Dmitry Medvedev made numerous statements at MoD collegium

05.03.2010
President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev made a number of demands and comments at Friday's collegium of defense ministry.

In particular, the president said that strength of Russian military servicemen should be reduced to 1 mln (as for Interfax, in 2008 there were 1.13 mln servicemen).

All servicemen in need of dwelling must be provided with permanent accommodation by the end of 2010 and with service housing – by 2012, said Medvedev. According to him, he personally controls execution of this task and all governmental liabilities to acting and dismissed servicemen will be fulfilled without reservation.

Training officers as specialists motivated to military profession and handling sophisticated equipment is still Russia's primary objective. Sergeants must be trained in such a way that they could substitute junior officers if needed. Russian military education system must be improved; material resources of armed forces degraded in recent years must be developed. Implementation arrangements of arms procurement contracts are half-effective so reequipment of troops with advanced weaponry is still extremely complicated task. The government is obliged to control arms renovation on 9–11% per year; realization of this program will increase the portion of modern weapons up to 70% by 2020, outlined Medvedev.

According to him, main efforts should be focused on creation and training of inter-branch groupings; maintaining and development of nuclear deterrence means.

Supreme Commander named operational-strategic exercise Vostok-2010 which he would personally attend a main troops training activity of the year.

Military capability of Georgia being recovered by external support is a threat to Russia's security; there are problems on the border, underlined Medvedev.

Source: RusNavy.com, photo: Dmitry Medvedev (nanonewsnet.ru)