KALININGRAD. Nov 2 (Interfax-AVN) - As many as 10,000 flats will have been constructed for servicemen of the Baltic Fleet by 2005, Andrei Stepanov, deputy envoy of President Vladimir Putin to the North-western federal district, told Interfax-Military News Agency on Friday.
At present 4,600 servicemen of the fleet do not have their own flats and 3,441 of them live in the Kalingrad region. The Baltic Fleet will be reduced by 8,600 servicemen by 2005 and almost 1,500 officers and warrant officers will be fired from military service next year alone. After the reduction the fleet will have 30,000 people. According to Stepanov, there are three variants to solve the problem but he refused to disclose them.
Baltic Fleet Commander Vice Admiral Vladimir Valuyev considers non-budget allocations to be one of the ways to solve the problem. According to him, there are commercial companies which are ready to grant large credits for the period of six years if they given metal of decommissioned vessels. According to Polish media, the fleet will have 50 ships in the near future while at present it has 100.