Four years ago, Anatoly Serdyukov became Russian Defense Minister, who started a new military reform. Experts told Trud about the first results of its transformations.
When the military department was headed by Serdyukov, a purely civilian, it came as a shock to many generals.
“Today it is obvious that Serdyukov was nominated to this post precisely as a person who was not associated with the traditional military establishment, and as a result, had an open view of how to modernize the army,” Ruslan Pukhov, director of the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, told Trud.
In his opinion, Serdyukov's four-year rule and his reform changed the army, and we can already talk about its first results.
The army has become more mobile
"Until 2008, our army resembled a fragment of an old, Soviet, oversaturated with heavy weapons, focused on waging a global nuclear war with almost the whole world," Vitaly Shlykov, the former head of one of the GRU Directorates of the General Staff of the RF Armed Forces, told Trud.
In his opinion, even in the August 2008 war with Georgia, our army was still "Soviet" - slow on the rise, with an archaic command structure. Now the situation has changed. In the Ground Forces, the place of divisions capable of moving on alert to the place of hostilities no earlier than 24 hours in advance, mobile brigades have been created with a combat readiness time of 1 hour.
The army gets rid of the spirit of the barracks
"Under Serdyukov, the soldier's life began to change dramatically," says Valentina Melnikova, head of the Union of Committees of Soldiers' Mothers of Russia.
Until recently, more than a third of the personnel were dispatched daily for outfits for the kitchen, cleaning the premises and territories of military camps. Now soldiers are gradually being relieved of these functions. Commercial firms are engaged in consumer services for the military.
New equipment went to the troops
Finally, the start of the most ambitious army rearmament in the entire post-Soviet history of Russia has been launched.
Now the share of new weapons in the troops is 10%, by 2020 it will be 90-100%. "The Navy alone will receive 40 submarines and 36 newest ships in the next decade, and the Air Force - 1,500 aircraft," says Pukhov.
Officers' salaries have increased
Before the reform, the lieutenant was paid 14 thousand rubles a month, the major - 20 thousand. Now they receive 50 and 70 thousand, respectively. But, however, so far not all, but only the officers who distinguished themselves the most in the results of combat training.
From 2012, bonus payments will be included in permanent official salaries, and the minimum base rate will be 50 thousand rubles. “In terms of pay, the officers of our army will actually be equal to the armies of developed countries,” says Alexander Khramchikhin, deputy head of the Institute of Political and Military Analysis.
The reform was not blabbed
Among the most important results of the military reform, experts consider the fact that it is being carried out at an energetic pace and has not drowned in lengthy agreements.
For example, during the last six months, the military-administrative division was radically changed: instead of six military districts there were four, in each of them a Joint Strategic Command was created. “A huge number of officers and generals had to move from place to place, otherwise it would have taken years, but the Ministry of Defense did it in just 4-5 months,” Pukhov notes.
Stopped training officers
Last year, military universities stopped recruiting new cadets until 2012 due to an overabundance of officers. This affected all military universities. At the same time, almost all graduates of 2010 went to work in the civil sphere or were appointed to sergeant positions.
This led to the fact that experienced teachers began to leave universities. Instead, they recruited young officers without the necessary experience.
Sergeants almost died
Previously recruited contract sergeants were disbanded in 2009-2010. The ministry believes that they were poorly trained and did not differ in any way from ordinary soldiers. Now the focus is entirely on recruits with an even lower level of training.
Nothing to defend against China
However, some results of the reform are alarming. In the process of reform, tank units were actually eliminated, says Anatoly Tsyganok, director of the Center for Military Forecasting. “Now there are only 2,000 tanks left in the army, and they are old models,” he says. In his opinion, tanks in modern combat are the main means of conducting land combat. They are especially relevant on the border with China.
Numbers
1 million people - the size of the Russian army (before the reform - 1, 13 million)
150 thousand officers are now serving in the army (there were 350 thousand)
84 brigades of constant readiness created in the Ground Forces
20 trillion rubles allocated by the Ministry of Defense until 2020 for rearmament
