Following one of the most popular expressions of recent times that it is not customary to change horses for a crossing, two judgments naturally arise about the resignation of Anatoly Serdyukov, which caused a lot of noise. It turns out that either the crossing for the Russian army ended, or all the same, certain problems began to be observed with the "horse".
Recall that on November 6, exactly on the eve of the 95th anniversary of the October Revolution, Vladimir Putin made a truly revolutionary decision for modern Russia: he dismissed Mr. Serdyukov from the post of Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation and almost immediately announced the appointment of Sergei Shoigu to the vacant ministerial post. The revolutionary shift in the Ministry of Defense literally plunged Russia into a general discussion of what the presidential decision on Anatoly Serdyukov is connected with. People began to discuss what influenced the head of state so much, who decided to sign a paper on the termination of Serdyukov's powers as Minister of Defense and the withdrawal of this person from the country's Security Council.
Naturally, the sensational case of the holding company of the Ministry of Defense "Oboronservis" is listed as the first in the list of general blunders of the already former minister. Voennoye Obozreniye has already raised the topic of how, through a number of front companies, from the military budget in an incomprehensible (or rather, quite understandable) direction, no less than 3 billion rubles flowed away. Oboronservis was engaged in selling real estate objects belonging to the Ministry of Defense at radically low prices to affiliated companies, after which the firm could dispose of the buildings “bought” from itself as it pleases a narrow circle of people.
This information raised a wave of public interest, because the fraud case involved people who, in their official duties, were close to the Minister of Defense himself. It turns out that either all the dirty scams were carried out behind Anatoly Serdyukov's back, or the minister himself, to put it mildly, closed his eyes to everything.
As you know, when representatives of the investigating authorities raided the apartment of the ex-head of the property department of the Ministry of Defense Yevgenia Vasilyeva and began to conduct a search in the apartment, Serdyukov immediately rushed to the president in Novo-Ogaryovo. Then, at least for the press, it was reported that the minister would facilitate the investigation as much as possible. True, in this case, not everyone believed that Anatoly Eduardovich would follow the path of complete openness in communication with investigators. Opinions were expressed that if Serdyukov remains in the ministerial post even after such a large-scale corruption scandal, then all words about the fight against corruption in Russia are simply worthless.
Obviously, realizing that the presence of Mr. Serdyukov in the ministerial chair after such a resonant incident could put a fat blot on all the anti-corruption aspirations of the highest federal authorities, Vladimir Putin decided to dismiss the seemingly unsinkable minister. There is a version that Serdyukov either himself announced the need for his resignation even when he arrived in Novo-Ogaryovo to Putin from the apartment of one of the main persons involved in the Oboronservis case, Evgenia Vasilyeva, or Putin informed Anatoly Eduardovich that it would be better for him start looking for another job. In general, we dare to suggest that Serdyukov knew about Putin's decision of November 6, 2012 a few days before that. After all, it would be strange to think that such decisions are made overnight, and even without the knowledge of those in respect of whom they are directed.
This is indirectly confirmed by the fact that both President Putin and Prime Minister Medvedev, commenting on the resignation of Anatoly Serdyukov, thanked him for a fairly long and fruitful work in the ministerial post and said that he had done a lot to modernize the Russian army.
At the same time, a number of political scientists in the dismissal of Anatoly Serdyukov see the possibility of manifestation of a precedent unique for Russia. This precedent may lie in the increased interest of the investigating authorities in the activities of Anatoly Eduardovich himself as head of the defense department. The idea is that now Serdyukov is not exposed by the authorities, which means that the Investigative Committee can, as they say, take by the lapels of the jacket of the ex-minister in the case of the same Oboronservis. While the press service of the RF IC speaks about the former minister as a witness, but if the investigators have questions of a different nature to him, then Mr. Serdyukov may not get away with the status of a witness in this case.
But if the investigating authorities really begin to work with enviable zeal, not paying attention to ranks, titles and titles, then Mr. Serdyukov may well turn out to be a citizen under investigation. And in order to get out more or less dry from such a muddy fashion, Anatoly Eduardovich will have, as they say, to completely merge his former subordinates, who allegedly carried out all financial and business operations without his knowledge. If this is the case, then the question of how the Minister of Defense allowed himself to work in such a way that such dark things were going on behind his back will lose relevance. This question will lose its acuteness, since Serdyukov is no longer a minister, for that, they say, he was dismissed … It turns out that the resignation, most likely, is not at all aimed at giving the command "Fas!" in relation to Anatoly Eduardovich, but it looks like his only escape from real criminal prosecution. They say that the minister was not to blame - this is all his entourage, which put blinders on Anatoly Eduardovich and forced him to go in a strictly defined direction …
But, what if we still assume that Serdyukov will be tackled after his resignation for real. The probability, of course, is ghostly small, but it is still possible to consider the situation. If the RF IC starts to "dig the ground", then a very interesting picture will turn out: the top leaders of the state secretly give the "horse from the crossing" into the hands of the "butchers" … Will Serdyukov really become the first victim of such large-scale backstage intrigues?
And if there were no orders from above, then have our investigative bodies really become so independent that they can bring the case to the end, even if it concerns the illegal activities of such large-scale figures of Russian politics. I would like to believe that this is exactly the case, but here faith somehow dissolves too quickly in the political fog.
By the way, what are we talking about the situation with Oboronservis, as if there were no other reasons for the dismissal of Serdyukov from his post? There were, were …
Many expected that the minister would cease to be a minister even when Dmitry Medvedev's Cabinet was approved. Not everyone credited the Minister of Defense with the fact that he actually started building the Russian army from scratch and that the level of pay for servicemen had increased, if not several times, then quite significantly. People in the first place (which coincides with aspects of psychology) paid attention to the political disadvantages in the work of the minister.
One of these drawbacks was the inability of the minister to establish effective work on the procurement of the latest weapons from manufacturers. The press constantly discussed the next failure of the State Defense Order, the shift in terms, the inability to agree with the defense industrial enterprises on the price. This, obviously, dealt blows to the prestige of the Ministry of Defense and gave rise to discussions that Minister Serdyukov is either sabotaging the presidential and prime minister's decisions on modernization areas, or is simply incapable of taking serious measures to implement them.
By the way, in December 2011, a whole deputy prime minister, Dmitry Rogozin, was appointed to help the country's defense department, which was stuck in making decisions on the state defense order. The presence of this person in the Government made it possible to hope that it would be much easier for the Ministry of Defense to negotiate with production workers. However, already at the first stages of work in the new bundle, disagreements between Serdyukov and Rogozin appeared. The former either harbored a feeling of unfriendliness towards Russian arms manufacturers who did not want to reduce the price of their products, or had any other reasons, but often unreasonably stubbornly insisted on the purchase of foreign units of military equipment for the needs of the Russian army. Rogozin had a different opinion on this matter: he often openly opposed Anatoly Serdyukova, stating that in specific cases it would be better to invest in the development of his own defense industry, and not buy from foreign manufacturers that equipment that is significantly inferior to domestic ones.
The other day Dmitry Rogozin himself told the press that the conflict between him and Serdyukov took place. Rogozin stressed that he and the former minister had different opinions about the formation of a defense order. As they say, what was required to prove …
So, "Oboronservis" - one time, mistakes when working on the State Defense Order - two …
The third blunder was voiced by the journalists of the Vedomosti newspaper, who are sure that Serdyukov has encroached on territory that is forbidden for himself, or rather, on the Federal Security Service. In particular, the publication claims that it was Serdyukov who pushed Mr. Korolev, who was once an assistant to the Minister of Defense, into his own security service of the FSB. According to Vedomosti, the fact that a person from the Ministry of Defense will observe the work of the FSB, not everyone in the FSB itself, so to speak, liked it. It is also reported here that it was allegedly at the filing of the FSB that the proceedings were initiated in the Oboronservis case, which actually buried Serdyukov's career as Minister of Defense.
If these reports are to be believed, it turns out that the minister could have remained in office for as long as he wanted, if he had not decided to "introduce" his people into someone else's fiefdoms. And if so, then, therefore, this is science for all other government officials: to work within their own framework and not do stupid things in terms of trying to control birds of a completely different flight.
There are other flaws by Anatoly Serdyukov, which most people know about even without painstaking journalistic investigations: the delay in solving the problem of providing housing for military personnel, the reduction in the number of military universities, the lack of staffing of the army with contract servicemen, and much more.
In particular, Vladimir Putin had to blush more than once about the unresolved housing problem. During one of the direct lines, Putin was asked when the issue of completely leveling the queue of servicemen waiting to receive their assigned apartment would be resolved. Putin had to resort to the art of eloquence in order to explain to the country that the problem was being solved, and, obviously, at the same time, with a "kind" word to remember the minister …
It would seem that even then Serdyukov could write a letter of resignation, but this did not happen. More precisely - not quite so. Anatoly Eduardovich very often publicly in the presence of the top leaders of the state declared that he was ready to resign, but in a strange way remained in his chair even after very obvious shortcomings. This is what added the epithet "unsinkable" to Serdyukov.
But nothing lasts forever under the moon, like the status of defense minister for Anatoly Serdyukov. Outwardly, this resignation looks quite positive for many of our fellow citizens, but in any case, it will be possible to speak about the role of the ex-minister in the course of reforming the Russian army after a certain period of time. It would be difficult to expect that the person who was entrusted with carrying out such a serious reform requiring trillions of dollars would do everything with pinpoint accuracy and without any complaints. One thing is clear: Serdyukov did a dirty job, and now his personal future will depend on how much he got himself into this mud. The main thing is that the future of the Russian army turns out to be not as vague as the future of the ex-minister …
