Healthy service image

The Ministry of Defense wants to equip the army with force: the troops introduce physical training according to world standards

The soldiers of the Soviet Army ran on wooden skis, which were attached to boots or felt boots with rubber bands. In the cold, rubber bands often burst. Since last year, semi-plastic skis have been issued to soldiers. They are fastened to the berets with a steel cable. “In order to have a special recess on the boots, we had to fight real battles with the rear,” says a source in the Ministry of Defense. To cut a groove in each shoe is big money, opponents of innovations convinced. The decision was made only after the Minister of Defense personally approved the shoe innovation. Now, they say in the Ministry of Defense, Anatoly Serdyukov personally monitors what uniforms and shoes enter the army.

According to military officials, for the first time they were given the task of investing money not only in rockets and aircraft, but also in ordinary recruits so that they would not be afraid to serve. One of the main projects of the Ministry of Defense, which this year should change the lives of all conscripts, is a new system of physical training. It was developed for two years, and the Minister's order of January 21 gave the go-ahead for its introduction in the troops. He made this decision after he was informed of the first results of the experiment in the 5th Guards Motorized Rifle Brigade. “We came up with a revolutionary idea,” says Alexander Shchepelev, head of the Department of Physical Training of the Ministry of Defense, “a soldier should be healthy and enjoy the fact that he joined the army.” The main components of the new approach are simple, but for the Russian army they are indeed revolutionary in many ways.

Full-time physical training instructors will appear in the units, conscripts will be given sneakers and sports uniforms (they will be purchased from September 1), and the district commander will be able to decide for himself what time his soldiers get up. These innovations, partly borrowed from abroad, required the revision of not only all orders for physical training, but also for security.

“[The ideas about] how a person should be dressed, how a barracks should be rebuilt so that a soldier can wash in his soul have changed,” Shchepelev says. In the units, according to him, water coolers will soon be installed, because "a soldier must drink not only tea and compote, but also good water." The new system has been tested in the 5th brigade since December.

OLYMPIANS-FIRE

In this brigade, stationed near Alabino near Moscow, everything looks different from other military units. For example, there is no duty in the kitchen - civilians cook and serve. The rise was moved from 6.00 to 6.30. After dinner, a mandatory quiet hour was introduced; soldiers do physical training for four hours a day.

In the morning, even before getting up, a tractor appears on the parade ground of the 5th brigade and cleans the snow. The tractor replaces a company of soldiers. “Instead of waving a shovel, a soldier should do his job. Not every commander can be explained from the first time why this is necessary, - Alexander Shchepelev is worried and concludes: - The mentality must be redone! Formally, the testing of the new system is still ongoing, and final conclusions can be made only by the end of the year. But so far, the military sees no reason for skepticism: since the beginning of the experiment, not a single emergency, not a single AWOL or hazing has happened in the Alabinsky brigade, and the soldiers show good training dynamics. “If they practice together on the carpet, how will they humiliate each other later? Dagestanis used to play football against Russians. Now there are mixed teams,” explains Captain Aleksey Soldatov, assistant commander of the physical training brigade.

Private Alexei Nemirovsky was called up last fall. “I was in school for three months. No training - only morning and evening walks, ”he recalls. I got into the Alabinsky brigade and I am very pleased. Here Aleksey, as before in civilian life, is engaged in weights and now lifts a two-pound projectile 32 times. Squad commander Yuri Davydenkov also boasts that he began to do pull-ups twice as much - “he caught up to 20”. The brigade entered a period of intense workload. If at the beginning of the experiment they ran 2–3 km, now marches of 5 km are being prepared.

The Ministry of Defense says that the physical education program was developed taking into account the type of troops. “If these are scouts, they need to increase the workload through hand-to-hand combat,” explains Lieutenant Colonel Viktor Buryan from the physical training department. - Artillerymen and anti-aircraft gunners have to carry heavy shells. And what is the most important thing for a motorized rifleman? Endurance, agility. They run after the tank, overcome obstacles.”

Newsweek correspondents arrived at the brigade in the midst of classes. At one end of the gym, the company was pulling up on the crossbar, at the other, it was running the baton. In the gym, guys with relief muscles concentratedly pulled iron, and on the parade ground, tossing their legs high, conscripts ran in a circle, similar to each other like twin brothers. All in the same navy blue tracksuits, sneakers and knitted camouflage hats. “These are our Olympians,” Oleg Sukhoruchkin, deputy brigade commander for educational work, nodded meaningfully.

Sports uniform for the army - know-how. Previously, a soldier did not get out of a military uniform and tarpaulin boots. “It was thought why sneakers are needed when a soldier puts on boots in battle and runs anyway?” Shchepelev says. Conscripts did exercises, ran crosses, listened to lectures on tactics and went to classes in the field in the same camouflage. “Sweaty, dirty, washed in a sink under ice water,” says Lieutenant Colonel Viktor Buryan. “Now everything is human: I worked out, took a shower, changed clothes.” In addition to sports uniforms and sneakers, Alabinsky soldiers were given two sets of underwear and three pairs of socks. The Ministry of Defense, officers assure, does not spare money for physical education - simulators, one hundred sets of helmets, gloves and protection for hand-to-hand combat have appeared.

The "Olympians" were replaced by scouts on the parade ground - they are already with machine guns and in military uniform. The scouts shouted menacingly "Ha!" or “Hu!”, beat imaginary enemies with a butt, stabbed with a “bayonet”, beat off invisible blows with a knife and a sapper shovel. Previously, only paratroopers, marines and special forces soldiers were deeply engaged in hand-to-hand combat, says reconnaissance company commander Nikolai Mikhailov. Now, according to him, this is how motorized riflemen are trained - four times a week.

WILL RUN, FALL AND WILL NOT SHOT

In the field, behind the makeshift sign "Give way to the tank," a company of signalmen moves on skis in a leisurely caterpillar. Many stand unsteadily, some stumble. “Why does a signalman need skis? Pull the coil, “vole”, - explains the head of the satellite communications station, Captain Yuri Afanasyev. "Vole" - telephone wire. In films about the war, signalmen squeezed it with their teeth if the wire was broken by a fragment. The question "why the station of satellite communication" voles "?" Afanasiev was not embarrassed: “All the same, the skis are great. Also, I quit smoking. Every third one of us is already quitting.”

Private Kirill is barely rolling into the third circle: “I didn’t really like [skiing] at school,” he admits. “It’s hard to skate in general, I haven’t skated since childhood.” For "losers" in the brigade there is an identification mark - a red armband. “The commander sees them right away: the laggards need a different dosage of exercises and more attention,” explains Lieutenant Colonel Buryan. The military says that you have to start with the simplest things. “Many people join the army and don't know that socks have to be washed and dried. We explain: raw socks are corns on the feet. You can’t do a forced march, ”says Captain Soldatov.

According to him, half of the conscripts turned out to be physically weak: they pulled themselves up no more than three to five times, and when they ran cross-country, they gasped and held on to their sides. It turned out that 30% of conscripts had not been skiing since childhood, and almost 40% could not swim. The conscripts were absolutely not ready to perform combat missions. “Put on such a soldier a body armor, helmet and ammunition - only 25 kg. He will run a mile and a half, fall down, and he won’t even be able to shoot at anyone,” says Soldatov.

The foreman of the medical company Natalya Ionova is watching the skiers from the army UAZ. He says that at the beginning of the experiment there were many patients: influenza, frosts and the unpreparedness of the body. But now the pain is less. “People got involved, an appetite appeared, they began to give results,” confirms Sergei Gogol, commander of a motorized rifle battalion. Ionova says that the women in the team work out three times a week: press, shuttle run, sometimes push-ups. Evening fitness. “And before, in physical education, they passed two tests a year, but without training.”

Physicians have already made the first conclusions during the experiment. Under the windows of the soldier's canteen, a poster appeared "A well-fed soldier is a shield for the motherland." But the soldiers do not complain about their appetite anyway. For lunch, two soups to choose from, porridge with cutlets or roast, carrot salad and compote. Take a lot of bread, garlic and onions. The military says they will be reviewing the menu. More exercise means more calories.

The new enhanced physical training system applies not only to privates, but also to officers. At the headquarters of the 5th brigade, says Oleg Sukhoruchkin, deputy brigade commander, officers recently installed a horizontal bar. “You go to a meeting - you pulled yourself up on the crossbar five times, sat down at the table. The meeting ended - I pulled myself up a couple more times, ”says a 41-year-old short, mustachioed officer. Previously, the colonel played sports very rarely. “There was not enough time, and sometimes it was laziness,” he admits. Now every day - running, pulling up and exercising in the gym.

The surname of senior lieutenant Alexei Remizov is in the first line of the brigade rating. He pulled himself up 28 times, ran the shuttle 10 times 10 meters in 24.1 seconds and did the press 56 times in a minute. As a result, he scored 247 points. A score of 210 is sufficient for an "excellent" rating. The scoring system was spied on in the French army.

Another project of the Ministry of Defense, borrowed from Western colleagues, is to introduce army survival courses: a soldier must know how to navigate the terrain, purify water, and light a fire. Centers for special physical training and survival are being created in the Caucasus. And in Irkutsk - a base where soldiers will be trained to fight in the taiga and at low temperatures.