MILITARY SUFFERING CASUALTIES IN WAR GAMES
By Paul Goble
The Moscow Times
Thursday, August 13, 2009
The number of non-combat losses of the armed forces, a figure six to
nine times greater than that claimed by Moscow, reflects the problems
many commanders have in interacting with their counterparts from
other countries during international military maneuvers.
Last year, Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov said his forces had
suffered 471 non-combat deaths, Ruslan Gorevoi reports in the current
issue of "Versiya," but Veronika Marchenko, the head of the Mother’s
Right Foundation, said the actual figure is much higher, closer to
2,500 to 3,000.
The difference between official and unofficial figures, Gorevoi says,
is not simply about intentional underreporting but rather because
the Defense Ministry does not count those who die from injuries after
they have been demobilized or those who die "in the course of joint
military exercises with the armies of other countries."
Both those figures are classified, just as they were in Soviet
times. Gorevoi’s article focuses on the second of these categories,
and he reports that military experts say Russian forces are losing
"approximately 150 to 200" men every year.
That figure, he continues, is approximately the same as the one Soviet
forces suffered 20 years ago, a lack of progress Gorevoi suggests is
the result of Russian armed forces now taking part in up to eight
international exercises each year, whereas in Soviet times, such
exercises occurred "much more rarely – one or two times annually."
According to Gorevoi, the deaths Russian forces are suffering during
joint exercises with the armies of other countries are the result
of a variety of factors. Some are simply the product of sloppy work,
the failure of Russian technicians to ensure that equipment is packed
carefully so that it will work as intended.
Others are the product of secretiveness, either by the Russian
forces or by those with whom they are cooperating. On the one hand,
Gorevoi says, sometimes Russian commanders do not install the latest
technology, such as flotation devices for tanks, and soldiers die
when they are ordered to drive them across rivers.
And on the other, both Russian and foreign armies often are working
with maps that are either outdated or distorted to prevent foreigners
from knowing where things are located. During joint maneuvers last
year with Mongolia, Gorevoi says, map errors caused approximately
100 soldiers from both armies to be fired upon in error.
The journalist notes that similar "cartographic" errors were
responsible for deaths and injuries during Russian exercises with the
Kazakh and Armenian militaries. Most recently, during this summer’s
Peace Mission 2009 maneuvers with China, inaccurate maps led to
approximately 15 Russian deaths and 60 Chinese ones.
But technical issues such as equipment and maps are not the only
problems in these exercises that lead to uncounted non-combat deaths,
Gorevoi continues. Others involve failures to communicate accurately
what each side is supposed to do or even to understand what the games
are intended to look like.
One such disaster took place recently when Kyrgyz commanders suddenly
decided to change the nature of the game and revert to what they had
done in an earlier exercise with Russian forces. Because they did not
make clear their intention, 120 Russian soldiers came under fire and
approximately 15 were killed.
Retired Col. Gen. Leonid Ivashov, the president of the Moscow Academy
of Geopolitical Problems and a frequent critic of the Russian defense
minister, offered the following explanation for why Russian officers
now find it so difficult to participate in joint exercises without
suffering significant losses.
In Soviet times, he pointed out, such problems mostly did not arise:
There were a number of countries in the Warsaw Pact, but they had
"common standards of armament and common approaches to command and
to strategic and tactical planning."
Something like that, Ivashov said, "is being reestablished in the
framework of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, but the time
needed for the restoration will take more than year." And until then,
Russian commanders will have to cope with many more differences than
they were used to – and Russian soldiers are likely to be the victims.