached its current state.  Because the ‘Orange Revolution’ Ukrainians wouldn’t permit Moscow to renew the BSF’s potential in ships, aircraft, or personnel.  And Moscow was busy trying to modernize and preserve parts of the military other than surface ships.  He says:

“It built them for India, China, Vietnam.  Only now is it beginning to launch new corvettes and frigates for the Navy.  But by a drop (by one) per year.  And this is for all four fleets and a flotilla.”

“According to experts’ assertions, in the coming 10-15 years there are no possibilities for renewing the composition of the surface fleet.  Despite even the fact that today two frigates for the distant naval zone are laid down (proyekt 22350), five corvettes of proyekt 20380, three small gun ships of proyekt 21630, large landing ship of proyekt 11711… But even if the program of their construction is successful, they won’t under any circumstances compensate for the ships withdrawn due to age.”

“Even the Mistral won’t help here.”

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Posted in Arms Sales, Defense Industry, Naval Modernization, Navy

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