23.02.09

President Dmitry Medvedev ordered formation of a staff reserve for security structures. The body for fishery supervision will arm its personnel and put together a special forces detail to deal with poachers. Assembly of new armored vehicles for dispersal of demonstrations and rallies is under way near the city of Kurgan...

As things stand, security structures dealing with domestic threats and challenges already outnumber the regular army. Experts call it militarization of state governance fomented by the crisis.

Staff reserve for security structures will include representatives of the Armed Forces, Internal Troops, Civil Defense Troops, and Federal Agency for Special Construction. It will comprise the people overlooked by their superiors, professionals denied promotion so far. They will be promoted now, whenever a vacancy occurs. The staff reserve will be put together by the presidential Staff Directorate.

Reduction-in-force previously launched in the Internal Troops of the Interior Ministry was brought to a halt in late 2008.

Experts say that numerical strength of security structures not expected to deal with invasions from abroad already exceeds 2.5 million men, i.e. more than there are servicemen in the regular army. Enviously eyeing "private armies" of Gazprom and Transneft that guard pipelines, the Interior Ministry suggested another analogous "corporate army" - this one to secure construction sites in and around Sochi. Andrei Krainy of the Fishery Supervision Committee said numerical strength of the structure would increase by half, personnel would be issued firearms and outfitted with drones. Moreover, a special force unit code-named Piranhas would be put together to fight poachers, Krainy said. Russky Reporter reported the factory in the settlement of Vargashi near Kurgan contracted to assemble armored vehicles with water-cannons for the use against demonstrators.

"Domestic stability is questionable," political scientist Dmitry Oreshkin said. CPRF leader Gennadi Zyuganov expects the officially registered unemployment to reach 10 million by autumn. "It will be a catastrophe," Zyuganov said. "Consider the crime wave it will foment."

"Some federal officials entertain the illusion that steer strength will suffice to spare them ugly consequences of the crisis," Gennadi Gudkov of the Security Committee of the Duma said. "No way it will. History teaches us that militarization of the state only boosts the risk of armed clashes."

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Source: RBK Daily