[Fwd: Putin Attacks Chronic Commercialization of Russian Armed Forces]
FYI,
Beware of crackdowns (or shakedowns) in Russian aerospace tourism.
The sad irony is that the American government has been messing with domestic
commercial space efforts for years.
Mark Reiff
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Putin Attacks Chronic Commercialization of Russian Armed Forces
Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2005 16:49:07 -0600
From: Jim Oberg <joberg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Putin Attacks Chronic Commercialization of Russian Armed Forces
Nezavisimaya Gazeta
November 11, 2005
Article by Nezavisimoye Voennoye Obozreniye correspondent Viktor Myasnikov,
10 Nov; place not given: "Top Priority for Army: Supreme Commander Demands
Commercialization Be Extirpated From Armed Forces"
Speaking yesterday at the Defense Ministry at the annual assembly of the
top brass of the Russian Armed Forces, the supreme commander, Russian
President Vladimir Putin, said literally this: "We must completely
eliminate the use of the Armed Forces' material base for any commercial
objectives not connected to the activities of the Armed Forces and not in
accordance with the objectives the Russian nation has set for them." Thus,
for the first time, he brought up a very serious problem that even the
military prosecutors have been trying to stay away from.
Chronic underfunding for the army has led to its being gradually drawn into
the market--the underground market, largely. The top command have shut
their eyes to this since, after all, officers' families are living below
the poverty line.
As a result, the spirit of commerce has penetrated nearly every military
unit and taken root there, acquiring the most diverse, sometimes grotesque,
forms--for instance, taking foreign tourists for rides on military planes.
Actually, this is a fairly harmless and legal amusement. As are commercial
flights by military transport planes. It is a different matter that these
flights are frequently made in violation of customs legislation; moreover,
it is military aviation that opens up channels of supply for major
shipments of drugs from Central Asia from time to time.
There are also "extra flights," payment for which ends up in generals' deep
pockets. For instance, an ordinary cargo flight can be passed off as a test
flight, so the test pilots get credit for a major flight. But what they are
testing is hard to say since not a single new model of transport plane has
been approved for military use.
The semi-legal and illegal commercial activities of commanders at all
levels is a particular issue. Its scale is truly immense. Sometimes it is
frankly criminal in nature. Thus, more and more often, underground
production operations are being uncovered on the territory of military
units. Pirated laser disks and counterfeit pills are being stamped out,
cars repaired, and household chemicals and tax-free cigarettes produced in
leased buildings, under the protection of fixed-service sentries. Illegal
gas stations have been set up at units for private transport, as has
temporary storage for everything under the sun. Illegal guest workers are
sawing boards for sale at the power bench-saws of engineering units.
This doesn't even begin to address those spheres where "civilian" services
can be offered openly. Since the 1980s and the beginning of the cooperative
movement, military printing presses have literally been breaking from
outside orders, so that they have no time to print up division newspapers
and manuals. Any officer vacationing in the summer at a Defense Ministry
sanatorium will tell you ruefully the kinds of conditions he has to stay
in, although the best rooms stand empty, as a rule, because they have been
plucked up by various rich civilians. One also recalls the criminal
disputes and murders at the Burdenko Military Hospital, where crime bosses
were being treated on a commercial basis.
Actually, legal commercial activity, which is subject to taxation and
oversight, exists only at hospitals, sanatoria, and printing presses. In
most other instances that activity falls under the articles in the UK RF
(Russian Criminal Code) on illegal entrepreneurial activity and corruption.
So that the president was actually expressing himself quite gently.
The very fact that the supreme commander addressed this topic attests less
to any improvement in funding for the army or any improvement in
servicemen's well-being (here matters are far from terrific yet) than to
the impossibility of continuing to put up with the "commercialization" that
is eating away at the Armed Forces. Speaking immediately after the
president, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Ivanov commented that
misappropriations and waste are increasing steadily in the Armed Forces.
"For example, in the first three quarters of this year, R82 million in
fuels and lubricants alone were used illegally." And how much was "used"
following all the rules of "commerce"?
Military vehicles are being used to transport commercial freight,
commanders are hiring soldiers out for jobs unconnected to the requirements
of military service, and private shops are being opened on the territory of
military units. The paradox is that the army Russia inherited from the
USSR, which was socialist in spirit, has proven to be infected with the
bacillus of unbridled thievishness.
It's good, of course, that the president has drawn attention to the ulcer
that has been eating away at our Armed Forces for a decade and a half. But
hopes that the situation will change in a major way are for now few. The
mounting embezzlement and harassment are also mentioned at every meeting.
However, they merely "mount steadily." As the military prosecutors confirm.
This evil can be extirpated only by truly reforming the army. By creating
genuine civilian oversight and an independent military police and by
changing the very concept of military organization. So that officers and
generals have more opportunity for military improvement than for commerce.
Today commerce has burrowed deep into the army's pores. More than
once--both at meetings of the topmost brass and in annual
messages--objectives have been set to pull the army out of this crisis. So
it was there and now. Can the army, like Baron Munchausen, drag itself out
of the quagmire of commerce? Hardly. It will take radical reforms and then
more radical reforms.
--
Mark Reiff <markreiff@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
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