Lieutenant General Viktor Sobolev: I can’t explain much of what is happening and certainly does not contribute to Russia’s defense capability. Viktor Ivanovich Sobolev: It’s not the sanctions that are scary, but the compradors General Sobolev on the state of the Russian Armed Forces

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Lieutenant General IN AND. Sobolev – commanded the 58th Army of the North Caucasus Military District, participated in the counter-terrorist operation in the North Caucasus, was Chief Military Counselor of the Russian Embassy in India. After resigning, the general joined the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and led the public Movement in support of the army, defense industry and military science (DPA). A Russian officer who loves his homeland and knows how to defend it, Sobolev does not tolerate lies and hypocrisy. The general debunks the ostentatious patriotism of the authorities who support compradors, who, even during sanctions, enrich themselves by trading briskly with “partners” who have located their missile defense systems and military bases close to our borders.

– What's going on, Viktor Ivanovich? Medvedev’s government complains day and night that Western sanctions against Russia are undermining our economy, they have cut off our budget, which is why Russians are being reduced in salaries, pensions, and benefits. Do some people feel like sanctions are like “mother’s mother”?

– Sanctions are a convenient excuse for the government. It blames its mediocrity on sanctions. But lookfraternal Belarus For many years he has been living under sanctions. However, all the factories are working there, all the fields are plowed and sown, people are working, everything is clean and orderly.Little Cuba Since its existence, the West has been strangling it with sanctions. But everything works there too, the production sector is developing, social guarantees are strictly implemented. Cuban medicine occupies a leading place in the world. People come to Cuba for treatment from everywhere. In the context of ongoing sanctions -North Korea. But they don’t complain there either, but create their own nuclear missile shield.

And these countries have virtually no natural resources.

And Russia is the richest country in the world in natural resources. If we divide our resources by each resident of the country, then we are 20 times richer than the Americans, and 50 times richer than Western Europeans. Using resources in favor of the state, it would be possible to raise our economy to the highest place in the world. But the leadership of the Russian Federation with its pocket parties and “heroes” seems to be concerned about something else...

– With what ?

– The goal of the “reforms” launched by Yeltsin-Gaidar after the 1991 coup was not to strengthen Russia, but to turn it into a raw materials colony of the West, followed by degradation and collapse. We heard about this, for example, from Koch. In my opinion, we have already become a colony. Our grain, timber, gas, oil, fertilizers, and metals are flowing to the West. Sanctions do not prevent this.

The most glaring example is our titanium, rare and very hard. metal. Before 90% of it goes to the United States to enterprises of the military-industrial complex. Titanium is needed for Boeings and Airbuses, which filled the skies, including in our country. Russian aviation was ruined, and Western aviation was “fed”... The Russian “owners” of titanium production profit from the titanium trade, their interests are personal enrichment. Sanctions are not a hindrance for them. This is not oil or gas, but the metal from which all aircraft are made. There were 15 aircraft factories in the Soviet Union. Each produced a hundred or even more aircraft per year. Every third plane in the world was Soviet. Will you find at least one Russian plane anywhere today? All Boeings and Airbuses - all made of our titanium. But Russian aircraft factories are standing still. I recently heard that 4 Su-134 bombers will be delivered to one of the military units in the Eastern District. What is 4, it's funny. Yes, in the USSR, each of the 15 factories produced 100 aircraft. And then everything was cut off. Novosibirsk plant named after. Chkalov produced the Su-24. But Yeltsin, returning from the USA, with his own handby decree banned the production of these aircraft. At that time they were the best, most modern in the world. Instead of them there are Su-134s, but only 4 of them. Or maybe this plant can make hundreds of such aircraft. How can we defend the country?

– But the most amazing thing is that you said from the podium that America, which has imposed sanctions against us, is openly threatening us, saber-rattling, Russian businessmen are selling unique titanium ?

– Exactly. And the US strategy towards Russia, as stated in their military doctrine, is to deliver the first global disarming strike on our nuclear forces with hypersonic missiles made from our titanium. After which, according to American military analysts, we will have about 15–20% of nuclear missiles left. If they take off, they will be neutralized by the missile defense system that is being created around the Russian Federation. Then - the invasion of ground forces... The United States is actively building up military groups around our borders - in the Baltic states, Poland, Romania. Last year, 1,500 tanks were deployed in the Baltic states. Now the American brigade is conducting exercises there. The slightest reason and they will turn in our direction. But for now they need a lot of titanium. And our compradors are ready to provide it to their “partners”. In the Urals, in the city of Verkhnyaya Salda, a joint Russian-American enterprise arose...

Help (Wikipedia) : In 2007, an agreement was signed to create a joint venture between VSMPO-AVISMA and Boeing - Ural Boeing Manufacturing (UBM), briefly “Ural-Boeing”. It came into operation in 2009. In the same year, in the presence of Putin, a contract was signed with Airbus until 2020 ($4 billion), in 2012 - with Boeing until 2018. All contracts are valid, cooperation is not interrupted. VCVSMPO-AVISMA Corporation includestwo industrial sites - "VSMPO" in the city of Verkhnyaya Salda, Sverdlovsk region and "AVISMA" - a branch in the city of Berezniki, Perm Territory. The base for the corporation was a plant for the production of semi-finished products from aluminum and magnesium alloys, built during the Stalinist five-year plans in the Moscow region. In 1941, he was evacuated to the Urals, to Verkhnyaya Salda. In the 90s, unique production passed into private hands. Later a joint venture appeared. VSMPO-AVISMA integrated into the state corporation "Russian Technologies". The liberal press wrote about Chemezov that he showed miracles of enterprise, managing “during a period of crisis, secretly from everyone beyond the Urals, to build one of the most modern enterprises in the world together with the Americans.” Chemezov is proud that not a single Boeing will take off without the Russian titanium, and that he manages to cooperate with the Americans despite any external disagreements: “our joint venture is an alliance of business leaders from Russia and the United States - the state corporation Rostekhnologii, represented by the world leader in titanium production VSMPO-AVISMA, and the world leader in the field of aircraft manufacturing - Boeing.

…Only 25% and one share of titanium production remains in the hands of the state. It is no longer ours. This is how we become a raw material colony of the West.

– Where is the patriotism? ?

– He is in words. In fact, the opposite is true. Take education. It was purposefully destroyed. The nerve center of the destruction is the Higher School of Economics (HSE), created with funds from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development in 1992. They explain why our education was “reformed”: to eliminate the redundancy of knowledge. It turns out that our government spent extra money on “excessive” education. To eliminate this “shortcoming” they began to introduce the Unified State Exam and the Bologna system. And HSE, as a bearer of Western ideas, has been generously funded by the state from the first day, much more than Moscow State University. Lomonosov. This is “patriotism”.

– There are also many questions regarding the financial sector .

– In finance and economics, everything is going as in the 90s, according to the recommendations of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). He does not allow us to reduce the interest rate on loans, and the United States advises us to reduce rates. And it turns out that in the Russian Federation not a single plant, not a single company can receive loans for its development. Sanctions have deprived our producers of affordable loans abroad.

– And no one explains why there are no cheap loans in the Russian Federation ?

– And who should I explain to? Our Central Bank is even registered in New York... They tell us: there is not enough money. And last year they purchased $92.5 billion in debt obligations. Ostensibly for the reliable storage of our reserves. And who do they take us for? Who will pay us for these debt papers if the United States owes it to the whole world? Their foreign debt is under 19 trillion dollars? Why not direct these funds to the production sector? They are keeping silent...

– You came to the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. Why?

– I believed the communists, the party programs, Zyuganov. The Communist Party of the Russian Federation is a party of patriots, this corresponds to my convictions.

– There will be elections to the State Duma in September. What dangers do you think await the Communist Party of the Russian Federation? How to overcome them?

- First . It is necessary to expose all fake pseudo-communist parties. I think they are being created within the Administration. There are the CPSU, and the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, and the “Communists of Russia”... They were created in order to confuse people in the elections. We need to make it clear to voters where the fakes are so they don't make mistakes.

Second. There is a danger of fraud and distortion of the final results. This is what happened in the last elections, when unscrupulous stuffing was committed and real results were replaced with false ones. I know this was common in the republics of the North Caucasus.

But first we need to convince people to come to the polls and vote. We need to work with people who today, for the most part, live very poorly, are nostalgic for the past and do not know how to improve their lives. They need to explain that they can change their lives by supporting the Communist Party of the Russian Federation.

We need to work more with young people. When you begin to explain to her how everything really is, she accepts it very well, even better than older people who have already resigned themselves to their fate. Young people want change and believe in it. The Communist Party of the Russian Federation is leading to change.

On February 20, 2012, on the eve of Defender of the Fatherland Day, all TV news channels commented in detail on Putin’s next, sixth, pre-election article, dedicated to the Russian Armed Forces and the Russian military-industrial complex (DIC), which provides them with everything they need.

The article is full of optimism and can arouse genuine delight and pride in our Army and Navy in the average person who is far from the Armed Forces and the security of the country, as well as add a few percent to the rating of the “national leader”, which is what it is designed for.

From the position of a military professional who has dedicated his entire life to serving in the army, I would also like to comment on the main provisions of this article.

The activities of V. Putin have signs of government. treason.

Victor Ilyukhin. He performed and soon died.

Final words of General Dubrov (after this everything is possible)

Ground forces are understaffed

I'll start with the Ground Forces - the basis of general-purpose forces, with those who must directly repel the invasion of the aggressor and defeat him. In his article in the section “What has already been done,” V. Putin writes: “There are no more reduced-strength units left in our Army. More than 100 combined arms and special brigades are deployed in the Ground Forces. These are full-fledged combat formations, equipped with personnel and equipment. The standard time for them to rise to the alarm is one hour. Transfer to a potential theater of operations - 24 hours.”

100 brigades - is this enough for the country to feel safe? Does this correspond to the current military-political situation in the world and the threats that arise?

The West, mired in a systemic, deepening crisis, is trying to solve its problems by force, by unleashing local wars in various parts of the world. Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya were defeated. Next up is Syria, Iran, who's next? Is it really Russia, surrounded on all sides by American and NATO bases, including in Central Asia, which our “national leader” contributed to a large extent?

So, 100 brigades. There are 39 of them combined arms - motorized rifle and tank (there are only three), those that directly conduct combat operations, and special ones that support and provide them.

The motorized rifle brigade is the main formation of the “new look” of the Russian army in its combat capabilities and the number of combat units no different from the disbanded regiments, the same three motorized rifle and tank battalions, artillery and anti-aircraft divisions. They were created on the basis of one of the regiments of the disbanded divisions. There are four such regiments in the division, including one tank regiment.

39 combined arms brigades, in terms of their combat equivalent, are less than 10 divisions. Less, because the division also has artillery and anti-aircraft missile regiments, and a separate tank battalion.

10 divisions for all of our vast Russia

Combined arms brigades are consolidated into the army - operational commands.

In total, there are ten armies in the Russian Ground Forces, and each of them should have 3-4 brigades, but in some armies there are more, for example in the 58th Army there are seven, but in the 29th Army, the headquarters of which now occupies the buildings of the former headquarters of the Siberian Military District in Chita, only one. One brigade in the territory from Ulan-Ude to Belogorsk - and this is about three thousand kilometers of the state border.

In the event of an armed conflict with China, it will be very difficult for the Chinese to find her in order to capture or destroy her... Not funny.

Special brigades are brigades of the army set: missile, artillery, anti-aircraft, control brigades - there are 40 of them in ten armies. The remaining 20 are listed in the district sets.

That's all the Ground Forces. For comparison: the Red Army met the Great Patriotic War with 303 divisions.

Now about the quality of the “new look” brigades

The troops are simply not staffed. Our supposedly million-strong army currently has a huge shortage of personnel - more than 20 percent - approximately 200 thousand people. By the way, our “partners” in NATO are well aware of this. This means that the brigades, at best, are only limited in combat readiness based on their state of manning.

The qualifications of the personnel are also extremely low. Conscripts serve for one year. The conscription lasts for several months. Many conscripts enter the army underweight and have to be fattened up in hospitals before they can begin training.

The situation is even worse with the education of the conscript contingent: young people often join the army with 2-3 years of education, and sometimes completely illiterate.

Under these conditions, it is not possible to qualitatively train specialists who determine the combat capability of units: gunners - operators, mechanics - drivers of tanks and combat vehicles, artillerymen, anti-aircraft gunners, reconnaissance officers, signalmen.

What kind of combat readiness are we talking about?

I would very much like our Supreme Commander-in-Chief to take 3-4 General Staff officers and suddenly check the combat readiness of one of the brigades. I am sure that the brigade being checked, not only in an hour, but even in a few days, will not be in full combat readiness, and even more so will not be ready to be transferred “to a potential theater of military operations” - as V. Putin writes about this.

And one more important point. The organizational and staffing structure of a brigade is more cumbersome compared to a regiment; in fact, it is a regiment with a divisional set of support and service units, which greatly complicates the management of a brigade even in peacetime, during exercises, not to mention combat conditions. I have been convinced of this many times in practice.

Well, the fact that it supposedly “possesses greater striking power than a division” is known, apparently, only to V. Putin himself, or to the one who wrote this article for him, as well as “the experience of the Afghan and other campaigns.” One feels that the article was written by a non-militarily professional person.

Air Force: Of 1,800 aircraft, 1,200 cannot take off

Now about the Air Force, in which “7 large air bases with powerful infrastructure have been created.” Let's figure it out here too. The air base of the “new look of the Air Force” consists of two or three aviation squadrons. Is this really enough for our vast Russia?

Putin further writes: “Over the past four years - for the first time in 20 years - 28 airfields have been overhauled. This year, work is planned at 12 more airfields.” What is our “national leader” about? At his meeting with his confidants, three days before the publication of the article, the honored test pilot, hero of Russia T. Tolboev reported with pain in his voice that out of 1223 airfields we had 120 left, out of 1600 airstrips there were 60 left. Out of 1800 1,200 combat aircraft are in need of repair and are currently not flying. It’s time to talk not about the Air Force, but about air force “weaknesses.”

Air defense: There is a gaping hole of 3,400 km in air defense

The situation is even worse in air defense.

The supply of new equipment to the air defense troops stopped in 1994 and did not resume until 2007. There are huge “holes” in the country’s air defense, the largest of which is between Khabarovsk and Irkutsk - 3,400 km. The most important economic centers of the country are not covered: Perm, Izhevsk, Vladimir, Nizhny Novgorod, Omsk, Chelyabinsk, Tula, Ulyanovsk. Even some divisions of the Strategic Missile Forces are not protected from air strikes.

The Navy is aging and rusting

Now about the fleet.

The number of ships in the fleet was reduced by more than four times. In recent years alone, it has decreased by 60 percent.

Our fleet includes the modern heavy nuclear-powered missile cruiser "Peter the Great". Four such cruisers were built in the Soviet Union, and Peter the Great is the last of them. The first three ships entered service with the fleet earlier, and by 2000, when V. Putin became president, they required major repairs. But there was no money for this in the country that was hit by the petrodollar “rain.”

And another striking example of “what has already been done.” On a recent voyage to the Atlantic and Mediterranean Sea, our only aircraft-carrying cruiser, Admiral Kuznetsov, was part of the detachment of ships. According to the state, it should have two aviation regiments and a helicopter regiment - a total of 72 aircraft, including 48 attack and fighter aircraft.

At the time of the trip, there were only 8 (!) aircraft on board.

By comparison, each of America's 12 aircraft carriers carries between 80 and 110 aircraft.

Strategic Missile Forces: The best Satan missiles were destroyed

Now about the strategic nuclear forces, the basis of which is the strategic missile forces.

The Strategic Missile Forces included combat railway missile systems, silo-based and mobile missile systems. The most invulnerable of them, capable of delivering a retaliatory nuclear strike if necessary, were the RT-23 railway missile systems. It was the BZHRK missile divisions that the Americans feared most. And if, at their request, M. Gorbachev put these divisions on hold, B. Yeltsin “illuminated” them with special beacons so that our “partners” would not lose sight of them, then it was V. Putin who destroyed them.

During the reign of V. Putin, the best missile divisions with silo-based missile systems “Satan”, in Western terminology, were mercilessly destroyed. These missiles were capable of penetrating any, including advanced missile defense systems, and had ten individually targetable nuclear warheads in their warheads and the same number of simulators of these warheads - decoys for the enemy.

Monoblock Topols are no match for them.

In 2001, I was forced to witness how one of our best missile divisions was destroyed in Aleysk, a small town in the Altai Territory. American observers were in the destroyed division until the last silo was blown up and the last missile destroyed.

It was V. Putin who destroyed the most important element of the missile attack warning system - the radar station in Lourdes, Cuba, which controlled the whole of North America. In the article, he writes that “the capabilities of this system have been seriously increased.”

Things are even worse in the maritime component of the nuclear triad. In 1991, 55 strategic nuclear submarines were transferred to Russia from the USSR, and all of them will be removed from combat duty by 2015. It is tragic that from 1990 to 2007, not a single strategic nuclear submarine was built in Russia.

The Russian Air Force operates only 13 Tu-160 strategic bombers and 63 Tu-95MS bombers. All of them are Soviet-made and have long expired their technical service life.

During the last radical reform of the Armed Forces, the logistics and technical support systems were destroyed. V. Putin in his article calls this “getting rid of unusual, auxiliary functions - economic, household and others.” But Marshal Zhukov believed that “any brilliantly designed operation without appropriate technical and logistical support will remain as beautiful arrows on the map.”

I'm not even talking about the fact that transferring the functions of logistics and technical support for troops to commercial structures costs the state an order of magnitude more.

The military education system has been destroyed

Out of 65 military universities, 10 scientific and educational centers are being created. “All these institutions,” according to Putin, “are built into a rigid vertical and, depending on their service, give officers the opportunity to constantly improve their professional level.”

What is our “national leader” talking about? For two years now, there has been no enrollment of cadets and students in military universities - scientific and training centers. In the combined arms academy, created by reformers on the basis of three academies: them. M.V. Frunze, armored and military engineering - currently 2 (two!) officers from the FSO are studying at the command faculty. This year, the academy is expected to enroll students who will study there for only ten months. The Military Academy of the General Staff, the pride of Russian and Soviet military education, also turned into six-month courses.

As for military science, it simply does not exist at present. The military reform was carried out contrary to the recommendations of military scientists; these recommendations were simply discarded as unnecessary.

So what has already been done?

Here is how NATO military analysts answer this question: “As a result of the reforms carried out, the Russian Armed Forces are no longer able to successfully solve problems even in local conflicts, the Russian army does not have a sufficient number of vehicles to transport troops over long distances, does not have a sufficient number of aircraft and pilots who can fly in any weather do not have a unified information system. There are not enough soldiers in the army..."

Now about the Russian military-industrial complex.

I will not comment on the figures that V. Putin names in the section of his article “Tasks of the coming decade.” Firstly, because the amount of weapons and military equipment that our defense-industrial complex should create by 2020 will only “increase the share of new types of weapons by 70%” even in the “toy” army that the reformers created. And secondly, it is far from certain that these tasks will be completed.

We are all witnesses to the fact that the state order, announced in numbers by President D. Medvedev in his message for 2011, was disrupted, and our Ministry of Defense did not conclude a single contract with defense industry enterprises until October 2011.

The country's military-industrial complex is in dire condition

Chronic underfunding or, as last year, its almost complete absence, has led to the country’s military-industrial complex degrading and rapidly losing its ability to produce new modern weapons and military equipment.

In order for new models to appear, it is necessary to advance funding for research and development work - R&D, and they are generally financed on a residual basis.

Enterprises that are not busy with production are losing skilled workers and engineers, whose training takes many years.

The process of technology loss in the country's defense industry has become catastrophic. In 1999-2004 1.5-2 thousand technologies were lost annually. The last qualified personnel are leaving, unique, key production facilities are being destroyed. Now a new process has begun: following the loss of technology, scientific schools are dying.

And what way out of the difficult situation in our defense industry did V. Putin find? In his article, he writes: “The development of the defense industry only by the state is ineffective now, and in the medium term it is economically impossible... All leading manufacturers of weapons and military equipment in the USA and Europe are non-state... It is new private companies that can be a source of technological breakthroughs that can radically change the industry."

I have a legitimate question: in what country, in what school, in what university and with what textbooks did V. Putin study. Has he really forgotten or doesn’t know that in ten years such a defense-industrial complex was created in the Soviet Union, thanks to which the Red Army broke the back of the fascist beast, armed with manufacturers of weapons and military equipment throughout Europe. And not only Europe.

Doesn’t he know the historical fact that almost all leading American companies, including General Motors, Prat & Whitney, International Telephone and Telegraph, Ford, Stantard Oil and many others provided Nazi Germany with components for weapons and military equipment, equipment, metal , fuel and even fuses and explosives. “Business is business - nothing personal,” the Germans paid more. They paid in gold, including gold bars cast from dental crowns and gold items confiscated during the extermination of Jews in concentration camps.

Does V. Putin really think, relying on private business, that our Prokhorovs, Deripaskas, Vekselbergs and Abramovichs are more patriotic than the American Rockefellers, Rothschilds, DuPonts and Fords?

And if this article is V. Putin’s program for the development of our Armed Forces and the country’s defense-industrial complex, then its implementation not only will not make Russia stronger, but will also threaten its very existence as an independent independent state. I cannot agree with such a program.

In the late eighties - early nineties of the last century, the United States and its allies managed to achieve their main geopolitical goal - to divide the Russian people into their component parts, split off from them other peoples who had lived with them for hundreds of years, and begin to build a “new world order”, which, in the words of Zbigniew Brzezinski, “it is being created against Russia, at the expense of Russia and on the ruins of Russia.” And so that no one has any doubts that it was the West that played the main role in the collapse of the Soviet Union, I would like to quote the words of another political figure, US Secretary of State Baker during the collapse of the USSR: “In order to collapse the Soviet Union and win the Cold War,” We've spent trillions of dollars."

Having divided the Russian people into its component parts, the West began to solve its next geopolitical task - to oppose these parts to each other, to pit them against each other. And so far this task has been successfully solved. Thanks to the efforts of the United States and its allies, Ukraine, and especially its western part, is turning into an irreconcilable enemy of Russia.

How and why did this happen, what were the prerequisites for this? After all, in Soviet times there was no trace of anything like this, and I am a living witness to this.

The fact is that after graduating from military school, I served in Western Ukraine for almost eight years. Over the years of service, I had to visit almost all its regions: Chernivtsi, Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Rivne, Ternopil, Volyn, Transcarpathian, meet with different people, at different levels, in different situations: during exercises, on business trips, during harvesting when we helped collective farmers harvest sugar beets in the rainy season.

In 1978, units of our regiment worked in Lviv for three months, preparing the sports facilities of the Lviv SKA for the European Cup in modern pentathlon. Once, almost the entire regiment took part in the filming of the feature film “The Last Haiduk”. Now it’s impossible to list everything...

But I want to say that at that time the residents of the western regions of Ukraine were ordinary Soviet citizens who loved their Motherland and their army. During the exercises, it was impossible to simply drive through a populated area: the column was showered with flowers, residents, especially young people, ran to the stopped equipment, treated the soldiers and officers with fruits and sweets, an impromptu concert, sometimes a rally, began.

WHAT ABOUT THE BANDEROVS? There were also Banderaites, especially since they were released from prison ahead of schedule by N.S. Khrushchev, apparently, as “victims of Stalinism.” Several times I had to travel for young recruits to various regions of Western Ukraine. So, in the registration and service cards of some conscripts there were such entries: “Father was sentenced to 25 years for participation in the OUN gang”; “The older brother was sentenced to 15 years for participation in the OUN gang.”

But Bandera’s men sat quietly and kept their heads down. Of course, Western intelligence services tried to use them to their advantage even then, but they were under the close supervision of the KGB and the Ministry of Internal Affairs and did not have any influence on the life of Western Ukraine.

But after the collapse of the Soviet Union, they sharply intensified. But in order for this to happen, as US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland let slip, the Americans alone spent five billion dollars. Bandera’s ideology was literally hammered into the heads of Ukrainian youth from a very early age, especially during the reign of V. Yushchenko, the “American son-in-law,” when Stepan Bandera and Roman Shukhevych were recognized as heroes of Ukraine.

Hundreds of non-governmental organizations appeared in Ukraine, generously funded by Western intelligence services, and dozens of different training centers and camps, where experienced foreign instructors theoretically and practically trained future militants. You look at the age of the Maidan and Right Sector militants - they were all born in the late eighties and nineties.

Well, what about Russia? And in Russia during these same years, our youth also studied history using the textbooks of D. Soros. Fortunately, we did not have our own Bandera and Shukhevych, but the heroes in these textbooks were Kornilov and Kolchak, Denikin and Wrangel, Yudenich and Kappel. Well, the most odious “historians” tried to make heroes of such outright traitors as Vlasov and Krasnov.

AND ALL THIS IS STILL CONTINUING. It is from the named six White Guards, who, with the active help of Western countries, unleashed a bloody Civil War against their people, but were defeated by the Red Army, that a certain military historical society invites us to choose the name of Victory by May 9 of this year. How can the defeated enemies of their own people be named after Victory? What could be more blasphemous?

And why did the list of 55 commanders from which we are asked to choose the name of Victory not include the real winners, truly talented commanders who defeated the troops of these leaders of the White movement: Vladimir Aleksandrovich Olderogge - Major General of the Tsarist Army and the “Red Baron”, commander of the Eastern Front of the Reds , who defeated Kolchak’s troops and eliminated Kolchakism;

Vladimir Nikolaevich Egoryev - lieutenant general of the tsarist army, commander of the Southern Front, which defeated Denikin’s troops rushing to Moscow; Sergei Dmitrievich Kharlamov - colonel of the tsarist army, commander of the 7th Red Army, which defeated Yudenich’s troops; Dmitry Nikolaevich Nadezhny - lieutenant general of the tsarist army, commander of the Northern Front, whose troops threw out the Anglo-American-French interventionists from the Russian North; Dmitry Pavlovich Parsky - Lieutenant General of the Tsarist Army, who led the Red Army detachments in February 1918 and defeated German troops near Pskov and Narva, largely thanks to him we celebrate February 23 as the birthday of the Red Army, the current Defender of the Fatherland Day;

Sergei Sergeevich Kamenev - Colonel of the Tsarist Army, from the beginning of 1919 until the end of the Civil War, Commander-in-Chief of all the Armed Forces of the Soviet Republic. By the way, all of them are hereditary nobles, which is important for modern “historians”.

Why is this list not including Generalissimo Stalin, Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the USSR, which defeated fascism, since he is included in the list of 100 great commanders of Russia?

What kind of military-historical society is this that distorts our history so much?

And modern films about the war, such as “Penal Battalion” or “Bastards” - what can they teach our youth and what kind of patriotism can they instill?

AT THE TIME the US Embassy in Ukraine became the main headquarters for coordinating the actions of all anti-Russian forces and organizations, our Foreign Ministry took a principled position of non-interference in the affairs of Ukraine, and our embassy in Kyiv was headed by V.S. Chernomyrdin is the founder and one of the main shareholders of our “national treasure” - Gazprom, which saw its main task in constantly waging “gas wars” with Ukraine. What national interests and geopolitical objectives are there! The commercial interests of Gazprom and their own personal pocket - and this is at best, and at worst - an outright betrayal of the national interests of Russia.

In general, V.S. Chernomyrdin has more than once played his sinister role in the modern history of Russia. After all, it was he, together with B.N. Yeltsin decided to shoot the Supreme Council in 1993; it is his signature under the “nuclear deal”, according to which Russia transferred to the United States for next to nothing 500 tons of weapons-grade uranium, accumulated during the years of Soviet power by the labor of millions of Soviet people - workers, engineers, scientists who forged the country’s nuclear shield; it was he, the special envoy of President Yeltsin, who “surrendered” Yugoslavia to the Americans for one billion dollars; He also played his anti-Russian role in Ukraine. Well, then he was replaced in this post by one of the most “effective managers” in our government - M.Yu. Zurabov. His deputies were put behind bars, and the “minister” himself was sent to defend our national interests in Kyiv. So we now have in Ukraine what we deserve.

Meanwhile, the “Ukrainian game” on the “great chessboard,” according to Brzezinski, is just beginning. I don’t want to draw such a conclusion, but it seems to me that the loss of Crimea for the United States in this “chess game” is a “pawn sacrifice.” They will try not to miss all of Ukraine or some part of it, and the chances in this “game” are too unequal. In the modern world, force plays the main role, and it is clearly not on our side. In fact, B. Obama is right: Russia, if we do not take into account our nuclear weapons, today is an ordinary regional power with a dilapidated industry, a damaged agriculture and a collapsed army.

As a military man, I want to dwell in more detail on the state of our Armed Forces. Firstly, I remind those who have forgotten, and ordinary people who were convinced through TV that in our army, unlike the Ukrainian one, everything is fine: “As a result of the radical reforms carried out by A. Serdyukov - N. Makarov, the army Russia has transformed from an army capable of repelling the aggression of serious geopolitical opponents into an army capable of fighting armed militant groups.” This is not my opinion, this is the conclusion of serious military analysts - both ours and foreign ones, who summed up the results of Serdyukov’s activities after his resignation. It should be noted that this was the goal of the reforms, and the country’s leadership represented by V.V. Putin and D.A. Medvedev showed unprecedented political will.

However, the reformers somewhat overdid it. By destroying or significantly reducing the command and control bodies responsible for maintaining combat readiness in the troops, destroying the systems of military education, logistics and technical support, reducing the service life in the army and navy to one year, they actually made even those brigades that remained in the army after reduction of regiments and divisions.

THE STEALING A. Serdyukov, having completed his dirty deed, resigned. The most experienced minister of modern Russia, S.K., was appointed in his place. Shoigu, the permanent head of the Ministry of Civil Defense, Emergency Situations and Disaster Relief created after the collapse of the USSR.

Some digression.

The new ministry was created on the basis of the Civil Defense Forces, which were previously part of the military department. The young minister, who went straight from reserve lieutenant to general, resolutely set about creating management bodies and structures that, in his opinion, would meet the tasks of the new ministry: he created rescue squads for various purposes, brought disaster medicine into the Ministry of Emergency Situations, acquired aviation, while reducing it to almost zero Civil Defense Troops themselves. As a result, the structure of the Ministry of Emergency Situations began to represent a huge management apparatus, where there were more generals than in the Ministry of Defense, with an almost complete absence of troops, a kind of “apiary without bees.” And then a brilliant solution was found: firefighters were transferred from the Ministry of Internal Affairs to the Ministry of Emergency Situations. Reducing them is more expensive, even in peacetime. Only Serdyukov could decide to do this, reducing the fire brigades at military warehouses, bases and arsenals, as a result of which they constantly burned and exploded.

Therefore, one of the “achievements” of S.K. Shoigu's position as head of the new ministry led to the almost complete liquidation of the Civil Defense Troops, and currently civil defense as such does not exist in Russia.

Well, okay, the one who does nothing is not mistaken.

More than a year has passed since the Ministry of Defense was headed by a new minister, and the General Staff was headed by a new chief. What has changed for the better in the Russian Armed Forces? In matters of restoring the combat readiness and combat capability of the Russian Armed Forces, there is practically nothing.

To be fair, it should be noted that Sergei Kuzhugetovich is indeed an experienced and very proactive leader. Tank biathlon, “scientific” companies, ostentatious video conferences, now, from April 1, the number of operational and strategic management bodies is increasing by more than 20 percent: the National Defense Management Center of the Russian Federation is being created in the Ministry of Defense, regional and territorial centers in districts and armies, respectively . But what do these minister’s initiatives have to do with restoring the combat readiness and combat effectiveness of the Armed Forces? All this is nothing more than PR.

As for the newly created centers for controlling the daily activities of the troops, their place and role are generally unclear. Management bodies at all levels during Serdyukov’s reforms were greatly reduced and are having difficulty fulfilling their tasks; they need to be restored by increasing staffing levels. Instead, as new control centers are created, they are further reduced. But the Armed Forces are not the Ministry of Emergency Situations. The basic principle of training troops and military command and control bodies is: “Teach them what is necessary in war.” What will the “crowd” (more than 20 percent) of captains, majors and lieutenant colonels in the operational and strategic management bodies do when transferring the Armed Forces from peacetime to wartime? After all, in peacetime they will be engaged exclusively in everyday “peaceful” activities.

AND ANOTHER initiative of the minister, which does not leave many people, including purely civilians, indifferent - a new “office” uniform. Of course, it has no direct relation to issues of combat readiness and combat capability of the Armed Forces, but this uniform is very similar to the overalls worn by janitors; the name tag on the soldier’s left chest is especially touching. So that no one confuses anything, if suddenly they do not know the military leader, including the minister, by sight or do not understand military ranks. Officers and generals of the Russian army have never worn such a uniform - neither in tsarist nor in Soviet times. It seems to me that even Serdyukov’s movement of the shoulder strap from shoulder to stomach did not cause such rejection as Shoigu’s “office” uniform.

Someone may object to me: what about regular sudden large-scale exercises with military districts? By and large, this is also more PR than teaching. Well, how can you conduct high-quality exercises with the current military district, which includes two or three combined arms armies, the Air Force and Air Defense Army and the Navy, in one week and at the same time work out the issues of combat readiness, combat training, including at the stages with live firing, the current formations - “brigades of constant combat readiness”, if these brigades are 50-70 percent staffed with personnel and serviceable military equipment and are capable of deploying from their composition for any action no more than one reinforced battalion, the training of which leaves much to be desired?

But the exercises are “large-scale”. The number of personnel involved in last year's exercises in the Eastern Military District was initially announced as 70 thousand people, then this figure seemed too small and was increased to 160 thousand. I wonder if the staffing level of the Eastern District corresponds to this number of participants in the exercises or is this its payroll strength?

On the other hand, at present it is practically impossible to conduct large-scale exercises over a long period of time: troops without logistical and technical support will not last more than one week in the field. And the subject of the exercises is strictly anti-terrorist. At the last of them, in the Western Military District, the special forces portrayed terrorists who had captured a populated area, and the paratroopers supposedly destroyed them, or vice versa. Children's games, and that's all, not district-wide exercises.

Some of the positive things that will at least somehow affect the combat readiness and combat effectiveness of the troops made by the new leadership of the Armed Forces include the recruitment of cadets and students to military universities, the increase in the duration of training in military academies to two years, the introduction of deputy commanders in battalions and brigades in terms of armament, the restoration of two divisions - Taman and Kantemirovskaya (only two), long-distance voyages of our ships, and, of course, conducting exercises, even if only anti-terrorist ones. Serdyukov did not do this either.

But all this is in the nature of a “cosmetic renovation” of Serdyukov’s legacy - an army capable of fighting armed militant groups. Russia now needs an army capable of repelling the aggression of any geopolitical enemy in any strategic direction. And recent events in Ukraine only confirm this. The West has actually already decided on direct confrontation with Russia and is preparing aggression directly at our borders. Quite recently, a decision was made to sharply strengthen the military component of NATO in the countries of Eastern Europe that are part of this bloc, including the Baltic states. There is nowhere to retreat further, Moscow is behind.

I am aware that it is almost impossible to restore the combat readiness and combat capability of the Armed Forces without reviving our industry and agriculture, science and culture, restoring the historical memory of our people, and without changing the entire socio-political course of the country. And if our government does not understand this, it should immediately resign. Otherwise we will lose the country.

Lieutenant General Viktor Ivanovich Sobolev was born on February 23, 1950 in Krasnodar. Graduated from the Baku Higher Combined Arms Command School, the Military Academy named after M.V. Frunze and the Military Academy of the General Staff of the RF Armed Forces. Promoted positions from motorized rifle platoon commander to deputy army commander. Since 2002 - Deputy Commander of the OGV (s) in the North Caucasus. 2003-06 Commander of the 58th Army of the North Caucasus Military District.
Since 2006, chief military adviser at the Russian Embassy in India. He left his post upon reaching the age limit in December 2010.

On the eve of the elections, our President and Supreme Commander-in-Chief Dmitry Medvedev and “national leader” Vladimir Putin became concerned, among other things, with the state of the army and the country’s military-industrial complex and assure the gullible citizens of Russia that they will do everything to ensure that our Armed Forces meet modern requirements and received new types of weapons and military equipment in a timely manner.

Russian "Tiger"