On October 2, the Armed Forces began checking the assemblies of reservists. Colonel General Vladimir Putilin, the director of the main organizational-mobilization department of the General Staff, reports that according to the plan of the assemblies about 2,000 reservists, including 400 officers, will be summoned from the reserve for five to ten days. Putilin has emphasizes that reservists will be drafted in the Pskov, Leningrad, and other regions, and St. Petersburg. Putilin adds that during the assemblies a separate mechanized infantry division will be mobilized, and it will be manned from the peacetime authorized strength (about 500 people) to the wartime strength (about 5,000 people). He has also stressed that the drafted reservists will be trained in unit teamwork. The training assemblies will also show how much knowledge and skills officers of the reserve have lost. According to the general, the assemblies “have nothing to do with events in the North Caucasus and aggravation of the situation in Yugoslavia.” He adds, “These are preplanned events.”
The general has emphasized, “Over the last decade all mobilization problems were solved on paper and not in practice, without any real training.” Putilin notes that “it is necessary to check whether the mobilization plans correspond to the capabilities of the Defense Ministry and condition of society.” Putilin adds that such measures will be revived and taken annually, because the level of combat training of population influences the country’s defense capability.
Like in the Soviet Union, in Russia there are various types of mobilization training of the population. This year mobilization measures are taken on the basis of the presidential decree of January 27 “On drafting of citizens of the Russian Federation from the reserve to military training assemblies.”
Reservists can be drafted from the reserve for various kinds of military training assemblies: conscripts training assemblies, assemblies for military professions training, assemblies for combat materiel maintenance. According to the existing rules, reservists can be drafted for conscripts training assemblies not more than for 10 days. The reservists who are drafted for military professions training assemblies can be trained or retrained for up to 60 days. The reservists drafted for combat materiel maintenance can be drafted for up to 25 days. The checking assemblies can last for up to 10 days. Reservists can also be summoned for training courses not longer than eight hours a day. The quantity of summons for training exercises is not limited.
The federal law “On combat duty and military service,” which came into effect in 1998, established the rules for allowances for reservists.
During military training exercises reservists should receive money from the federal budget. Enterprises, institutions, and other organizations regardless of their legal status should pay the average wages to reservists drafted to the training assemblies on the basis of documents stating the period which reservists spend for assemblies, which are issued by military commissars. In turn military, commissars should compensate the aforementioned expenditures to enterprises, institutions and organizations on the basis of the accounts, which they send to the Defense Ministry.
Putilin says that the Defense Ministry assigns a few million rubles for compensation of the assemblies conducted in the Leningrad Military District. For example, each officer will receive at least 1,000 rubles in a unit where he is drafted.
Thus, organization of mobilization assemblies is expensive but efficient, because it allows maintenance of due quality of mobilization resources.
