05 May 2004 16:48
Training centre rotates Russian professionals into army service in Chechnya
Moscow, 5 May: A training centre for professional soldiers has been set up on the basis of a regiment in the 42nd
Division of the Russian Federation Ministry of Defence, which is permanently stationed in Chechnya.
ITAR-TASS news agency was told today at the headquarters of the Combined Group of Federal Forces that the
professionals' entire training programme was designed to take 20 days, with five cycles of courses and a 10-hour
day. Conscripts arriving with their companies at the training centre in the village of Kalinovskaya are all transferred
into other units and their duties are taken on by professionals sent in from the transit station in Mozdok.
"After training, the servicemen are sent to a professionals-only regiment. More professional soldiers then come
to the centre by the same route. Divisional officers perform the administrative functions of the training companies,
while the training is done by officers from military higher education establishments in the district," the
headquarters said. Two regiments of the 42nd Division are already fully staffed with professionals.
According to Defence Minister Sergey Ivanov, the 42nd Division, as well as the 46th Brigade of the Internal Troops of
the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, will go over entirely to professionals this year. "That is approximately
30,000 soldiers serving in units permanently stationed in Chechnya. A private in his first year in these units will be
paid R15,000 a month," the minister said.
The federal targeted programme to create a professional Russian army requires the recruitment of some 150,000 men. By
2008, eighty groups and units will be staffed on this basis.
[ITAR-TASS news agency] |
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