KALININGRAD. Nov 16 (Interfax-AVN) - The Russian Baltic Fleet will have provided housing for less than five percent of needy servicemen by the end of 2001, even though it has received the biggest share of funds provided to the Navy for housing construction this year, a fleet official said on Friday.
The fleet accounts for 23.3 percent of allocations for the Navy's housing construction, Lieutenant Colonel Roman Miroshnik, head of the fleet's capital construction department, told Interfax-Military News Agency. It will take the fleet more than 20 years to provide housing to all the needy servicemen if the current construction pace is preserved.
"Originally it was planned that the fleet's capital construction would help provide housing to 253 out of 4,000 needy sailors this year," Miroshnik said. However allocations for the purpose have been reduced, and only 181 flats will be built.
Other fleets, which have more personnel than the Baltic Fleet, receive even less money for housing construction, Miroshnik went on. The Pacific Fleet, Russia's strongest one, gets a bit less than 21 percent of funds provided for the Navy's housing construction.