Translated material
Civil trunk
People without shoulder straps will be responsible for all purchases of the Ministry of Defense
The latest personnel changes in the Ministry of Defense will entail certain structural changes in the military department. This follows from statements made immediately after taking up his new position, Colonel General Vladimir Popovkin, who was appointed the day before as First Deputy Minister of Defense. In an interview with Rossiyskaya Gazeta, he said that administrative and operational functions in the military department would be separated. “A civilian trunk is being created that will supply the troops. And the second trunk is the conduct of combat training, all military activities related to the operation and use of weapons and military equipment. It was decided to remove the purchase of weapons and everything else from the responsibilities of the chief of logistics and the chief of armaments and appoint a responsible person who will order and purchase all this,” Mr. Popovkin said, adding that he was directly entrusted with taking on this function. Thus, as expected by the Vremya Novostei newspaper (see issue dated June 23) , in peacetime only one person in the Ministry of Defense will have more extensive powers than Mr. Popovkin - the Minister himself, Anatoly Serdyukov.According to Ruslan Pukhov, director of the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, rumors that two “trunks” might appear in the army have circulated before. But this is the first time this has been said with such complete clarity. According to the expert, the significance of the “trunks” will directly depend on political circumstances: during war, of course, Chief of the General Staff Nikolai Makarov will be more important, in peacetime - Mr. Popovkin.
“The very idea of separating the administrative and operational functions of the Ministry of Defense is due to the fact that the times of the Cold War are a thing of the past. The military department now has a lot of functions that are not directly related to the conduct of hostilities. Suffice it to say that this is the main recipient of budget funds. In addition, if you do not count the bureaucratic corporation, the Ministry of Defense is the largest domestic employer. The appearance of two “trunks” is quite natural for a military department operating in a country where there is civilian control over the armed forces,” Mr. Pukhov told Vremya Novostei.
The chairman of the commission on security policy and examination of military legislation under the Ministry of Defense, Vitaly Shlykov, is convinced that the idea of creating two “trunks” is dictated by common sense. “The entire Ministry of Defense should be civilian. Not only the head of the department, but also his staff. In particular, it is civilians, not the military, who should be involved in arms purchases,” he told Vremya Novostey. According to Mr. Shlykov, the predominance of civilians in the military department is the norm for developed countries. The measure announced by Mr. Popovkin is a step towards bringing the domestic Ministry of Defense in line with world standards.
The number of civilian employees in the Ministry of Defense will constantly increase, the expert continued. And they will not be inferior in rank to the military, since they will receive functions that were previously the responsibility of generals. “Everyone should mind their own business. The military - with combat training, the civilians - with procurement. Serdyukov demanded that no one sit in one place for more than three years. But this applies specifically to the military. And procurement activities require high qualifications and experience. Simply put, the longer a person stays in one place, engaged in procurement, the better he gets at it,” said Mr. Shlykov.
Partial confirmation of the thesis about increasing the number of civil servants in the Ministry of Defense were the words of Deputy Minister of Defense Nikolai Pankov. Speaking yesterday at a round table devoted to current problems of social and legal support for the formation of a new look of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and the prospect of their resolution, he said that some of the officers dismissed as part of the military reform will be employed in civilian positions in the military department. “We are recruiting retired officers as civilian personnel in positions that were previously filled by officers. We have examples where previously military structures became completely civilian. Military commissariats, for example. There are many civilian positions in military schools. And in military command and control bodies at all levels. We believe that dismissed officers will now and will continue to be in great demand,” Mr. Pankov said.