As long as the state has existed, so much is the question of the defense of border territories. What solutions to this issue have not been proposed! From military settlements to Cossack villages. From equipped defense lines to framed army units. The problem was, is and will be. And this applies not only to Russia, all these problems are valid for any state whose territory is larger than the territory of the average statistical region of Russia.
We have not become an exception to the general rule. There is a state. There are boundaries. This means that there is a problem. Regions where there are no border areas are doing quite well with the mobilization plan. "Partisans" obediently go "to the training camp" in military units. They drink vodka regularly. Sometimes they are engaged in combat training or driving combat vehicles. What to take from them … Partisans.
For several years now, our Ministry of Defense has been trying to form territorial defense units. And so it happened. The 47th TO division was formed in Sevastopol! Don't be fooled, 47 is just a name. In fact, the first division. And the only one. The division was created on the territory of Crimea and includes Crimean "partisans" and quite a few "newcomers". In theory, in a dangerous period, all these "partisans" will come together to defend the borders.
Of course, no one will drive the division to the front line. Their task is to protect the objects of the Crimea. Protection and defense. Therefore, small arms and mortars are the whole set of weapons. If necessary, reservists will participate in anti-terrorist operations and disaster relief. The famous American film "Rimbaud" immediately comes to mind. This is where the essence of territorial defense is shown. "National Guard", if in an American way."
It is understandable that some of the readers will now sigh in sorrow. Why fence the garden again when there was a fully functional mobilization system in the USSR? The "partisans" poured into already existing units and formations. These units were deployed to wartime states. And then they performed exactly the same tasks.
Remember the liquidators of the Chernobyl accident. Think back to the first three to four months of the Afghan war. The soldiers, sergeants and officers recruited from the reserve fulfilled the task with honor, sometimes at the cost of their lives. I remember the driver's grandfather from one of the districts of the Surkhandarya region of the Uzbek SSR. He famously twisted the steering wheel of an almost brand new ZIL-131. And when asked about Afghanistan, he always answered: "I was there for three months. Immediately after I turned 63." It turned out that, in addition to people, the military registration and enlistment offices also called for equipment. Naturally, the ZIL-131 was called up. The new one that this grandfather dreamed of for years. And so I got into the first wave of Soviet troops on the new ZiL. And he returned on it.
If we take the Soviet system as a basis, then we lose one of the main functions of territorial defense. Security! Any military unit for a special period has certain tasks. And these tasks are not always carried out in the region of location. Moreover, the units often go to the areas of concentration.
A modern city is the concentration of many hazardous facilities and industries. Water supply systems, warehouses, refrigeration plants, gas stations, gas supply systems. The list is endless. But all these objects are the desired target of saboteurs and their accomplices. Depriving a modern metropolis of electricity would mean almost complete collapse. I am reminded of a long history in Moscow. When the electricity suddenly went out in the eastern and southeastern regions. Moscow got up. I'm not talking about residential buildings, businesses, hospitals. It was enough that the traffic lights stopped working. Transport does not work. The main Moscow transport artery, the metro, does not work. No connection. Phones don't work. None. Collapse.
The need for such units is obvious. But how can this be achieved?
For the third year in the course of various exercises, we see attempts to quickly form such units. In 2014 it even worked out. Then, during the Vostok-2014 command-staff exercises in the Khabarovsk Territory, a battalion of 350 people was deployed. And they even relocated it to Kamchatka.
But the very next year, at the Center-2015 command and staff exercise in the Samara region, there was an attempt to form a TO division. True, the loud name hid in itself only one and a half thousand personnel. A little more than 600 people actually came to the duty station.
Incidentally, these exercises revealed another problem. As it turned out, the "defencists" had completely forgotten how to settle down on their own. They could not do this without the help of the regular army.
Is it possible today to create full-fledged maintenance parts in the shortest possible time? How to make people give up the acquired benefits of civilization for a while at their own will? After all, TO requires not only soldiers, but also officers. And for the most part, these are people holding certain positions, responsible for certain areas of work, and quite well-off.
Or not quite well off, but, nevertheless, caring for their income. And, by the way, today the employer will also have to ask whether he agrees that his employee be a member of the maintenance department.
I beg your pardon, but the realities of today are such that people often have to either take a vacation or write “without content” in order to pass a session on distance learning. With rare exceptions, the problems of advanced training and education are problems and hemorrhoids exclusively for the employee. The employer doesn't give a damn about that twice.
Practice shows by analogy that, in addition to the soldiers and officers of the TO, those on whom the material well-being of these fighters depends no less should be interested in this. And here the problems of the state plan are possible.
In Soviet times, we used the old army principle: "If you cannot, we will teach, if you do not want, we will force." A good, powerful word - it is necessary! And those who did not understand this, got acquainted with the nearest prosecutor's office. But at that time it was permissible. The mobilization resource was sufficient. The same cannot be said about the present tense.
If we are already declaring capitalism, then the approach to the formation of territorial defense should be the same. The soldier and officer of these forces must have substantial benefits! Both material and long-term.
And here problems are immediately drawn that are unlikely to be bypassed.
Since fees in such parts must be carried out annually, it is necessary to formally establish the payment of these fees. Not some mythical "average salaries in the region" or "daily wages", but specific amounts. Such that the "partisan" ceased to feel like a partisan. And I felt a soldier and an officer of the real unit.
But no one will cancel the problem of high-quality selection of personnel. A good specialist, normally arranged on the spot, is unlikely to risk his place in favor of these fees. Here we are not even talking about a specialist, but about his employer.
Who, tell me, in the world of our capitalist relations would like the prospect of a month-long absence of a key specialist? Sorry, monthly vacation is rare these days, employers prefer to give out in pieces.
It is not yet clear how the problem will be solved.
Further, in the TO units it is necessary to move away from the army system of VUSov. For a regular army, it is necessary. But for the territories it is harmful. The head of the security service of a large enterprise, who has an army, received 20 years ago, the VUS of the shooter, is much more competent than the sergeant with the VUS of the squad commander of the same "release".
Moreover, today it is extremely rare to meet a person who works in a field that at least somewhat resembles his army service. It is necessary to appoint officers in accordance with the position that he occupies in "civilian life". Specialists who do not have an officer's rank can be passed through courses for the training of junior lieutenants. Unless, of course, there is a basic higher or secondary specialized education.
Realizing that the difference in income today is quite significant, which means that it is impossible to fully compensate for the loss of "territory" without fail, it is necessary to introduce benefits in pension provision. Let it be a year or two, five. But the retirement age for such soldiers should be lowered. Again, subject to being in the service for a certain period. Let it be 15-20 years.
Today, a new abbreviation has appeared in the documents of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation - OR. Organizational reserve. That is, those soldiers and reserve officers who, upon the announcement of mobilization, will be the backbone of the unit, unit. These soldiers clearly know not only their units or subunits, but also regularly go through coordination, know their commanders and chiefs, subordinates.
Such an experiment was already started last year. "Zapasniki" conclude a special contract in the Ministry of Defense, according to which they periodically undergo training sessions in a military unit, master new equipment, new types of weapons. But not free of charge. The Ministry of Defense pays extra for such soldiers from 5 to 8 thousand rubles a month. Regardless of where the fighter is. In an army tent or at home on the couch, hockey is watching.
Moreover, a whole system for managing such a reserve has been developed. But it is too early to talk about its implementation today. The reason is trivial. Lack of funding. Simply put, there is no money and will not be in the near future. This means that it is nevertheless necessary to proceed from the available possibilities. Those that I wrote about above.
And the last point to which I would like to draw the attention of readers. From whom to complete the maintenance parts? Who can enter the organizational core?
Today, there are a lot of young reserve officers from among the graduates of higher educational institutions and universities, who are quite suitable for health reasons and moral qualities for service in TO. In addition, military units annually transfer to the reserve many well-trained soldiers and sergeants. Here is the environment from which you can recruit more than one division. In any region of Russia.
It is necessary to work with these people. The military registration and enlistment offices should actively recruit them for service. Offer contracts. Let not be long. Three to five years. But even this will be enough for the "promotion" of the territorial defense system proposed by the Ministry of Defense.
Honestly, I have huge doubts about the reliability of the victory reports on the creation of the 47th TO division. Even the patriotism that is off the charts on the peninsula cannot meet the needs of such a division. A connection, even a TO, requires a huge structure to support its activities. As I understand it, this is a pilot project. A sample on which proposals and innovations will be "rolled in".
However, to create this division, it was necessary to recruit personnel in the Voronezh, Rostov regions and the Krasnodar Territory. And at the first gathering of the division, the personnel from these areas left by plane. Luxurious in terms of costs, but apparently there was no other option.
The patriotism of Crimeans is great, but the level of training in the Armed Forces of Ukraine is strikingly different from the level of training of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. I had to “butorize” with more or less trained personnel.
To ensure defense measures during the war period, a million-strong metropolis needs 15-25 thousand territorial defense soldiers. Thus, the district accounts for approximately 100-150 thousand. Not that huge numbers. And for the whole of Russia and generally scanty - from 400 to 600 thousand people. This is approximately how the specialists estimate the necessary and sufficient number. But in terms of money, the minimum amount does not look so optimistic. The sum is displayed with ten zeros …
The very idea of creating territorial defense forces seems to be useful. In case of real hostilities and possible sabotage. However, the issues of recruitment, organization, supply, equipment and financing cast doubt on this idea.
Yes, the headquarters of the TO have already been created. The generals-commanders are already sitting in their places with all the ensuing consequences. There is information that there is already a plan for the creation and development of maintenance units, and even commanders of these units have been appointed. The matter is small: to recruit personnel, provide weapons and equipment and start actually what it was all about. That is, training of personnel.
However, there are some doubts about the results of this experiment.
It seems that territorial defense units are needed. It is for the protection and defense of important facilities in conditions when parts of the regular army will be busy with their direct business. But important objects are already protected, even in peacetime. Gain? Good. We accept. Even leaving behind the scenes that "if something happens" the territories will have to deal with a specially trained and trained enemy.
But in any case, the functioning of such units does not end with the appointment of a commander. There should be a staff responsible for weapons, ammunition, equipment, food, medicine and so on. That is, again an increase in the number of states that will demand what? That's right, salaries. And everything else that is associated with the "hardships and deprivations of military service."
It is doubtful that for 11 months a year the unit will be closed, and only for the time of the training camp open arms for the reservists. This means that we need warehouse services, the financial part, the protection of all property, and so on.
The question arises: where does the money come from?
And it does not arise from scratch, but solely from observing price changes in the country as a whole and in individual regions in particular. And the changes are not downward. Plus all the latest statements from the government about the crisis, budget deficits, demands for tax increases and other pleasures.
In short, there is no money, but you are holding on there.
We are holding on there. No questions asked. Questions only in the direction of "how long". And from this perspective, the entertainment with "Rosgvardia" looks somehow strange. Nobody announced what numbers it will cost us all. And it will cost us exactly. But - we hold on.
The policemen and others from the Ministry of Internal Affairs were removed 160 thousand, transferred to other places, and, apparently, they will be changed into a different uniform. Okay, hold on. It is necessary - it means it is necessary.
Now the MGB will be made of everyone in a row - FSB, FSO, FSKN and others. Probably useful too. The KGB managed somehow in the good old days. Also, we are not discussing it yet.
Territorial defense. And, too, it seems, the thing is not harmful at least. Neighbors, even from our allies, have been solving this problem for years, decades …
But the feeling is a little strange. Either we are seriously planning to fight with someone, or simply money has nowhere to go.
