The Times (UK)

24 May 1997

BY MICHAEL EVANS

DEFENCE CORRESPONDENT

THE vision of a modern, all-professional Russian military force, first enunciated by President Gorbachev in 1989 and more recently by President Yeltsin in a statement last year, has been buried by corruption at high level, lack of money and willpower and a serious deterioration in combat effectiveness.

Mr Gorbachev set a deadline of 2000 to reform the Armed Forces; Mr Yeltsin's deadline slipped to 2005. Western defence experts believe that Mr Yeltsin's timetable is as unrealistic as Mr Gorbachev's 1989 proposal. Some changes have been made, but the reforms have been patchy.

The total active Armed Forces have been cut to about 1.3 million from more than three million ten years ago, but many of the troops are poorly educated, have criminal records and suffer from ill health and drug abuse.

Contract military personnel have been recruited for three-year periods to begin replacing the conscript system. But the plan to end conscription by 2005 has been undermined by lack of funding. A professional army will be more expensive and, with the defence budget having fallen in real terms by 45 per cent since 1992, there is unlikely to be enough money available to attract the right quality of recruits.

Some elements of the Armed Forces have been reorganised to change the balance towards more rapidly mobile units. Last year it was announced that the command of airborne forces would be switched to local districts for deploying to "hot spots" in and out of Russia. Some units were reallocated, but the process seems to have stopped.

The failure to reform and the lack of funds have reduced the forces to a sorry state. They no longer have the capability of mounting a big combined-arms operation, involving integrated land-air-sea action because of limited training and poor maintenance of equipment.

It is estimated that only about 4 per cent of helicopters, mechanised infantry combat vehicles and armoured paratroop personnel carriers meet Western standards.

The International Institute for Strategic Studies said that much of the equipment had "simply rusted away" and some hardware had been sold by local commanders.

The replacement of General Pavel Grachev as Defence Minister by General Igor Rodionov last June was supposed to herald a new era. General Rodionov was seen as the minister of reform. But he was quickly disenchanted and by year's end was describing himself as the "minister of a disintegrating army and a dying navy".