Navy servicemen fear accidents
Years of reforms and staff cuts have resulted in a serious loss of capacity among Russian military servicemen. That could eventually lead to catastrophes worse than with the Kursk submarine, representatives of the servicemen say.
According to Chairman of the Association of Navy Unions Mikhail Babin, the civilian part of the Armed Forces has been neglected in the many recent reforms in the Russian military. He maintains that the situation is worse in the Navy than in the other weapon branches, newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta reports.
In the course of the last two decades, the number of servicemen in the military has been reduced with up to 40 percent. That has not only weakened the capacities of the whole Armed Forces, but also seriously hampered the level of safety and security, union representatives stressed at the recent Congress of Federal Labor Unions for workers and officials in the Russian Armed Forces.
Mikhail Babin fears that the situation eventually could result in serious accidents comparable with, or even worse than, the Kursk accident in year 2000. Then, 118 sailors died following an explosion in one of the vessel’s torpedo tubes.
Such accidents would have potential consequences not only for Russia, but also for our neighboring countries, Babin underlined at the congress.
He was supported by congress chairman Anton Vasilenko, who stressed that “the current number of crew members at Navy support vessels is not in correspondence with labor legislation norms, nor with the norms of safe shipping”. He also added that the servicemen are badly paid and that it is increasingly hard to recruit new well qualified personnel, especially among young people.
The situation described by the union leaders is well known also in Murmansk Oblast, the home region of Russia’s powerful Northern Fleet. As repeatedly reported by BarentsObserver, the military authorities have major problems with paying their bills for electricity and heating resulting in several power cuts and reduced heating.
Read also:Severomorsk could face winter without heating
At the same time, Russia is in the process of allocating new major sums to its Armed Forces. As reported by BarentsObserver, as much as 20 trillion RUB will over the next ten years be invested in modernization and new military hardware.
Among the key investments is the development of new strategic submarines and the “Bulava” missile complex. The Russian Armed Forces have experienced major technical problems with these missiles and as many as six of 13 test launches have failed, the last in December 2009.
Read also: Background on Bulava missile tests
