MOSCOW. Aug 25 (Interfax-AVN) - The Russian army has spent about two billion Russian rubles ($68.44 million) on implementing the program of transition to volunteer manning, the Land Forces press service said on Wednesday.
"About two billion out of nearly five billion rubles ($171.1 million) assigned to the Armed Forces for implementing the program of transition to volunteer manning in 2004 have been spent," press service chief Colonel Yakov Firsov told Interfax- Military News Agency. He was citing Land Forces Chief-of-Staff Colonel General Alexander Morozov, who attended a training session of unit commanders in the town of Nakhabino outside Moscow on Wednesday.
"Most of the funds were spent on creating and improving the troops' social infrastructure. Dormitories for volunteers and other social facilities have been built in many garrisons, and the service housing fund has grown by 24,000 apartments since last year," Firsov said.
"At the training session, unit commanders were assigned the mission to focus their efforts on attracting current active-duty servicemen to professional service. These people know their profession better than many reservists, they are also better in handling of arms and military hardware, and many even have combat experience," he noted.
Firsov recalled that the federal purpose-oriented program provides for making 95,000 positions of privates and sergeants professional before 2007.
"We will have to man 31 military units with volunteers in 2005 alone," he stressed.
The training session also addressed arrangement and planning of combat training in military units manned mostly with professionals. The event featured a demonstrative exercise.