Interview of Alexander Kanshin at the radio station VOICE OF RUSSIA

6 November 2012

Presenter – Armen Oganesyan

Oganesyan: Good evening! The resignation of the Russian Minister of Defense Anatoly Serdyukov has provoked a real burst of comments, speculations over both past and present and future of the Russian armed forces. But we are going to talk not only about the instantaneous, but also about global problems of our security, which are directly connected with the future of the Russian army and navy.

There are two widely spread citations. One of them belongs to Alexander II: «Russia has got only two allies: army and fleet». The other, which is no less famous, says: «The one, who doesn’t feed his own army, is bound to feed somebody else’s one».

Now our guest is a man, who has been working with the topic of army and navy for many years, moreover, he’s been doing it in very different dimensions — President of the International Advisory Committee of organizations of reserve officers, Chairman of the Russian Federation Public Chamber Commission on the issues of national security and social and economic conditions of lives of military personnel, members of their families and veterans Alexander Nikolaevich Kanshin. Thank you for coming here.

I can realize how much you are asked for these days due to the changes in the Government and in the Ministry of Defense. I would like to ask you a question, citing the Chairman of the State Duma Committee on defense issues, your counterpart in the Parliament. He said the following: «Serdyukov has done quite a lot for social support of the military people. But there are many complaints regarding the combat preparedness of the Armed Forces». To what extent do you share such opinion?

Kanshin: On the one hand, I do share it. Still, I believe that State Duma Committee on defense issues could have expressed its position a little earlier. A day before the scandal with «Oboronservice» burst out there hearings with the minister of defense were held in the State Duma. As far as I know, they passed very smoothly, and this agitated many people. We did not prepare our meeting with you specially for the resignation of Serdyukov, I was invited a week ago. It is a mere coincidence. That is why I want to continue with a proverb. Everyone is dreaming of beating a dead lion. Let’s not beat him.

Oganesyan: We do have not a very good tradition: to push the back of the one leaving, but face-to-face is somewhat…

Kanshin: That is absolutely right. I am also deputy chairman of the Public Council at the Ministry of Defense. All the time I have been criticizing both the minister and many of his assistants for those steps, for those decisions they made.

By the way, it deserves mentioning in favor of Serdyukov, that he always put up with the fact that one of the deputy chairmen of the Public Council at the Ministry of Defense and a famous film director Nikita Mikhalkov, who was then the Chairman of the Public Council at the Ministry of Defense criticized severely the leadership. And we need to pay tribute for the fact that they put up with this, and there were no nit-picking stings from their side. This does credit to them.

But I would like to speak from a wider prospective. During the last days many generals, officers, my former comrades-in-arms, subordinates, friends, with whom we graduated from the academy and high school were calling and coming to the Public Chamber. I retired after serving 20 years in the Army. For 20 years I have been dealing with several other issues — business and public work — while they still continue their service.

They said that in such situation the minister of defense had no moral right to remain his post. And I believe that it is very reasonable that the President has made such a decision. It is just a little pity that the minister of defense did not write an application himself and did not make a statement a little bit earlier, because the world experience shows…

Oganesyan: Indeed, he did make a statement about his resignation himself. He applied himself. Do you believe it was late?

Kanshin: Yes, he should have declared it earlier. And I hope the President then would have accepted his resignation. But now the President made a decision to fire him. It is clear that we need to wait until the investigation is over, but this is the field of legislation. Such post as the minister of defense is first of all in the field of morality and ethics. That is why I believe that everything what happened was correct.

I believe, that the fact that Sergey Kuzhugetovich is coming to this post is also quite reasonable. Serdyukov has done quite a lot while holding the post of a minister of defense. But he was a destroyer, while now we need a creator. Shoigu is a creator.

Oganesyan: A question from Kaliningrad: «The military reform is interested not only to the military circles, but also to our whole society. How do you assess both the reform itself (its goals and reason) and the process of its implementation (what is being done, how efficient it is)?».

Kanshin: Our program from the very beginning doesn’t give us an opportunity to speculate too deeply on this problem, but let’s try to speak conceptually. First of all, what happened? After 20 years we passed to an absolutely new social and economic formation. Figuratively speaking, we passed from socialism to capitalism, but for a long time we were leaving the armed forces in socialism. While changing for new primarily economic relations, we needed the army to follow it as well; that is why the reform was necessary.