Kuznetsova, whose organization works to provide information and legal aid regarding military law, noted numerous examples of flagrant violations of conscript’ rights during the conference, citing a steep cut in military funding as a key source of problems.

During this past draft, she said, military enlistment offices employed policemen to detain and deliver young men found without a registration slip, a document legally required to be carried at all times by Russians. Moreover, some of these men were not even Russian citizens, making them most likely illegal immigrants who would have virtually no chance of avoiding conscription into the Russian army.

In this way, she said, the enlistment offices hoped to meet their quotas.

Once recruited, Kuznetsova went on, the young men were often examined by medical students who had no authority to practice medicine. Even so, there were still not enough medical personnel on hand to deal with the large number of conscripts.

The Russian military cut its planned draft to 271 thousand recruits for Fall 2009, still a staggering figure given the massive cuts in funding and personnel that the military faced this past year.

In a particularly striking example of the lengths enlistment officers went to in order to meet their quotas, Kuznetsova noted the case of a young man with cerebral palsy, who was brought to a recruitment center and told by a military commissioner that “they’ll cure him in the army.”

Ella Polyakova, a representative of Soldiers’ Mothers in St. Petersburg, said that many instances of severe medical problems were observed in various conscription centers. An epidemic of pneumonia, many cases of angina, and three fatal cases of swine flu were seen plaguing the new recruits. Additionally, one new conscript had committed suicide.

The office of the military prosecutor had been markedly less helpful during the past year in response to requests for help from the Soldiers’ Mothers than in the past, said Polyakova, saying that it had “stepped aside.”

Russian men are eligible for the country’s mandatory military draft between the ages of 18 and 27. It is officially avoidable by obtaining a certified medical diagnosis or through university enrollment. The vast majority of eligible Russians go to great lengths to dodge the draft, due to the infamous brutality, mistreatment and lack of compensation faced by enlisted soldiers. One horrific hazing incident in 2005 left one conscript with no legs or genitals. In recent years, the military has stepped up attempts to catch those dodging the draft, as Russia’s ongoing low birth rate has drastically reduced the number of eligible men.

As the RIA Novosti news agency reports, Serdyukov made the announcement at a joint conference of the Defense Ministry and the Main Military Procuracy.

The predominant crime among officers is abuse of authority and the powers of office (46%), which includes corruption.  Serdyukov said the damage done by these crimes amounts to around 1.5 billion rubles (€34 or $47 million) yearly.  Officers have also been found guilty of dodging active service, as well as assault and battery.

The Defense Minister believes the situation is partly caused by a weak educational groundwork among officers.

“Arrangements are not made for open discussion of officer misconduct at service conferences or officer meetings,” Serdyukov said.  He called on military prosecutors to join forces “in resolving this important and complex problem, to work out concrete measures for reducing the level of criminality among officers of the Armed Forces in the near-term.”

“We are not content with the level of legal knowledge and the effectiveness of individual performance,” Serdyukov noted.  Crimes are frequently hushed-up before the military community and military families, he added.

“The formal relationships of some bosses to determining the best officers for 2008 has led to a situation, where far from the best have ended up among those given encouragement through monthly bonuses.”

A milk war is brewing.  After Russia banned the import of milk products from Belarus on June 6th, relations between the two countries have become increasingly strained.  The situation escalated when Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko withdrew from attending a meeting of the Collective Security Treaty Organization on Sunday, a group idealized by Russia as a counterweight to NATO.

Defense expert Aleksandr Golts examines the conflict, delving into its roots and questioning Russia’s intentions and need for a regional alliance like the CSTO.  The article first ran in the Yezhednevny Zhurnal online newspaper.

A Meat and Milk Defense
Aleksandr Golts
June 15, 2009
Yezhednevny Zhurnal

Do you remember the old joke, how in the Red Square, after the intercontinental rockets, a column of people with deer-skin hats and briefcases in their hands march out, walking in step.  “And here are the Gosplan workers,” the announcer triumphantly declares, “our most destructive weapon.”  As recent events show, now, after the rockets, people in white lab coats with technical regulations tucked into their arms –our health inspectors—should be sent in the parade.  Even before now, I knew that [Chief Sanitary Inspectors] Gennady Onishchenko was an incredibly influential, and most importantly, independent civil servant.  Fighting for the health of people under his jurisdiction, he prohibited the import of Moldovan wine and Georgian Borzhomi [mineral water] without compromise.  And to the fact that these bouts of fighting for the nation’s health only made an appearance when Vladimir Putin was taking offense at the Moldovan and Georgian president– well, this was certainly just a random coincidence.

And now Gennady Grigoryevich’s commitment to health threatens to do more than just complicate Russia’s relations with its neighbors.  With one stroke of his pen, Onishchenko put the existence of the Collective Security Treaty Organization [CSTO] at risk –one of the Kremlin’s most important diplomatic projects.  Not long ago, everything was just marvelous: Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan were improving their collective security day and night.  Establishing a Collective Rapid Reaction Force (CRRF) was on the agenda.  “Just as good as NATO,” as [Russian President] Dmitri Medvedev announced at the last summit.  And the fact that Belarus was supposed to chair the CSTO merely raised hopes of an improvement of military integration of the seven states.  Alexander Grigoryevich Lukashenko directly promised this a month ago: “In the period of the Belarus presidency, the work of the CSTO has always been stepped up.  We would wish for this revitalization to continue the next time Belarus chairs the organization.”

And all this would be wonderful, if not for the overly-principled Gennady Onishchenko.  After Lukashenko called for his ministers to stop sucking up to Russia and promised to reorient [the country] towards markets in other countries, the head of Rospotrebnadzor [Federal Service for Supervision in Consumer Rights Protection and Human Welfare] (by a random coincidence) banned the importation of all milk products from Belarus.  And this accounts for more than 90 percent of Belarusian milk exports.  What started then in Minsk was what Dmitri Medvedev later called “milk and meat hysterics.”

Lukashenko refused to come to Moscow and “step up” the work of the CSTO.  The Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MID) announced: “The reason for our non-participation in the current session of the CSTO is Belarus’ categorial disagreement over adopting CSTO decisions aimed at reinforcing military and political security, under conditions and while the economic security of one of the Organization’s members is openly undermined.  In this case – the Republic of Belarus.”

And when, despite the absence of a Belarusian delegation and an objection from Uzbekistan, five governments signed documents defining the system of how the CRRF would function, be formed and implemented, Minsk clearly and explicitly declared, that the adopted resolutions were illegitimate, since they were adopted without consensus, contrary to the [CSTO] charter.

In reality, this is a condemnation of the CSTO.  Minsk, in a state of extreme aggravation, somehow managed to say the bare truth: the ability to receive money from Russia is much more important to Belarus then any collective work to repel some mythical military threat.

Two types of security organizations exist.  On the one hand, there is a military alliance.  The necessary condition is a common military threat to all participants, whose presence smoothes out internal conflicts.  NATO was created on these principles, and as soon as the USSR fell apart, the North-Atlantic alliance faced an identity crisis.  Members of the CSTO have different threats. Armenia has Azerbaijan.  The Central Asian governments have the expansion of radical islam from Afghanistan.  As well as the internal instability of weak authoritarian regimes.  And whatever resolutions about rapid response forces may be adopted, it is still impossible to imagine Kazakh commandos fighting on Armenia’s side against Azerbaijan, or Belarusian paratroopers deploying into Uzbekistan.

The second option is an agreement between countries that are suspicious of each other’s intentions.  The OSCE can serve as an example of such an alliance.  In this case, the participants should agree on common rules of conduct, measures of mutual trust.  It must be said, that the mutual relations of the CSTO member-states are far from perfect.  Literally a week before the summit, Uzbekistan began to raise seven-meter-tall [23 foot] walls and digging a trench on its border with Kyrgyzstan.  And in earlier times, Uzbekistan mined all of its borders with Tajikistan.  Nevertheless, the question of measures of mutual trust has never been put before the CSTO -it isn’t customary for allies to openly speak about their mistrust for each other.  As result, the CSTO is not too useful for repelling an external threat and pointless for supporting domestic security.

In actual fact, the CSTO is a reflection of the hang-ups that Russian leaders have.  Those cursed “Yankees” have scores of allies—anyone wants to form an alliance with Washington.  But Moscow has no one, and consequently needs to force the former Republics of the USSR to enter into an allied relationship with Russia.  The presence of actual threats is not important, and neither is geographic location.  As result, states that are thousands of kilometers apart have ended up in the CSTO.  Setting up military interaction with them is physically impossible.  The CSTO in essence represents a set of two-sided agreements between individual countries and Moscow.  Fundamentally, these agreements are not at all about security threats.  They simply show the readiness of these states to play out a ritual gesture of homage to the Kremlin leadership in exchange for Russian money.

Alexander Lukashenko worked out what was in his mind the ideal system of relations with Russia.  He regularly declared a readiness to reinforce joint defense against NATO, receiving billions from Russia in return.  Concurrently, the money went to subsidize Belarusian industry, which then sold to the same Russia at artificially lowered prices.

The crisis, however, somewhat changed the situation.  Russia had less, much less money.  And Moscow tried to at least somewhat control the billions of dollars being sent to Minsk.  As result it received milk and meat hysterics.  In truth, Lukashenko was honestly keeping his end of the bargain, reciting his intention to resist the non-existent NATO threat.  And the Kremlin didn’t wish to pay for it.  And “batka” [a slang word for Lukashenko, lit. father] immediately showed that milk and meat relations were far more important for him than all of this rubbish about joint defense.  Read once more into the Belarusian statement: It is pointless to adopt resolutions about reinforcing military and political security, while Belarusian economic interests are suffering.  I haven’t read such an honest political statement in a long time.

Equally egoistic is the approach of Uzbekistan, which refused to sign the CRRF agreement.  Tashkent is very concerned that these agreements will open the doors for interference in Uzbekistan’s internal affairs, where as is plainly evident, a social implosion is imminent.  And the possibility of such interference, frankly speaking, is Russia’s only rational interest in the realm of security.  Internal conflicts in Central Asia can result in an enormous amount of refugees, and at the same time a sharp growth in the illegal trade of narcotics and arms, as well as armed gangs entering onto Russian territory.  To answer these real threats, Russia would do well to negotiate articulate, mutually binding two-sided agreements with the problem states.

And as for the CSTO, then as an extremely artificial construction, it will live only as long as Russia can pay its partners without demanding money in return.  I suspect that in the near future, Onishchenko will have plenty of occasions to demonstrate his world-famous commitment to principles.

translation by theotherrussia.org

State Duma representative Anatoly Lokot, of the Russian Communist Party, said the protestors had three demands: to call off the disbandment of the brigade, to dismiss Defense Minster Anatoly Serdyukov, and to completely stop army reforms.  A corresponding resolution with signatures from local residents has also been prepared.  Lokot promised to deliver the appeal personally to President Medvedev.

The Defense ministry has discussed plans to disband the special forces brigade since the start of the year, as part of sweeping reforms introduced by Serdyukov.  Alexander Postnikov, colonel-general of the Siberian Military District, confirmed the intention in a visit to the brigade in late February.  According to reports last year, Serdyukov’s extensive reforms have led to discontent among top officers, several of whom quit in protest as result.

In Berdsk, a satellite of Novosibirsk, the decision has made local leaders uneasy.  The city council has asked the Russian leadership to cancel the decision, which would put hundreds of people out of work.  Lokot also sent a request to the Defense Ministry.  Neither petition has received an answer.

The region’s governor, Viktor Tolokonsky, had earlier pledged that regional authorities would help those servicemen moved from active duty to the reserves.  Tolokonsky promised support in education and job placement to let soldiers adapt to civilian life.

Lokot was not optimistic.  The disbandment, he said, will “lead to social burdens, under conditions where it’s already impossible to find a job.”

Fridinsky told the paper that the total cost from corruption in the Russian army was estimated at over two billion rubles ($56.8 or €44.1 million) in 2008.  Two thirds of crimes involving corruption were committed by the officer corps, and crimes on the part of highly ranked officers increased by a third over the previous year.  A large share of criminal acts likely remain unnoticed and unprosecuted.

Some recent scandals in the armed forces include a large-scale plot involving employees of the Ministry of Defense’s central office.  The swindle, revealed in September, involved selling rocket fuel to companies at 40 times less than market value, listing it as unusable.  The same bureaucrats would then buy back the propellant at the market rate.  According to Fridinsky, this particular scheme cost the treasury some 430 million rubles ($12.2 or €9.5 million).

A further eight criminal cases were launched against officers in the ground forces central command.  The group allegedly embezzled funds allocated to provide housing for active officers, at a total cost of around 250 million rubles ($7.1 or €5.5 million).  Another housing scandal involving leading facilities personnel, including general-lieutenant Sergei Dvuluchansky and colonel Boris Sigida came to light in late 2008 (Rus).

In Chechnya, a group of officers was found to have stolen 102 million rubles ($2.9 or €2.2 million) designated for paying taxes.  Fridinsky notes that 46 million were recovered, and that the investigation was ongoing.

Many of the other military crimes of 2008 involved smaller sums or did not involve fraud or embezzlement.  Twenty individuals, for instance, were charged with driving other soldiers to commit suicide.

In total, around 20,000 crimes were reported, around the same as in 2007.

—

A Leopard Named Seal
Aleksandr Golts
November 10, 2008
Yezhednevny Zhurnal

If it were up to me, I would strictly forbid Russian commanders from making statements about the constantly growing might of our armed forces. Remember, all it took was for Vladimir Putin to call a Security Council and declare the coming ascent of our defense capabilities, when the Kursk submarine sank. Afterwards, speaking with his subordinate public in 2006, Putin boasted that a new class of missile carrying submarines would be introduced in the near future. Then it became clear that there were no missiles for them. Yet another test of the Bulava rocket ended in failure. And now it appears that that this increased “foresight” gets passed on with the Kremlin Cabinet.

Already we see Dmitri Medvedev declaring in his Address to the Federal Assembly: “Regarding the re-equipment of the army and navy with new, modern equipment, I have already taken the relevant decisions.” And two days later, [Russia’s] “newest” atomic submarine, the Nerpa [(Russian for seal)], has an accident during its sea trials resulting in the deaths of twenty people. To all appearances, the fire-extinguishing system turned on my mistake. In this case, all compartments are closed off, and all the space is filled with inert gas. Those located in the compartments were doomed to death.

Representatives of the naval forces rushed to assert that the boat had not been handed over to the navy, and that its crew was from the factory. The subtext is very simple – nothing can be blamed on the Admirals, all the more so since most of those killed were civilians. However, the fact that the military officers dodged the bullet extremely dexterously (they have a wealth of experience –they explained that the Kursk was sunk by the Americans, and that the Bulava had an “electrical discharge”) does not provide an explanation for the accident.

In truth, the tragedy illuminates all the problems of re-equipping our armed forces. It just so happens that I saw this atomic submarine eight years ago, in October 2000. Though truth be told, it was named the Bars [(Russian for leopard)] then. And it was the most dangerous unfinished construction project in the Russian Federation. Fifteen submarines of this class were built in the USSR. The Bars was pledged either in 1991 or 1993 at the Amur shipbuilding facility. And construction middled along until the mid-90s, as long as stockpiles of components built during Soviet times still remained (it was assumed that armaments must be built even during atomic warfare). Afterwards, both money and components dried up.

I caught the factory’s management at a practically catch-22 situation. The ship was built to 85 percent –but nobody wanted it. Moreover, the submarine was already equipped with an atomic reactor. As result, the small amount of money sent to the plant from the [federal] budget was spent on maintaining the necessary temperature in the docks. And since it had become dangerous, getting rid of it was anything but simple. “Salvaging it is more expensive than finishing it,” the factory’s general director, Nikolai Povzyk, had asserted then. “To cut out the reactor, the ship must be hauled by sea to Bolshoi Kamen, to the plant where Pacific fleet submarines are reclaimed. And that’s more than a hundred kilometers. Besides, then the ship would need to be hauled back. Their plant isn’t designed to take apart such gigantic ships.”

The whole city was full of rumors that the ship would be sold at any moment, or would be leased to India. Ten years later, the rumors started to match with reality. Stories appeared in both Russian and Indian newspapers that the sub had been leased to India.

But by all accounts, the ship was not completed with Indian money. Some good fortune happened. Not with the Amur shipbuilding facility. With the whole country. Oil prices rose. The government had enough money to complete the Bars, now renamed the Nerpa. Roughly the same thing happened with all the other weapons systems, which have now been declared “ultramodern.” [The authorities] decided to produce them. However, the Topol-M rocket, the Su-34 and Su-35 aircraft, the tanks and mechanized infantry vehicles were all developed in the 80s. That is to say 20 years ago. This military hardware can only be called modern because up until now, no one manufactured it. There is even less basis to consider military hardware like the Nerpa, which was built painfully and at great lengths over 15 years, to be up-to-date. Only God knows what happened to the submarine’s equipment, as it sat in the slip dock for several years. Even more questions come up regarding who worked on completing it and how they did it. The Nerpa is the only submarine from the Amur factory to be launched in fifteen years. During this time, the work crews changed more than once. Those who built atomic submarines one after another in the 70s and 80s have either quit or gone into retirement. The average age of workers in Russia’s defense establishment is nearing 60. And that’s on average, in all branches, including those with reasonably good wages. What can one say about those working at the factory, who scraped by on bread and water for more than ten years.

Does this mean that any attempt to re-equip the Russian army is doomed to failure? Not in the least. We simply need to cease competing with the US, define the priorities of military construction and concentrate on them. Then, we will have the means to resolve and debug any element of military hardware in a quality way before we start using it.

translation by theotherrussia.org

The blogger’s conclusions coincide with a detailed report by Michael Totten, titled “The Truth About Russia in Georgia,” and question the widely reported conclusion that Georgia acted the aggressor in the conflict.

—

Interview with a wounded company commander from the 135th motorized rifle regiment, in “Red Star,” [a Russian military newspaper]

“We were doing exercises,” captain Sidristy’s story starts. “This was relatively close to the capital of South Ossetia. Nizhny Zaramakh is a wilderness area in North Ossetia. We made camp there after our scheduled exercises, but on August 7th, the order came to move out towards Tskhinvali. We were raised to a state of alarm, and went on the march. We arrived, settled in, and already on August 8th the fire came down with such force that many even lost their bearings. No, everyone understood that Georgia was preparing something, but it was hard to even imagine what we saw. Immediately after midnight, a massive shelling of the city and peacekeeping positions was started. They hit it from all types of weapons, including artillery rocket systems.”

[Full interview with Denis Sidritsy available from Red Star (Rus)]

Analysis by LiveJournal user davnym_davno

1.The regiment, which is permanently posted in the township of Prokhladny, close to Nalchik, [Kabardino-Balkar Republic], after finishing its exercises (August 2nd), was stationed to Nizhny Zaramag.

2.Nizhny Zaramag is located several kilometers from the northern entrance of the Roki tunnel, and a border station and customs office is located in this town.

3.On August 7th, the regiment received the order to move out toward Tskhinvali, was raised to a state of alarm, and before the end of the day, managed to arrive to its objective destination.

4.After midnight, the lights of the bombardment of Tskhinvali could be seen from the regiment’s position.

5.The site of the regiment’s position is not specified, but it is evident that the regiment passed through the Roki tunnel. Since:

*There would be no point in raising the regiment to a state of alarm to advance it two kilometers to the entrance of the Roki tunnel. With such a formation, the tail end of the column would still be in Nizhny Zaramag.

*Being located to the north of the Greater Caucasus Mountain Range [which the tunnel crosses], it would impossible to observe the lights of an artillery attack of Tskhinvali.

6.Going on the basis of the words, “we arrived, settled in,” one can draw the conclusion that the column did not as yet spend the night by the side of the road, but unloaded in a place where it was possible to provide the military personnel with food and a night’s rest.

7.Between the Roki tunnel and Tskhinvali, there is only one such place: Java.

Conclusion: the 135th motorized rifle regiment entered the territory of South Ossetia before the start of Georgia’s attack on Tskhinvali.

As is customary to say in such situations, ‘I rest my case, your honor!’

Georgia entered the war after Russia’s incursion onto its territory, in order to avert the threat of the country’s takeover, and forced regime change. In these circumstances, the attack on Tskhinvali was a tactical military objective, aimed at holding the enemy at bay in Java until the rest of the world reacted to what had happened.

The Georgian armed forces handled their objective even better that I expected. And you know yourselves what happened afterwards.

translation by theotherrussia.org

According to Zavarzin, precision-guided weaponry may be installed on Kaliningrad’s border regions with Poland.

Russia is acting tough after Warsaw signed agreements on locating an American missile defense base housing 10 interceptor rockets in Poland, some 185 kilometers from Russian soil.

Responding to a journalist’s question, Zavarzin said that there was no present need to put nuclear weapons in Kaliningrad. However, he said the proposal had been floated, and that it “does not fall under the scope of agreements and negotiations on strategic stability, which we are holding with the Americans.” The decision, he said, was ultimately left to the commander-in-chief. At present, the colonel-general said, Russia needs to modernize its surface, underwater and coastal divisions.

Mikhail Babich, Zavarzin’s deputy on the committee, told Gazeta.ru that placing a missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic was a hostile act on the part of the US, and confirmed that Russia was planning a symmetrical response.

“We are developing a series of measures for a symmetrical response to the USA in the context of the deployment of ABM [ballistic missile defense] in Poland and the Czech Republic, and other hostile acts,” Babich said. “They are being developed to guarantee Russia’s safety and as a response in case of a strike on our territory.”

Meanwhile, defense experts questioned by the publication were skeptical about the need for precision-guided weapons and tactical nuclear arms in Russia’s western enclave. Russia’s army, they said, had other hardware that already guaranteed the safety of the country’s western border.

—

Related stories:

US General Warns Russia Over Cuban Bomber Deployment

Missile Defense and Hot Air from the Russian Foreign Ministry

In the words of a Defense Ministry employee, the current budget requests were prepared before the war in South Ossetia, and now need to be amended.

Combat has apparently shown some deficiencies in the Russian armed forces, with military officials saying their forces had inferior equipment to that used by Georgian troops.

The military leadership also plans to equip Russian combat vehicles with night vision instruments, tactical communications equipment and reconnaissance assets, including unmanned drones.

Reports said that 74 Russian soldiers lost their lives in the war, and 171 were injured.

At a Wednesday briefing, Anatoly Nogovitsyn, the Deputy Head of the Russian General Staff, acknowledged that four Russian planes had been downed in the conflict. Calling this a serious problem, the Colonel-General said that the Georgian Air Defense, which was trained by Ukrainian specialists, posed a major threat to the Russian Air Force. Ukrainian experts were familiar with Russian technology, Nogovitsyn said, which hadn’t changed significantly since the days of the Soviet Union. Nogovitsyn also acknowledged the difficulty of air reconnaissance in smoky conditions, and the low efficiency of Russian electronic warfare, which similarly remained unchanged since the collapse of the USSR.

According to Igor Korotchenko, a member Defense Ministry’s Public Council, outfitting Russia’s troops in the Caucasus with the proper equipment would cost at least 50 billion rubles.

“I think we should stand strong and indicate that that is something that crosses a threshold, crosses a red line, for the United States of America,” General Norton Schwartz said at a confirmation hearing in Washington on Tuesday. The General is nominated to be the U.S. Air Force chief of staff.

The General’s statement came in response to an article published in the Izvestia newspaper (Rus), which quoted a high-ranking unnamed source within Russia’s military establishment. The source indicated that Russia may bring strategic nuclear bombers to Cuba in response to the construction of a US Missile Defense Shield in Poland and the Czech Republic. “While they are deploying the missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic, our strategic bombers will already be landing in Cuba,” the source reportedly said. It remained unclear if bombers would be stationed in Cuba, or would use bases there to refuel.

Russia has spoken out vehemently against the construction of a US anti-missile system close to its borders, and has called the system a threat to its national security. Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that the country would “be forced to react not in a diplomatic fashion but with military methods,” if elements of the system went forward.

Russian authorities declined to comment on the Izvestia report, although some military officials welcomed any steps that would enhance Russia’s global influence. Mikhail Oparin, a former commander of a Russian base in Cuba, which was closed in 2001, told the Interfax news agency that “Russia’s air fleet must work towards a presence in every corner of the world.”

Shortly after the Czech Republic signed an agreement with the US on the placement of anti-missile radar there, oil shipments from Russia were halved. Transneft, the Russian state-run pipeline monopoly claimed this was the result of technical reasons, although some experts saw political motivations. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin later ordered the government to ensure that there be no more shortfalls.

The US has maintained that its anti-missile system is targeted at defending against a possible attack from Iran, and that it poses no threat to Russian security.

Still, the placement of the system has drawn wide public scorn, with various proposals on how to respond.

Alexander Pikaev, the head of the disarmament and conflict settlement department of the Russian Academy of Sciences, spoke of one method to RIA Novosti (Rus):

“If Russian consumers were to forgo Czech beer in protest of the deployment of American radar, after, of course, all the ratification procedures, which may not even take place there, then this would likely be a serious response, more serious than restricting the supply of oil or a note of protest by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.”