Then we began to count the wounds

Sergei Ivanov reported on the reduction of military losses in the Caucasus

Yesterday, combat helicopters circled over Rostov all day long: Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov was completing an inspection tour of Russia's largest military district - the North Caucasus. After a meeting closed to the press with the governors of the southern regions, Mr. Ivanov made several public statements, the meaning of which boiled down mainly to the fact that the Russian army was gradually becoming more professional, and service in it was safer.

Before flying to Rostov, where the headquarters of the North Caucasus Military District is based, Sergei Ivanov managed to visit military units in Kabardino-Balkaria and Astrakhan, the Novorossiysk naval base and the Budennovsky helicopter regiment. And although the minister admitted in front of television cameras that since the beginning of the year, 51 servicemen have died in the North Caucasus, and there are still plenty of cases of hazing, laxity and irresponsibility of commanders in the troops, nevertheless it turned out that the situation in the armed forces is changing for the better. First of all, due to reforms and normalization of the situation in the hottest spot of the North Caucasus - Chechnya.

It turned out that fewer and fewer soldiers are dying in the army. As for the North Caucasus Military District, Sergei Ivanov even named the exact figure - “1.3 times less compared to last year.” And not only because the hot phase of the counter-terrorism operation in Chechnya is already over. The main thing, according to the minister, is the gradual transition of units to contract service. A contract soldier differs from a conscript soldier, says Sergei Ivanov, in professionalism, preparedness, and motivation. In addition, working with contract soldiers disciplines officers who, according to the minister, are primarily responsible for the deaths of subordinates as a result of hazing, careless handling of weapons, and road accidents.

From Mr. Ivanov’s statements yesterday, it follows that the process of recruiting contract soldiers to the Ministry of Defense units stationed in Chechnya has already been completed, and conscripts are no longer serving in the Chechen Republic. The replacement of conscripts is also being completed in the 503rd motorized rifle regiment, located in neighboring Ingushetia. Two new mountain motorized rifle brigades, which are now being created in the North Caucasian Military District to fight terrorists entering Russia through the undeveloped border with Georgia, are initially staffed with contract soldiers. The federal budget allocates almost 2.5 billion rubles for the formation of these two brigades.

In fact, the North Caucasus Military District has become a kind of testing ground for testing mechanisms for reforming the Russian army. “The Northern Military District as a whole is the largest district in terms of population, and the largest number of units and formations of permanent readiness are located here,” says Sergei Ivanov. “And it is these units that are being transferred to a new form of recruitment, so that by 2008 the conscription service life will be halved.”

Naturally, reforms in an experimental mode are associated with many difficulties, which officials are often unable to predict. In particular, Sergei Ivanov commented on the cases of numerous protests by soldiers who served in Chechnya and did not receive so-called combat pay. “Unfortunately, when the decision was made to provide financial incentives for participants in the counter-terrorism operation in the Chechen Republic, the mechanism for providing them with allowances was not fully developed,” the head of the Ministry of Defense complained yesterday. “As a result, many military personnel were forced to go to court and thus seek payment of the money owed to them.” True, Sergei Ivanov immediately clarified that combat bonuses are not provided for the entire time a serviceman is in Chechnya, but “only for the period of actual participation in counter-terrorism operations according to the orders of unit commanders.”

And the minister’s inspection trip to the North Caucasus District ended with a command and staff exercise in the Aksai district of the Rostov region with the participation of all the heads of the southern Russian regions. During the exercises, governors of the southern regions and presidents of the North Caucasus republics were introduced to the system of operational actions in case of emergencies. Then, straight from the exercises, the regional heads, together with presidential envoy Dmitry Kozak, flew to Nalchik, where today they will discuss purely economic problems of the Southern Federal District.

Larisa NIKITINA, Rostov-on-Don