MOSCOW (AP) – He once ran a furniture store and later became Russia’s chief tax collector. Now Anatoly Serdyukov finds himself in the unexpected role of chief of one of the world’s largest standing armies – and one that is bloated, corrupt and abuses young conscripts.
Serdyukov’s appointment was part of a government reshuffle announced Thursday by President Vladimir Putin that also elevated previous defense chief Sergei Ivanov to first deputy prime minister.
Ivanov is seen as a Kremlin favorite to succeed Putin next year and his promotion appeared aimed at distancing him from growing scandals over the abuse of young soldiers – including one case in which a conscript’s legs and genitals had to be amputated because of injuries.
The promotion gives Ivanov the same title as Dmitry Medvedev, seen as his main rival to become president, so his move was less a surprise than the elevation of Serdyukov from comparative obscurity.
Serdyukov, 45, began working in a furniture store in 1985 and remained in the furniture business before joining the federal tax service in 2000, according to his official biography.
“The man named as defense minister spent the greater part of his career in a furniture store and doesn’t understand one darn thing about the military,” commentator Alexander Golts wrote in the online Yezhenedelny Zhurnal.
Putin said the military’s General Staff, headed by Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky, will be given increasing sway over military strategy issues. Baluyevsky has taken a consistently tough line against NATO expansion and has threatened Russia could pull out of a missile-reduction treaty if the United States deploys missile defense installations in Eastern Europe.
Putin said Serdyukov’s background and his experience as tax chief would help him ensure rational spending of funds on a massive weapons modernization program.
“The minister will be dealing with military economics, while the General Staff will be controlling the military,” the newspaper Kommersant wrote.
Serdyukov takes over from Ivanov amid efforts to reinvigorate a military that was feared in the Soviet era but which suffered from a desperate funding shortage in the decade after the 1991 Soviet collapse.
Russia’s oil profits have helped overcome some of those shortcomings, but army morale in the 1.2 million-member military has remained low.
The government has begun using burgeoning oil revenues for new weapons and technology modernization for the military _ much of which still uses reliable, though aging hardware.
Ivanov last week laid out an ambitious plan for building new intercontinental ballistic missiles, nuclear submarines and possibly aircraft carriers, as part of a 5 trillion ruble ($190 billion), eight-year modernization program.
Among the new weapons plans are 17 new ballistic missiles this year, the deployment of 34 new silo-based Topol-M missiles and control units, as well as another 50 such missiles mounted on mobile launchers by 2015.
Ivanov also said the modernization program would allow the replacement of 45 percent of existing arsenals with modern weapons systems by 2015 and the commission of 31 new naval vessels, including eight nuclear submarines carrying intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Analysts, however, have warned that building significant numbers of new weapons would pose a daunting challenge to defense plants that received virtually no government orders for a decade following the 1991 Soviet collapse.
Putin is barred from a third consecutive term by the Constitution, and has suggested he may back a successor as the vote draws nearer. A candidate with Putin’s support would have a massive advantage over rivals because of the president’s popularity and the Kremlin’s grip on television and other campaign tools.
Both Ivanov and Medvedev are among the many officials in a clannish Russian leadership whose ties with Putin reach back to his native St. Petersburg, but they represent different parts of that milieu – and possible different courses for Russia’s future.
Kommersant opined that Serdyukov owed his promotion to Viktor Ivanov, Putin’s secretive deputy chief of staff. Ivanov is a leader of the so-called “siloviki,” a group of KGB veterans that wield huge influence over Kremlin politics – and increasingly major business interests.
