In uniform

Are you not afraid of snow tanks?

March 1, 2010 Alexander Golts

The subsequent statements by the head of the General Staff Nikolai Makarov and the Commander -in -Chief of the Ground Forces of Alexander Postnikov made a lot of noise. Still-both military leaders first admitted that the program began in 2003 and completed in 2008 to partially transfer the armed forces to the contract under the contract completely failed. “A lot of mistakes were made, and the task that was set is - the construction of a professional army was not solved,” Makarov said. “The federal program for translating parts of constant readiness to complete the settings of the intended targets has not achieved,” postnikov echoes.

Of course, all this is the secret of the police. The fact that the contracting program with a bang is failed, analysts and journalists (including me ) have been written for the last two years. But more recently, in December, I witnessed, as on a round table called “socially significant tasks of forming a new appearance of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation”, generals from the Main Organizational and Mobilization Directorate (the very one that bears a direct responsibility for the failure) fiercely exposed the slanderers who risked to name their names and inform about the failure of the program. Now the Ministry of Defense chiefs recognized the obvious.

We can say that it is better late than never. However, I would like to know if anyone will be responsible for this failure and embezzlement of 80 billion rubles. I note that the same person is led by the same person - Vasily Vasilievich Smirnov, the main organized administration (Goma) all these years. It was under his leadership that such plans were developed to a contract that were initially doomed to failure. It was from the bowels of his management that a proposal was issued to transfer military service soldiers to a contract. His implementation caused the avalanche of the most monstrous abuses: the conscripts were forced to sign the contract with the help of threats and bullying, the commanders assigned their salary, and when the boiled boys escaped, they continued to be listed in the lists of the unit.

The most amazing thing is that the person who organized sabotage is now actually celebrating the victory. After all, the chief of the General Staff and the Commander -in -Chief of the Ground Forces reported that the draft would be increased. If desired, you can see rational grain in this. “We came to the understanding that the contractor should prepare by completely different methods than it was before. Therefore, now we take only sergeants to the contract, which we teach for two and a half years. Through this, we plan to come to the contract army, ”says Makarov. In fact, he repeats that liberal experts wrote seven years ago, when the transfer plans to the contract were only made public. It is really pointless to try to move on to voluntary service without creating a corps of professional sergeants.

One trouble - the demographic situation has changed dramatically. The number of 18-year-olds was equal to the number of posts in the armed forces. To raise a sergeant corps, slowly, and then, slowly, to transfer the army to a contract will not work. Because today there is no way to complete the army, urging 600 thousand young men per year. But the General Staff pretends that there is no problem at all.

And here the question arises to what extent people who make decisions possess objective information. Using absolute impunity, the Russian generals absolutely from the ceiling take any data. Take the same Goma. Its boss Vasily Smirnov claims: annually in Russia 100 thousand people are evaded from receiving summons. The logic is this: it is necessary to tighten the legislation, make a raid more massive - then, they say, we will pick up the right number of recruits. Smirnov subordinate Major General Ivan Borodinchik warmly supports the boss. Only now, he calls the figure of bows twice as large - 200 thousand. Which of these two is lying? Or maybe both, and the real figure is completely different. Or maybe no one knows this real figure? Indeed, in the work of Goma - the main thing is to provide profitable data.

The generals confused in the testimony even when it comes to the main achievements of the reform. Deputy Minister of Defense Nikolai Pankov proudly informed the public at the end of last year: the constant readings are now capable of fulfilling the order an hour after receiving it, while they used to be required a day. The head of the General Staff repeats: each of the 85 “new system” brigades will be ready for battle within an hour. And the commander -in -chief of the Ground Forces, who recently held the position, claims that the brigade is deployed for hostilities during the day, and in an hour it should only leave the military town. I suspect that in reality the standards are completely different. The generals do not consider it necessary to tell the truth. They can not even agree to lie folding.

The same with the number of tanks. Deputy Minister of Defense Vladimir Popovkin reports that the Russian army needs only 5-6 thousand tanks out of 20 thousand available. And General Postnikov states that the Russian army needs half of the available, that is, about 10 thousand combat vehicles. I suspect that in fact the so -called “new appearance” of the armed forces is most consistent with the information that the army needs no more than two thousand tanks. The generals know this, but, not wanting to get involved in polemic, they improvise. Anyway, no one will count.

The irresponsible and unpunished lies permeates the Russian army from top to bottom. The most striking example: a recent story with two hundred tanks that were thrown in November in the forest near Yekaterinburg. The military on a blue eye told that the tanks were not thrown, but “dispersed by clearing”, that the protection is carried out by patrols and that the whole tank division will be sent to the storage base as soon as frosts subside. The thing is that no one needs this division at all. But it is strange to admit it. And so the officers are habitually lying. Tanks, they say, are not afraid of snow.

This everyday, pouring out automatically, is by no means harmless. After all, based on it, the country's leadership makes decisions. God forbid, they will believe the bosses from Goma that the call can be provided only by tougher responsibility for evasion. This means that the collapse of the existing package system is near. As a result, the generals will have arguments to demand coagulation of reforms.

Photo by RIA Novosti