Consequences of great parsimony and grave error
The issue of creating a modern army in Russia based on Western models has been constantly raised by our public and domestic media for almost two decades. Boris Yeltsin declared back in the early 90s that we need other Armed Forces. And in 1996, going to the presidential elections, he confidently promised that by 2000 the Russian troops would be fully staffed with contract soldiers. And naturally, the need for conscripts will disappear. But alas …
A few years after the early voluntary resignation of Boris Nikolayevich, the federal target program (FTP) “Transition to the recruitment of military personnel under contract in a number of formations and military units” for 2004-2007 began to be implemented. But in February of this year, Chief of the General Staff, General of the Army Nikolai Makarov, admitted: "The task that was set - building a professional army, has not been accomplished."
ECONOMY RESULTS
There are many reasons for this. However, I will focus on the most important, in my opinion, of them.
I remember how at one of the "round tables" where representatives of different political parties, experts, journalists gathered, the head of the Main Organizational and Mobilization Directorate of the General Staff, Colonel-General Vasily Smirnov, asserted that in order for a young man to voluntarily want to serve in the army, it is necessary to create normal living and social conditions, there must be an appropriate salary. Based on this, the Ministry of Defense proposed spending about 140 billion rubles in four years on the implementation of the federal target program. The Ministry of Finance allocated 79 billion for this program.
That is why it was necessary to completely abandon the construction of social and cultural facilities (clubs, sports facilities), and contract soldiers were supposed to live in barracks. Instead of family dormitories, the notorious monetary compensation was allocated, for which it was possible to rent even a relatively decent room in few places. In addition, at the initial stage, the salary of a contractor was generally set at 6, 1 thousand rubles, which was less than the average salary in the country and, of course, did not meet the needs of young healthy men.
In addition, in March 2004, the State Duma adopted amendments to the Law on the Status of Servicemen, according to which contractors who entered service in the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation after January 1, 2004 were ordered to go on vacation at their own expense. This innovation was supplemented by amendments made to the legislative base: for candidates for contract servicemen returning to the army and the navy from the "civilian", a three-month probationary period was established, additional leave was canceled for military volunteers in permanent combat readiness units, instead, money was paid again (in the 76th Airborne Division - 1200 rubles).
Then I happened to hear from a high-ranking military official the following: “We understand why the Ministry of Finance is fighting for every ruble of the program. There are economic problems and they must be reckoned with. But no matter what numbers were named and planned, the algorithm for transferring troops to a professional basis has been determined and agreed with all interested departments."
It turned out that this algorithm is, in principle, incorrect and took away significant resources and funds from the state.
EVALUATION - "UNSATISFACTORY"
The transfer to a contract basis of units and subunits of the Russian army was preceded by an experiment that began in July 2003 in the elite 76th Pskov Airborne Division. It was assumed that the formation would recruit qualified specialists from the "civilian", and also offer to stay to serve in it the most conscientious, disciplined and skillful conscripts. Several barracks with quarters for four people were built for them. But the military equipment, as suggested by the General Staff, was not updated in the division. Sports facilities and social and cultural facilities were not erected.
Journalists and politicians were taken to Pskov to demonstrate the course of the experiment. The soldiers complained to them of boredom, the inability to settle their families, and low wages. However, nothing has changed, the proper conclusions have not been drawn and the implementation of the FTP started.
It took a little time to make sure:
1. Private and reserve sergeants are reluctant to enter contract military service. If anyone wants to return to the army, then it is often not the one who needs it. The military registration and enlistment offices are striving to fulfill the plan for the recruitment of contractors at any cost.
2. First-year soldiers who want at least some money and some freedom, which should have been guaranteed by voluntary service, are more willing to enter into a contract.
According to the head of a group of one of the analytical divisions of the Main Organizational and Mobilization Directorate (GOMU) of the General Staff, Colonel Yevgeny Shabalin, in 2005, 12.9% of the military volunteers were prematurely suspended (that is, the contract was terminated). At the same time, in the 42nd motorized rifle division, stationed in Chechnya and operating, as you know, in a combat situation, there were almost a third of them. A similar trend was observed in subsequent years.
Incidentally, the analysts of the General Staff were more worried about another problem: a significant number of military personnel who signed the first contract in 2004-2006 did not intend to renew it.
In turn, the Sociological Center of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation reported: only 15-19% of volunteers are ready to sign a second contract. The General Staff, in its analytical notes to the Kremlin, informed that in the next two or three years the troops may lose the backbone of the professionals who signed the contract in 2004-2005 and then formed the basis of the forces of constant combat readiness.
Then the Deputy Prosecutor General of Russia - Chief Military Prosecutor of the Russian Federation Sergei Fridinsky sounded the alarm, who noted that significant mistakes were made in the implementation of the FTP. According to him, the federal executive authorities have failed to achieve the required level of social security, increase the attractiveness of contract military service for soldiers and sergeants, improve the combat training of military units, which are transferred to the contract principle of manning.
“As a result, in August 2007, the progress of the program was assessed as unsatisfactory by the President of the Russian Federation,” stressed Sergei Fridinsky, adding that a direct consequence of serious omissions in the preparation and implementation of the federal target program was an increase in unfavorable tendencies in the state of law and order in the units, transferred to the contract. And what is most regrettable is that a significant part of the offenses committed by contractors continues to be evasion of military service. That is, the "professionals" simply flee from the barracks. And the reason for this is the low moral and business qualities of servicemen. It's no secret that mostly conscripts are conscripts. And if a person comes from "civilian life", then this is, as a rule, the one who has not found a place for himself in society, concluded the head of the GVP.
Already in January 2008, the then Commander-in-Chief of the Ground Forces, General of the Army Vladimir Boldyrev, said that he was not satisfied with the situation when in the formations and military units, transferred to the contract manning method,there is a low level of staffing, the level of training practically does not differ from the indicators of formations and units staffed with conscripts. The general named the reasons for this problem: low level of monetary allowance, lack of housing for family military personnel, unregulated service hours, regular involvement in household work.
Hearings on the problems of the contract army were also held in the Public Chamber. At them, the Chairman of the Commission for the Affairs of Veterans, Servicemen and Members of Their Families, the head of the National Association of Associations of Reserve Officers of the Armed Forces (MEGAPIR), Alexander Kanshin, said: the rotation of servicemen in permanent readiness units was carried out in hundreds due to the unwillingness of servicemen to serve in the conditions that were created for them. Thus, the very meaning of the professionalization of the contract army is lost."
HARD TIME
The Ministry of Defense finally realized that a mistake had been made: the available funds did not allow recruiting contract servicemen only for certain positions, on which combat readiness primarily depends. Apparently, it was no coincidence that Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov, listing the tasks for the near future, actually predicted: only contract soldiers would serve in the positions of sergeants and foremen, as well as in the Navy's seafarers. The Ministry of Defense prepared a draft of the corresponding FTP. The Government of the Russian Federation, by order No. 1016-r of July 15, 2008, approved the concept of this program. It was supposed to operate until 2015, it was planned to spend over 243 billion rubles on it, so that, as a result, the Armed Forces received 64.2 thousand junior volunteer commanders.
However, in the fall of 2008, a financial and economic crisis broke out and the government froze the new FTP. Only now has the Ministry of Defense been able to take emergency measures and begin training future sergeants who will link their lives with the Armed Forces for a long time. Meanwhile, the term of military service by conscription was halved, as a result of which the number of recruits sent to the troops had to be dramatically increased, and at the same time, tens of thousands of officers were fired from the army and navy in the course of the military reform.
Consequently, our Armed Forces will have to go through a very difficult period. After all, it is not easy to keep under control the situation in military collectives, consisting of young people aged 18-27, until five to ten thousand contract sergeants come there.
