Clean Slate

It took a brave man to tell the State Duma what department chief Aleksandr Piskunov said in the Audit Chamber’s annual legislative report in February.  Voyenno-promyshlennyy kuryer published excerpts of his remarks.

Piskunov’s a government official.  Not a powerful voice, but an authoritative one in his specialty.

Auditor Aleksandr Piskunov

To say he’s well-equipped for his work is an understatement. 

Sixty-one or 62 years old, Piskunov graduated from the RVSN’s Dzherzhinskiy Military Academy with a radio engineering degree.  He served on active duty to the rank of general-major, spending many years at the Plesetsk cosmodrome.  He later trained in the RF Government’s Financial Academy and a business school in London.  He has a PhD in economics.

Piskunov served in both the RSFSR Supreme Soviet and State Duma in the early 1990s, and was deputy chairman of the Defense Committee for each body.  He also chaired the Defense Ministry’s Military-Technical Policy Committee.  In the mid-1990s, he moved to the staff (apparat) of the RF Government and was deputy chairman of its Committee on Military-Industrial Issues.

He returned to the Duma briefly in 1999, and became deputy chairman of its “Regions of Russia” faction.

He went to the Audit Chamber in 2001, and is currently in his third term of service.

Piskunov thinks Russia can’t produce new, better, or more weapons and military equipment without modernizing its badly neglected defense industrial base.  But he has pretty much nothing but scorn for the current management of the state defense order.  And he sees little but failure in the GPV over the last 20 years.  In particular, Piskunov calls for incorporating life cycle costs into the GPV.  Ultimately, however, he says auditors and accountants can’t fix the GOZ or GPV, but lawmakers could.

Enough preamble.  Here’s VPK’s excerpt of Piskunov’s remarks.

“STRICT CONTROL OF FULFILLING THE ARMAMENTS PROGRAM IS NEEDED”

“I represent a department that performs strategic audits in the Audit Chamber.  We’ve done a lot of work in evaluating the condition of practically all 1,350 enterprises of the defense-industrial complex, their financial stability and real contribution to equipping the Armed Forces.”

“We looked at how balanced the program of defense-industrial complex modernization and State Program of Armaments were.  A gap of 700 billion rubles was observed.  At the same time, 1 trillion 200 billion is built into the budget to guarantee compensation to enterprise directors who go to commercial banks for credits.”

“Similar credit practices are leading to the growth of OPK enterprises with an unstable financial situation.  More than 30 percent are like this.  Only 20 percent come close to world standards in technical equipping.  More than half are in a condition where their restoration is already senseless — it would be better to build from a clean slate.”

“In preparing the law on the state defense order we tried to correct this situation.”

“From my point of view, our system of administering the state defense order is uncompetitive.  The adopted law preserved the situation under which  management amounts to a lag in the state defense order.”

“The deputy prime minister, responsible for the defense-industrial complex, reported that the state defense order was fulfilled by 99 percent as in past years.  But almost one hundred percent fulfillment of state defense orders over the last 20 years has not prevented the failure of all arms programs or fulfilling them at 30, 40, 50 percent.”

“Dmitriy Rogozin himself noted that fulfillment happened because of the appearance of realization.  During the execution of the arms program 7,200 changes were introduced into it, that is the real result is being slanted to agree with this fact.”

“Meanwhile Rogozin recognized that the arms program has gotten old.  The task of preparing a new State Program of Armaments stands before him.  So the problem of forming a legislative basis and management of the State Program of Armaments is more acute than ever.”

“Our opponents in government, having considered it inexpedient to include the management of the acquisition program life cycle in the GOZ law, said it was necessary to include this management in the law on the State Program of Armaments.”

“To me it seems necessary in this instance to hold them to their word — to propose that the government prepare a draft law on the State Program of Armaments.  It’s possible this will allow us to compensate for not realizing it in the GOZ law, and meet the president’s demand to create essential management of the life cycle of weapons systems.  But today the state of affairs is seriously complicated by the fact that the life cycle is really torn into several parts in the Defense Ministry itself.”

“Those who’ve served understand:  you can’t modernize armaments without the experience of using them.  Who really tracks all this life cycle?  It would be logical if Rosoboronpostavka were occupied with this, but it is located at the junction of the functional orderer – a service of the Armed Forces and a contracting firm.  It would be more appropriate to subordinate this department to the government.  It’s perfectly clear that the main risks are connected not to corruption, but to the low qualifications of the orderer.  Someone needs to “hang” over the orderer from the point of view of its responsibility for how both the program and the contract as a unitary whole are being executed.  Juridical responsibility is not rebuilt only through the contract.”

“The level of project management in our ‘defense sector,’ unfortunately, is also very low, especially the quality management system.  We are all witness to what is happening now in space.”

“It’s frightening that it’s impossible to create new equipment without metrics.  We lost the project management culture and stopped training specialists in military academies and schools.  The very best on this plane is OOO ’KB Sukhoy’ and it used the American experience-plan for metrics on developmental aircraft.  The Americans seized and simply closed the issue — this project is no longer being supported.  To rewrite project documentation now in some kind of domestic variant is complex, therefore the development of these systems is essential.”

“The participation of commercial banks in providing credit for the state defense order is an important question.  Now in the government they are discussing how these 23 trillion will go — through commercial banks, for free or for money?  It’s understood that banks simply don’t work that way.  There is a precedent – the government resolution on the Mariinka, the Bolshoy [theaters], the M-4 [highway].  If you calculate it, then 20 percent received from 23 trillion over these years, it’s necessary to take an additional amount from the taxpayers or cut the defense order by this sum.”

“Not less sensitive is the issue of intermediaries.  If the Defense Ministry and government don’t put transactions under the strictest control, then there are all the calculations on the defense order, life cycle and cooperation levels, we will mess up this program of armaments also.  This, undoubtedly, is one of the most dangerous questions for the Defense Ministry — too large lobbyist forces participating, too large sums going.”

“Questions of managing the life cycle and control of finances are the most fundamental.  The treasury is incapable of resolving this task.”

GPV 2016-2025

Dmitriy Rogozin

Last week Rossiyskaya gazeta’s Sergey Ptichkin reviewed Dmitriy Rogozin’s comments on the formation of the next state armaments program, GPV 2016-2025.  Rogozin is Deputy Prime Minister and Chairman of the Military-Industrial Commission (VPK) attached to the RF Government.

Rogozin indicated the next GPV will be very different from the current one, according to Ptichkin.

Rogozin said fulfillment of GPV 2016-2025 will be tracked with a new automated system GAS-GOZ, or the State Automated System of the State Defense Order (or perhaps State Automated Defense Order System?).  It’s supposed to allow for “quickly reacting to the smallest failures” in the GOZ.

The Future Research Fund (FPI or ФПИ, the emerging Russian DARPA) will effectively develop the most promising military and civilian technologies in 2016-2025.

Systems now in RDT&E are supposed to be in serial production.  There may be some weapons based on “new physical principles.”

The PAK DA, a new strategic bomber, should be developed and produced during this GPV.  The fifth generation fighter, PAK FA, will be in production.

There will be new missiles, from operational-tactical to strategic, hypersonic ones too.

It’s “not excluded” that aviation-carrying formations (aircraft carriers) will appear in the Navy.

Rogozin said the “active inclusion of the Military-Industrial Commission in developing the future GPV” is a first, and will allow for avoiding “many problems and collisions” along the way.

Rogozin criticized the “former Defense Ministry leadership” for refusing to accept the BTR-90, not ordering the BMD-4, not taking delivery of assembled BMP-3s, and not testing Obyekt 195 (a future tank) after GPV 2011-2020 was already finalized.  Instead, rushed orders for developing and producing the wheeled Bumerang, light tracked Kurganets-25, and heavy tracked Armata ensued. 

These armored vehicles are supposed to enter the force in a year or two, but this seems unlikely.  They will probably become part of GPV 2016-2025.

Rogozin promised the next GPV will be the most balanced, most well-calculated, most innovative, and, at the same time, most realistic.

It’s very early to talk about the next GPV.  Traditionally, this is a sign things aren’t going well in the GOZ or the current GPV.  The overlap in consecutive GPVs makes it difficult (perhaps impossible) for anyone – citizens, lawmakers, bureaucrats, military men, and, defense industrialists — to understand exactly what’s been procured (or not) under each GPV.  This state of confusion probably serves the interests of some of the same  groups.  Rogozin makes it sound as if defense industry, rather than the military, will drive the train this time around.

Gerasimov Says No Sharp Course Change

General-Colonel Gerasimov (photo: RIA Novosti / Sergey Pyatikov)

Gazeta.ru pieced together RIA Novosti clips of General Staff Chief Valeriy Gerasimov’s session with foreign military attaches yesterday.

Gerasimov said army reforms begun by former Defense Minister Anatoliy Serdyukov will be “corrected,” not radically altered:

“Anticipating your questions on the possibility of a sharp course change in military organizational development, I would note there won’t be one.  In 2008, the Russian Federation President clearly indicated development tasks for our army, they will be fulfilled.  Naturally, some issues are being subjected to certain correction accounting for deficiencies revealed.”

“Organizational development” is primarily (but not entirely) TO&E and force structure.

Gazeta reports Gerasimov said mixed conscript and contract manning will be preserved, and the one-year conscript service term won’t be increased as some would like.

The new NGSh said the Defense Ministry is creating its own element to track fulfillment of the state defense order (GOZ):

“And by the minister’s decision, a structure will be created in the Defense Ministry which allows for controlling not only the completion of contracts, but work in all phases of the production cycle.”

Serdyukov’s Defense Ministry had various organs with this responsibility, including Rosoboronzakaz, Rosoboronpostavka, etc.  How will the new structure be better?

Gazeta closes with expert opinions on the fate of reforms introduced by Serdyukov.  Igor Korotchenko says:

“We didn’t have Anatoliy Serdyukov’s reform, but a reform the main parameters of which were set by the president.  That is the military reform course will continue fully with the exception of some cases of deficiencies revealed in the military education system, military medicine, and the reinforcement of control procedures over the activity of those structures involved in armed forces outsourcing.”

Ever-skeptical Aleksandr Khramchikhin doesn’t think there was a coherent course to be changed:

“In the army reform, there wasn’t a clear plan of action, one won’t appear under the new defense minister.”

“I don’t think Shoygu’s Defense Ministry will try to correct the course of reform or introduce some fixes.  There is nothing to correct.  Serdyukov’s reform had no kind of course, it went by the trial and error method.  There are grounds to believe that Shoygu will act according to the same principle.”

There’s a long list of policies commentators think will or might be changed, but little so far officially.  A new category to replace Serdyukov’s Reforms is needed.  Maybe Shoygu’s Nuanced Corrections?

Can He Possibly Avoid Prosecution?

Anatoliy Serdyukov (photo: ITAR-TASS / Aleksandr Mudrats)

Probably not.

It seems likely President Vladimir Putin, at some point, will turn Anatoliy Serdyukov over to the law, such as it is in Russia.  Despite assertions to the contrary, Putin will bow to evidence his former defense minister knew about,  condoned, or even participated in corruption schemes.

What’s Putin’s calculus?

Putin stands to look like a corruption fighter, perhaps for the first time.  Most of that corruption occurred on his protege-predecessor’s watch.  Serdyukov’s lost his tie to Putin’s closest associates through his estranged father-in-law Viktor Zubkov, so it’s free fire.  Putin can even save money by not pouring all 19 trillion rubles into new arms procurement by 2020 while investigators and prosecutors take at least 2-3 years unraveling the mess.

Few will recall Putin appointed Serdyukov to straighten out the Defense Ministry’s financial flows.  That didn’t work out too well.  Not many will remember Serdyukov was brought in because of the meager results of Putin’s stewardship of defense between 2000 and 2007.  Essentially, 12 years of Putin’s control and direction of the armed forces (de jure, de facto, or both) have come to little.  None of this will loom large politically for Putin.

On balance, it’s an easy decision to turn Anatoliy Eduardovich over to his fate.

Compared with nine months ago, clouds completely surround Serdyukov now.

Izvestiya wrote about his sister’s wealth right after the scandal broke.  A FGUP her husband ran won a lucrative one-bidder Defense Ministry vehicle leasing contract in 2010.  It’s not clear he was in charge of the firm when it got the deal.  But there can’t be any doubt the family connection was the reason for getting it.  The story appeared here, but the role of Serdyukov’s brother-in-law was unknown at the time.

This week the media reported Oboronservis affiliates responsible for paying energy suppliers for heating military installations are suddenly 4 billion rubles in the red.

The Investigative Committee (SK) searched Serdyukov’s cottage, along with those of other defense officials.

One-time Serdyukov deputy, apparent girlfriend, and central scandal figure, Yevgeniya Vasilyeva was denied bail and is under home detention.

Law enforcement sources are talking anonymously about much higher-profile and wider investigations.  There’s nibbling at other edges.  The SK is looking into alleged GOZ misappropriations.  The Main Military Prosecutor is reviewing old accusations about the poor design and quality of the army’s new uniforms.

Can Serdyukov avoid prosecutorial sharks with this much blood in the water?  Probably not.  Is he responsible for all Defense Ministry corruption?  Yes, by virtue of his former position. 

Could he become a sympathetic figure if he goes to prison?  Maybe.  Serdyukov might be seen as someone unwilling or unable to fix a broken system.  Perhaps guilty, but no more than Putin . . . a scapegoat or symbol of Russian problems larger than one man or one department of government.

Defense News

Some Russian defense news from August 6, 7, and 8, 2012 . . .

Sukhorukov’s Press Conference (photo: Mil.ru)

Mil.ru provided a wrap on the First Deputy Defense Minister’s press-conference on GPV-2020.

Sukhorukov ”particularly turned attention” to media reports that the program’s funding will be cut.  He told journalists such a step isn’t foreseen, and the government is talking only about “optimizing” the budget load between years by using good old state-guaranteed credits for the OPK.

Sukhorukov claims 95 percent of GOZ-2012 has been contracted, and 82 percent of funds disbursed.

Arms-expo.ru also covered this story.  It emphasized Sukhorukov’s statement that the rate of defective arms delivered by producers isn’t declining.

According to RIAN, Sukhorukov said Russia won’t buy more Israeli UAVs beyond its current contract.  He reiterated the Defense Ministry believes the BMD-4M doesn’t meet its requirements, and won’t buy it.

Sukhoy reports it’s now testing the new Tikhomirov phased array radar on PAK FA, T-50-3 to be exact.  See RIAN’s story.

Sukhoy also announced that its Su-35S is in “combat employment” testing within the process of state acceptance testing at GLITs.  The company says it meets all established requirements, and has flown more than 650 times.

New Navy CINC, Vice-Admiral Chirkov made an interesting visit to the State Missile Center named for Academic V. P. Makeyev on Monday.  The Makeyev design bureau is home, of course, to liquid-fueled SLBM development.  Could not find the last time this happened.  Might be prior to 2007.

Main Military Prosecutor Sergey Fridinskiy told the GenProk collegium yesterday that abuse or dedovshchina in the ranks is down a third this year.  But, according to ITAR-TASS, Fridinskiy noted that general crimes exceed purely military offenses by a factor of two.  Specifically, he said murders are up by half, bribery has almost doubled, and drug offenses have increased 27 percent.

Fridinskiy also said nearly 3,000 GOZ corruption cases and losses worth 400 million rubles were investigated in the first half of this year.  He said, for example, Dagdizel received 3 billion rubles in defense orders, but hasn’t sent a single product to the military, and bought farm equipment and building materials with the money.  He cited losses in purchasing apartments for military men at inflated prices as well as the problem of unfinished housing projects.

Izvestiya claims a large number of young pilots are leaving the Air Forces because the lion’s share of increased flight hours and promised higher pay are going to their commanders and older officers.  Could this be a continuation of Igor Sulim’s travails at Lipetsk?  The paper also reports a number of cleaning companies say the Defense Ministry owes them 5 billion rubles for housekeeping work outsourced over the last year.

Defense News

Some Russian defense news for April 19-20, 2012 . . .

Krasnaya zvezda covered First Deputy Defense Minister Aleksandr Sukhorukov’s briefing on the progress of GOZ-2012.  He said contracting is at 77 percent, ahead of the last two years (50 and 47 percent).  The Defense Ministry’s GOZ funding was trimmed by 25 billion rubles, from a planned 704 to 677 billion (isn’t that 27 billion?).  GOZ money will be advanced in full, and 53 percent of contracts will be “long term,” according to Sukhorukov.

Sukhorukov's Press Conference

Sukhorukov told the media this year the Armed Forces will receive 28 Pantsir-S1, 58 aircraft, and 124 helicopters.  He discussed supplemental contracts for Mi-35, Mi-28N, and Mi-8MTSh helicopters.  The total GPV purchase of helicopters will apparently be 1,124.

ITAR-TASS reported Borey-class SSBN Yuriy Dolgorukiy will be accepted not later than mid-June.  Unit 2 Aleksandr Nevskiy will be accepted in August according to Sukhorukov.

This item also indicated Borey contracting for this year was almost done, and that units 4-8 will have 20 launch tubes.

Sukhorukov had no other specifics on defense procurement this year.

In its coverage of the press-conference, Arms-Expo.ru asked if GOZ-2012 isn’t broken already, at least in the munitions sector.

Meanwhile, in other OPK-related news . . .

Topwar.ru writes that small arms maker Izhmash’s bankruptcy is “going according to plan.”  Rostekhnologii’s plan, that is.

VPK.name reported the chairman of Ukrainian engine manufacturer Motor Sich’s board claims Russia will sign a contract for its first An-70 transport this year.  The GPV may include up to 60 of these aircraft.

Defense News

Some Russian defense news from Friday, April 13, 2012 . . .

An Interfaks-AVN headline:

• Rogozin says new Armata tank will reach troops in 2017.

RIA Novosti reports Rogozin saying UVZ will start producing Armata in 2015.

ITAR-TASS reports burned Delta IV-class SSBN Yekaterinburg will arrive at Zvezdochka to begin repairs this summer.

An OPK source tells the news service the sub will return to the fleet in summer-fall 2014.  Fire destroyed its sonar system and seriously damaged the rubber coating of its outer hull.  Yekaterinburg was under minor repair following a collision with a tug when it caught fire in the dry dock at Roslyakovo in January.  The SSBN had been scheduled for a patrol before it collided with its escort.

ITAR-TASS reported Rogozin remarking that the GOZ may not be fully in place by tomorrow’s deadline.

Today’s Kommersant says the problem (once again) is agreement (or lack thereof) on the price for new Borey-class SSBNs.

The Winner Is . . .

Putin, politics, and industrial policy.

One loser, for sure, defense policy.

Putin got his 63 percent.  He didn’t need fraud to get 50+ percent and avoid a second round, but he (or someone) wasn’t willing to take that chance.  The cheating should have drawn a flag for piling on or unnecessary roughness.  That it happened says something about Putin’s fear of being out of power.  But we digress.

Politics won over policymaking, not least of all in defense policy.

Yes, Russia is not the only place this happens.  It happens in most of the world’s democratic states.  This doesn’t prove Russia’s a democracy; it just proves Russia has politics.  But so did the USSR.  It had fights between industry and the military.

But back to our story.

Promises and populism secured votes for Putin in Russia’s industrial centers where they’ve waited years for serious defense orders.  He’d have won here without writing checks his treasury might not be able to cash.  But the once-and-future Supreme CINC made pledges he may hope factory workers forget before 2018.

If they don’t, working class disgruntlement may mingle with urban, middle class discontent in an increasingly flammable political mixture.

The case in point here is tanks and Uralvagonzavod in Nizhniy Tagil.  Did Putin court anyone, or any defense enterprise, more than the General Director of UVZ Oleg Siyenko?  Did anyone get comparable preelection attention?

The closest we get is Putin’s intervention between the Defense Ministry, OSK, and Sevmash to solve their submarine pricing dispute last fall.  But industry didn’t exactly get everything it wanted in that case.

Siyenko Casts His Ballot

In an election day press-release, this industrial chieftain all but admitted his employees were ordered to vote for Putin.  Most probably never entertained the thought of doing otherwise.  UVZ likely didn’t have to organize “carousels,” but  “corporate voting” might have occurred.

On February 20, Putin declared 2,300 “new generation” tanks will be produced (by UVZ) under GPV 2020.

It was just February 15 that Putin had a meeting with Defense Minister Serdyukov and Siyenko.  It was actually more of a beating, for Serdyukov.

Putin With Serdyukov and Siyenko

The Defense Minister had to back down publicly from everything he’s said about tank acquisition over the last couple years.  He acknowledged, as Putin said, there will be a new tank from UVZ in 2013 that will enter series production in 2015.  And, for good measure, Serdyukov said the manufacturer will receive 100 percent advance payment on the GOZ.

As recently as January, the Defense Minister was lamenting huge stocks of old tanks and repeating his willingness to wait for fundamentally new armor rather than ”new” T-72 or T-90 models.  In mid-2011, he criticized tank makers (UVZ) for dressing up old ideas, and said the army would just settle for updating its existing armor inventory.

Yes, everything changed sometime between then and now.

It was just prior to this Putin-Serdyukov-Siyenko session that General Staff Chief Nikolay Makarov again criticized the tanks offered to the army and argued for the military’s predominance in weapons procurement decisions.  Deputy PM Dmitriy Rogozin objected fiercely to Makarov’s public airing of dirty linen, and declared himself chief of acquisition.

All official doubts and complaints about Russian tanks heard in 2009, 2010, and 2011 were swept away in a stroke by Putin’s announcement.

It seems the Ground Troops – its supporting industry actually — were feeling left out of the GPV and GOZ.  Tanks were never one of Russia’s  priorities as enumerated by former armaments chief Vladimir Popovkin.

What do 2,300 tanks mean for the world’s largest country?  One that once measured sufficiency in tanks by the tens of thousands?  Is staving off a NATO ground attack really a top concern?  Would Moscow entertain putting most of its new tanks opposite China?  There’s been plenty written (including by Russians) about the end of the tank era.

What do these tanks mean for the GPV?  If they cost 200 million rubles per, the cost of the production run (if it actually happens) will cost close to 500 billion of the GPV’s 19 trillion rubles for procurement.  It’s a lot for one system.  The Putin-brokered sub deal in November was worth only 280 billion rubles.

So to return to the original point of this meandering post, these tanks are about industrial policy, updating the human and technical capital to make them, keeping a significant industrial center quiescent, and retaining the capability to sell tanks abroad.  There are, after all, other armies possibly facing big tank battles in the future.

When politics and defense intersect, the latter yields.  Nothing shocking in that, one admits.

One last thing.

Siyenko’s an interesting character.  The 46-year-old former bike racer and past President of the Russian Cycling Federation spent most of the 2000s as General Director of Gazprom subsidiary Gazeksport (Gazprom Eksport), selling natural gas to the Europeans.  From 2003, he was a deputy chairman of the shady gas intermediary Itera.  Itera Chairman Vladimir Makeyev too is a one-time world-class rider who succeeded Siyenko as the cycling federation’s head.

But suddenly in 2009, Siyenko changed tracks, and went to Sverdlovsk Oblast and UVZ in Nizhniy Tagil.  There must be a story explaining why he’d abandon gas for tanks and railcars.

Cosmic Corruption

Sergey Fridinskiy

Main Military Prosecutor Sergey Fridinskiy gave Interfaks an interview several weeks ago in which he described generally improved crime statistics in the Armed Forces.  But he also called the scale of corruption in the military nothing short of “cosmic.”

Fridinskiy told the news service the army’s crime situation is stable and even improving.  Crimes by servicemen are down 16 percent, and there are fewer crimes committed by officers.  There’s a constantly growing number of military units where no legal violations law are registered.  Last year fewer soldiers suffered violence at the hands of their fellow soldiers.  But the army’s top law enforcer doesn’t think he’ll run out of work any time soon:

“In particular areas, for example, like saving budget resources allocated for military needs, or corrupt activities, the crime level, as before, is significant.  And we’re still far from ridding ourselves of nonregulation relations.”

More than 1,000 military officials were prosecuted for corruption, including 18 general officers — one-third of whom received jail time.  Since January 2011, the GVP’s prosecuted 250 bribery cases, many more than in 2010.  Fridinskiy singled out the GOZ and commercial firms outsourcing for military units as areas where problems are “not small.”  He puts annual Defense Ministry losses to corruption at 3 billion rubles.

This is, interestingly, the same figure he cited in early 2010.

Asked about the types of corrupt schemes in the military, Fridinskiy responded:

“Mainly untargeted use of budget resources, violating the rules and requirements of conducting auctions, competitions, and contractor selection, paying for work not really performed, significant inflating of prices for military products.  There are also multifarious kickbacks, bribes, and misuse.  Generally, the banal sharing out of budget resources.  Devotees of living on state funds especially go for violations of the law.  Their scale now is simply stratospheric, I would even say, cosmic.”

Fridinskiy said the GVP’s been active in checking high-level Defense Ministry officials’ asset and property declarations.  He said called the scale of violations here “impressive.”  More often, he continued, the GVP finds evidence of servicemen and officials engaged in illegal entrepreneurship and commercial activity.  He mentioned an unnamed deputy Northern Fleet commander who failed to disclose his wife’s assets, and a Rosoboronpostavka bureaucrat who simultaneously serves as general director of a corporation.

The GVP Chief then shifted gears to talk about barracks violence which he said was down by 20 percent in 2011, with cases involving “serious consequences” declining a third.

Lastly, Interfaks asked about military police, of which Fridinskiy’s skeptical.  He emphasized military prosecutors will continue supervising army investigations, but he doubts MPs are ready to run criminal inquiries.  He repeated his familiar assertion that they aren’t a panacea; their existence won’t change the social factors behind crime among servicemen.

Would have been interesting if the news agency had asked if this year’s higher pay for officers will cut army crime in 2012.

A Fuller Picture of the GOZ

Yars ICBM (photo: RIA Novosti / Ilya Pitalev)

It’s been customary for some time to get press information on what the Russian military expects to acquire each year.  Rare, however, are occasions when we receive a report on what they procured to compare with the plan from the year before.

This year is one of those occasions.

Why is anybody’s guess.  But the release of this information — which came from the new armaments tsar First Deputy Defense Minister Aleksandr Sukhorukov – could be a Defense Ministry weapon in its running skirmish with the OPK.  Information on how the defense sector performed could bolster the ministry’s somewhat beleaguered position on what it buys, from whom, and for how much.

RIA Novosti covered Sukhorukov’s remarks on GOZ-2011 yesterday.

According to him, in 2011, the military received 30 Topol-M and Yars ICBMs, two special designation satellites, 21 aircraft, 82 helicopters, one proyekt 22380 Steregushchiy-class corvette, and 8,500 KamAZ and Ural vehicles.

The price for GOZ-2011 was about 550 billion rubles.

Now, for comparison, in mid-March, Lenta.ru recapped Defense Minister Serdyukov’s statement to RIA Novosti on 2011 procurement plans.  He said the military planned to obtain 36 ballistic missiles, two SSBNs, 20 strategic ALCMs, five satellites, 35 aircraft, 109 helicopters, three SSNs, one surface ship, and 21 SAM systems.  The media outlet itself noted the submarine plans sounded garbled since two SSBNs and an SSN were more likely.

So what was acquired very roughly approximates what was anticipated.  And these are just high-profile systems rather than an exhaustive list.  As indicated at the outset, it’s a fuller picture not a full one.  There could be an official assessment later of what percentage of GOZ-2011 was completed.   

Sukhorukov also said late last year a contract for Bulava SLBM production out to 2020 was signed, but no acceptance date for the missile or the first Borey-class SSBN was established.

He added that 84 contracts worth 42 billion (8 percent of the money) were not fulfilled, and the Yasen-class SSN schedule was not met.  And defect claims reached 7,100, up from 6,800 in 2010.