MOSCOW. April 19 (Interfax-AVN) - It will take additional 30 billion Russian rubles ($1.09 billion) to man the Armed Forces with volunteer sergeants, the Russian Defense Ministry said.
"The all-volunteer force federal program envisions contracting almost 50,000 volunteer sergeants. It will take additional 30 billion rubles to contract another 60,000 sergeants," Rear Admiral Yury Nuzhdin, deputy head of the Defense Ministry's Personnel Support Directorate, said in an interview with the Trud newspaper, published on Wednesday.
Nuzhdin also said that the Defense Ministry expected to restore the institution of guardhouses and expand disciplinary rights of company-level commissioned officers.
"The State Duma has been discussing the bill since May 2005. We hope that it will pass the bill in the second reading this spring," he said.
He also emphasized that the new institution of disciplinary courts, expected to be established in military units, was next on the agenda. He did not agree that it was undemocratic to put soldiers in the guardhouse.
Commenting on foreign experience, Nuzhdin said that a USS captain could lock up a guilty sailor in a punishing cell for up to 30 days and deprive him of his money allowance. Heavy offenses envisioned a lock-up of up to two months and no money allowance for up to three months.
"No one says such practice is undemocratic and that it violates human rights," Nuzhdin said.