26.02.09

Thirty-seven percent respondents perceive existence of military threats to Russia at this point. This particular problem worried 49% Russians in 2000 and 57% in 2003, when the Americans were fighting in Iraq. These days, 52% respondents are sure that there are no military threats to be wary of. This notion is particularly widespread in Siberia (61%) and in the southern regions of Russia (62%). Polar views are widespread in the Trans- Volga region (42%) and the Urals (46%).

VTsIOM Director General Valery Fyodorov ascribed this conviction to "successes in the Caucasus". He mentioned the "peace-enforcement" operation in the course of the Georgian- Ossetian conflict and general stabilization in the Russian Caucasus. Most Russians stopped regarding the republics in the Caucasus as an internal threat.

All these "successes" altered the Russians' opinion on the army in general and its shape. Eighty-one percent had considered the shape of the Russian Armed Forces as bad in 1998. This figure is down to 41% now. The opinion that the Army and Navy were in a proper enough shape had been shared by 1% in 1998. These days, it is shared by 17%. All the same, most Russians (48%) tend to believe that the situation with the Armed Forces is mediocre at best.

According to Fyodorov, the Russians' opinion of the military reforms under way is shaped by the crisis. Since nobody wants to get sacked, most Russians (48%) regard current numerical strength of the Armed Forces (1.1 million) as optimal. Forty-five percent respondents thought so in 2006 but 19% actually promoted an even larger army. These days, 25% Russians stand for a larger army while those in favor of reduction-in-force number 13%. On the other hand, the crisis under way reduced the number of whoever suggested larger arms spendings from 75% a year ago to 71%.

"How can people objectively judge how much the military reforms really require in terms of finances?" Victor Ilyukhin, Duma deputy (CPRF faction) and Army Support Movement leader, said. "Before conducting the opinion poll, respondents should have been informed that 80% armored vehicles in the Armed Forces were obsolete and in need of replacement and that only 400 aircraft out of 4,000 were reliably airworthy."

"Had people been aware of all these facts, results of the poll would have been different," Ilyukhin said. "As matters stand, results of the poll are a demonstration of how effective our television has been."

Aleksei Arbatov, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and member of the Yabloko Political Council, said society's evaluation of the army was "adequate". "Considering the avalanche of panicky and sometimes outright hysterical information on NATO and American missile shield, the 37% who are apprehensive of the military reforms is a fine figure," Arbatov said. "People see that the elites have no intentions to curb their appetites, that military expenditures remain moderate (under 3% of the GDP), and draw the conclusion that there are no threats of a military invasion to be afraid of."

In the meantime, there were local threats like terrorism and extremism the Russians were all too painfully aware of, Arbatov added. "However unaware they are of classified data, the Russians do not think that any changes have taken place in the Armed Forces. Programs of rearmament are inevitably frustrating, crime rate in the army is something awful even by official estimates. And so are corruption and frequency of suicides."

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Source: Kommersant