Russian President Medvedev with Prime Minister Putin and the General Staff. (Photo from Swamp Politics)
From The Washington Post:
Military Overhaul Brings Layoffs, Lost Apartments
USSURIYSK, Russia -- As a young officer fresh out of a Soviet military academy, Alexander Primak was assigned to serve in this frontier city in the Russian Far East, eight time zones away from his home town in Ukraine.
He spent the next quarter-century in the region, moving from garrison to garrison, rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel. But he always dreamed of moving back west, counting on the government's promise to reward officers with apartments upon retirement.
Now, as the Russian government pushes ahead with an overhaul of the military that eliminates the positions of more than half the army's officers, Primak is jobless at age 46 and stuck in Ussuriysk waiting for an apartment he may never get.
Read more ....
My Comment: When I visited my uncle in Saint Petersburg in 1992, I was shocked to see how the state had treated him. He was once a Senior Director in the former Soviet Union's military/space communications program. What I found was an alcoholic who was dependent on his pension (when he received it) and on the support of his children.
His case was not the exception .... (I quickly found that out when I met some of his retired colleagues) .... but instead the rule. It was that experience in 1992 that made me then realize that the Soviet Union as a threat was no more.
It seems that old habits are hard to die. Like my uncle 17 years ago, the men and women who serve in the Russian arm forces .... especially the senior officers .... are not getting the rewards and benefits that were promised to them when they were young.
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