Tag Archives: Duma

Shamanov Disputes Defense Spending

Posted on October 18, 2019 | 2 comments
Shamanov addressing the Duma in 2018.PNG

Shamanov addressing the Duma in 2018

Former VDV commander General-Colonel Vladimir Shamanov’s Defense Committee has criticized the RF government in advance of the first Duma reading of the federal budget for 2020 (and plan for 2021-2022). The committee accused the government of steadfastly “ignoring the army’s needs” — pay for MOD civilians, military pensions, housing, and fuel specifically — in its spending proposals.

Russian media reported the committee’s complaints were spelled out in writing. The legislature will discuss the government budget on October 23.

Committee chairman Shamanov addressed the low wages of the MOD’s 900,000 civilian workers. 

Civilian workers of the MOD march for worthy pay in 2018.jpg

Civilian MOD workers march for “worthy” pay in 2018

As numerous as uniformed officers and soldiers, civilian defense employees are critical to Russia’s military but their pay only averages around 30,000 rubles ($470) per month against 46,000 rubles ($718) elsewhere in the economy, Gazeta.ru reported.

They received a three percent increase on October 1 but, coming so late in the year, it offset only a quarter of this year’s inflation (4%).

The Defense Committee claimed the current average military pension in 2020 will be 23,500 rubles ($368), and has declined 20 percent in recent years because it hasn’t always been adjusted for inflation, wrote Rossiyskaya gazeta.

[NB: Cumulative inflation for the period 2012-2018 in Russia was over 60 percent.]

The committee reminded the government that President Putin promised retirees in 2012 they would get inflation plus two percent to preserve their buying power. It asked for a 6.3 percent pension increase next year.

The MOD’s mortgage savings system for servicemen was lacking 92 billion rubles ($1.4 billion) at the start of this year, the committee said. The mortgage system depends on government contributions and won’t function without this financing.

The military budget also did not contain enough money for other servicemen and their families who depend on MOD rent subsidies.

According to Gazeta.ru, the committee proposed adding 145 billion rubles ($2.3 billion) to close the gaps in the provision of military housing in 2020. But the RF government did not include this funding in the budget bill.

The Defense Committee also reported the MOD owes 7 billion rubles ($110 million) for fuel this year, and the draft three-year budget contains money for only 1.57 million tons against the 2.1 million tons the military will need. Shamanov and company say the MOD will need an extra 20 billion rubles ($314 million) for this, according to Interfaks-AVN.

Speaking to Voyenno-promyshlennyy kuryer, conservative military commentator Konstantin Sivkov said:

It’s easy to find resources for these needs. Even if we don’t cut their pay, but just the bonuses of the top managers of state corporations, we’d find money for military pensions, and for medicine, and for housing subsidies. According to official data, they amounted to 67 billion rubles [$1 billion] for just the one year 2018.

Why Mr. Shamanov and his committee took on these particular issues isn’t clear. They didn’t tackle pay increases for active duty servicemen who are still several years behind the rate of inflation. They didn’t challenge spending on weapons systems, but then large parts of the defense budget are still secret.

They challenged the government (an easy target) rather than President Putin (a dangerous one). Shamanov and the majority of his committee are members of the party of Putin — United Russia.

Kind of a curious moment for the Russian legislature to offer some checks and balances to Russia’s executive branch.

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Posted in Civil-Military Relations, Logistics, Military Budget, Military Housing

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Perspective on the Military Vote

Posted on December 8, 2011 | 7 comments

Carrying the Ballot Box

A little context for Kommersant’s report on Defense Minister Serdyukov informing the once-and-future president that 97 percent of servicemen voted in the December 4 Duma election, and United Russia garnered 80 percent of those votes.

The Defense Minister allegedly told Prime Minister Vladimir Putin 80 percent of servicemen and their family members picked United Russia (against 67 percent in 2007).  Some remote units reportedly even delivered 99 percent for Putin’s party. 

For the official opposition, the LDPR got 8.6, KPRF 6.3, and Just Russia 3.4 percent.  Their shares dropped from four years ago.

The TsIK says it doesn’t know how the Defense Ministry comes by such figures since most officers and soldiers vote in normal precincts.  And the military department hasn’t commented on any voting report by Serdyukov.

If this is accurate, we can conclude that Serdyukov delivered the military vote. 

Nezavisimaya gazeta’s Vladimir Mukhin wrote that United Russia had very similar results in the 2007 Duma election.

In 2003, NG’s Mukhin said the Defense Ministry put the “military electorate” at 5-6 million voters.  It’s probably less today.

United Russia reportedly got only 52 percent of the military vote in 2003, and Rodina 12, LDPR 11, and KPRF 6 percent each.

In 1999, UR’s precursor Unity (or Medved) took 48 percent, KPRF 18, the Zhirinovskiy (LDPR) bloc 14, and Fatherland-All Russia 7 percent.

What are we to conclude?  The process of nailing down the military vote has gotten smoother over time, coinciding with Putin’s and United Russia’s dominance of Russian politics.  It looks like the army has a habit of supporting whoever’s in power.  But now it looks just a little out of step with society — voting 80 percent for the party of power versus 49 percent countrywide.  But how the army votes and what it thinks may also be two different things.

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Posted in Civil-Military Relations

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VVKO Faces West

Posted on November 22, 2011 | Leave a comment

How Will They Represent VKO on the Space Troops Flag?

VVKO faces west.  And north . . . ok, northwest.  Makes sense, that’s the direction those hypersonic missiles are coming from, right?  Maybe, maybe not.

Mil.ru, as is its wont, printed a little item on military preparations for the December 4 Duma election.

It indicates 80 percent of 53,000 servicemen and civilian personnel of the new Troops of Aerospace Defense (VVKO) will vote [i.e. are based] in the Western MD (ZVO). 

The press-release says more than 150 of 171 polling places (88 percent) for VVKO bases, garrisons, and military towns are located in the ZVO.

Space Troops weren’t very big, and they’ve gotten much bigger by swallowing as-yet unclear parts of the OSK VKO (the former KSpN or Moscow PVO District) and other Air Forces’ PVO units into the new VVKO.  OSK VKO, in particular, was a large, westward-leaning formation.

Still it’s surprising VVKO’s center of gravity has shifted so drastically to the west.  One would have thought there’d be a substantial chunk of VVKO-controlled PVO in the Far East, or northeast, too.

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Posted in Civil-Military Relations, Force Structure, Manpower, Space Troops

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Its Own Duma Election

Posted on November 18, 2011 | Leave a comment

A site dedicated to all things Russian Navy called Flot.com has an interesting Internet poll.

The site asks visitors to vote for the party they feel will provide the greatest assistance in developing the Russian Navy.  Click the image below to see the results as of today.

Looking for the Pro-Navy Party

Pardon one for concluding this is pretty compelling.
 
Sixty percent of those responding say the KPRF will be most supportive of the Navy’s development.
 
Bucking Russia’s electoral law, Flot.com still permits an “against all” option.  So 18 percent say no party will provide the greatest assistance in the development of the VMF.
 
United Russia comes in third at about 10 percent.
 
And to think the “party of power” organized a GPV in which the largest portion will go to the Navy.
 
A pretty damning indictment.
 
Yes, it’s an Internet poll, and it’s influenced by its clientele.
 
No offense to a good site is intended, but Flot.com’s visitors could be older, and still more Soviet than Russian.  Who knows?  But they’re also knowledgable and interested in their subject.  Hence, they represent an elite, tough, and skeptical audience. 
 
The GPV notwithstanding, the yedinorossy have failed to convince them they’ll fix the Navy’s problems.
 

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Posted in Civil-Military Relations, Naval Modernization, Navy

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Government Hour (Part I)

Posted on June 16, 2011 | Leave a comment

Yesterday Defense Minister Anatoliy Serdyukov appeared for his latest “government hour” to discuss the state of Russia’s defenses with parliamentarians.  One gets the sense his opponents were more on the offense this time than in the past.

The KPRF pushed to have his Duma meeting opened to the press, but its motion failed.  The faction noted Serdyukov’s yet to have an open session.  It’s first deputy chairman, Sergey Reshulskiy said:

“In all the previous closed ‘government hours,’ I never once heard and no one has proven to me that we are discussing anything secret here.”

“What will he [Serdyukov] tell us?  That they are supplying ‘Mistral’ without its full equipment?  This isn’t a secret.  That servicemen sent into retirement aren’t getting housing, this isn’t a secret either.”

Faction member Vladimir Fedotkin said:

“The West knows a hundred times better than we deputies what’s being created in our army.”

United Russia supporters thought Serdyukov’s answers exhaustive, but others were dissatisfied with his presentation.  Reshulskiy said he heard nothing concrete in Serdyukov’s statements about the recent depot explosions, fulfilling the GOZ, or resettling servicemen from the far north.

LDPR member Sergey Ivanov [not to be confused with Serdyukov’s predecessor] said he had counted on having a different conversation with the Defense Minister, and Serdyukov answered questions like a partisan politician.  Ivanov continued:

“In particular, Serdyukov didn’t give any concrete answer why Russia is buying ‘Mistral’ helicopter carriers from France and where they will be deployed.”

Just Russia’s Svetlana Goryacheva said her party “heard very sad things:  everything’s either not completely financed, not fulfilled, not completely fulfilled.  The Gosoboronzakaz is practically broken.”

Serdyukov apparently called the 102nd Arsenal disaster in Udmurtia a “remnant” of the Soviet era.  The munitions located there arrived during the early 1990s pullout from Germany and Hungary.  He blamed the “human factor” as well as “inadequate storage capabilities.”

Serdyukov also reportedly denied any retaliation against the Lipetsk pilots who blew the whistle on premium pay extortion at the base.  He said the scandal would not reflect on them in any way, and they would continue to serve.

The Defense Minister said Russia won’t be buying German Leopard tanks [recall Postnikov’s suggestion that they might be cheaper than a reworked T-72].  Nor is NATO standardization in the offing.

After the ‘government hour,’ United Russia’s Igor Barinov, deputy chairman of the Duma defense committee, told the press the Mistral deal is complete except for formalities, but most deputies believe buying the ships is a mistake:

“I myself am a little skeptical about the possibilities for combat employment of these types of weapons.”

Nakanune.ru had good coverage of the session.  It’s description said problems with the GOZ were front and center.  When Serdyukov explained how officials and factory directors were punished for breaking the GOZ, several deputies suggested that Serdyukov should resign if his qualifications don’t enable him to solve defense production problems.

Barinov also addressed this saying:

“I won’t cite concrete figures, since this could be secret information, but it’s possible to call the situation lamentable.”

Look for Part II tomorrow.

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Serdyukov’s Duma Session

Posted on December 23, 2010 | 1 comment

ITAR-TASS reported a few tidbits from Defense Minister Serdyukov’s closed session before the Duma yesterday.  Not surprisingly, Serdyukov told Duma deputies:

“We fulfilled those tasks which the President gave to conduct the Armed Forces to a new profile in 2010.  The Armed Forces’ combat readiness increased 1.5 times.  We believe that the combat readiness of the army and navy will grow 3-3.5 times toward 2020.”

RIA Novosti reported that Serdyukov said combat capability, not combat readiness.  Combat capability seems to make more sense.

ITAR-TASS says Serdyukov familiarized deputies with the basic tasks of transitioning to the new profile, and the completion of reforms planned for 2010.  Attention was given mainly to implementing the State Program of Armaments and social issues for servicemen.  He said:

“I familiarized deputies with the transformation of the military districts, changes in army corps and brigades, and military command and control at all levels.”

Corps?  Did he really say that?

Answering a question about housing for servicemen, Serdyukov said the Defense Ministry has fulfilled the government’s order about this:

“In 2009, we obtained 45,500, and in 2010 55,000 apartments from all sources.  This attests to the fact that the government’s order has been fulfilled and is being fulfilled.”

As usual, the official news sources turned to Duma Defense Committee Chairman Viktor Zavarzin for comment, and he said:

“I give high marks to today’s meeting of the chief of the defense department and deputies.  We have established tight coordination with the Defense Ministry on legislative support of military reform, and bringing the Armed Forces to a new profile. “

“We are certain we will decide all issues concerning the rearmament of the army and navy, and social support of servicemen with the Defense Ministry leadership.  I say that we need to preserve this pace which exists in the Defense Ministry and with us next year to take the work to the intended results.”

Regarding rearmament, Zavarzin said:

“Besides, in ten years, the share of modern weapons in the army should be not less than 70 percent, for which unprecedented sums have been allocated.  For this, not only a principled position of the Defense Ministry, but also readiness by OPK enterprises for serial deliveries of modern types of armaments is required.”   

Zavarzin said Serdyukov didn’t have much to say on the Mistral purchase, but Zavarzin said:

“In our view, we don’t need to acquire a hunk of metal, but we need the documentation and understanding of those ideas and developments abroad which will enable us to realize the possibilities of our industry.”

Is Russian shipbuilding really going to learn that much from Mistral?

Zavarzin expressed the opinion of the deputies who think:

“We need to give the Defense Minister great credit because he is deeply involved in these issues and, as the one ordering, aiming to supply the army and navy modern armaments and military equipment. Our convictions are that we should create a competitive environment and competitive structures which would push Russia’s defense-industrial complex to the development and creation of the newest weapons systems, including for the Navy.”

At the same time, Zavarzin credited the Defense Ministry for understanding that military social issues deserve special attention too:

“We are talking about creating attractive conditions for those who are serving, but also providing all stipulated benefits to those who are dismissed from military service.  And this is the guarantee of permanent and service housing for servicemen and their family members, but also increasing pay to servicemen and military pensioners.  By 2012, the new pay system for servicemen should be functioning.”

“It’s understood that the level of pay and military pensions today is far from what’s really needed.  Here it’s necessary to change the situation in a cardinal way.”

ITAR-TASS also talked to members of the three other factions in the Duma. 

The KPRF’s Gennadiy Zyuganov negatively evaluated the army’s combat capability saying:

“The state of preconscription training is zero, and mobilization reserves have disappeared.  The general condition is such that today the army is not in a state to defend the country reliably in the event of a small conflict.”

Zyuganov claimed that defense is spending every third RF ruble, and “spending it absolutely ineffectively.”

He complained that outsourcing support functions to civilian companies has doubled the cost of maintaining each soldier.  Zyuganov also said that, “Switching to expensive cars is a luxury in hard times.”

The Just Russia spokesman supported Serdyukov’s formation of a single queue for military apartments, saying:

“We all know that earlier this was a very corrupt sphere where there was a great deal of injustice and complaints.”

Just Russia supported publishing the apartment queue on the Internet, as well as Serdyukov’s ‘humanization’ of conscript service (an extra day off, ability to communicate with family, service near home, and weekend passes), though nothing was said about the extent to which any of these have been implemented in units.

But the Just Russia faction leader also said:

“Today we raised the issue of material support for civilian workers serving the RF Armed Forces.  Today their wages are so low that a whole row of military commanders complains that they can’t fill vacant positions:  simply no one comes for such pay.”

According to RIA Novosti, Just Russia also supports giving military retirees the option of civilianizing their pensions, a move also advocated by the Defense Ministry, but opposed by the Finance Ministry.  The move would spare the Defense Ministry from choosing between paying more in pensions as active pay rises, or breaking the sacred link between active pay and pensions.  For its part, the Finance Ministry doesn’t want pay out for more expensive civilian pensions.

The LDPR was skeptical of Serdyukov.  Its spokesman said:

“We didn’t hear any news that would surprise us.  And the points of this endless reforming, they are all mainly well-known.  It feels like the man [Serdyukov] is in the flow of what’s happening, but our faction doesn’t always share those methods with which this is happening, particularly cuts, civilianization.”

Sounds like he’s tired of sound bytes too.

Igor Barinov, Deputy Chairman of the Defense Committee from United Russia, expressed concern that Serdyukov’s VVUZ reductions have cut military education to the bone:

“Of course, optimization on this level was essential.  But I think it was clearly a mistaken decision to stop induction [of new cadets] into military VUZy altogether this year and next.”

Mikhail Grishankov, also from United Russia, said there have been failures in the program of providing housing to servicemen.

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Posted in Force Modernization, Force Structure, Military Housing, Serdyukov's Reforms

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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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Posted in Conscription, Ground Troops, Manpower, Serdyukov's Reforms

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