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Moscow Defense BriefYour Professional Guide Inside # 1, 2011

Russian Army’s New LookRussian Army’s New Look

# 1, 2011 Moscow Defense Brief 1

#1 (23), 2011

PUBLISHER

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ResearchersRuslan Aliev

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Dmitry Vasiliev

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© Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, 2011

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CONTENTSDefense IndustriesNew Management at the United Aircraft Corporation 2

Arms TradeRussian Arms Trade in 2010 4

ProcurementRussian Military Spending in 2011-2020 12

SpaceRussian Space Industry in 2010 17

Armed ForcesRussia’s “New-Look” Army: the Medical Service 20

Demographics vs the Russian Army 25

Our Authors 28

Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies

# 1, 2011 Moscow Defense Brief2New Management at the United Aircraft Corporation

Defense Industries

New Management at the United Aircraft CorporationKonstantin Makienko

New management has arrived at the United Aircraft Corporation (OAK) after former president Aleksey

Fedorov resigned on February 1, 2011. The company’s Board of Directors has accepted his resignation and on February 25 appointed Mikhail Pogosyan, the CEO of Sukhoi and MiG companies, to replace him.

The reasonsThe main reason for Fedorov’s departure is the poor state of affairs with the commercial and transport aircraft projects. The development of the new Il-112 military transport has been painfully slow, and the MoD seems less then enthusiastic about the results so far. The Russian-Indian multi-role transport aircraft project, the MTA, has been making very little progress, and a lot of uncertainty remains about plans to resume production of the An-124 heavy transport. Missed deadlines and spiraling costs of the Il-476 project are yet another failure laid at the feet of the previous OAK management. In the commercial aviation segment, production of the An-148 regional jet is facing great difficulties. Even more worryingly, the medium-haul Tu-204SM project is on the verge of collapse; the aircraft has failed to secure enough orders to make its production economical.

The latest failing that actually triggered Fedorov’s resignation was the botched interior finish and entertainment system in the new presidential Tu-204PU jet, as well as Jordan’s complaints about delays with the delivery of the Il-76MF military transports under a 2007 contract.

The appointment of Mikhail Pogosyan to replace Fedorov means:

• a sharp rebalancing between the two Russian aerospace arch-rivals, the Sukhoi company and the Irkut alliance;

• the presidential administration’s encroachment upon the traditional turf of the Cabinet;

• strengthening of the positions of the US makers of commercial jets on the Russian market.

Competition between the Irkut group and SukhoiBy the late 1990s two rival groups had coalesced in the Russian aerospace industry: the Irkut alliance and the

Sukhoi company. The Irkut alliance is centered on the Irkut corporation set up in 2001; its main asset is the Irkutsk aircraft plant. In 2003 Irkut acquired the Yakovlev design bureau and took control of the Beriyev bureau, the designer of amphibious aircraft and platforms for airborne radars. In 2005 the group also took control of the MiG corporation after Aleksey Fedorov, the Irkut corporation’s president and largest shareholder, was appointed the director-general of MiG. The group’s expansion culminated in Fedorov’s appointment as president of the United Aircraft Corporation. With their political and economic clout at its peak, the group’s captains even began to think of the acquisition of their main rival Sukhoi. That would have meant unqualified victory for Irkut and spelt the end of any competition between the Russian aircraft makers. Apart from its streak of acquisitions, the group was the first Russian defense contractor to conduct an IPO in 2004. In 2006, a 10 per cent stake in Irkut was bought by Europe’s EADS.

As it happens, crisis struck just as Irkut was at the peak of its power in 2006. First, bitter rivalry broke out between Fedorov’s two heirs apparent, Sergey Tsivilev, who oversaw the Irkut IPO, and Valeriy Bezverkhiy, who was in charge of the relationship with EADS. Even worse, following Fedorov’s appointment as OAK president and his succession as MiG director-general by Tsivilev, the Russian prosecutor-general’s office developed an interest in Tsivilev’s affairs. He was investigated on several criminal charges. By 2009 both Tsivilev and Bezverkhiy had left the industry.

Finally, the reputation of Irkut and its president Aleksey Fedorov sustained a serious blow from the Algerian fiasco. In 2006 Algeria signed a contract for 34 MiG-29 fighters. But after 15 fighters had been delivered, the Algerian Air Force put the contract on hold and then returned all 15 MiG-29’s to Russia, citing technical problems with the aircraft.

While the Irkut alliance was lurching from one crisis to the next, Sukhoi was steadily building up its political muscle and reputation. In 2008 two of the company’s new aircraft took to the air: the Su-35 fighter and the SSJ-100 commercial regional jet. In 2010 came the maiden flight of the T-50 fifth-generation fighter. In 2011 the second T-50 prototype entered the flight tests program. All thee projects (S-35, SSJ and T-50) are making rapid progress, in stark contrast to the languid pace of Russia’s other aerospace endeavors.

# 1, 2011 Moscow Defense Brief 3New Management at the United Aircraft Corporation

Defense Industries

In 2008 Sukhoi CEO Mikhail Pogosyan was put at the helm of MiG while retaining his previous position, essentially becoming the de-facto captain of the entire Russian combat aviation sector. In 2009 his de facto status was made official when Pogosyan was appointed head of the Combat Aircraft division at the United Aircraft Corporation. The appointment has spelt the end of the 10-year rivalry between Sukhoi and Irkut, and signaled a decisive victory for Sukhoi.

Interpretation and consequencesApart from the sound and possibly final victory for Sukhoi over its Irkut rivals, the appointment of Pogosyan can also be interpreted as a significant strengthening of Boeing’s positions on the Russian market and further emancipation of President Medvedev, no longer a mere shadow of Vladimir Putin.

Up until recently, the aerospace industry was informally regarded as Putin’s turf. It was Putin who had made the decision to set up the OAK corporation and appoint Aleksey Fedorov its president. What is more, word has it that Putin had given Fedorov a firm promise that he would remain OAK president until his contract expires in November 2011. With the abrupt sacking of Fedorov and the appointment of Pogosyan to replace him, the delicate balance between the two Russian aerospace rivals which Putin had been carefully maintaining has been unceremoniously wrecked. President Medvedev, meanwhile, appears to have broken the convention and barged into the turf of his partner in the tandem. It seems more likely, however, that this is not a case of direct competition between the president and prime minister, but rather a tussle between anti-Putin elements in the presidential administration and people in Putin’s Cabinet.

The new management at OAK also means a more favorable climate for Boeing on the Russian market. The Irkut group has always pursued closer partnership with EADS. As

part of that relationship, EADS had acquired a stake in Irkut corporation and pursued a project to launch production of Airbus components at the Irkutsk aircraft plant. Another joint project was the conversion of Airbus planes into cargo versions, involving Russian engineers and, quite possibly, Russian production facilities as well. As part of the same trend, Russia’s Vneshekonombank has accumulated a 5 per cent stake in EADS. Russia has also discussed participation in the Airbus 350XWB and new medium-haul aircraft programs to succeed the ageing A-320 family.

Sukhoi, meanwhile, has always preferred to work with Boeing. First it hoped to persuade Boeing to a joint supersonic business jet project, then it wanted to secure access to the US market for its own regional SSJ-100 aircraft. Now Russia’s cooperation with EADS, which has been stagnating in the past two or three years, risks being pushed to the sidelines altogether. In what seems a clear indication of things to come, almost simultaneously with Pogosyan’s appointment Russia’s flag carrier Aeroflot placed an order for eight Boeing 777 jets, although previously the company’s product strategy preferred the European A-330 liners in the long-haul segment. New contracts for American aircraft also sit well with the US-Russian policy of Reset in bilateral relations, which has been spearheaded by President Medvedev, whereas Prime Minister Putin has taken a more conservative stance.

As for the OAK product strategy, the following assumptions can be made:

• Prospects for the An-148 project are looking very bleak in Russia, especially after one of these aircraft crashed on March 5 near Belgorod;

• The MS-21 future liner project is facing growing risks and may be revised to ensure greater compatibility with the SSJ platform;

• Russia will now pursue a more hard-nosed commercial approach to all its civilian, special-purpose and military transport aircraft projects, including the Tu-204SM, the resumption of the AN-124 production, and the Be-200 amphibious aircraft.

# 1, 2011 Moscow Defense Brief4

Arms Trade

Russian Arms Trade in 2010

Russian Arms Trade in 2010Dmitry Vasiliev

A surge after stagnationRussian arms exports reached 10bn dollars in 2010, up 1.5bn on the previous year (Fig. 1a). Adjusted for the dollar inflation of 1.64 per cent1, the real-terms increase was 1.36bn dollars, or 15.7 per cent. After almost two years of flat growth, the figure looks very impressive.

It is far from clear though that this excellent result reflects a real growth in the Russian defense industry’s output rather than several large deliveries coinciding to produce a statistical anomaly. To illustrate, the 2010 figures were buoyed by the almost simultaneous delivery of several ships, which took years to build, as well as a large batch of the Bastion coastal defense missile systems. It is therefore quite likely that last year’s surge in arms exports will have been just a temporary blip.

Nevertheless, the Russian defense contracts portfolio has been growing steadily for the second year running (Fig. 1b). In 2010 it went up by 5bn dollars to 45bn, of which Rosoboronexport, the authorized arms exports intermediary, accounts for 38.5bn. Simple calculations indicate that 15bn dollars worth of new arms contracts were signed last year.

Key developments in 20101. Last year India became the biggest Russian defense customer in terms of deliveries made as well as contracts

signed. The situation is unlikely to change in 2011. Meanwhile, China’s share in Russian arms exports continued to shrink for the fourth year running.

2. Two new countries have been added to the list of large importers of Russian weapons: Libya and Uganda. With Libya, a package of contracts was signed worth 1.3bn euros, mainly for the upgrade of armor and the delivery of small firearms. Uganda bought eight Su-30MK2 fighters worth 350m dollars. Given the growing tensions in Southern Sudan, new Ugandan arms contracts can be expected any time now. Meanwhile, the political crisis in Libya, which has led to the imposition of the UN arms embargo on Tripoli, means that Russia’s arms contracts with that country have essentially become null and void.

3. Deliveries of naval equipment rose to a record level since 2006, when Project 636 (Kilo class) diesel-electric submarines and Project 956EM destroyers were supplied to China. The biggest 2010 deliveries include two Projec t 636M diesel-elec t r ic subs to Algeria, and several Bastion anti-ship missile systems to Syria and Vietnam.

4. The Russian Defense Ministry carried on with the novel practice of buying weapons abroad. The Russian Navy contract for an amphibious assault ships, which had been put up for an international tender, was predictably awarded to France with its Mistral class ship. Meanwhile, the Italian-made Iveco LMV light armored vehicle entered service with the Russian Army.

Figure 1. Russian arms exports in 2006-2010

* – CAST estimate. Source: Federal Service for Military and Technical Cooperation, Rosoboronexport, CAST estimates.

2006 2007 2008 2009 2010

6460

5300

75506200

8350 85007436

100008600

6725

Total, mln USDRosoboronexpoet, mln USD

Delivery

2006 2007 2008 2009 2010

28

14.0

32

11.5*

3340

15.5*

45

15.0*9.9*

Total portfolio as of the year end, bn USDSigned during the year, bn USD

Contracts

# 1, 2011 Moscow Defense Brief 5Russian Arms Trade in 2010

Arms Trade

Identified deliveriesBased on open-source information we have identified 6.64bn dollars worth of deliveries (see Table 1 at the bottom), or about 66 per cent of the total 10bn figure. Deliveries of spare parts, instruments and components accounted for an estimated 1bn dollars on top of the 6.64bn, bringing the overall transparency index to almost 0.8 (76 per cent). In any event, this account should not be considered entirely representative.

Breakdown by type of equipment

Aviation equipment has retained its traditional place at the top of the ranking, accounting for 44 per cent of identified deliveries (Fig 2a). Equipment for ground troops came second with 24 per cent, followed by naval equipment (20 per cent) and air defense systems (12 per cent).

Aviation equipment. We estimate the value of aviation equipment deliveries on export contracts made in 2010 at 3.1bn dollars, down from 3.45bn in 2009.2 Traditionally, deliveries of Su-27/30 fighters account for the bulk of that figure. An estimated 35 units were delivered in 2010, worth about 1.45bn dollars, including 30 Su-MKI aircraft to India (20 finished aircraft and 10 assembly kits), two Su-30MK2 to Vietnam and three Su-27SKM to Indonesia. It appears that the Su-30MKI deliveries to India were part of the 2007 contract for 20 finished aircraft and another 20 assembly kits. Meanwhile, no deliveries were made at all in 2010 on the well-publicized mega-contract for 140 Su-30MKI assembly kits.

There has been very little information about any deliveries of the MiG aircraft. We can only assume that 2010 saw the completion of the first batch of deliveries on an Indian contract for MiG-29K carrier-based fighters for the future Vikramaditya aircraft carrier (the former Admiral Gorshkov

heavy aircraft-carrying cruiser). The MiG corporation had previously announced plans to deliver the last 10 aircraft worth an estimated 460bn dollars.

Deliveries were also completed in 2010 on another two long-term contracts for Russian aircraft. The first, signed in 2001, was for the modernization of five Indian Il-38 ASW aircraft to Il-38SD specification. The last upgraded aircraft was delivered in 2010. The second contract was signed in 2003 for refitting three Indian A-50IE airborne early warning and command aircraft so that they could then be retrofitted with Israeli-made Phalcon radar systems. In 2010 Russia’s TANTK Beriyev company handed over the third and final aircraft to Israel, where it will be fitted with the new radar for a 2011 delivery to the Indian Air Force.

The main recipients of Russian helicopters in 2010 (in dollar terms) appear to have been Iraq, Afghanistan and China. The United States acted as an intermediary on the Iraqi and Afghan contracts. Iraq received eight Mi-171E transports worth 156m dollars, and Afghanistan another batch of 10 Mi-17-V5 transports worth 110m. No precise information is available on the Chinese contract. It appears that the 2010 deliveries included three Ka-28 ASW helicopters and three Ka-31 AEW helicopters, worth an estimated 120m dollars for all six.

Several Mi-24/35 attack helicopters were delivered on export contracts in 2010, including three Mi-35M to Brazil, four Mi-35P to Indonesia, two Mi-35P to Peru and four Mi-24P to Burma (these last four came from the Russian army surplus).

China has been the main destination of finished aircraft engines for the fourth year running. Some 43 turbofan engines of the RD-93 type for the Chinese FC-1 fighters were delivered in 2010, plus another 36 units of the D-30KP2 turbofan engine for the H-6K bombers, worth 300m dollars for the lot.

Figure 2. Breakdown of identified deliveries on Russian arms contracts in 2010*

* – the share of each category was calculated based on the total value of identified deliveries of 6.44bn dollars. Transfers of spare parts, instruments and components were not taken into account because no details about them are available.Source: CAST estimates based on media reports.

Naval21%

Air Defense7%Aerospace

47%

Ground25%

a) By type of equipment b) By country

India – 41%Other – 13%

Turkmenistan – 4%

Venezuela – 6%

Algeria – 12%

China – 6%

Syria – 7%

UAE – 5%

Vietnam – 6%

# 1, 2011 Moscow Defense Brief6Russian Arms Trade in 2010

Arms Trade

Weapons for ground troops. Identified transfers of weapons and equipment for ground troops reached 1.66bn dollars in 2010, up from 1.18bn the year before. For the fourth year running the T-90S main battle tanks made up the bulk of these transfers. The sole large recipient in 2010 was India, which took delivery of the last 20 finished T-90S tanks and about 160 kits to be assembled in Avadi, worth an estimated 640m dollars. The delivery of the last 63 kits under the contract is expected by May 2011.

In all likelihood, India also received the last 14 Smerch MLR systems under a 2007 contract for 18 such systems. Other large transfers include the delivery of 35 upgraded T-72M1M tanks to Venezuela; another 57 are to follow.

Naval equipment. Identified transfers of naval equipment surged to 1.42bn dollars in 2010 from 537m the previous year. Algeria once again became the largest known recipient.3 The country’s Navy took delivery of two Project 636M (Kilo class) diesel-electric submarines under a 600m dollar contract signed in 2006. The Severnaya shipyards in St Petersburg delivered a Project 1234E (Nanuchka II class) light missile corvette and a Project 1159T (Koni class) light frigate under a 100m dollar Algerian Navy upgrade contract.

Apart from the ships, naval exports were buoyed by the transfers of the Bastion-P (SSC-5) coastal mobile anti-ship missile systems. Two batteries were delivered to Syria in 2010 and another one to Vietnam. The Vietnamese Navy also took delivery of the first of the two Project 11661E (Gepard-3.9 class) light frigates.

Air defense systems. Identified deliveries of air defense systems on export contracts reached 450m dollars in 2010 (460m dollars in 2009). The main event of the year was the deliveries of about 24 Pantsir-S1 (SA-22) gun-missile air defense systems to UAE (350m dollars). The contract will be

completed in 2012. Syria also appears to have received the last six Pantsir-S1 units (worth 100m dollars) under a 2006 contract for 36 units.

There is very little clarity regarding any deliveries on other large contracts. These include the Azeri contract for two new batteries of the S-300PMU2 Favorit (SA-21) SAM system, the Kazakh contract for S-300PS (SA-10B) systems from the Russian army stock, the Syrian contract for eight batteries of the Buk-M2E (SA-17) SAM systems and the Venezuelan contract for a large batch of the Igla-S (SA-24) MANPAD systems and Pechora-2M (SA-3B Mod) SAM systems.

Spare parts, instruments and components. The 2010 deliveries in this category are worth an estimated 1bn dollars. Very few details are available, but it seems that the Sukhoi aircraft maker remains the leading exporter with about 250m dollars worth of shipments in 2010.

Regional breakdown

India was the single largest buyer of Russian weapons in 2010, accounting for 41 per cent of identified deliveries. It was also the biggest importer of Russian combat aircraft (Su-30MKI and MiG-29K) and weapons for ground forces (T-90 tanks and Smerch MLRS; see Fig 2b). Algeria came second with 12 per cent after taking delivery of two Project 636M submarines. The Syria was third 7 per cent after China, Vietnam and Venezuela tied for the fourth place, with 6 per cent each. The UAE is the fifth with 5 per cent after receiving Pantsyr-S1 air-defence systems. Turkmenistan came six with 4 per cent after receiving Molniya class corvette and a large batch of Kamaz trucks. The bottom line is that Russian arms exports have remained strongly diversified in terms of their destinations for the last several years.

Figure 3. Breakdown of identified Russian arms contracts in 2010*

* – percentage figures calculated based on the total of 8.59bn dollars. That excludes the contracts for spare parts, instruments and components worth about 1bn dollars.Source: CAST estimates based on open-source information.

Aerospace65%

a) By type of equipment b) By country

India – 56%Other – 4%

Uganda – 4%

Algeria – 12%Libya – 12%

Vietnam – 12%

ASM BrahMos23%

Ground12%


Arms Trade

Finally, it is worth noting that due to the growing international tensions over Iran, all Russian arms contracts with that country appear to have been suspended. Apart from the well-known Iranian contract for the S-300PMU1 SAM systems, this includes the 2005 contracts for the repair of two Iranian Project 877EKM submarines and for the construction and launch of the Zohreh communication satellite.

Identified new contractsThe aggregate figures reported in the media add up to 8.59bn dollars worth of arms contracts signed in 2010 (see Table 2 at the bottom), up from 6.89bn in 2009. The estimated value of new contacts for spare parts, instruments and components is another billion dollars on top of that. The proportion of the 2010 contracts we have managed to identify is about 65 per cent (up from 45 per cent in 2008 and 2009).

Breakdown by type of equipment

The biggest contract signed in 2010 was the Indian order for a large batch of BrahMos anti-ship missiles, which are made by the Brahmos Aerospace joint venture owned 50-50 by Russia and India. The value of the contract is 4bn dollars, of which Russia will get 2bn. That single deal accounts for 23 per cent of all the identified 2010 contracts (Fig. 3a).

Contracts for aviation equipment still make up the bulk of the overall figure (65 per cent). There has been next to no information in the media on any naval contracts, so they are not represented in the Fig 3a diagram. Air defense contracts are not included, either, and for the same reason. Weapons for ground forces accounted for 12 per cent of the overall figure.

Aviation equipment. We estimate the value of the contracts for Russian aviation equipment signed in 2010 at 5.54bn dollars. More than half of that figure (3.15bn) was generated by the contracts for new Su-30 fighters and their upgrades. That includes the 1bn dollar Algerian contract for another 16 Su-30MKI(A) fighters; the 1bn dollar Vietnamese contract for 12 Su-30MK2 fighters and for weaponry to be fitted onto the 8 fighters ordered back in 2009 without weapons; and the 350m dollar Ugandan contract for eight Su-30MK2 jets. In addition, India has placed an 800m dollar order for the upgrade of 40 Su-30MKI fighters.

The biggest single aviation contract in 2010 was the Indian order for an additional 29 Mig-29K fighters for the Vikramaditya aircraft carrier. This 1.5bn dollar deal was the result of India choosing to exercise its option for additional aircraft to the 2004 contract for the first 16 jets. Two other large contracts were signed with India: one for the front-end engineering design of the Indian version of the FGFA fifth-generation fighter (worth 295m dollars) and another for the development of the MTA military transport aircraft (600m dollars).

Helicopter contracts accounted for a rather small proportion of the total in 2010. The largest was the Polish order for five Mi-17 transports worth 106m dollars and the Peruvian contract for six Mi-171Sh transports plus two Mi-35P attack helicopters, worth 89m dollars.

Weapons for ground troops. The 2010 contracts in this category are worth an estimated 1.05bn dollars. The biggest of them was the licensing deal with Libya for the production of the AK-103 assault rifles (worth about 600m dollars) and the Libyan contract for the modernization of 145 T-72 main battle tanks (300m dollars). Some 500,000 AK-103 assault rifles were expected to be manufactured under the licensing agreement. But since Libya is under a UN arms embargo as of March 2011, all these contracts are now in limbo.

Regional breakdown

India accounts for 56 per cent of the identified 2010 contracts, thanks to the large Indian orders for Russian aircraft and for the BrahMos missiles (Fig 3b). Algeria and Vietnam (which signed large Su-30 contracts) and Libya tie for the second place with 12 per cent each. Uganda has become an important Russian defense customer after placing an order for a batch of Su-30 aircraft and other weapons systems. It ranks a very distant third with 4 per cent.

Outlook for 2011The existing portfolio of contracts will be enough to keep Russian arms exports at the current level for another four years or more. About 50 Su-27/30 fighter jets will be delivered to foreign customers in 2011. They will go to India (30 Su-30MKI jets, including assembly kits), Vietnam (8-10 Su-30MK2), Algeria (8-10 Su-30MKI(A)) and Uganda (3-4 Su-30MK2).

In 2011 Russia is therefore set to beat the 2007 record of 49 Su-27/30 fighters delivered to foreign customers.

In addition, the Indian Air Force will receive the first upgraded MiG-29SMT fighters. Deliveries are also set to commence on a 2009 contract for 80 Mi-17V-5 helicopters, and the increased deliveries of BrahMos missiles. As a result, New Delhi will remain Russia’s biggest defense customer in 2011.

The main event in the naval segment will be the handover of a Project 971I Nerpa (Akula class) nuclear-powered attack submarine to India under a lease contract. The delivery was initially set for 2010 but was later postponed until 2011. India will also receive the first of the three Project 11356M (Talwar class Batch 2) frigates.

Deliveries of air defense systems are very difficult to forecast. The large contracts still pending include the Algerian order for four batteries of the S-300PMU2 Favorit


Arms Trade

and 38 Pantsir-S1 systems the UAE contract for 50 Pantsir-S1 systems, the Syrian contract for eight Buk-M2E batteries, the Venezuelan contract for one or two batteries of the S-300VM (SA-12) and the Azeri contract for two batteries of the S-300PMU2. The delivery deadlines for most of these contracts are unknown.

In the weapons for ground troops category, the year 2011 will see the completion of deliveries on an Indian contract for 124 T-90S tanks and 223 assembly kits (more precisely, Russia will deliver the remaining 63 kits). Deliveries will continue on the Venezuelan contract for T-72M1M tanks. The launch of the new Venezuelan plant for the assembly under license of the AK-103 assault rifles is scheduled for May 2011.

Most of the large new deals expected in 2011 will be signed with India. That includes the contracts for 42 Su-30MKI fighters and 59 Mi-17-1V helicopters. There is also a good chance of a new licensing deal to be signed for the construction in India of Project 22350 frigates. India is therefore set to remain Russia’s largest defense customer in terms of new contracts signed in 2011 as well as deliveries made under the existing contracts.

ImportsThe main event of 2010 in the arms imports category was the announcement in December of the winner of the Russian

Navy contract for amphibious assault ships. As expected, the contract was awarded to the consortium of France’s DCNS and Russia’s United Shipbuilding Corporation (OSK), which offered the Mistral class ship. The first ship in the series will cost 700m euros, the second 650m. Both will be built in France. The contract includes an option for another two ships to be built in Russia. The option is expected to be converted into a firm contract by the end of April 2011.

Also in 2010 the Italian Iveco LMV light armored vehicles entered service with the Russian armed forces. The initial contract was for 10 such vehicles. Later on, assembly under license will be launched at one of the existing Russian plants (most likely KAMAZ), with the minimum annual output of 500 units.

Israel’s IAI completed deliveries on a 53m dollar Russian army contract for 12 UAVs of several models, including the compact Bird-Eye 400, the tactical I-View MK 150 and the medium-class Searcher Mk II. IAI has also signed an agreement with Russia’s Oboronprom defense holding company for assembly under license of Israeli UAVs in Russia. The current choice of the site, which may yet change, is the Kazan helicopter plant, part of the Oboronprom group.

Finally, Rosoboronexport and France’s Thales have agreed to set up a joint venture to assemble and service Catherine-FC thermal imagers at the Vologda optics and mechanics plant. The imagers will be used in T-90A tanks and BMP-3 armored infantry vehicles.

Recipient Weapon designation Units ordered

Year of contract

Year(s) of deliveries

Delivered in 2010 Delivered total

Notes

million USD

Units

Asia

China D-30KP2 turbofan engines

55 2009 2009-2011 144 36 44 Contract value – USD 220m. For Chinese H-6K heavy bombers

RD-93 turbofan engines

100 2005 2005-2010 151 43 Completed Contract value – USD 350m. The engines are to be fitted on FC-1 fighter jets destined for exports. Some of the jets will be made in Pakistan by a Pakistani-Chinese joint venture

India Su-30MKI fighters / Su-30MKI fighter kits

20 / 20 2007 2008-2011**

1200 10 / 20**

Total 36 Contract value – USD 1.6bn

MiG-29K/KUB carrier-based fighters

12 / 4 2004 2008-2010 458 10** Completed Contract value – USD 732m. For the Vikramaditya (ex Admiral Gorshkov) aircraft carrier

Table 1. Major Identified Deliveries of Russian Arms in 2010*


Arms Trade


Year of contract



Notes

million USD

Units

India T-90S MBTs / T-90S MBT kits

124 / 223

2007 2008-2011 642 20 / 160**

124 / 160 Contract value – USD 1.24bn

Smerch MLRS systems

18 2007 2009-2010 233 14** Completed Contract value – USD 300m. Exercising option to a 2005 contract.

Vietnam Su-30MK2 fighters 8 2009 2010-2011 80 2 2 Contract value – USD 320m. The aircraft are being delivered without weapons or simulator equipment

Gepard 3.9 (Project 11661E) class corvettes

2 2006 2010-2011 175 1** 1 Contract value – USD 350m

Bastion-P mobile coastal anti-ship missile system

1 battery

2006 2010 150 1 Completed Contract value – USD 150m

Indonesia Su-27SKM / Su-30MK2 fighters

3 / 3 2007 2008-2010 168 3 / 0 Completed Contract value – USD 335m

Afghanistan Mi-17-V5 helicopters

10 n/a 2010 110 10 Completed The contract was signed and deliveries were made with the United States acting as intermediary

Turkmenistan Tarantul III class (Project 12421) missile light corvette

1 2008 2010 100 1 Completed Contract value – USD 100m

Kamaz trucks 1052 2009 2010** 100 1052** Completed Contract value – USD 100m

Middle East

Algeria Kilo class (Project 636M) submarines

2 2006 2010 600 2 Completed Contract value – USD 600m

Koni class (Project 1159T) light frigates and Nanuchka II class (Project 1234E) missile light corvettes upgrade program

2 / 2 2007 2010-2011**

100 1 / 1** 1 / 1 Contract value – USD 200m

Syria Pantzir-S1 gun-missile air defense systems

36 2006 2008-2010 100 6** Completed Contract value – USD 600m

Bastion-P mobile coastal anti-ship missile system

2 batte-ries

2007 2010 250 2 Completed Contract value – USD 250m

T-72 MBTs upgrade program

1000 2006 2007-2011 100 200 800 Contract value – USD 500m


Arms Trade


Year of contract



Notes

million USD

Units

Iraq Mi-171E helicopters

8 2009 2010 156 8 Completed Contract value – USD 156m. The contract was signed and deliveries were made with the United States acting as intermediary

UAE Pantzir-S1 gun-missile air defense systems

50 2000 2009-2010 352 24** 30 Contract value – USD 800m

Latin America

Venezuela Construction of an MRO center for Russian helicopters

- 2007 2007-2010**

100 - Completed Contract value – USD 400m

T-72M1M MBTs 92 2009 2010-? 152 35 35 Contract value – USD 400m. From Russian army surplus. Repaired and upgraded at UVZ

Construction of a plant for license production of AK-103 assault rifles and 7.62 cartridges

- 2006 2008-2011 143 - - Contract value – USD 475m

* – delivery value more than USD 80m.** – CAST estimate.Source: Russian and foreign press; CAST estimates.



Contract value, million USD

Notes

Asia

India Su-30MKI fighters upgrade program

40 2012-? 800** Two aircraft will be upgraded by 2012 at Sukhoi facilities, the rest at HAL facilities. The upgrades include new radars, computers, combat electronics and integration of the supersonic anti-ship BrahMos missiles

Contract for front-end engineering design of a fifth-generation fighter

- 2011-2012 221 The total value of the front-end engineering design is 295m dollars, with a minimum 25 per cent participation of India’s HAL corporation. R&D and testing of the aircraft will take 8-10 years to complete. The overall cost of the fifth-generation fighter program is estimated at 12bn dollars

Contract to develop the MTA military transport aircraft

- 2010-2018 300 The overall cost of the project is 600m dollars. Each party will contribute 300m. The maiden flight is expected in 2016, launch of mass production in 2018

MiG-29K/KUB carrier-based fighters

29 2012-? 1500 Option to a 2004 contract

Table 2. Major Identified Contracts for Delivery of Russian Arms Signed in 2010*


Arms Trade

1 Source: www.inflationdata.com.2 This and other comparisons are with the figures of our 2009 arms trade roundup published in the No 6 issue of the Eksport

Vooruzheniy journal in 2009.3 The 2009 roundup erroneously assumed that one diesel-electric sub had been delivered in 2009.



Contract value, million USD

Notes

India BrahMos anti-ship missiles

n/a n/a 2000 The whole contract is worth 4bn dollars. The share of NPO Machine-building in the Brahmos Aerospace joint venture is 49.5 per cent

Vietnam Su-30MK2 fighters 12 2011-2012 1000 The contract also includes the delivery of weapons for the first eight fighter jets which Vietnam ordered in 2009

Middle East

Algeria Su-30MKI(A) fighters 16 2011-? 1000

Libya Yak-130 advanced jet trainers

6 2011-2012 90

T-72 MBTs upgrade program

145 n/a 300**

Construction of a plant for license production of AK-103-2 assault rifles

- n/a 600** It is expected that some 500,000 assault rifles will be made under the licensing deal

Other countries

Uganda Su-30MK2 fighters 8 2011-2012 350

Cyprus T-80U MBTs 41 2011 152 From the Russian army surplus. The tanks are to be refurbished at the Omsktraktormash plant, part of NPK Uralvagonzavod (UVZ). The contract is worth 115m euros

Poland Mi-17 helicopters 5 2010-2011 106 For military operations in Afghanistan

Peru Mi-171Sh / Mi-35P helicopters

6 / 2 2010-2011 89

* – delivery value more than USD 80m.** – CAST estimate.Sources: Russian and foreign press; CAST estimates.

# 1, 2011 Moscow Defense Brief12Russian Military Spending in 2011-2020

Procurement

Russian Military Spending in 2011-2020Andrey Frolov

The international situation with defense spending has undergone a serious shift. On the one hand, the leading

Western powers involved in the Afghan campaign (except for the United States) are cutting their defense budgets. On the other, “peaceful” nations such as China, India, Brazil and Russia are increasing their own military spending.

The aggregate defense budget of the NATO countries will see a 45bn dollar fall by 2013. As European allies rapidly cut their spending, the US share in the overall figure will rise to 70 per cent. Meanwhile, the US deficit reduction steps for 2012 include austerity measures for the Pentagon as well: over the next five years 78bn dollars will be saved through cuts to a number of arms programs and other spending items.

As a result of these cuts, NATO countries are not only slashing arms procurement budgets but also retiring some of the existing systems. One example is Britain, where under the new Strategic Defence and Security Review unveiled in late 2010, the armed forces will shrink very substantially as part of the overall austerity drive.

Russia, meanwhile, is moving in just the opposite direction. According to SIPRI, after a decade of non-stop growth of military spending since 2001, Russia boasts the world’s fifth-largest defense budget after the United States, China, France and Britain. Under the existing plans that growth will continue over the next decade until 2020.

Most of the additional funding will be channeled into two main areas. First, starting from 2012 Russia will overhaul the system of payments to military servicemen. Second, procurement of new arms and military hardware will continue to increase. Defense spending will keep rising in absolute figures and as a proportion of Russian GDP. There

is now a consensus in the government that the country should spend about 3 per cent of its gross domestic product on the armed forces.1

Under the spending plans already unveiled, the financing of the “National Defense” article in the federal budget will see a 60 per cent increase by 2013 (non-adjusted for inflation) to 2.098 trillion roubles, up from 1.276 trillion in 2010. The largest increase, by almost 450bn roubles, will come in 2013.2

Some of the additional funding made available to the armed forces will be spent on new uniforms for servicemen and sports gear for conscripts and recruits. A large chunk will be taken up by growing utility tariffs and food prices. Much of the sharp increase in spending in 2013 will be channeled into higher pay for officers and soldiers serving under contract.3 More fuel will be made available to the army for training purposes. Some of the new items approved in 2010 are categorized as “force majeure” spending; for example, 500m roubles will be spent in 2011 on new airborne firefighting equipment.

Financing under the “nuclear weapons complex” line in the defense budget will increase to 26.968bn roubles in 2011, 27,475bn in 2012 and 30.299bn in 2013. In absolute figures that will translate into a 44 per cent increase in procurement, with 99.4 per cent of the extra money spent on weapons, military hardware and special equipment.4

The most interesting development, however, is the increase in spending on the State Armament Program covering the period of 2011-2020 (Gosudarstvennaya Programma Vooruzhenii 2011-2020, or the GPV-2020 document). The government first announced that it was already working on the program in early 2010. The news was unexpected, because

Year 2010 2011 2012 2013

Total, bn roubles 1,276.8 1,517.1 1,655.7 2,098.6

Change on previous year, % 18.8 9.1 26.8

Share of Russian budget, % 12.48 14.23 14.73 17.24

Share of GDP, % 2.83 3.01 2.96 3.39

Defense procurement, billion roubles 487 575 726.8 1166

Change on previous year, % 18 26.4 60

Share of defense spending, % 38 38 44 55.6

Sources: protown.ru/information/hide/6372.html and www.press-release.ru/news/politics/4caecc197de86.

Table 1. Approved Russian spending on national defense and financing of defense procurement programs in 2011-2013


Procurement

Russian Military Spending in 2011-2020

there had been no serious criticisms of the existing GPV covering the period of 2007-2015 (GPV-2015), despite the traditional problems such as higher than expected inflation. Work on the new program has attracted a lot of interest, but not much is known about the specific details.

Total spending on the GPV-2020 program will be about 22-22.5 trillion roubles in 2010 prices, of which the MoD will receive 19 trillion. The remaining 2.5-3 trillion will be allocated to Russia’s other uniformed agencies.5

MoD officials have also unveiled their estimates of the funding requirements for the individual branches of the armed forces. The figures were aired as part of the generals’ effort to increase the budget allocation on the GPV-2020 program from the initial 13 trillion roubles.

It was said that the Russian strategic nuclear forces, air force and air defense alone would need 13 trillion roubles to buy all the new equipment they need. The ground forces would need 15 trillion,6 and the Navy another 8 trillion. If the MoD had its way, the whole GPV-2020 program would cost 36 trillion roubles, i.e. 89 per cent more than the approved figure.7 Nevertheless, the procurement funding made available to the MoD as part of the GPV-2020 will cover 52 per cent of its self-assessed requirements. The figure for the GPV-2015 document was only 15 per cent (4.94 trillion dollars of spending approved, compared to the initial allocation request of 30 trillion).8

The government has not yet made available any annual spending figures under the GPV-2020. But it has said that the bulk of the moneys will be released well after the rollout of the program in 2011. No changes will have to be made to the 2011 federal budget, which was adopted ahead of the GPV-2020 (the program had not been approved as of the early 2011, although Prime Minister Putin had earlier ordered it to be enacted by December 31, 2010 at the latest).9 It is known, however, that the state procurement program will cost almost 2.5 trillion roubles over the period of 2011-2013, with 575bn spent in 2011, 726.8bn in 2012 and 1,166bn in 2013.10 The remaining 16.5 trillion roubles will be disbursed over the seven years from 2014 to 2020, with the annual GPV spending averaging 2.35 trillion roubles. But given that GPV financing will grow by at least 20 per cent every year in 2010-2013, and jump by a phenomenal 64 per cent in 2012/2013, these targets do not seem unrealistic.

Another change is that 30 per cent of the financing under the GPV-2015 was to be disbursed in 2007-2011, and the remaining 70 per cent in 2012-2015. Under the new GPV-2020 program, the MoD has been allowed to sign an additional 700bn roubles worth of contracts in 2011-2015 (3.7 per cent of the total GPV funding for the MoD), apparently bringing forward spending originally planned for later years.11

In terms of the spending structure, at least 10 per cent of the GPV financing will be channeled into R&D, 80 per cent into new weapons, and the remaining 10 per cent into repair and upgrades of the existing equipment.12

These proportions do not match the already announced spending structure for 2010-2013 (see Table 2). It seems that procurement of new hardware will be ramped up after 2013, while the proportion of R&D and repairs in annual spending will go down. That assumption is indirectly confirmed by the sharp increase in overall spending in 2013 and the huge amounts of money that will be disbursed in 2014-2020.

It has been announced that out of the 19 trillion roubles allocated to the MoD under the GPV-2020 program, 4.7 trillion will be spent on the Navy. About 30 per cent of that money (1.5 trillion) will be disbursed by 2015.13 Space troops will receive 1 trillion.14

The new program aims to increase the proportion of modern weapons in service with the Russian army. The target for 2015 is 30 per cent across the armed forces, rising to 70 per cent by 2020 and to 100 per cent in some weapons categories.15 In the Air Force, the 2020 target is even higher at 80 per cent (and 100 per cent in some weapons categories).16 The annual weapons replacement ratio is expected to reach an average of 9-11 per cent.17

The GPV-2020 program in its current shape is rather vague about the specific weapons to be procured and their suppliers. It has a list of hardware the Russian army needs, along with its specifications, but no further details. Unlike the GPV-2015, the new program contains plans for buying foreign-made weapons.18

One final thing worth mentioning is that in addition to weapons procurement, the government is planning a major upgrade and retooling effort for the Russian defense industry as part of a separate federal program for 2011-2020. Work on the program continued in 2010; the initial budget allocation

Year New weapons Repair and upgrades R&D

2011 64 15 20

2012 66 15 18

2013 70 14 16

Sources: Frolov A. The future of Russian weapons // Security Index, 2011, No 1.

Table 2. State defense order spending structure in 2013, %


Procurement


for it was expected to reach 33bn roubles every year. But according to the Ministry of Industry and Trade this level of funding is insufficient; the ministry has proposed to increase it to 52-88bn roubles every year by 2020.19

Equipment to be procuredIn mid-2010 the government announced the key priorities of the new GPV program. Traditionally, the top priority is the strategic nuclear deterrent, which is expected to take up 10 per cent of the GPV funding (that includes the naval component of the nuclear forces).20 The next priority is less well defined; it is described as “high-precision weapons relying on space-based information components”. The third priority is automated command and control systems (ACCS). The plan is to integrate all the individual control systems of the separate branches of the Russian armed forces into a unified system, and to upgrade that system using the principles of open architecture, so that it could be expanded and built upon in the future.21

The already announced MoD plans for new weapons contracts, R&D and repairs and upgrades are summarized in Table 3.

Most of the available information concerns the Russian Air Force and Air Defense. One of the Air Force priorities is new helicopters. For Long-Range Aviation, the priority is to upgrade the existing Tu-160, Tu-95MS and Tu-22M3 bombers and the Il-78M aerial tankers. Up to 80 per cent of these aircraft will be upgraded in the medium time frame.22 In military transport aviation the plan is for a two-stage approach over the medium time frame, with over 50 per cent of the existing planes replaced and the remaining upgraded.23 In front-line aviation, in the medium term 50 per cent of the fleet will be refreshed and about 14 per cent upgraded. In army aviation, new aircraft will make up 70 per cent of the fleet over the same period; eventually that proportion will increase to 100 per cent.24

The Navy will continue buying large numbers of new ships and submarines designed in the 1990s-2000s. It will also upgrade the few remaining 1st rank surface warships and develop advanced new naval systems. The R&D program will include the design of a new nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, with a possibility of the first ship in the series being laid down towards the end of the GPV-2020 program.

Very few details are available regarding procurement plans for the ground troops. The MoD has said, however, that it will freeze the development of new platforms for APCs, tanks and trucks.25

ConclusionThe key figures in the new GPV-2020 program and the defense allocation plans for 2011-2013 suggest that Russia will continue to increase its military spending at an even greater rate. The absolute figures for the overall military budget have been unveiled only for the next three years up to 2013. But it is already clear that the MoD’s arms procurement spending, set at 19 trillion dollars until 2020, is an unprecedented figure for post-Soviet Russia.

A key turning point will be the year 2013, when defense procurement spending will jump by over 60 per cent, with the overall defense budget increasing by a very impressive 26 per cent. Such a sharp rise cannot be explained by an increase in R&D or repair and upgrades spending, which accounts for a relatively small part of the GPV-2020. It can only result from the beginning of large deliveries of new-generation weapons systems, including the first batch of the T-50 fifth-generation fighter, new platforms for the ground troops, large numbers of the new Bulava SLBM, etc.

Russia’s rapidly increasing military spending is in line with similar trends in Brazil, India and China, which are all reporting double-digit growth in defense budgets. This is one more thing that the BRIC countries have in common. The reasons for that growth are also similar; all four countries are spending more on combat training and new weapons to close the gap with the leading Western powers.

It would be wrong to conclude that Russia is on the path towards rapid militarization. The country is merely trying to resolve, as soon as possible, the critical problems in its armed forces dating back from the 1990s. Even though defense spending is growing at a rapid pace, by 2013 it will still make up “only” 3.39 per cent of GDP, which is even less than the 3.5 per cent target set in 1998 under President Boris Yeltsin.

At the same time, one has to take into account the risks facing the new program, whose success is contingent on the Russian economy doing well. Given the huge cost of the program, an economic downturn could well result in missed targets and deadlines. There are also risks related to the Russian defense industry’s ability to deliver on such massive contracts, especially since much of the weaponry will be based on completely new designs rather than tried and rested Soviet technology. Much of that industry’s manufacturing capacity is already booked by the foreign contracts that have been flowing in over the past several years in ever greater numbers. A lot will depend on the retooling and modernization of the Russian defense contractors. But the money allocated for the retooling program in the budget does not seem sufficient, and the industry’s own resources are fairly limited.


Procurement


Service New weapons Repair/upgrades R&D

Strategic Missile Troops

Up to 150 Topol-M and Yars ICBMs New liquid-fuel ICBM

Space Troops 2 Voronezh-DM early-warning radar stations, GLONASS-M and GLONASS-K navigation satellites, 1 early-warning satellite, 5 Gonets-M communication satellites

Future missile defense system Soyuz-2-1V launch vehicle Angara launch vehicle Rus launch vehicle

Air Force 600 aircraft:70 T-50 96 Su-35S 48 MiG-35S 12 Su-27SM3 up to 100 Su-34 16 Su-25UBM 20 An-124 60 An-70 50 Il-476 ~10 Tu-214 9 An-140 4 L-410pp to 120 Yak-130

900 helicopters:250 Mi-28N 120 Ka-52 22 Mi-35M 22 Mi-26

20 An-124 MiG-31

PAK DAT-50 (until the beginning of batch deliveries in 2016) New A-100 AWACS aircraft

Air Defense S-400 – 52 battalions S-500 – 10 battalions Pantsir gun-missile systems

S-500

Navy 6 Project 955 strategic nuclear-powered missile submarines 150 R-30 Bulava SLBMs ~40 R-29RMU-2 Sineva SLBMs 12 submarines of other types:

6 Project 885/885M nuclear-powered submarines 3 Project 06363 diesel-electric subs 2 Project 677 diesel-electric subs ~1 Project 1164 guided missile cruiser

2-4 Mistral-type amphibious assault ships15 frigates:

6 Project 22350 6 Project 11356M 1 Project 11661K 2 new class

35 corvettes:12Project 20380 23 new class

26 MiG-29K fighters 100 helicopters:

70 Ka-27M 30 Ka-52 and Ka-226

1 Project 667BDRM strategic nuclear-powered missile submarine 2 Project 949A cruise missile nuclear-powered submarines 1 Project 11435 heavy aircraft carrying cruiser 1-2 Project 11442 heavy nuclear-powered guided missile cruisers ~10 Su-33

New nuclear-powered aircraft carrier New A-42 search and rescue aircraft New anti-ship missile

Table 3. Known SAP-2020 contracts and projects


Procurement


Service New weapons Repair/upgrades R&D

Ground troops 10 Islander tactical missile brigades (120 missile systems) New APCS 3000 Iveco LMV M65 combat vehicles ~50,000 trucks

Universal heavy combat platform (main battle tank, infantry fighting vehicle, etc)

Note: the table includes deliveries scheduled 2011, even if the actual contracts were signed earlier, or where the assembly/construction of a weapon system takes a long time. Information accurate as of March 4, 2011.

1 State Armament Program for 2011-2020 will include procurement of weapons for anti-terrorism // ITAR-TASS, 26.05.2010.2 Nikolskiy A., Tovkaylo M. Russia’s defense spending to rise by over 50 per cent to 2 trillion roubles by 2013 // Vedomosti, 30.07.20103 Nikolskiy A. Army gets a pay rise, 22.09.2010.4 http://oren.ru/news/2526253.5 Russia to spent 22.5 trillion roubles on the armament program over 10 years // RIA-Novosti, 22.09.2010.6 Russian MoD estimates funding requirement for state armament program at 36 trillion roubles by 2020 // ITAR-TASS, 03.06.2010.7 Ibid.8 Nikolskiy A. No money spared for weapons // Vedomosti, 25.05.2010.9 Main spending on state armament program to begin after 2011 – Finance Minister Aleksey Kudrin // ARMS-TASS, 01.12.2010.10 Calculated using information from: http://www.press-release.ru/news/politics/4caecc197de86/.11 Tikhonov A. Components of invincibility // Krasnaya Zvezda, 25.02.2011.12 http://news.mail.ru/politics/5395950/?state=90&frommail=1.13 Vladimir Putin: Russia to spent 20 trillion roubles on new weapons // RBK, 13.12.2010.14 Gavrilov Y. First deputy defense minister Vladimir Popovkin unveils rearmament plans // Rossiyskaya Gazeta, 12.07.2010.15 Government to place orders with defense contractors who make competitive products - Putin // ITAR-TASS, 17.02.2010.16 Russian Air Force fleet to be refreshed by one third by 2015 // Lenta.ru, 16.11.2010.17 Enlarged session of the MoD // Russian president’s web site, 09.03.2010.18 Interfax-AVN, 03.06.2010.19 Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade proposes to double the financing of defense industry upgrade and spend 52bn to 88bn

roubles on it every year until 2020 // ITAR-TASS, 26.05.2010.20 http://news.mail.ru/politics/5395950/?state=90&frommail=1.21 Gavrilov Y. First deputy defense minister Vladimir Popovkin unveils rearmament plans // Rossiyskaya Gazeta, 12.07.2010.22 Ibid.23 Ibid.24 Borisov S. Combat aviation on the verge of large-scale rearmament // Natsionalnaya Oborona, 2010, No 12.25 Gavrilov Y. First deputy defense minister Vladimir Popovkin unveils rearmament plans // Rossiyskaya Gazeta, 12.07.2010.


Russian Space Industry in 2010Yuriy Zhuravin

Out of the 74 space launches worldwide in 2010, Russia conducted 31, beating the United States and China (15

launches apiece) to the first place by a wide margin. Compared to the previous year, Russian space activity was slightly down from 33 launches out of the world total of 78.

Meanwhile, the paradox of the past two decades still remains: Russia conducts most of its launches from the territory of Kazakhstan. As many as 24 launches were made from the Baikonur cosmodrome, and only six from Russia’s own Plesetsk.

One launch was conducted on June 15 from the Yasnyy missile base (Dombarovskiy position) in Orenburg Region. The launch vehicle was a 15A18 ballistic missile, which is designated as Dnepr space carrier when used to put payload into orbit. Although the event was a proper space launch, it was held as part of the Russian Strategic Missile Forces program to extend the service life of the R-36M UTTKh strategic missile system (15P018 under the GRAU index, RS-20B under the START code, and SS-18 Mod. 4 under the Pentagon and NATO classification).

In line with the previous years, 14 launches out of 31 (45.2 per cent) were held to put foreign commercial payload into orbit. Out of the 43 space vehicles put into orbit by Russian launchers, 20 (46.5 per cent) were foreign-made; Russia therefore remains the world’s leading contractor for commercial launches. Eight out of the 20 vehicles were heavy geostationary communication satellites launched by Proton-M launch vehicles. Six Globalstar-2 low-orbit communication satellites were put into orbit by a single Soyuz-2-1a carrier on October 19. Russia also launched the EU’s CryoSat-2 research satellite, Japan’s SERVIS-2 experimental satellite, France’s Picard research satellite, Sweden’s Prisma technological satellite, Ukraine’s “Future Avionics Block” and Germany’s TanDEM-X Earth imaging satellite in 2010.

Out of the 17 non-commercial launches, eight were part of the International Space Station (ISS) program, including four manned Soyuz missions and four Progress resupply missions. In line with the previous years, the Roskosmos space agency had sold half the places in its manned missions to NASA. Now that the Space Shuttle program has been discontinued, the US space agency is forced to resort to buying places on Soyuz missions to be able to send its astronauts to the ISS.

In addition, Roskosmos is now in talks with the Space Adventures company about an additional Soyuz mission to take two space tourists to the ISS starting from 2013.

However, an attempt by Roskosmos to “sell” a commercial Soyuz mission to India has been unsuccessful. In October 2010 New Delhi officially informed its Russian partners that it was no longer interested in sending two of its astronauts along with a Russian cosmonaut into space on a Soyuz ship in 2013. India said it would channel all its available resources into launching its own mission by 2015.

Meanwhile, in May 2010 the space shuttle Atlantis (mission STS-132) brought a Russian-made Rassvet compact research module to the ISS. In fact, the purpose of the module had little to do with research. Rassvet is essentially a slightly upgraded version of an old docking and storage module. Its primary purpose is to enable the Soyuz and Progress ships to dock to the Zarya energy module. It was needed because following the connection of America’s Leonardo module to the ISS on March 1, 2011, the Soyuz and Progress ships would have had nowhere to dock. Without Rassvet, Leonardo would have blocked access to the Zarya docking end. Rassvet has solved that problem, but it does not carry any research equipment; its only contents are cargo racks. Theoretically it can be filled up with research equipment, but the module is not the best place on the ISS for research. It suffers from noise and vibration produced by its own systems, and its placement within the ISS results in high levels of micro-accelerations, compromising the “purity” of the weightlessness.

An undoubted achievement of the Russian part of the ISS program was the launch in 2010 of the first upgraded Soyuz TMA-M ship. It has new onboard computers and a new telemetry transmission system. Previously the Soyuz ships relied on an analogue telemetry transmission system; the one used on Soyuz TMA-M is digital and more compact. The gross weight of the Soyuz has been reduced by 70 kg. On the minus side, the first launch of the new ship came a year behind the initial schedule.

In fact, delays and slipping schedules have become the norm for the Russian space industry over the past decade. A perfect example is Russia’s global system of weather satellites. The last of the existing Russian weather satellites, the Meteor-3M low-orbit vehicle, failed back in 2004. Its replacement, a Meteor-M satellite, was due to be put into orbit in 2005, followed by the new geostationary Elektro-L satellite in 2006. But the launches had suffered repeated delays. The Meteor-M was eventually launched only on September 16, 2009, and the Elektro-L on January 20, 2011.

But the heaviest blow for the reputation of the Russian space industry came on December 5, 2010, when a Proton-M launch vehicle failed during the launch of the last three

Russian Space Industry in 2010

Space


GLONASS-M global navigation satellites required for the GLONASS system to become fully operational. The incident came only a week after President Medvedev said in his message to the Federal Assembly on November 30 that “all the GLONASS satellites will have been put into orbit by the end of this year”.

The initial plan was to have all the GLONASS satellites in place by late 2008. But by that provisional deadline only 18 satellites out of the required 24 were operational. The maker of the satellites, OAO Reshetnev Information Satellite Systems (ISS), managed to increase its annual output from three units to six only in 2007. The promise by Roskosmos to have 24 satellites in orbit failed to materialize in 2009 as well: only three were launched that year. Another three failed the quality tests and their launch was delayed until March 1, 2010. In the meantime, five of the satellites already in orbit had failed. In September 2010 three new GLONASS-M satellites were put into obit, but shortly before that another two satellites already in orbit had also failed. The December 5, 2010 launch would have finally brought the number of operational GLONASS satellites in orbit to the required minimum of 24. But due to an error in pre-launch calculations, too much fuel was loaded into the DM-3 upper stage, and the head section of the space launcher became too heavy. As a result, the rocket failed to put the head section (the DM-3 block with the three GLONASS satellites) into their designated orbit. The whole section partially disintegrated in the atmosphere; the debris landed in the southern Pacific.

Following the incident, President Medvedev ordered Prosecutor-General Yuriy Chayka and the head of the presidential administration’s audit directorate to investigate the spending of funds allocated to the GLONASS program.

Shortly afterwards, the head of Roskosmos, Anatoliy Perminov, had this to say in an interview with the Izvestiya newspaper: “The situation [the loss of the satellites] is unpleasant, but it is not a catastrophe. The launch pad remains intact, and there has been no loss of life.” Commenting on the interview, President Medvedev’s aide Sergey Prihodko was very critical: “The reaction by the leadership of Roskosmos to the criticisms voiced by the President regarding the implementation of the GLONASS program is extremely disconcerting. It is very strange that the leadership of Roskosmos considers the absence of human casualties or the fact that the launch pad remains intact as valid criteria for assessing the progress of this very important state program. The criteria should be very different; in particular, they have to take into account the state of the equipment. The criteria used by Perminov are simply not good enough. Such a level of ‘self-criticism’ requires very serious conclusions to be drawn”.

As a result, following a report submitted to President Medvedev by Deputy Prime Minister Sergey Ivanov, on December 29 2010 Roskosmos chief Anatoliy Perminov was

given an official reprimand. His deputy Viktor Remishevskiy lost his job. So did Vyacheslav Filin, the vice president/chief designer of space launchers at RKK Energia, the maker of the DM-3.

To save the situation with the GLONASS system, Roskosmos had to urgently include the launch of another three GLONASS-M satellites in its 2011 plans. That involves the purchase of the actual satellites, a Proton-M launch vehicle and a Briz-M upper stage. The launch is scheduled for the third quarter of 2011; ISS simply cannot assemble the three new satellites any sooner. The situation with the Russian satellite navigation system has seen some improvement following the launch of the new GLONASS-K1 satellite. But the satellite is experimental, and its use in the GLONASS system will be limited.

Meanwhile, shortly after the failed launch in December 2010, there was another failure on February 1, 2011. Due to a malfunctioning Briz-KM upper stage, a Rokot launch vehicle put the GEO-IK-2 military geodesic satellite into the wrong orbit. The Russian MoD later concluded that the satellite cannot be used for its intended purpose.

Following that latest failure, Roskosmos came under a new wave of criticism from Deputy Prime Minister Sergey Ivanov, whose remit includes the Russian space industry. Speaking on February 28 at an enlarged session of Roskosmos, he accused the Russian space agency of falling behind on its commitments under the state defense procurement program. “Out of the 11 space vehicles commissioned under the defense procurement program for 2010, only five have been delivered,” he said. He added that “due to delays, six of the civilian space vehicles that were scheduled for launch last year had not been launched by the year’s end”. “There is a steady pattern of missed deadlines because the space vehicles are not being delivered on schedule,” Ivanov said. Roskosmos chief Anatoliy Perminov was forced to admit that “at present, the Federal Space Agency does not have a sufficient degree of monitoring over the space industry companies that manufacture the new space vehicles”. “It is now obvious that the failed launch of the GLONASS satellites last year had resulted from insufficient monitoring of the work on the new modifications of space vehicles at the space industry companies,” Perminov added. It is not clear, through, what exactly he means by “new modifications”. The Proton-M launch vehicles and the GLONASS-M satellites have been in production since 2001. The DM-3 upper stage had been in use since 1994; in fact, the December 2010 launch was its last, the DM-3 has now been discontinued.

Six space launches were carried out in 2010 for the Russian Ministry of Defense. The Kobalt-M optical reconnaissance satellite launched on April 16, 2010 (official designation Kosmos-2462)1 and the 73D6 satellite of the Oko missile attack warning system launched on September 30


Space


1 http://russianforces.org/rus/blog/2010/04/kosmos-2462-ocherednoy_kobalt-m.shtml.2 http://russianforces.org/rus/blog/2010/09/-2469.shtml.3 http://russianforces.org/rus/blog/2010/01/novyi_sputnik_svyazi_raduga.shtml.4 http://russianforces.org/rus/blog/2010/04/kosmos-2463_popolnil_gruppirovku.shtml.5 http://russianforces.org/rus/blog/2010/09/-.shtml.6 http://russianforces.org/rus/blog/2010/11/sputnik_svyazi_meridian.shtml.

(official designation Kosmos-2469)2 were probably the last in their respective series; both have long reached obsolescence. The remaining four launches were military and special communications satellites:

• Globus-1 M (Raduga-1M-2)3 geostationary satellite launched on January 28

• Parus navigation and communication satellite for the Russian Navy (Kosmos-24634, launched in April 27)

• St re l a - 3 a n d St re l a - 3 M ( Kosm os - 2 4 6 7 a n d Kosmos-2468)5 low-orbit military reconnaissance satellites; and

• Meridian6 high-orbit satellite launched on November 2.

All these satellites, apart from the Meridian, are upgraded versions of old Soviet technology. The commander of the Russian Space Troops, Maj-Gen Oleg Ostapenko, has long predicted the transition to new satellites with longer service life. But these plans continue to suffer from repeated delays as the Russian space industry is missing deadline after deadline.

The situation is unlikely to change in 2011. “There will be about the same number of space launches this year as in 2010,” Roskosmos chief Anatoliy Perminov has said. He added that “the plan is to conduct 33 launches in 2011, but we expect the actual figure to be in the range of 27-30”.


Space


Russia’s “New-Look” Army: the Medical ServiceAleksandr Belevitin, head of the Main Military Medical Service Department of the Russian MoD

The new look of the Russian Armed Forces, set out in Presidential Decree “On some aspects of the Russian

Armed Forces” (No 1878 of December 29, 2009) and the appropriate MoD directives, requires the Medical Service of the armed forces to bring its structure and numerical strength into compliance with the new parameters. There are two main directions of reform:

• Build a three-tier system of medical service in the Russian Armed Forces;

• Optimize the officer numbers in the Medical Service.

The new three-tier system of medical service will include:

• Tier One: prevention and hospital treatment of personnel by the medical service of the respective military units (medical companies of the brigades, medical services of other military units);

• Tier Two: qualified and specialized medical assistance provided by Military District (Fleet) hospitals in each of the districts;

• Tier Three: specialized and highly advanced medical assistance provided by the Military Medical Academy, the Main Military Clinical Hospital and the 2nd and 3rd Central Military Clinical Hospitals.

The new three-tier system will enable to Medical Service of the armed forces to:

• Ensure continuity of outpatient and inpatient care; • Use the available medical equipment more efficiently; • Optimize the numbers of administrators and create a

clear chain of command; • Centralize the funding of the military medical services

by giving the 2nd and 3rd tier medical centers the authority to make budget spending decisions.

Under the program of optimizing officer numbers in the medical service more than 30 per cent of the existing officer positions will be replaced by civilian contractors. The number of officer positions in the new-look Medical Service of the Russian Armed Forces will be cut to about 5,800. The annual recruitment of military doctors will be reduced commensurately to about 300 – that number of specialists can be supplied by the Military Medical Academy alone. As a result, the MoD has decided to cut the Academy’s branches

in Saratov, Samara and Tomsk by the end of 2010, as well as to abolish the MoD’s State Medical Post-Graduate Institute.

Organization of medical servicesUnder the existing legislation some 7 million Russians are entitled to receive medical assistance at MoD medical facilities (see Fig. 1). Medical services to military personnel are provided by their local military medical centers, within the catchment area of the respective Military District or Navy Fleet. Organization of the provision of medical services in the Armed Forces follows the territorial principle, which leads to greater efficiency.

The Medical Service of the Russian Armed Forces now comprises 13 central military hospitals (including 105 branches), plus the clinics of the Kirov Military Medical Academy and the Military Medical Institutes (in Saratov, Samara and Tomsk). The total number of hospital beds in the system is over 30,000, with more than 800,000 people receiving inpatient treatment each year.

The current priority for the military hospitals and clinics is to deliver improvements in the following areas:

Figure 1. Categories entitled to receive medi-cal services at MoD medical centers

Source: Russian MoD.

Civilian contractors

11%

Military personnel

16%

MoD pensioners

13%

Members of servicemen's

and MoD pensioners'

families60%

7 million peoplein total

Armed Forces

Russia’s “New-Look” Army: the Medical Service


Armed Forces


• Reorganize inpatient treatment taking into account the availability of resources, as well as the numbers and structure of the categories of people entitled to treatment;

• Pursue deeper specialization of medical centers and continue to implement special programs in this area;

• Place greater emphasis of rehabilitation treatment; • Continue to improve the skills of medical personnel at

MoD hospitals; • Implement more str ingent controls over the

performance of the MoD medical centers and their branches.

The MoD continues to develop the system of outpatient care, with more than 15.3 million visits per year, as well as 5 million medical procedures, 17.2 million diagnostic tests and 122,000 out-patient surgical procedures performed in 2009. The main areas in which the MoD is seeking further improvements include:

• Optimization of the network of outpatient centers based on the numbers and structure of the patient categories entitled to treatment;

• Improving the quality of outpatient diagnostics and treatment based on the latest medical standards;

• Continuity of outpatient and inpatient medical care; • Cutting costs of outpatient care while improving

efficiency; • Implementing strategies to replace inpatient care with

outpatient care wherever possible, which is one of the key areas of reform of the military medical system (deploying daytime inpatient centers, outpatient surgeries and specialized departments);

• Further specialization of medical centers and large diagnostic outpatient centers;

• Implementing latest approaches to preventive medicine and its main components: in-depth medical examinations and regular health check-ups;

• Equipping medical centers with the latest medical technology to improve the standards of diagnostics and treatment.

The MoD places particular emphasis on improving the quality of medical services provided to military personnel. These services play a central role in primary prevention of illnesses among the servicemen and in maintaining the combat readiness of the Russian troops. The military medical system has become even more important now that military units are manned primarily by professional soldiers, with the remaining conscripts now being drafted for only one year. The priorities of the segment of the military medical system catering to the needs of military personnel include:

• Continuous and targeted training courses to improve the qualification of medical specialists;

• Prevention of the most common illnesses and injuries in the armed forces;

• Placing greater emphasis on prevention and timely diagnosis;

• Further improvement of the system of regular health examinations and monitoring;

• Promoting a healthy lifestyle among military personnel; • Improving the quality of medical monitoring of the

fitness training system in the armed forces; • Improving the availability of medical supplies and

equipment.

One of the top priorities in the ongoing reform is the provision of medical services to the personnel of the permanent-readiness military units and formations. The restructuring of the medical services in the troops includes maintaining the right balance between the number of doctors, nurses and paramedics. All the permanent-readiness units and formations of the Russian Armed Forces now have the optimum structure of the medical services. These services have a permanent-readiness component which always remains on stand-by, ready to provide assistance to civilian authorities in disaster relief or deploy rapidly in the event of combat operations.

On March 3, 2009 the minister of defense issued Order No 210 “On additional payments to be made in 2010 to officers serving in the Russian Armed Forces”. In accordance with that decree, some 642 officers of the Medical Service have been rewarded for good performance by a monthly bonus, which has been a significant incentive to work in the service.

Health of the Russian servicemenThe health of the young Russian conscripts generally leaves much to be desired. The number of conscription-age people who are medically fit to serve in the army fell from 70.4 per cent in 2007 to 68.4 per cent in 2009. The figure is the lowest in Russia’s richest and most urbanized regions: 65.2 per cent in the Siberian Military District and 66.9 per cent in the Moscow Military District. In the North-Caucasus and Far Eastern districts it stands at a higher than average 72.6 per cent and 72.2 per cent, respectively.

The number of young conscripts who are declared medically unfit to serve for spurious reasons has been falling steadily in recent years. This shows that the conscription commissions are doing a better job identifying malingerers, thanks to the growing involvement of MoD doctors. In 2009 the MoD and the General Staff issued new guidelines under which some 279 MoD doctors were included on the commissions during the spring draft, and 494 during the autumn draft.


Armed Forces


Another new feature of the 2009 autumn draft campaign was that MoD doctors were brought in to verify the conclusions of the municipal conscription commissions about declaring conscripts unfit for military service for medical reasons. That practice was introduced in 49 Russian administrative regions. As a result, some 23,000 conscripts who had been declared unfit to serve by the municipal commissions were ordered to undergo repeat medical checks. About 6,000 of them were subsequently recognized as fit to serve, rescinding the conclusions of the municipal commissions.

One of the key tasks of the military medical service is to make sure that people with socially dangerous medical conditions (TB, HIV, chronic hepatitis, drug addiction) are not misdiagnosed and drafted to serve in the army. In 2009 TB accounted for 2.8 per cent of all cases of conscripts being declared unfit to serve, HIV for 0.3 per cent, and chronic viral hepatitis for 2.5 per cent. In absolute numbers that translates into 502 conscripts identified as HIV-positive and 3,224 diagnosed with TB.

In order to make sure that the conditions which make conscripts unfit for service are properly diagnosed, and that only healthy conscripts are recruited to the Russian armed forces, the MoD is equipping the medical conscription commissions with the latest technology. The number of conscripts drafted and then dismissed from service for medical reasons is showing a downward trend - from 0.3 per cent in 2007 to 0.15 per cent in 2008 and 0.11per cent in 2009. That is an indication that the quality of the MoD Medical Service continues to improve.

Rehabilitation and health resort treatmentAs part of the ongoing effort to improve the health of military servicemen and prevent their early retirement for health reasons, the MoD Medical Service is taking part in the implementation of the strategic plan for the improvement of medical, rehabilitation and health resort services in the Russian Armed Forces until 2020. The plan is part of the Social Strategy the Russian Armed Forces to 2020.

Rehabilitation and health resort treatment is one of the key components of the Medial Service. Such treatment is offered at 45 military rehabilitation and health resorts owned by the Russian MoD.

In 2009 some 205,800 active and retired military servicemen, members of their families and civilian MoD contractors took a treatment course at one of these resorts, which is a 10 per cent increase on 2008. The breakdown of these numbers by categories is shown on Figure 3. In addition, some 1,200 military servicemen underwent medical rehabilitation treatment at one of the military health resorts after receiving hospital treatment.

On May 8, 2009 the Minister of Defense issued Order No 385 “On psychological rehabilitation of servicemen of the Russian Armed Forces”. The order has enabled the MoD Medical Service to begin, for the first time since 1991, providing psychological rehabilitation treatment to some categories of servicemen. Such treatment can keep soldiers fit both mentally and physically; it improves their combat-readiness and helps to prevent early retirement for health reasons.

Some 2,000 military servicemen took a psychological rehabilitation course at one of the MoD rehabilitation and health resort treatment centers in 2009. The breakdown of these numbers by branch of the armed service is as follows:

• Airborne Assault Troops: 2%; • Strategic Missile Troops standby forces: 18.8%; • Air Force: 11%; • Space Troops and Air Force stand-by forces: 11.3%; • Ship-based Aviation: 22%; • Surface ships personnel: 8.9%; • Submarine personnel: 19%; • Others, including deep-sea divers and marines: 5%.

As part of the ongoing efforts to improve the provision of health resort and recreation treatment for children of military servicemen, including orphans and children left without parental care, students of the Suvorov Army Military School, the Nakhimov Navy School, military musical schools and marine cadet schools, the MoD has issued Orders No 151 and 152 of April 9, 2009, and No 500 of June 11, 2009. In accordance with these decisions, the Main Military Medical Directorate of the MoD ran 27 children’s recreation camps in 2009; some 12,000 children of Russian

Figure 2. Main medical reasons for recog-nizing Russian citizens as unfit for military service during the 2009 draft campaign


Bone and muscle diseases19.7%

Mental disorders

13.4%

Gastrointestinal illnesses 10.5%Heart disease 8.9%

Nervous system illnesses 8.7%

Other38.8%


Armed Forces


military servicemen and civilian contractors of the MoD were offered places in those camps. The MoD has also paid for rehabilitation and health resort treatment for children of military servicemen at the Central Children’s Sanatorium in Pyatigorsk.

In 2009 the MoD launched a new swimming pool built at the Kislovodsk MoD health resort. Projects nearing completion include a new 200-bed dormitory with an attached canteen at the Zolotoy Bereg MoD health resort (Anapa), a refurbished 200-bed dormitory at the Sochi MoD health resort and a refurbished swimming pool at the Pyatigorsk MoD health resort. The MoD is planning to build a new 2,500-bed dormitory, with all the attendant infrastructure, at the Desantnik health resort in Anapa and another swimming pool at the Yessentuki health resort. It is also planning to start offering higher-quality buffet-type catering at its resorts.

The implementation of the MoD strategy of medical and health-resort services will enable the Military Medical Service to:

• Improve the health of servicemen and their families, achieve a 55 per cent reduction in mortality from heart diseases, a 37.5 per cent reduction in socially dangerous diseases, and a 37.5 per cent reduction in diseases leading to disability;

• Implement disease prevention sub-programs, including the program to increase the numbers of people receiving outpatient treatment. That will translate into improvements in the quality of medical treatment and more efficient use of the available beds. The MoD aims to cut the cost of providing high-tech medical assistance

by 45 per cent, which will result in more patients being able to receive it;

• Ensure reliable prevention of illnesses and disease outbreaks among the Russian troops.

Medical supplies and equipmentThe new three-tier system of medical services requires further improvement of the provision of medial supplies and equipment. As part of the reform, the MoD is implementing the following measures at every Military District and Navy Fleet:

• Set up medical equipment and supplies provision centers; • Introduce new medical logistics departments at MoD

hospitals; the departments are tasked with providing medical equipment and supplies to the military units and army medical centers in their respective areas of responsibility;

• Redistribute the existing stocks of medical supplies and equipment.

The MoD plans to continue optimization of the staff structure of medical logistics departments at the Military District and Navy Fleet central hospitals following the incorporation of smaller hospitals and outpatient centers into the big central hospitals as branches and affiliates.

The system of medical supplies and equipment provision will be built according to the territorial principle. The system of centralized medical supplies will be dominated by targeted supplies to the end recipient (military unit or establishment). The system of drugs distribution will remain a combination of centralized and decentralized mechanisms.

The MoD puts great emphasis on equipping its medical centers with the latest technology. The 2010-2011 military procurement program includes more than 500 articles of medical equipment worth a total of 6.5bn roubles. Some 277 of these articles will be delivered in 2010, including X-ray and ultrasound diagnostic tools, surgery and neurosurgery equipment, function study instruments and endoscopy equipment.

Part of the MoD strategy for medical services is accumulating and maintaining emergency reserves of various medical supplies. In 2010 the ministry will complete the development of a new system of standardized supplies at that segment of the MoD Medical Service which caters to the troops. The new system will optimize the maintenance of emergency supplies and reduce refreshment costs. The number of standard kits of medical supplies, tools and equipment will be reduced from 71 to 45. The rollout of the new system is scheduled to begin in 2011.

The ongoing effort to equip the military units, outpatient centers and hospitals with the latest medical technology will radically improve the whole system of disease prevention, diagnostics and treatment.

Figure 3. Categories of people who received rehabilitation and health resort treatment at one of the military health resorts in 2009


Military personnel16%

Members of servicemen's

families22%

MoD pensioners13%

Members of MoD pensioners'

families38%

Civilian MoD contractors

11%


Armed Forces


ResearchThe efficiency of the medical service relies to a great extent on the latest medical research and development. The MoD aims to improve the R&D component of its medical service by implementing the following steps:

• Optimize administration and management of its medical research programs;

• Conduct a review of the existing research programs and evaluate their potential returns;

• Make sure that the priorities of medical research are in line with the overall priorities of the Russian Armed Forces;

• Pool the available R&D resources to use them more efficiently and launch a comprehensive retooling program;

• Implement economic analysis instruments to assess the potential returns of any proposed new research;

• Make better use of the latest information technologies in MoD medical research;

• Pr ior it ize research spending to focus on the most promising and innovative areas, including nanotechnology and biotechnology;

• Develop a system of evaluating the returns delivered by individual research programs.

The ongoing restructuring of the MoD medical research programs aims to achieve greater coordination between them. It is part of the greater national effort to reorganize science and education so as to bolster fundamental and applied research.

The MoD has decided that from now on, all its medical research programs will be coordinated by the Military Medical Academy. The State Research and Development Institute of Military Medicine will be incorporated into the Academy as a separate branch. The institute will retain its role as the lead fundamental and applied research center in this area.

The transition to a new-look Medical Service of the Russian Armed Forces includes the development of a new

technology policy and greater use of the latest advances in IT. The MoD aims to equip soldiers on the battlefield with individual medical information chips, vital function monitors, and temporary hemostasis technology. It also plans to introduce robotic systems to locate injured soldiers, remove them safely from the battlefield and continuously monitor their vital signs while they are being delivered to hospital.

Another priority that still remains relevant is joint research by the Medical Service and NBC Troops to develop more efficient NBC protection technology using the latest advances in molecular biology, as well as gene engineering and cell engineering.

***Implementing these radical transformations of the

Medical Service as part of the ongoing reform of the Russian Armed Forces will enable the service better to perform the tasks outlined for it by the MoD:

• Maintain guaranteed standards of medical service provided to all the entitled groups according to the territorial principle;

• Complete the optimization of the structure and numbers of the Medical Service as part of the transition to the new look of the Armed Forces;

• Improve the availability of equipment and technology at the MoD medical centers by licensing their work and making them part of the compulsory medical insurance system;

• Implement the medical and rehabilitation component of the Social Strategy of the Russian Armed Forces to 2020;

• Ensure uninterrupted and sufficient provision of medical supplies and equipment to units of the armed forces and MoD medical centers within the allocated budget financing;

• Comply with the targets of the 2010 State Defense Procurement Program;

• Ensure that the targets for the delivery and use of medical equipment at the MoD facilities are met.


Armed Forces

Russian Armed Forces Abroad

Demographics vs the Russian ArmyMikhail Lukanin

Conscripts still make up the bulk of the Russian armed forces. But the Ministry of Defense has lately been

running into ever greater difficulties with drafting sufficient numbers of young Russians. In an effort to meet their conscription targets, the military are now even resorting to the use of police to round up young men of the right age in the streets and march them to the enlistment offices. Shortage of recruits has become especially acute since 2008, when the term of the draft was reduced from two years to 12 months, meaning that twice as many individual conscripts were now needed to keep the military units fully manned. To illustrate, in the autumn of 2010 some 278,800 young men were drafted. In the autumn of 2007, the last draft campaign before the conscription term was halved, only 123,300 conscripts were required (see table at the bottom).

“The task of recruiting enough young men fit to serve in the armed forces is being hampered by the unfavorable demographic situation and other difficulties,” said Gen Vasiliy Smirnov, head of the Main Organization and Mobilization Directorate of the General Staff.1

That statement, made on April 29, 2010 at a round table in the upper chamber of the Russian parliament, was the first official recognition of the problem. Up until then, the generals continued to insist that their conscription targets were entirely realistic and that there were enough young men in Russia fit to serve. As recently as in early April 2010, Gen Smirnov himself reiterated his earlier assurances that there were more than 3m citizens of conscription age (18 to 27 year olds) in Russia, and that the enlistment offices should have no problem recruiting the required number of conscripts. (His precise words were, “the number of citizens of conscription age in Russia, I mean 18 to 27 year olds, is very significant, it is more that 3 million”.)2

But some military experts have long warned the generals that such estimates are too optimistic and fail to take into account the real situation with the availability of Russian citizens fit to serve in the armed forces. “Starting from 2007 Russia has found itself in a deep demographic trough as a result of the plummeting fertility rates in the late 1980s-early 1990s, which was the most difficult period in our country’s recent history,” says Vitaliy Tsymbal, head of the military economics laboratory at the Institute of Transitional Period Economy.3

As for the 3m people bandied about by the MoD officials, the figure presumably consists mostly of the under-25 year olds who have never been drafted for a variety of reasons, such as poor health or inadequate education.

The 3 million figure also includes a large number of young males who have never been drafted because they have a criminal record (up to 1m people, according to various estimates). Under Russian law, after a certain period the former convict’s criminal record is erased, and he once again becomes eligible for enlistment. Nevertheless, from time to time the enlistment offices have declared moratoria on drafting former convicts. The last time they were enlisted (some 23,000 of them) was during the spring 2009 draft. But in the autumn of that same year Defense Minister Anatoliy Serdyukov banned the practice, and the ban remains in effect to this day.4

For the army, the most desirable age group is 18 to 20 year olds. According to military medics, that is the group that has the largest proportion of young men medically fit to serve. But the group itself has been shrinking steadily in recent years. In 2000-2006 the number of 18 year olds registered with the enlistment offices each year was 1.2-1.3 million. Since then, that figure has been falling by about 100,000 people every year.

According to demographic forecasts, some 678,000 young Russian men will reach the enlistment age in 2014. In 2015 the figure will fall to 659,000, then rise slightly to 663,000 people in 2016 (see table at the bottom). But the vast majority of young people leaving high school immediately begin university education or vocational training, which makes them eligible for deferment of military service. Meanwhile, in another year or two every young person leaving high school will theoretically be able to become a student because the number of places available at the Russian universities and colleges will catch up with the number of high school graduates.

The problem posed by the shortage of conscripts could be solved by filling up the private and sergeant vacancies in the armed forces with professional soldiers serving under contract. Plans to that effect were made in the past as part of the drive to have all the key military units that determine the overall fighting ability of the Russian armed forces manned only by professional soldiers. Under a special federal program, by 2008 more than half of all the sergeants serving in the Russian ground forces were supposed to be professionals. All the ships of the Russian Navy and some of the units of the Airborne Assault Troops were supposed to be manned by professionals only. But those plans have fallen through.

Huge numbers of professional soldiers who were already serving under contract refused to extend their contracts


Armed Forces

Demographics vs the Russian Army

because their pay, at 9,000-12,000 roubles a month (300-400 dollars) was too low. As a result, out of the 140,000 junior specialists previously enlisted for professional service in the armed forces, less than 30,000 are still serving. Painfully aware of the situation, in early 2010 the Russian MoD officially recognized that the experiment with professional army service had failed, and decided not to extend it. All the bets have now been placed on ramping up the numbers of conscripts drafted each year. The chief of the Russian General Staff, Gen Nikolay Makarov, estimates the annual requirement at 700,000 conscripts. “As part of the ‘New Look’ reform of the armed forces we are going to draft about 700,000 people for military service every year,” the general has said.5

But it is still not clear how the MoD can resolve the demographics conundrum. One of the proposed ways of addressing the shortage of conscripts is to abolish the practice of deferred conscription for university students, so that they could be drafted after their first or second year of studies. Right now, some 1.3m young men are making use of the deferral provision each year. The plan is to grant students a year-long break from their studies for the duration of their service in the armed forces.

But the generals have gone even further than that. To increase the number of people of conscription age, they propose that the upper limit of that age should be changed from the current 27 years old to 30. In addition, the MoD, which is Russia’s only agency authorized to conduct the draft, has already declared that it is no longer willing to “share”

its conscripts with the other uniformed agencies, such as the Federal Agency for Special Construction, the External Intelligence Service and the Special Facilities Service attached to the office of the Russian president. Those agencies normally take up 10-15 per cent of the conscripts. “We have proposed changes to the legislation whereby starting from the autumn of 2010, conscripts will no longer serve in the Federal Agency for Special Construction, the External Intelligence Service or the Special Facilities Service under the Russian president,” deputy chief of the General Staff Vasiliy Smirnov said. He added that the MoD had proposed a radical cut in the number of conscripts allocated to the Interior Troops under the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the civil defense troops under the Emergencies Ministry.6

During the latest conscription campaign (Autumn 2010), the military enlistment centers, which are run by the MoD, sent far fewer recruits then planned to the Interior Troops. According to sources in the Main Command of the Interior Troops, the plan was for 27,000 conscripts; it was later cut to 20,000, and the actual number allocated by the enlistment offices was only 18,500.7

Many observers are skeptical about the MoD’s plans to broaden the pool of potential conscripts. The idea of abolishing deferment for students looks especially flimsy. Military experts are confident that the powerful university lobby, which has a lot of clout in the Russian government, will fight the plan tooth and nail. The conscription system, on which the Russian army relies for the bulk of its servicemen, is clearly facing a very serious crisis.

Year Campaign Plan Evaded Annual plan Potential conscripts,

total

% drafted Change from previous

campaign, %

Change from previ-ous year, %

Evaders as proportion of draft target, %

1994 spring 216 000 27 500467 600 1 092 321 42.81

12.73

autumn 251 600 16.48

1995 spring 209 800434 200 1 088 833 39.88

-16.61-7.14

autumn 224 400 6.96

1996 spring 200 200415 200 1 100 598 37.72

-10.78-4.38

autumn 215 000 30 000 7.39 13.95

1997 spring 214 160 31 000402 562 1 115 312 36.09

-0.39-3.04

14.48

autumn 188 402 40 000 -12.03 21.23

1998 spring 189 790 21 000348 302 1 170 248 29.76

0.74-13.48

11.06

autumn 158 512 19 600 -16.48 12.36

1999 spring 168 776 24 000373 690 1 162 951 32.13

6.487.29

14.22

autumn 204 914 37 982 21.41 18.54

2000 spring 191 612 27 712383 263 1 234 028 31.06

-6.492.56

14.46

autumn 191 651 31 500 0.02 16.44

Table 1. Russian conscription statistics for 1994-2009


Armed Forces


1 Making a man out of a conscript // Delovaya gazeta ‘Vzglyad’, 29.04.2010. Original source: Interfax, 29.04.2010.2 Interview with Ekho Moskvy radio’s Military Council program, 3.04.2010.3 Tsymbal’s interview with the author for this article. A similar statement was made in the article: Lukanin M., Rank and file // Trud,

02.04.2010.4 Lukanin M. Convicts and the Russian army // Trud, 05.10.2009.5 Interfax, 17.12.2009.6 Interfax, 29.04.2010.7 Russian Interior Troops fail to meet the autumn conscription target // Lenta.ru, 03.03.2011.

Year Campaign Plan Evaded Annual plan Potential conscripts,

total

% drafted Change from previous

campaign, %

Change from previ-ous year, %

Evaders as proportion of draft target, %

2001 spring 187 995 27 000382 819 1 325 599 28.88

-1.91-0,12

14.36

autumn 194 824 29 000 3.63 14.89

2002 spring 161 732 30 471335 947 1 306 873 25.71

-16.99-12.24

18.84

autumn 174 215 21 000 7.72 12.05

2003 spring 175 050 20 100350 856 1 266 227 27.71

0.484.44

11.48

autumn 175 806 18 000 0.43 10.24

2004 spring 166 050 17 000342 443 1 291 147 26.52

-5.55-2.40

10.24

autumn 176 393 21 000 6.23 11.91

2005 spring 157 700 15 000298 600 1 314 341 22.72

-10.60-12.80

9.51

autumn 140 900 18 608 -10.65 13.21

2006 spring 124 550 12 132247 860 1 247 787 19.86

-11.60-16.99

9.74

autumn 123 310 11 955 -1.00 9.70

2007 spring 133 500 13 101265 850 1 145 059 23.22

8.267.26

9.81

autumn 132 350 10 657 -0.86 8.05

2008 spring 133 200 6 700352 200 1 081 671 32.56

0.6432.48

5.03

autumn 219 000 4 800 64.41 2.19

2009 spring 305 506 8 195576 526 963 123 59.86

39.5063.69

2.68

autumn 271 020 -11.29Table prepared by Mikhail Lukin, Kommersant publishing house.


Armed Forces


Our AuthorsAndrey Frolov. Graduated with an honours degree from the Faculty of Foreign Affairs of Saint Petersburg State University and in 2003 from the French-Russian Masters’ School of Political Science and International Relations. In 2003–2004 – researcher at the Center for Policy Studies in Russia (PIR-Center), executive editor of Yaderny Kontrol magazine (in Russian). In 2004 – project manager of Export control system transformation in Russia.

Mikhail Lukanin graduated from the Lviv Higher Military-Political School with a degree in Journalism. Worked as a correspondent of the Baltic Fleet’s newspaper Strazh Baltiki in 1977-1983, then joined the main newspaper of the Soviet Defense Ministry, Krasnya zvezda, where he worked as permanent correspondent for the Baltic and Pacific fleets, then as deputy editor-in-chief. Covered the military campaign in Chechnya in 1995. Military observer for the Trud newspaper since 2007 to date. Captain 1st Rank (in reserve). Mikhail Lukin. Graduated in 1992 from Moscow State University with a degree in Journalism. In 1990 joined the Postfactum news agency as an editor. In 1993 became a staff member of the XX Century and the World think-tank, and in 1994–1997 worked as head of the information section in the National News Service. In 1997 became deputy director of the information center of the Kommersant Publishing House. Director of the information center of the Kommersant Publishing House since 2003. Konstantin Makienko. Graduated from the Oriental Department of the Moscow National Institute for International Relations in 1995 and the French-Russian Masters’ School of Political Science and International Relations in 1996. He was head of a project on conventional armaments at the Center for Policy Studies in Russia (PIR-Center) in 1996-1997. Since September of 1997, he has been Deputy Director of CAST. He is the author of numerous articles on Russia’s military-technical cooperation with other countries.

Dmitry Vasiliev. Graduated in 2004 from the State University – Higher School of Economics with a Master’s Degree in Strategic Management. From 2003 to mid-2004 worked as a risk evaluation analyst at Absolut Bank. CAST researcher since July 2004, editor-in-chief of Eksport Vooruzheniy journal since 2005.

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