Category Archives: Manpower

Humanizing and Outsourcing the Army

Posted on June 21, 2010 | Leave a comment

Press outlets report that the Siberian MD’s Yurga-based 74th Independent Motorized Rifle Brigade is the test bed for Defense Minister Serdyukov’s army ‘humanization’ initiative announced in late April.  And today Chief of Rear Services, Deputy Defense Minister General-Colonel Dmitriy Bulgakov expounded upon the extent of, and near-term plans for, outsourcing of food services in the army. 

The 74th IMRB is trying out a 5-day work week and weekend passes for soldiers.  They are permitted to wear civilian clothes while off-base for the first time.  The brigade has also introduced an after-lunch rest hour into the daily regimen. 

ITAR-TASS quotes brigade commander Colonel Andrey Khoptyar: 

“The intensity of combat training in 2010 has risen significantly, the load on soldiers has increased, therefore extra rest time has been allocated.”

Khoptyar said his soldiers are also getting an additional 30 minutes of sleep at night.

The media describes the 74th IMRB as one of Russia’s best performing and best-outfitted formations.  Some of its soldiers live in ‘hotel-type’ accommodations with four-man rooms and their own bath and shower rooms.

Transferring nonmilitary functions and duties from soldiers and their units to contracted commercial firms was another facet of Serdyukov’s April announcement.  Since December, this brigade’s troops have been spared mess hall duty because a private firm ‘MedStroy’ has taken over responsibility for operating its cafeteria.

IA Regnum described this as a “practical trial of new measures in all-around systematic support of day-to-day troop life by outside civilian organizations on an outsourcing basis.”  As the SibVO spokesman says:

“The main idea of the innovations is to free servicemen, to the maximum extent, from performing noncore tasks, establishing conditions for full-fledged combat training of personnel.”

At present, outsourced food service has already been establishing in the SibVO’s Ulan-Ude, Aleysk, and Yurga brigades, and the district military hospital in Chita.  The process of changing to this system of service has already started in two more permanent readiness brigades, the district training center, rear services units of two SibVO armies, three military schools, and 12 military hospitals this year.

The SibVO spokesman says state contracts worth 1 billion rubles have been concluded which bring 1,000 civilian specialists to provide services to more than 20,000 of the district’s troops.  The contracts include food and laundry services, housing-communal services in military towns, recreation services, and other material-technical support, including POL provision to the tune of more than 71 million rubles.

Beyond experiments in the SibVO, today Armed Forces Rear Services Chief Bulgakov told the press 340,000 soldiers in all permanent readiness units, military-educational institutions, and cadet and Suvorov premilitary schools will be fed through outsourced contracts by this year’s end.  He indicated 180,000 soldiers will be fed in 200 units for an annual cost of 6.5 billion rubles by 1 September.   At present, the logistics head said civilian enterprises are feeding 141,000 soldiers in 99 units, except in inaccessible and distant areas.  According to Bulgakov, commercial firms not only provide quality service, but are more economical than having soldiers perform this work.  Bulgakov added that outsourced food service has:

“. . . eliminated the diversion of personnel from combat training activities, food quality has improved, the variety of food prepared has broadened, culinary culture has been raised; the energy value, chemical composition and full achievement of the norms of food rations are reliably meeting normative requirements.”

Bulgakov spoke to reporters during a special rear services exercise supporting an ‘inter-service force grouping’ in the SibVO.  He pointed out how studying U.S. and NATO experiences influenced the Russian Army’s decision to outsource support functions.  According to ITAR-TASS, he said:

“As a result it was evident that the entire U.S. and NATO contingent in Afghanistan and Iraq at present is outsourcing all material-technical support.”

He added that “civilian specialists from commercial structures in these countries are working both in military units in their places of permanent deployment as well as in ‘hot spots.’”

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Posted in Ground Troops, Manpower, Rear Services, Serdyukov's Reforms

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More Drugs, Extremism in the Army

Posted on June 16, 2010 | Leave a comment

According to ITAR-TASS, Main Military Prosecutor Sergey Fridinskiy today warned colleagues at an inter-governmental meeting on military-patriotic indoctrination that anti-drug measures among minors are not having the intended effect, and: 

“Based on last year’s results, the growth of crime connected with illegal trade in narcotic and dangerous substances in the troops (of all power structures) exceeded 70 percent.” 

For his part, Deputy Defense Minister, State Secretary Nikolay Pankov agreed that drug-addicted youth pose a threat not just to the army, but the whole country.  He added: 

“The ‘drug addiction’ diagnosis is becoming customary for draft commissions.” 

At the Draft Board (photo: Newsru.com)

And as if on cue, today from a Ural region draftee assembly point in Yegorshino came the story of 100 young men who arrived recently high on marijuana in hopes of being deferred from conscript service for dependence on narcotics. 

The voyenkomat reported nothing like 100 guys showing up before the draft board in a state of ‘narcotic intoxication’ has previously happened. 

A voyenkomat representative said: 

“There’s never been such a thing, we are sure this is a particular feature of the current draft.  The young guys intentionally used narcotics in order not to end up in the army.” 

According to Newsru.com, a State Narcotics Control officer for Sverdlovsk Oblast is investigating the ‘stoners’ who came from Nizhniy Tagil, Yekaterinburg, and Pervouralsk.  The voyenkomat said these men would be returned to their towns for additional medical observation and rehabilitation. 

ITAR-TASS reported more of Pankov’s comments on a different subject.  He said: 

“In Russia, nearly 150 extremist youth groups are active, the participants in them live mainly in big cities.” 

Pankov didn’t rule out that young extremists could spread from large cities to small towns and lightly populated areas, saying: 

“This is highly probable.  All this comes into military collectives and leads to the growth of nonregulation relations, so-called ‘dedovshchina.'”  

This is just one reason the army’s always preferred country boys from the ‘sticks’ rather than city guys.

The topics of drugs and nationalism in the army, if not taboo outright, have been little discussed.  Some honest talk about these problems might be the first step in solving them.

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Posted in Crime and Corruption, Hazing, Law, Order, and Discipline, Manpower

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There Will Be Professionals, But Later

Posted on June 14, 2010 | Leave a comment

In Thursday’s Vedomosti, Aleksey Nikolskiy wrote about Defense Minister Serdyukov’s remarks on contract service to the Federation Council.  Serdyukov and General Staff Chief Makarov have cited different figures on the current number of contractees (150,000 vs. 190,000), but agree they’ll be cut.  Professionals will come not only later, but in a smaller numbers.  And contractees will occupy only certain duties.

Nikolskiy cites a figure of only 50,000 contractees signed on during Russia’s failed 2003-2007 attempt to set up a professional enlisted force.

A future smaller number of contract NCOs could receive pay equivalent to that of junior officers.  Except that junior officer pay is supposed to increase dramatically toward 2012 under the new pay system.

According to Nikolskiy’s interlocutors, a new table of organization will soon spell out exactly where contractees will serve, i.e. there will reportedly be few driver-mechanic contractees, while the number of senior NCO billets will increase.

While contract soldiers decrease, how will Moscow manage its commitment to keep conscripts out of ‘hot spots’ (i.e. potential combat zones)?  As recently as April, the Defense Ministry had to reassure the public it had no intention of stationing draftees in Chechnya.

Here’s Nikolskiy verbatim:

“In the long run, contractees in the army will increase from 150,000 to 250,000, but first they will cut them to pick the best and pay them more.”

“Defense Minister Anatoliy Serdyukov told reporters in the Federation Council yesterday there are no plans to abandon contractee servicemen and their number in the future will increase to 200,000-250,000. The day before in the defense committee of the upper chamber, the Genshtab chief Nikolay Makarov said the number of contractees will be significantly reduced compared with the current 190,000.  According to him, contractees will occupy only duties in the Navy, Air Forces and Air Defense requiring good professional training, and also in permanent readiness units.  Only conscript soldiers will serve in the remaining posts.”

“An officer from the Defense Ministry central apparatus explains that Serdyukov’s and Makarov’s statements don’t contradict one another.  In the long run, depending on developing financial conditions, the number of contractees will grow, but first they will reduce them to get rid of ballast which got into these posts during the first attempt at professionalization of the army.”

“In 2003 the FTsP “Transition to Manning with Soldiers Conducting Military Service on Contract in Some Formations and Military Units” was adopted at a cost of more than 20 billion rubles.  According to it, by 2007, the number of contractees in soldier and sergeant duties in permanent readiness units should have gotten to 150,000.  However, they began to fulfill this program from the wrong end, said an officer, having simply mechanically increased the number of contractees in posts not worrying about their training or paying a normal wage.  As a result, they took less than 50,000 and the program collapsed, as the Defense Ministry’s leaders confirmed this year.  Now, after their reduction, the number of contractees will be increased carefully, take well trained people into posts and pay them wages equivalent to salaries of junior officers, said Vedomosti’s source.  At President Dmitriy Medvedev’s meeting on Monday [7 June], increasing wages was discussed and a figure was named—from 25,000 rubles [monthly].”
 
“In the words of an officer from one of the Ground Troops’ motorized rifle brigades, the latest order about contractees came to the unit at the beginning of the year and it indicated there should be no more than 5 percent of them among the number of soldiers and sergeants in driver duties, though more posts for contract sergeants as company and battery sergeant-majors were introduced.”
 
“According to him, you can’t judge where exactly contractees will serve until the introduction of new tables of organization which they’ve promised to do in coming months.”

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Serdyukov on Contract Service

Posted on June 11, 2010 | Leave a comment

Wednesday Defense Minister Anatoliy Serdyukov appeared before a closed session of the Federation Council’s ‘government hour,’ and answered 30 prepared questions. 

ITAR-TASS reported the upper legislative chamber’s Speaker Sergey Mironov summarized Serdyukov’s presentation as follows:

“Objectively speaking, we received exhaustive explanations on several positions, some answers explained the situation which had called forth serious questions from the senators.”

Mironov added that Serdyukov’s answers:

“. . . did not completely satisfy FC members.  Personally I and many of my colleagues remained with our own opinions about what is happening in the armed forces.”

Defense and Security Committee Chairman Viktor Ozerov delivered the gist of Serdyukov’s answers to the Russian media, although Serdyukov answered some direct press questions after his session with the legislators.

According to RIA Novosti, Serdyukov said:

“We talked about the transition to the new profile, the numerical composition of the armed forces, the new structure, military units which are being created, draft legislation on pay and proposals concerning the provision of housing to servicemen.”

The major news out of Serdyukov’s parliamentary appearance was the report that he denied Russia is abandoning professional contract service or returning to Soviet-style, all-conscript armed forces.  This contrasted with the recent Newsru.com report saying contractees will soon be drastically cut everywhere except in permanent readiness units, as well as with General Staff Chief Makarov’s February admission that contract service has failed. 

Several media sources reported that Serdyukov indicated contractees would increase 50 percent from a current level of 150,000 to between 200,000 and 250,000.  ITAR-TASS reported his words as:

“In the future it [the number of contractees] will grow, there is potential for this.  In the future the number of contractees will grow to 200-250 thousand, such conditions will be created for them so that they can fulfill their duties as real professionals.”

However, BFM.ru and Regions.ru heard it quite differently.  They reported:

“The Russian Army has not abandoned contract service.  Now in the Armed Forces of Russia there are 150 thousand contractees.  At minimum, this number will be preserved.  If the financial potential of the government allows, we will broaden this component.  Ideally, according to our calculations, the quantity of contractees should be about 200-250 thousand.  They should occupy duties demanding good training and knowledge, service experience.”

According to Ozerov and press sources, Serdyukov addressed other miscellany.

The Defense Minister said the LDPR’s recent draft law proposing to allow young men to buy their way out of the draft for 1 million rubles “raises a whole series of issues.”  He claimed this would interfere with the country’s mobilization potential.  He apparently didn’t say how many guys he thought could afford that much, but he must think a lot can, if it could affect Russia’s human mobilization resources.

Despite recent press indicating a strong presumption that Serdyukov is ready to euthanize premilitary Suvorov and Nakhimov schools (much as VVUZy have been paired back), he told the Federation Council that Suvorov schools will be preserved and strengthened.

Serdyukov demurred from the possibility of more Russian bases abroad, calling them an “expensive pleasure.”

He said the military’s 8,000 plus military towns will be reduced and consolidated into only 184, and those cut would be turned over to the oblasts and republics in which they are located.  The Defense Ministry will discuss with RF subjects and local governments the transfer of housing and other social infrastructure in military towns to their jurisdiction. 

This harks back to the late April announcement about constructing new, large ‘core military towns.’  The smaller number of garrisons sounds more appropriate for a million-man army than 8,000, but taking care of those left stranded without utilities and other services in former garrisons is much more troublesome than simply transferring them to the control of oblasts or local governments.

Serdyukov said the Defense Ministry will acquire 51,000, rather than 45,000 permament apartments for servicemen this year.  He doesn’t see any problem with providing service apartments to every military man by the end of 2012.

He regrets that the Defense Ministry’s request for indexing military pay and pensions has not been approved, but he said this issue is not decided yet.

On the Black Sea Fleet, Ozerov said Serdyukov said the fleet’s personnel will be less than the 24,000 stationed there earlier.  He said Serdyukov said he expects the new Ukrainian government to be much more amenable to discussing deliveries of new weapons and equipment of the Russian fleet.

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More on the Military Manpower Dilemma

Posted on June 5, 2010 | Leave a comment

Social Portrait of SibVO Conscripts (Photo: Trud)

Mikhail Lukanin wrote in Trud this week about the Defense Ministry’s unending manpower woes. 

He concluded that the first two months of this spring’s draft campaign showed there’ll be almost no way to avoid conscription.  Experts he talked to believe the Defense Ministry’s conscription plan is unrealistically high, and the armed forces will turn to inducting every student. 

The callup is supposed to run 1 April to 15 July, and take in 270,000 new soldiers.  Voyenkomaty have already sent 100,000 men—mostly from the Volga-Ural region and Siberia—to their units.  One-third of callup-aged men were screened out due to health problems, most of which were diagnosed initially when the men appeared before the military-medical commission. 

Experts consider the early part of the draft campaign the easy part.  Voyenkomaty have been dealing with young men not in school who go pretty willingly to the army, according to human rights advocate Sergey Krivenko.  

But he says in the last weeks of the draft the voyenkomaty have to meet their quotas mainly with VUZ graduates who don’t have any desire to serve.  Valentina Melnikova of the Soldiers’ Mothers’ Committee says: 

“Mass roundups in student dormitories have already begun.  They traditionally conduct them mostly in Moscow and St. Petersburg.” 

In the fall, 43,000 university and institute graduates found themselves in the army—that’s 15 percent of all conscripts. 

Demographers indicate that the number of 18-year-old men will fall, and not exceed 600,000 for the next two years.  That number equals the number of places available in higher education institutions.  Independent military-economic analyst Vitaliy Tsymbal concludes: 

“The Defense Ministry can fully meet its draft plan only by means of total conscription of students.” 

And it has done little to hide its appetite for students, according to Lukanin. 

GOMU Chief Vasiliy Smirnov already talked to the Federation Council about drafting students after one or two years in a VUZ, and the Education Ministry reportedly didn’t object.  The extension of the current draft until 31 August means that those finishing school at 18 can now fall directly into the army, rather than taking their VUZ entrance exams.  Similarly, the ‘nonstop draft’ means VUZ graduates hoping to start their graduate studies will now fall subject to the draft. 

Of course, Smirnov has also raised cutting sharply the number of VUZy that can provide students a draft deferment.  He talks about a 50 percent cut, expanded later to a 70 percent cut in qualified VUZy.  Trud has been told all nongovernmental institutions will lose the right to provide deferments. 

Sergey Krivenko believes in every draft about 130,000-150,000 conscripts are ready to serve [his number may be high since it wasn’t so long ago that 133,000 were drafted every six months, and surely not every one of them was happy to go].  If, according to Krivenko, the Defense Ministry stuck with this number, it wouldn’t have any problem with conscription [it would certainly have fewer problems].  He continues: 

“However, the whole point is that beginning with spring 2009 the plan jumped to almost 300,000 in one callup.  Troop commanders themselves say that half of this number is simply ballast for the army.  Mainly these are guys in poor health, with a low level of education, and also inveterate hooligans.” 

Lukanin had a second article reviewing data from a survey of 7,800 conscripts in the SibVO.  Every third conscript considers serving a burden.  Only 40 percent had a secondary school (high school) or initial professional (post-secondary technical training) education; 4.5 percent had a complete higher education.  A third of the men grew up without fathers.  One in ten admitted either misusing alcohol, trying narcotics, or having a run-in with the police before coming to the army. 

More than 30 percent said they came to the army just to avoid trouble with the authorities.  Two percent said they have a negative attitude toward the army [this represents the small number of young men willing to tell the army’s pollsters what they really think to their faces]. 

Experts tell Lukanin the poll results will change as conscripts from Moscow, St. Petersburg, and other large cities begin to arrive.  A figure of 15 percent with negative attitudes toward the army is about the norm. 

Ten percent of the conscripts have health problems.  Three percent are underweight. 

The medical condition of conscripts may be worsening.  Official data say half of conscripts have health-related restrictions on their service.  And army commanders confirm that it’s hard to find draftees without some kind of defect.  ‘Ideal’ soldiers (from a physical and social standpoint) are found only in honor guards.  The deputy commander of the Moscow honor guard battalion said last fall he traveled all over Kostroma Oblast and, of 1,000 candidates presented by local voyenkomaty, he accepted only 30. 

Finally, one last story of draft-related problems . . . Nezavisimaya gazeta ran an editorial this week describing how some conscripts finishing their year of service in the DVO, Pacific Fleet, and SibVO are not being demobbed on time.  According to this report, they are being held because the DVO doesn’t have trained soldiers to take their places and participate in the operational-strategic Vostok-2010 exercise starting at the end of June.  The editorial concludes that the spring conscripts don’t even know how to handle their weapons yet, much less find a target on radar.  NG calls it a symptom of the fact that the Russian Army never has, and never has had, enough specialists.  The editors could hark back to the need for a professional army, but instead they recommend a better system of reserve mobilization.

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Sharp Cut in Contract Soldiers Coming

Posted on June 2, 2010 | Leave a comment

In the wake of General Staff Chief Makarov’s February admission that professional contract service had failed, a Defense Ministry source told Interfaks last week that contractees in noncombat positions will be sharply cut.  According to Newsru.com:

“It’s planned that by 1 July of this year only those specialists affecting combat readiness of military sub-units will remain in contract positions.”

He said this means combat vehicle commanders, driver-mechanics, gunner-operators, and other specialists, and civilians or conscripts will fill other contractee posts.  Lenta.ua noted the source didn’t specify how many contractees would be released or how many would remain.

Some of data cited referred back to a Vedomosti editorial about two weeks ago.  It said, under the 2003 Federal Targeted Program “Transition to Manning by Servicemen Conducting Military Service on Contract in Some Formations and Military Units” for 2004-2007, professional contract soldiers in permanent readiness units were to increase from 22,000 to 147,000 by 2008, and from 80,000 to 400,000 in the armed forces overall.  But in reality, there were only 100,000 in permanent readiness units by 2008, and only 200,000 in the Defense Ministry overall.  Meanwhile, the effort cost 84 billion rubles.  Vedomosti concluded:

“It seems the generals could not fulfill (or sabotaged) the directives of the country’s highest political leadership in peacetime.  Who will guarantee that the generals’ disobedience won’t be repeated in an emergency situation?”

“The Defense Ministry could not organize or make professional service in the army attractive and it sees as a way out stuffing the developing hole with a growing number of conscripts.  It’s understandable that the quality of these one-year draftee soldiers will be lower than that of contractees.”

“The abandonment of the move to a professional army promises many dismal consequences for Russia’s future.  Drafting 27-29-year-old higher educational institution graduates, who are in professional demand, could deliver significant damage to the economy and scratch the country’s modernization.”

So what is to be done?

This spring the Defense Ministry floated several trial balloons to answer its manpower problems.  As Parlamentskaya gazeta reported, the chief of the Genshtab’s GOMU, Vasiliy Smirnov told the Federation Council last month that he wants to increase his conscription base by reducing student deferments, raising the upper limit of the call-up age from 27 to 30, lengthening the semiannual callup until it becomes almost perpetual, and requiring young men to report to voyenkomaty without a summons.  Reportedly, the Kremlin has approved some or all of these proposals.

The Genshtab has proposed cutting the number of VUZy with the right to provide students deferments.  Even though deferments were trimmed in the recent past, Russians still have 21 legal ways to postpone their military service.  Smirnov claimed over 2 million draftees, more than 60 percent of the overall number, legally ‘dodge’ the army with deferments, the vast majority of which are educational deferments.  He continued:

“The number of higher educational institutions in which study is a basis for the right to a draft deferment from military service has to be reduced in stages.  Already this year it would be advisable to cut the number of VUZy having the right to a deferment in half or even by 70 percent, keeping that right only for educational institutions having a state order.  An alternative option could be having students perform conscripted service after the first or second year of studies.  The Education Ministry made this study and sees no negative consequences.”

Noting that voyenkomaty have been unable to notify 200,000 men to report, Smirnov concluded:

“Thus, the existing system of holding citizens liable who for some reason are not fulfilling military service obligation is ineffective today.  We have to change the system of notifying citizens.  In case a person does not receive the notice from the military commissariat, it is proposed that he go to the induction center on his own on the date indicated in the certificate of a citizen subject to call-up for military service.  This procedure functions in many states.”

Summing up, Smirnov said:

“A General Staff analysis of capabilities for manning the state’s military organization with conscripted servicemen showed that the needs of the state’s military organization for a draft contingent will not be supported as early as the end of 2010.”

In other words, the ‘demographic hole’ created by the sharp reduction in male births during the early 1990s is beginning to have its inevitable effect.

Deputy Defense Minister, State Secretary Nikolay Pankov and Main Directorate for Socialization Work Chief Yuriy Dashkin appeared at a Duma roundtable on 31 May to discuss conscription and conscript life.  According to RIA Novosti, Dashkin told Duma members, “Today the armed forces, dealing with a large number of tasks, are forced by the state’s economic condition, by resource provision, to rely still on a conscript army.”  Pankov said he could not give percentage figures on the future mix of conscripts and contractees in the Russian Army.  Soldiers’ Mothers Committee chair Svetlana Kuznetsova expressed doubt that the army will be able to induct 270,000 men as planned this spring.

Trud recently published a number of open letters to President Dmitriy Medvedev, one of which came from Soldiers’ Mothers’ founder Valentina Melnikova.  She asked Medvedev to end conscription, writing:

“Dear Dmitriy Anatolyevich, explain, please, why the Defense Ministry buried the idea of creating a professional army in Russia.   Back in 2003 the government adopted a special Federal Targeted Program on the full manning of all permanent readiness units with contractees.  All together, it was proposed by 2008 to bring into the forces 147,000 professional sergeants, for this 79 billion rubles was allocated.  The Defense Ministry reported that it was managing the task, and promised to increase the number of contractees in the army, and reduce the share of conscripts.  But in the end everything turned out exactly opposite.  At the beginning of this year the military officially stated that the task of building a professional army is being put off for indefinite long term.  As regards conscription into army units, the Defense Ministry intends to take it to 700,000 per year.  It’s simply impossible in Russia to find so many boys fit for military service according to the state of their health.  Almost a third of all conscripts that end up in the army have serious illnesses.  They’ll make just as many young citizens serve who have parents who can’t work.  End conscription and force the generals to create an army not of boys, but of professionals.  And don’t believe the generals when they say Russia doesn’t have the money for a professional army.  Independent experts believe that the state, if all expenditures are considered (pay for voyenkomat doctors, medical evaluation in hospitals, transporting conscripts to their service locations, assistance to soldiers’ wives, etc.), spends 150 billion rubles every year on conscription.  It seems to me that for this money it would be fully possible to maintain a fully contract army in a worthy condition.”

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Poor Health of Potential Conscripts

Posted on May 24, 2010 | 1 comment

The Defense Ministry press service today revealed some scarcely concealed official irritation with the poor health of its pool of potential conscripts.

ITAR-TASS reported that almost half the men called to draft commissions have been sent for medical observation.  The press service source told ITAR-TASS:

“As of 21 May draft commissions have made decisions on 155,300 of those called up, more than 70,800 men have been sent to places of service.  Since the beginning of the call-up, military commissariats have sent nearly 67,000 young men for medical observation.”

The draft campaign which began 1 April will call 270,000 men into the armed forces and other militarized structures.  The largest numbers of conscripts thus far have come from the Volga-Ural region and Siberia.  In last year’s competition for citizens best prepared for military service, Tatarstan was first, Stavropol second, and Arkhangelsk third.

ITAR-TASS concludes, in the Defense Ministry, they remained worried as before by the weak health of Russian conscripts.  In the 2009 call-up [not clear if this means spring, fall, or both draft campaigns taken together], 68 percent of those appearing at draft commissions were found fit for military service without limitations or with insignificant limitations, but of the number actually inducted into the service, more than half had various limitations because of their health.  This prevented sending them to military units with high demands on servicemen–the VDV, VMF, MVD VV, and others.

ITAR-TASS reports doctors were forced [spring, fall, all of 2009?] to send nearly 86,400 of those called-up to ambulatory or in-patient observation in medical facilities because of unsatisfactory health indicators.  And their fitness for service can only be determined once they complete medical observation.  The item notes that, over time, 1-3 percent of young guys go ‘AWOL’ from observation and don’t complete it.  The fact that young men manifest health problems for the first time when they’re in front of the draft commission shows the weaknesses of the health care system.  The Defense Ministry also believes this shows that medical prophylactic measures for young people are poorly organized in the regions.

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Supreme CINC Meets Troops at Alabino

Posted on May 10, 2010 | Leave a comment

President Medvedev at Alabino

On 5 May, President Medvedev visited Alabino’s 5th Guards Taman Independent Motorized Rifle Brigade (formerly division), a traditional showcase and test bed formation for new equipment and concepts.  

Medvedev and Defense Minister Serdyukov followed up the latter’s late April meeting with the Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers and other public representatives about ‘humanizing’ the armed forces.  At that time, Serdyukov presented ideas for driving the ‘spirit of the prison camp from the army.’  They included freeing soldiers from additional duties to focus completely on training, allowing them more free time, pushing reveille and lights-out back an hour, mandating a rest hour after lunch, instituting a 5-day conscript working week, allowing the possibility of draftees serving close to home, and obtaining weekend passes to leave the garrison. 

Alabino is a place where things like these are typically tried out. 

As Rossiyskaya gazeta put it, Medvedev went to Alabino to see how conscripts live in ‘new profile’ conditions.  He inspected the training grounds, classrooms, and barracks, and answered questions from the new soldiers themselves.  

Medvedev and Serdyukov addressed physical training, one-year conscription, contract service, weekend passes, mobile phones, and hiring civilians to perform nonmilitary support services. 

Taman Brigade Commander Andrey Ivanayev told the Supreme CINC about the experiment with intensive physical training (PT) in his formation.  Ivanayev indicated the troops formerly had 53 hours of PT  per year, but now get 4-5 hours per day, or about 25 per week.  He and Medvedev discussed how soldiers are separated into groups by the physical load they can handle. 

In the Kremlin.ru transcript, Ivanayev said in April testing there were only 88 negative PT evaluations.  According to RIA Novosti’s reporting, Ivanayev thinks the formation’s fitness level has already increased 50 percent.   

Medvedev remarked on the Taman brigade’s outfitting with special PT gear.  He asked Defense Minister Serdyukov about introducing new athletic uniforms in other units.  Serdyukov said:  

“Yes, we are literally this spring buying 50,000 sets and toward fall, apparently, on the order of 100,000 more, the fact is in the course of two years we’re trying to outfit the entire army fully with sports gear for training in summer as well as winter.” 

Most important to the vast majority of Russians, Medvedev told Taman brigade soldiers he doesn’t intend to raise the current 1-year conscription term:  

“That decision on the transition to one-year service which was made, it was painful for us, it isn’t easy, but we won’t change it.  Service in other countries comparable to our country in combat potential is organized in exactly such as way.  And this year still allows us to train a quality specialist, soldier, sergeant.  And despite the fact that there are now certain problems with manning—it’s true, we don’t intend to change the service term.” 

When one soldier asked about enlisted contract service, Medvedev turned to Serdyukov to explain what’s new on this front.  Serdyukov answered: 

“We are now preparing a concept precisely on contract service for soldier and sergeant personnel.  There will be an entire complex of proposals, including on pay, service conduct.  We will equate the entire social package (sergeant like officer) on support, pay and all parameters . . . .” 

“I think in the course of this summer we will prepare and then send you concrete proposals about how this will look, what quantity of contractees we intend to accept, in which specialties particularly and with what kind of pay.” 

Medvedev responded that current pay is not very high, but those who are serving well on it should be retained: 

“However, at the same time, it’s completely obvious according to the well-known principle, better less, but better.  Let there be higher pay and those remaining will really want to serve, instead of us spreading this [pay] among a large quantity of contractees, who won’t have the stimulus, particular desire, or any kind of motive to continue serving and to serve well.” 

When Medvedev pressed him for what he thinks about contractee pay, Moscow MD Commander Valeriy Gerasimov finally said he thinks contractees should get 50-60 percent of lieutenant pay.  Serdyukov said it would be more on the order of 80-85 percent, depending on the duty position.  The more technically complex, the closer to officer pay.  He continues: 

“We are proceeding from the fact that, on the whole, in all the armed forces—a lieutenant from 55, and a sergeant from 35 [thousand rubles per month] . . . .” 

But a little math says that is closer to Gerasimov’s figure, or 64 percent of officer pay . . . 

Medvedev asked his Defense Minister about devising a policy to give conscripts weekend passes to visit home if they live nearby.  Serdyukov said: 

“We are planning over two-three months to proceed on this regime.  Well, naturally, after taking the oath, after he becomes a soldier, after this we’ll introduce it.  We have this really experimental brigade, we are just beginning to work all these approaches out.” 

Medvedev added: 

“Here again we have to proceed from modern approaches.  If a guy serves close by and manning goes according to the territorial principle, then why not let him go home?  Another thing, of course, everyone has to understand what responsibility the soldier carries for any type of infraction in this case, but this is just a question of self-discipline.  You want to go home for the weekend, this means, simply do everything as it’s supposed to be done.” 

Serdyukov chimed in: 

“In the course of five days [of the working week] you need to show the highest indicators, then this will be a particular stimulus for one who wants to pay a visit home on Saturday and Sunday.” 

This policy is especially interesting . . . the possibility of the weekend pass is predicated on several things not really discussed during the Alabino visit.  Working backward, the pass depends on successfully implementing a five-day working week for conscripts.  Then on having conscripts serving relatively close to home in the first place.  At least one voyenkom has already said conscripts from his republic don’t have this chance because they all serve outside their home borders.  A prized weekend pass could also become one more thing to be bought and sold to the highest bidder, or briber.  If implemented, this policy will be difficult to maintain in the face of soldiers who don’t return to the garrison or get into serious trouble while away from it. 

A new conscript asked Medvedev if mobile phones are permitted in the army.  The President asked him if he had one in his pocket, and the soldier replied yes.  Medvedev responded, “Then why did you ask?”  He continued: 

“In fact these rules, as I understand, essentially are established at the unit level, at the level of the corresponding troop formation, but there are no bans on this issue.” 

Gerasimov added that in the Moscow MD anyone may have a cell phone, but they may not be used during training or duty time. 

Discussing training and physical conditioning, Serdyukov turned to one of his earliest initiatives at the Defense Ministry—relieving soldiers from essential nonmilitary duties like kitchen patrol, cleaning, groundskeeping, and utilities maintenance. 

He mentioned the goal of moving to civilian service and support within 12-18 months in all Defense Ministry units, but “everything will depend on our financial condition.  According to preliminary calculations, we have to make do in the bounds of our existing budget.” 

Medvedev said: 

“I think here it’s obvious to everyone that soldiers and officers need to serve the Motherland, be occupied with troop training, improve their physical conditioning, but questions of maintaining the sub-unit, generally, this is an issue which civilian organizations could do successfully for money, as this is done, incidentally, around the world.  Then there won’t be problems with tiresome details and it’ll be possible to concentrate on fundamental service.” 

Civilians already take care of the Taman brigade’s food service, and soon they will maintain its engineering networks, and provide cleaning services.  Serdyukov indicated the FSB is working on licensing firms to work in closed facilities, and Oboronservis will work in remote garrisons where contractors can’t be found.

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Posted in Conscription, Ground Troops, Manpower, Serdyukov's Reforms, Training and Exercises

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Victim of the ‘New Profile’

Posted on April 29, 2010 | Leave a comment

Obvious individual suffering from Serdyukov’s ‘New Profile’ military reforms hasn’t been readily apparent until now.

Russian media today carried sad news about a 34-year-old lieutenant colonel, one Aleksey Kudryavtsev, serving in Udmurtiya, who hung himself in the forest upon learning his unit would be disbanded.

Press said he served in v/ch 93233, which Yandex shows is the military commissariat [draft and mobilization office] for Igra Rayon of the Udmurt Republic.  Kudryavtsev must have been one of the few remaining uniforms in the commissariat since most military men were early victims of Serdyukov’s cut in the officer corps.  Some officers have been able to serve on as civilians.

Despondent on finding out about his imminent dismissal, the lieutenant colonel stood to lose not only his post, but also his service apartment.  He wrote his wife a note saying not to look for him and to start a new family, and then disappeared last September.  His body was finally located in a remote wooded area.  He left sons of 4 and 8 behind.

Newsru.com and Argumenty nedeli covered the story.

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Posted in Conscription, Manpower, Officer Corps, Serdyukov's Reforms

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Major Beating at Shilovskiy

Posted on April 1, 2010 | Leave a comment

According to Kommersant, prosecutors have charged an artillery battalion commander from a motorized rifle brigade based below Novosibirsk with exceeding his authority by beating four conscripts from Dagestan.  A senior investigator from the Military-Investigative Department of the Prosecutor’s Investigative Committee for the Novosibirsk Garrison reports that the incident occurred last November at the Shilovskiy range when Major Nikolay Levyy beat two draftees from Dagestan in his office, then smashed their cell phones.  Levyy had been critical of the pair on more than one occasion. 

Two more natives of Dagestan got it from the major in front of the formation.  The investigator determined that Renat Magomedov got the worst of it when the major asked whether Magomedov would fight for the battalion or his own people if he had to choose, and Magomedov responded for his compatriots.

After this, the investigator reported, Slavic servicemen proceeded to beat all four soldiers from Dagestan.  Major Levyy looked on without intervening.  That evening, the events spiraled into a larger fight.  Russian servicemen herded dozens of Caucasian servicemen into one barracks and locked them  down.  Overnight, the unit’s officers managed to quiet the disturbance, and all soldiers from Dagestan were later sent to other units.

Major Levyy was relieved of duty pending the outcome of his case.  He did not admit his guilt, but also refused to incriminate himself by giving evidence.  The events involving the other fighting are still under investigation.

The media accounts note that this is not the first mass fight between Caucasians and Slavs at Shilovskiy.  The last one occurred on 8 January 2007 when officers had to fire warning shots to break it up, according to Kommersant.  Law enforcement only found out when one soldier turned up in the hospital with a ruptured spleen several days later.

Some press reminded readers of the early July 2009 incident in which 200 Russian and other soldiers reportedly fought with 44 conscripts from Dagestan at Aleysk, also in the SibVO.

Some thoughts on this news item . . .

The major smashing the soldiers’ cell phones is interesting.  Commanders say they don’t like soldiers having them because new conscripts have them taken away by older soldiers, contractees, and officers.  Commanders say cell phones jeopardize their units’ secrecy and security.  But they probably don’t like them because cell phones are a lifeline to call for help in cases where conscripts are being abused or mistreated.  This tends to get the commander in trouble, one way or the other.

Would the major ask a soldier from Dagestan if he would fight for his battalion or for his compatriots if there weren’t already some pretty serious interethnic violence, conflicts, and tensions in his unit?

Shilovskiy is basically a SibVO arms and equipment storage base left  unchanged despite the army’s ‘new profile.’  Levyy, like other Russian officers, probably faced the reality that there are now fewer officers, warrants, and contract sergeants to supervise increased numbers of conscripts.  The commander also faces more demands from his superiors, the SibVO, Genshtab, and Defense Ministry today with the push for the ‘new profile.’  It likely breeds frustration that drives higher levels of officer crime from year to year.  It’s interesting that it’s the battalion commander himself using his fists against soldiers, and not their own battery commanders, captains, or lieutenants.

A major in Levyy’s position is damned if he doesn’t and damned if he doesn’t.  If he acts, he has few levers at his disposal—where are the new military police, the guardhouses, the old military commandant?  So he resorts to his fists and something akin to prison camp order.  And if he doesn’t act, he can’t keep order at all and the situation just gets worse.

There are lots of other incidents involving conscripts from Dagestan either giving, or taking, beatings in the armed forces.  And we’ll look at some in days to come.  But interethnic tensions in the Russian Army don’t always involve just soldiers from Dagestan.

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Posted in Conscription, Crime and Corruption, Ground Troops, Law, Order, and Discipline, Manpower

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