S. Nikolaev

Government Resolution No. 53, published Friday and signed by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on February 4, cuts by about a third the number of professional sergeants and petty officers the Armed Forces can afford to hire until 2015. The resolution amends the Federal Target Program for the Professionalization of NCOs, adopted in August 2008, which is scheduled to last until this year.

Funding for the program for the period 2009-2015 is being reduced from 243 billion rubles to 153 billion rubles. It was envisaged that there would be 107,720 professional sergeants and petty officers by 2015, but now it has been decided that there will be 65,000. On December 31, 2008, before the start of the program, the number of contract sergeants and petty officers in the army was 32,334 people, i.e., the adjusted program envisages an increase in the number of professional non-commissioned officers by approximately two times, and not three times, as before. In proportion to the reduction in professional sergeants, the number of contract soldiers in general, who should have better housing conditions, is also being reduced - from 136,630 people to 87,210 people by 2016.

A Defense Ministry representative told Vedomosti that he could not comment on government decisions.

A Defense Ministry officer says the reduction in the number of professional sergeants does not mean replacing them with conscript sergeants. He says the decision is directly related to a plan announced last week by Chief of the General Staff Nikolai Makarov to increase the number of officers by 70,000 from 150,000 to 220,000.

In the fall of 2008, announcing the start of military reform, Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov reported that the number of officer positions would be reduced from 350,000 to 150,000, and that they would be partially filled by professional sergeants, as is customary in Western armies. Special courses were opened in several military schools to train them. But, according to retired Colonel Viktor Murakhovsky, it became obvious to the military leadership after the training that sergeants could not fill many officer positions. According to the Defense Ministry officer, this primarily concerns positions that require a deep technical education, in particular, in the Space Forces and the Navy.

Government cuts recruitment of contract sergeants