Late, but worth capturing for future reference . . . .
By way of recap, on 3 September, Vice-Admiral Burtsev told the press the Navy headquarters move to St. Petersburg was off, and this was decided over a year ago. But later the same day, he claimed he’d been misunderstood.
Then, on 8 September, Defense Minister Serdyukov took up the issue . . . whether he was asked or just elected to address this, we don’t know.
ITAR-TASS claims he put an end to recent media speculation about the Main Staff’s eventual move to Piter.
Serdyukov said:
“No one has cancelled the decision to transfer the Navy Main Staff. The planned work is on-going. We said from the beginning that we didn’t intend to do this in the course of any short period of time, for example, in a year. This is happening not quickly, but according to readiness. At Admiralty in St. Petersburg, the place where the Main Staff will be located, renovation is on-going. Within the limits of the work’s completion, we will move.
“As far as the Command and Control Post (KPU or КПУ) goes, it won’t be transferred quickly, not even in the coming one-two years. We will outfit it with absolutely new equipment, new resources. There will be an absolutely new KPU. The old KPU, most likely, will be mothballed. Transferring it wouldn’t make any sense. So there aren’t any changes in our plans.”
Be all this as it may, it seems like a sign that the Defense Ministry, Serdyukov, or someone else, and the Navy were (or are) still at odds over moving its headquarters to the northern capital.
Russian Defense Policy 