GRU Serdyukov not need?
The reform of the Russian army continues to go at full speed. There are truly resonant stages in the course of this reform, when the public, in fact, cannot understand with what certain perturbations in the Armed Forces of the country are connected. One of these stages can be called the reform, read, destruction, of the GRU (Chief Intelligence Agency of the country). According to the most conservative estimates, in the time that has passed since the collapse of the USSR, this military department lost more than 75% of its personnel. In this case, the officers were disposed of with an enviable methodical approach and regularity. The new starting point for the collapse of the GRU was the year 2009, when General Shlyakhturov was appointed head of intelligence. Understandably, everything that he did as the head of the GRU was dictated from above, but sometimes his decisions can be described with one single phrase “I will not collapse, so I will doubt!” Officers continued to send someone to the reserve, who retired. Entire scientific groups which were engaged in the development of tactics of new reconnaissance actions were liquidated, the foundations of the GRU itself were systematically destroyed.
According to The New Times, out of 7, thousands of GRU officers who served during the Soviet era, less than 2011 thousand remained on 2 a year. After the resignation of the former head of department, Valentin Korabelnikov, who left his post in April 2009, military intelligence was finally “cleared out”. Recall that Korabelnikov, by all accounts, left because of disagreement with the planned measures to reassign the divisions of the GRU in the framework of military reform. According to the leadership of Alexander Shlyakhturov, according to Lieutenant-General Dmitry Gerasimov, the former head of the GRU administration, the electronic intelligence of the administration was almost destroyed. In the specialized research institute of the GRU, all development and research works were discontinued. And in the Military Diplomatic Academy there were reductions in teaching staff. According to The New Times, the number of "mining units" of the GRU, responsible for undercover and strategic intelligence in the territory of foreign countries, has been reduced by 40 percent.
And today, the Russian and, remarkably, foreign publications have filled with headlines that indicate that Alexander Shlyakhturov, it seems, decided to retire himself. What does this mean?
There are two options. The first is that the highest authority in the country actually took care of the fate of the GRU and is ready to replace Shlyakhturov with a young officer who can give impulse to the department. And the second, which, sadly enough to be aware of, looks more plausible - to turn the GRU into a puppet structure controlled by the Kremlin.
After all, the very existence of the GRU is story almost complete independence from the current authorities, and who will enjoy such independence in the highest levels of government? Let us not forget that we live in the most "democratic" country in the world, where even the finance minister can be removed not for the fact that he pursued a rather strange financial policy, but for his words about the unwillingness to support the course of the power tandem.
One can imagine how the eyesa of the same tandem was a really independent GRU. After all, his staff, without exaggeration, knew a lot about contract killings in the Center of Moscow, and about the distribution of funds during the Chechen wars, and about who actually substituted Khodorkovsky and Lebedev. We all know very well that people who know too much in our country do not live long. They are either cleaned with the help of pistol clap, or they are sent to retire with honor and continue to follow their apartment until a sudden death ...
And why should our state have two powerful military instruments at once. One FSB, and we also know for what reasons, will be quite enough.
It is in such a situation that he is preparing for the decision that the horns and legs will remain from the GRU in the form of his “infusion” into the General Staff without any residues of any independence. In general, the second variant is being implemented, and the first one on its background looks too jovial.
For today's Russia, with its monumental vertical of power, the extra eyes and ears that can look and listen to what is being done in the Government House and the Kremlin are not needed.
But really, why do we need military intelligence? .. We have been “rebooting” with the United States for a long time, we are friends with families with Great Britain, the Germans help us to train cadets in military schools, and we can deal with the Georgians and so on, with half bent ones .
Why do we need to know that someone is going to deploy a missile defense system in places that the world’s media do not talk about, why do we need to understand which geopolitical processes can be resolved with the help of weapons directly at our borders - we have satellites. You can supposedly see everything with the help of them. Only now the satellites, too, began to fall too often, and the FSB was already working in a one-way direction. The terrorist underground both existed and still exists, only now it is also officially transferred to the money, so that it would blow up houses a little quieter and less often attack police posts.
To dissolve the GRU is what a savings! On General Shlyakhturov’s lampas alone, how much red matter went away ... And now everything is for the people, everything is for you and me.
It can be assumed that the next step of the reform or, as it is now fashionable to say, the modernization of the army will be its abolition. Well, if the GRU is not needed, then why the army. After all, many houses have axes and pitchforks, we will fight back the enemy! BUT?!
Anatoly Tsyganok, Candidate of Military Sciences, Head of the Center for Military Forecasting of the Institute for Political and Military Analysis commented
The Main Intelligence Agency has been criticized in recent years. In particular, it was said that it worked badly the day before and during the conflict with Georgia.
I do not agree with this opinion. The GRU knew about the actions of the Georgian leadership very well. And as soon as the Georgians began to prepare for the exercises, this was immediately reported to the leadership of the Ministry of Defense, which immediately sent railway troops to Abkhazia to organize military transport. That is, intelligence performed its functions.
The possible resignation of the current head of the GRU is connected with the general approach adopted by the Ministry of Defense today: to send to rest those who, to some extent, do not agree with the opinion of Anatoly Serdyukov about the reduction of the Armed Forces. The head of the GRU proposed to restore Russian military bases abroad. In particular, in Cuba. There was also a proposal to build and introduce reconnaissance ships, which the Soviet Union had at one time, into the Navy. One of them is still attributed to the Pacific the fleetbut really doesn’t work.
For the leadership of the MoD, the main issue is financial. And similar proposals for additional spending on military bases, on intelligence activities in general, for them are like a bone in the throat.
Now the Defense Ministry is doing everything to ensure that the Main Intelligence Directorate does not actually work. The MoD leadership in general is incompetent in matters of command, development of the armed forces, procurement of military equipment and weapons, and many others.
The Main Intelligence Agency has been criticized in recent years. In particular, it was said that it worked badly the day before and during the conflict with Georgia.
I do not agree with this opinion. The GRU knew about the actions of the Georgian leadership very well. And as soon as the Georgians began to prepare for the exercises, this was immediately reported to the leadership of the Ministry of Defense, which immediately sent railway troops to Abkhazia to organize military transport. That is, intelligence performed its functions.
The possible resignation of the current head of the GRU is connected with the general approach adopted by the Ministry of Defense today: to send to rest those who, to some extent, do not agree with the opinion of Anatoly Serdyukov about the reduction of the Armed Forces. The head of the GRU proposed to restore Russian military bases abroad. In particular, in Cuba. There was also a proposal to build and introduce reconnaissance ships, which the Soviet Union had at one time, into the Navy. One of them is still attributed to the Pacific the fleetbut really doesn’t work.
For the leadership of the MoD, the main issue is financial. And similar proposals for additional spending on military bases, on intelligence activities in general, for them are like a bone in the throat.
Now the Defense Ministry is doing everything to ensure that the Main Intelligence Directorate does not actually work. The MoD leadership in general is incompetent in matters of command, development of the armed forces, procurement of military equipment and weapons, and many others.
Information