04 August 2003 11:45
Russian civil defence planning job cuts
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Moscow, 4 August: Russia's civil defence forces will have about 20,000 personnel by 2004, Deputy Minister of
[Civil Defence], Emergencies [and dealing with consequences of Natural Disasters] Col-Gen Gennadiy Korotkin told
Interfax-Military News Agency on Monday [4 August].
"The numerical strength of the civil defence forces is planned to be reduced to 20,100 personnel," he
said.
The reform of the civil defence forces which began in 2001 is aimed at creating a high-mobility well-equipped force
with effective performance, he added.
According to Korotkin, the civil defence is the core of the Emergencies Ministry's rapid response forces. They
are assigned detection and indication of NBC [nuclear, biological, chemical] contaminated areas, protection of people
and decontamination of materiel, as well as search and rescue missions in disaster areas.
"In recent years civil defence forces have often been assigned evacuation of people, recovery of objects and
infrastructure, escort of humanitarian cargo, security of top priority objects, and extinguishing large peat and forest
fires," the official said.
According to the Emergencies Ministry, civil defence forces have accomplished about 40,000 missions and rescued over
65,000 people in the past decade.
[Interfax-AVN military news agency web site] |
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