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General: Army to start turning pro in 2005
MOSCOW, Nov. 23 (UPI) -- Russia's military will begin its gradual transition to a professional service in 2005, a senior military official told reporters Friday.
"This (transition) will require several hundred billions of rubles (billions of dollars)," the Deputy Chief of the Russian army's General Staff, Col. Gen. Vladimir Putilin said.
On Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin endorsed the government plan to gradually transform the Russian army by drafting fewer conscripts and hiring professional servicemen instead.
Immediately after Putin's endorsement, Russian military officials rushed to state that the draft -- compulsory for all Russian males aged 18-27 -- would not be canceled.
Chief of the General Staff, Anatoly Kvashnin, told reporters Wednesday that the reform envisioned sending only professional soldiers to the areas of armed conflicts while drafting conscripts to fill the ranks of the standing army.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov ruled out a quick switch to professional army citing financial problems as the major reason behind it.
At the same time, Russia's right-wing liberals keep pressing for abolition of conscription and a significant reduction of the army service length.
The liberal Yabloko movement called on the authorities to cancel conscription as early as 2002, while the Union of Rightist Forces proposed trimming the current two-year service to six months.
The effort had been initiated by former President Boris Yeltsin who pledged at the dawn of the army reform in mid-1990s that Russia would stop calling up young men to serve in the 21st century.
However, the massive reform was stalled as Moscow got mired in a military campaign in breakaway Chechnya, relying heavily on the conscripts due to scarce military funding.
Putin's rise to power has been accompanied by efforts to give more attention to the military, as well as to draft and implement the long-awaited reform.
Last November, Russia's Security Council announced the chief concept of the reform calling for massive reductions in military personnel, provision of better training and purchases of new weaponry.
According to the program, Russia will cut down the number of troops from the current 1.2 million to 850,000 by 2005.
On Friday, Gen. Putilin illustrated the costly transition by saying that a "switch of one ground troops division toward hiring servicemen on a contract basis will cost at least 500 million rubles ($16.6 million)."
Currently, the general added, Russia spends 16,000 rubles ($533) per year on a conscripted serviceman whereas a hired soldier costs the state 40,000 rubles ($1,333).
Today, one in five soldiers is a professional, but that figure should increase substantially by 2010-11, added Gen. Putilin.
The notorious abuse of younger soldiers by their older fellow-servicemen, as well as bad living conditions, scare away the majority of Russia's conscripts who attempt to either postpone the service or evade it completely.
This year, only 12 percent of all conscripts listed in the draft records ended up in the army, while the rest worked their way round it, concluded Gen. Putilin.
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