Russian military in critical condition

Reform a priority for Putin, but debts, abuse and low morale linger

By MARK MCDONALD Knight Ridder News Service

Sunday, March 14, 2004

Moscow -- With sky-high popularity ratings virtually assuring his re-election today, there seemed to be little need for Russian President Vladimir Putin to stage a dramatic campaign stunt.

But there he was, all dressed up like a naval officer, standing on the swaying deck of a nuclear submarine in the frigid Barents Sea, ready to witness the firing of a Russian ballistic missile.

And things were about to go terribly wrong.

Putin has made the modernization of the Russian military one of the three main priorities of his administration, along with alleviating poverty and doubling the size of the nation's economy. But military reforms have stalled, and the armed forces, once the only rival to America's, have become a national embarrassment.

Gen. Anatoly Kvashnin, the chief of the general staff, has called the situation "beyond critical."

Bad morale, low pay

Soldiers and officers are so demoralized and poorly paid that they often hold other jobs or resort to extortion, corruption or theft. Chechen guerrillas hiding in the mountains have more sophisticated Russian-made weapons than the Russian forces they're fighting. The army can't afford the new T-95 tank, even though it's made by Russian contractors. The navy hasn't commissioned a new submarine in a dozen years.

Putin has promised to unveil a new generation of long-range weapons, even though the government is already two months behind on payments to weapons manufacturers. The balance due is a reported $600 million.

Every branch of the military is in dire straits.

The remnants of the Soviet navy rarely venture into blue water any more; most of the submarine fleet sits rusting in berths. The tragic sinking of the nuclear submarine Kursk in August 2000 cost 118 lives, and nine more sailors were lost in the fall when another nuclear sub, the K-159, sank while being towed to a scrap yard.

In the air force, pilots get barely 10% of the necessary training time in the air, only a handful of hours per year, because of a lack of money for jet fuel. Several weeks ago, an air force general forgot to lower his landing gear and slid his MiG fighter across an airstrip in Rostov. Russia's fleet of Blackjack long-range bombers was grounded for three months after one of them crashed in fall.

Brutal hazing

The million-man army is blighted with alcohol abuse, defections, suicides and hazing so brutal that it amounts to ritualized torture. Even grizzled senior officers were alarmed last spring when a member of the elite Kremlin Regiment was found in a bathroom -- inside the Kremlin -- with his wrists slashed. He reportedly had been badly beaten, apparently by his fellow soldiers.

Dozens of young soldiers were hospitalized in January when their unit was forced to stand outside at attention all day in freezing weather. The soldiers were being disciplined because two members of their unit had deserted. In the latest incident, a Russian soldier serving in Chechnya shot and killed three fellow troopers.

"Look, we need a completely new army," said Andrei Kokoshin, a member of parliament and a former deputy minister of defense.

The army is about to begin its annual conscription drive. Forty percent of last year's recruits were high school dropouts, 7% were felons and only 30% were physically fit enough to undergo any field training. The rate of HIV infection among recruits is 27 times higher than it was five years ago.

Against this backdrop, Putin ordered "Security 2004," Russia's largest set of war games in 20 years, as a display of Soviet-era nuclear force.

Kremlin campaign managers hoped the missile launch would showcase Putin as a can-do commander in chief delivering on his promises to streamline and modernize the military.

Putin waited and waited on the deck of the submarine Arkhangelsk, but the missile was never fired.

The following day, Feb. 18, Putin tried again, this time dressed up as an officer in the Strategic Rocket Forces. An RSM-54 missile was launched, but it soon veered wildly off course and self- destructed after 98 seconds.

Not exactly the kind of campaign footage the Kremlin had in mind. An embarrassed Putin ordered investigations into what he tersely called the "shortcomings."

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