By Vestnik Kavkaza
The former commander of the 58th Army of the North Caucasus Military District, communist Viktor Sobolyev told Vestnik Kavkaza about his vision of reforms of the Russian army and the current situation in the South and North Caucasus.
- You have criticized reforms of the Russian Army conducted after the war in the South Ossetia. What were they and who provided them?
- They were provided by the minister of defense and the general headquarters headed by the command of the general headquarters, General Makarov. Our Army got a new image. As the result the system of management of military forces, which included the Ministry of Defense, the General Headquarters, military districts, armies, divisions, regiments, and squadrons. Divisions and regiments were reduced. Administration of logistics, equipment support, human resources section, and organizational-mobilizing recruiting section were reduced from the army administration. The same situation took place in military districts – the administrational bodies of the districts were significantly weakened. I think they hardly can fulfill the tasks they are facing. Mobilization readiness, an important part of military readiness, was reduced too. The number of officers decreased as a result. More than 50 thousand officers were dismissed after these reforms. The category of warrant officers was completely reduced – they were dismissed from the army. This category exists in all armies – non-commissioned officers. The army was left without logistics and equipment support. These functions were given to commerce structures which are thought to replace military structures. The number of units was reduced significantly. At the moment we have 100 brigades, 39 of them are combined arms. It is equal to 10 divisions. Thus, in whole Russia we have only 39 brigades.
The terms of military service were reduced too. Today soldiers service for one year only. Recruiting period is prolonged; army recruiting offices are not military structures anymore, today they are civic. They are not able to fulfill tasks which they used to fulfill previously.
As a result of these reforms, according to NATO analysts, our military forces are not able to settle tasks even in local conflicts. It is their appraisal. The appraisal of our analysts sums up that our army was destroyed, like the tsarist army in 1917. And there are no plans on its reviving.
- How does NATO activity influence the situation in the North and South Caucasus?
- In Georgia, at first Saakashvili came to office, now he is replaced by even more anti-Russian authorities. The country is striving for NATO with all that it entails. If NATO troops are located there, it would be a direct threat for the whole North Caucasus, not mentioning South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Today the situation in the Chechen Republic is more or less stable, probably because Ramzan Kadyrov is popular among his people and he managed to return peace and relevant security. But other republics of the North Caucasus are seething – Dagestan, Kabardino-Balkaria, and others. I have no doubts that foreign forces are acting there. I had to participate in the Beslan events. When investigation was started, I was present at the report to the authorities of the country, which said that the investigation had no doubts that Western special services were involved in these events.
To explode bombs and conduct wars, financing is needed. In the 1990s Chechen militants were financed almost directly by Berezovsky. Today we have no internal financing, but money comes from abroad. Resources are spent for militant groups. Nobody has any doubts.
