Russia 100715 Basic Political Developments

PTI: Russia reorganises Soviet-era military structure

http://www.brahmand.com/news/Russia-reorganises-Soviet-era-military-structure/4456/1/10.html

Last Updated: Jul 15, 2010

MOSCOW (PTI): Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has ordered a radical restructuring of the country’s armed forces command system with an aim to reform the Soviet-era military behemoth into a ‘lean but mean’ force capable of fighting the modern network centric warfare.

The decree signed by Medvedev also aims to reform the logistic support system of the armed forces.

“Under the Presidential decree existing six military districts will be reorganised into four united strategic commands (USC) and an integrated logistic support system,” Chief of the General Staff, Army General Nikolai Makarov announced Wednesday.

Under the reformed command structure The Moscow and Leningrad military districts will be merged into the Western Military District (USC 'West') and will now also include the Northern and Baltic Fleets.

The North Caucasus Military District will be changed to the South Military District (USC 'South') and will include the Black Sea Fleet.

The Volga-Urals Military District and the western part of the Siberian Military District will be merged to form the Central Military District (USC 'Centre').

The remaining part of the Siberian Military District will be merged with the Far East Military District into the East Military District (USC 'East') and will include the Pacific Fleet.

Deputy Defence Minister Col Gen Dmitry Bulgakov will be chief of the Integrated Logistic Support System, while former Chief, Gen Vladimir Popovkin will control the production and acquisition of weapons under the government programmes.

“In the past, two deputy defence minister level officials used to look after the logistics, of which one had the means of transportation, while another had the weapons and they could not work independently,” Gen Makarov was quoted as saying by Itar-Tass.

Gen Makarov said that earlier, 11 levels of command have been abolished to accommodate the new three-level system comprising of United Strategic Command, Operational Command and Brigade.

According to local defence expert Konstantin Makiyenko, the new command structure was successfully tested during the recent “Vostok-2010” war games in the far east of the country, when thousands of men and machines were swiftly redeployed from the central parts of the country to remote areas in the east for practicing offensive and defensive combat.

RIA: Russia Pacific Fleet warships return from U.S.

http://en.rian.ru/mlitary_news/20100715/159819086.html
09:39 15/07/2010

VLADIVOSTOK, July 15 (RIA Novosti) - A group of Russia's Pacific Fleet warships led by the missile cruiser Varyag on Thursday returned from the United States to the Russian port of Vladivostok.

The group, including the missile cruiser Varyag, the rescue tugboat Foty Krylov and the tanker Boris Butoma commanded by Rear Admiral Vladimir Kasatonov, visited San Francisco, California, on June 21 -July 26.

The voyage to California and back was held as part of an effort to promote U.S.-Russian military cooperation. On June 23, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev visited the missile cruiser Varyag in San Francisco when he was on an official visit to the United States. He met with California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and visited the Silicon Valley before heading off to Washington, DC, to meet with President Barack Obama.

The sailors were met in Vladivostok by the fleet commander, relatives, friends and military musicians.

"The friendly visit to San Francisco was a success," Adm. Konstantin Sidenko, commander of Russia's Pacific Fleet, said and welcomed the sailors home with the Russian tradition of three roast piglets symbolizing a successful mission.

Russia's Pacific Fleet press service said that mutual friendly visits and joint Russian-U.S. visits have become common.

VOR: Russia further claims its territorial rights in the Arctic

http://english.ruvr.ru/2010/07/15/12368398.html

Jul 15, 2010 05:54 Moscow Time

The Polar fleet flagman “Akademik Fyodorov” is off from St. Petersburg to the Arctic. Among other things, during its 75-day voyage “Akademik Fyodorov’s” crew will establish the exact position of the edge of the Russian continental shelf.

The expedition is to gather enough judicial evidence to prop up its case in court.

Once the negotiations with adjacent to the Arctic and all experiments are finalized and have enough prove for Russia’s claims on the territory, this country will file the plea to the border regulations body at the UN. 

Itar-Tass: Medvedev urges parliament to impose bigger penalties for corruption

http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=15319792&PageNum=0

15.07.2010, 04.33

MOSCOW, July 15 (Itar-Tass) -- President Dmitry Medvedev has urged the Federal Assembly to consider the possibility of imposing multiple penalties for corruption offences.

“Penalties for a corruption offence should match the severity of the offence, and such offences are mainly grave ones and should entail real punishment that will create an appropriate atmosphere and deter from new such offences,” Medvedev said at a meeting of the Council of Legislators on Wednesday, July 14.

At the same time, he said, “We do not want to increase the total number of prisoners. It is beyond all reasonable limits as it is.”

“So apart from imprisonment, which should be used in certain situations for gross corruption offences, we should go back to the ideas that we discussed some time ago, including at the meetings of the Anti-Corruption Council.”

“It was proposed to use so-called multiple penalties for corruption offences. It met a controversial reaction, but I suggest that our parliament – the Federation Council and the State Duma – think about this,” the president said.

“The idea is to make a person who has committed an corruption offence pay a fine multiple of the bribe. This may be a very harsh penalty that will run into millions, dozens or hundreds of millions of roubles and that will have to be paid over a long period of time. Even if a person remains at large, he will suffer financially,” Medvedev said.

“There are also other forms of punishment that should be used more actively as well, such as corrective labour or a ban on senior positions in various bodies,” he added.

Earlier, the Russian government submitted to the State Duma a draft law authorising confiscation of property for money laundering.

The draft law suggests amending Article 104.1 of the Criminal Code to include a provision on confiscation of money, values and other property obtained through money laundering.

The main purpose of the draft law is to prevent money laundering and make the right against economic crimes more effective.

The Russian Interior Ministry has also suggested enlarging the list of grounds for the confiscation of property from government officials charged with corruption.

“As a follow-up to the declaration of incomes, it would be advisable to upgrade Russian legislation by enlarging the list of grounds for the confiscation of illegally-obtained property,” Deputy Interior Minister Yevgeny Shkolov said.

“A disproportion between the assets owned by some officials and their official salary raise justifiable indignation in society,” Shkolov said.

He stressed that an effective fight against corruption depended directly on the possibility to seize ill-gotten property in favour of the budget.

Meanwhile, the Russian presidential administration is stepping up the fight against corruption. Sergei Naryshkin has instructed the Justice Ministry and other agencies to draft a new package of anti-corruption laws as soon as possible, an official close to the Justice Ministry said. A Kremlin official confirmed this.

The Justice Ministry drafted amendments to Article 104 of the Criminal Code to broaden the use of confiscation for all corruption offences, draft, together with the Ministry of Health and Social Development, amendments to Article 575 of the Civil Code forbidding government officials to accept presents by May 30, and draft a law reducing the number of persons entitled to special criminal procedures (special subjects) by June 1. The Justice Ministry official neither confirmed, nor denied this information.

The State Duma is aware of Naryshkin's initiative. First Deputy Prosecutor General Alexander Buksman has asked the deputies to organize a roundtable discussion in order to assess the consequences of confiscation in rem (if there are suspicions of a corruption offence, the owner of property bears the burden of proving its origin), a Duma secretariat official said. In a letter to State Duma Chairman Boris Gryzlov, Buksman referred to a decision of the presidium of the presidential anti-corruption council of April 28 (chaired by Naryshkin) which had reviewed the Prosecutor General's report on Russia's compliance with the recommendations of the Council of Europe's Group of States against Corruption (GRECO).

A recent poll showed that the average bribe in Russia had almost doubled over the past four years from 5,048 roubles in 2006 to 8,887 roubles in 2010. The number of bribe takers has increased over the same time from 27 percent to 31 percent of those polled. Registering a business and obtaining permission for entrepreneurial activities proved to be the most corrupt sphere. Of those who tried to obtain necessary documents, 92 percent gave bribes, according to a poll conducted by Levada Centre.

In 2005, only 19 percent of businessmen had to give bribes when applying for documents, sociologists say. Another 65-67 percent of those polled, just like five years ago, gave bribes when violating traffic rules and detained by a traffic police inspector.

Some 43-45 percent of Russians said they had given bribes when “going through criminal proceedings in court” (32 percent in 2005) or when “receiving a driver's license, registering an automobile or undergoing a motor vehicle inspection” (26 percent). And 38.5 percent of Russians gave bribes when “facing criminal charges” (less than 1 percent in 2005).