Russian President Vladimir Putin (2nd right) with Chief of the General Staff Col. Gen. Yury Baluevsky (left), Deputy Defense Minister Gen. Nikolay Pankov (2nd left) and Deputy Defense Minister Lyubov Kudelina, November 20, 2007
Photo: Dmitry Azarov
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Putin Shows the Armed Force
Russian President Vladimir Putin took part yesterday in the annual meeting of armed forces leaders and gave them a tongue lashing. Kommersant special correspondent Andrey Kolesnikov thinks the brass had missed the firm hand of the commander-in-chief, and enjoyed the experience.
Half an hour before the president was due to arrive, chief of the general staff Yury Baluevsky made a weighty acknowledgment. The Army, he said, is best known for its conservatism, which is what has preserved it in these new times. I didn't understand immediately that he was talking about the elections. But it is at the elections that the best qualities of the Army will be seen – conscientiousness (enlisted men pay close attention to the opinions of their commanding officers) and collectivism (the turnout of the military at the polls will be quite a bit better than that of the civilian population).
I asked Baluevsky about the military turnout at previous elections. He asked another general to help him out with the answer, and that general replied that turnout had been maximal.
“How much is maximal?”
“Maximal is 98 percent!” the general replied defiantly.
“And where were the other 2 percent?”
I don't think he had ever thought about it before.
When asked if the elections would be discussed at the assembly, Baluevsky replied that “the assembly is for reviewing the results of the year, and elections leave their mark on all of life, so that is the main feature of the day.”
“But not critically,” he added after a moment's thought. Only he knew what he meant. I think he was talking to himself. “It is not possible today to exclude yourself from politics completely. Therefore, I and my family, except my granddaughter, who just started the second grade, are going to vote for what we serve, how we live and what we want!”
“That is, United Russia,” I conjectured.
“I am voting for Putin!” the general corrected me. “He determined everything for us, as president and as supreme commander! For the tasks he set before the country. Those task suit me as a citizen and as a member of the military! I am ready to fulfill them.”
“All the same, that's for United Russia.”
“I want our country to stop wavering between right and left, because the strength of any country is its character…”
Baluevsky was getting a little nervous waiting for the supreme commander. The tasks he had to fulfill were about to be given to him.
Putin did what Baluevsky needed. He set tasks. But the wait for them was rather long, especially for Baluevsky, who took the stage at noon, walked to the podium, stood next to it and faced the door through which the president was to enter. He stood there at attention for at least 15 minutes. Civilians, mainly government ministers, were still circulating around the auditorium. Minister of Health and Social Development Tatyana Golikova passed by in a bright and frivolous silk scarf that trailed down to her waist. New director of the Domestic Intelligence Service Mikhail Fradkov passed as well, looking mysterious, as one in his position should. Many people walked past Baluevsky as he stood frozen at attention, but he saw no one. It was not in his best interests to do so.
Suddenly, after I had already started to thing that he was doomed to stand like that forever, he turned to the auditorium and barked, “Comrade officers!” That is the ritual warning that the supreme commander is about to appear.
Putin walked up to the podium moments later and immediately began speaking. He said that Russia “will not stand by passively while muscles are being flexed at its borders” and “Russia's withdrawal from the Conventional Forces Treaty is just one reaction to NATO's flexing its muscles on its borders.”
“And our proposals, such as establishing a united missile defense system with equal – equal! – access to its management by all participants, still remain without response,” Putin said. “We will not do anything unilaterally. Our partners have not ratified the treaty, several of them haven't even signed it. Great! How long will we wait? Years?
It was obvious that he wouldn't even wait a day (there's not much time till the parliamentary elections, or to the presidential elections, for that matter).
Among the things that pleased the president most there, the renewal of strategic air patrols stands out.
The usually tight-lipped Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov read a lengthy report. Rumor has it that Serdyukov is popular in his ministry, and I understood why as I listened to his nicely delivered half-hour report devoted to the new structure of Army financing and the problems of clothing and housing its soldiers and providing them with medical treatment. Only of the main tasks for 2008, he said, is “introducing a new standard of rations. And then every soldier will see the steps forward that have been taken in feeding them.” How could they not like him?
Serdyukov said nothing about military tasks ahead and mentioned only a few exercises as the accomplishments of 2007. In last year's report, defense minister at the time Sergey Ivanov was much more ambitious and spent a large part of his address on the challenges and successes of opposing the United States. Sources tell me that, in the text of his speech, there was written that “at present, the U.S. Army is undertaking a reconfiguration of its forced,” which cannot but cause the Russian military command serious concern. But he did not read that passage.
A paragraph that began “The situation with the wages of the civilian staff of the armed forces also requires correction…” was also dropped.
After the minister had taken his seat and Baluevsky looked as though he would announce a break, the president asked about the construction of the military hospital at Vilyuchinsk. No one was expecting the question. The president had waited along time to ask it. He had traveled to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatka in September and crossed the bay to Vilyuchinsk at that time. Then he waited for the largest possible audience to talk about it.
“The hospital was supposed to be partially operational before your visit in September,” Serdyukov began hesitantly.
“And we didn't go there because what was supposed to be ready wasn't ready!” the president said, stumbling a little over his words. “So why?”
There was complete silence, for lack of volunteers for the suicide mission of answering the question. Officers never take those missions.
“Is our so-called chief doctor here?” the president asked.
It took a long time for Vladimir Shappo, the head of the military medicine division to reach the podium. He explained that “The medical service of the armed forces has made every effort to make the hospital operational.”
“If every effort had been made, Bykov wouldn't have been fired,” Putin replied, referring to the last chief doctor. “Since he was fired, it must not have been every effort. When will it be operational?”
“The hospital is practically ready now and will begin operating on November 30.”
“Why wasn't it done on time?” the president asked implacably. “You're new. Maybe you have a fresh view on things. I just want to know what prevented it from being done on schedule.”
“The system was simply underestimated. Equipment wasn't delivered on time,” sacrificing his contractors.
Putin asked another general about the “stinking huts” he was building to house his soldiers and demanded that building standards be raised. He told the residents of one apartment he visited in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatka that it may be new, but it was tiny.
As the officers left the auditorium, they experienced a strange elation. They liked the way Putin conducted himself. Finally he showed that he really was supreme.
Shappo left the auditorium and went down the stairs with his eyes lowered. “Don't be upset,” a colleague told him. “Such delays happen in our field.”
Maj. Gen. Shappo tried not to say anything to anyone. He said he had no time.
He has a hospital to finish by the end of the month.
Andrey Kolesnikov
All the Article in Russian as of Nov. 21, 2007
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