MOSCOW. Aug 26 (Interfax-AVN) - The manning of the 42nd Motorized Rifle Division in Chechnya is proceeding ahead of schedule and may be finished by the end of this year, the Russian Land Forces command told Interfax-Military News Agency on Thursday.
"Sixty percent of the vacancies have been filled by contract, which is more than planned," Land Forces press service chief Yakov Firsov told Interfax-AVN.
"Bearing in mind that staffing of the 42nd Division, which is permanently based in Chechnya, is going ahead of schedule, the division will shift to the new recruitment principle by the end of this year, instead of 2005," he said.
"Hence, the division will no longer have conscripts in its units," he said.
"A commission of the Land Forces command and staff led by Deputy Commander Colonel General Vladimir Bulgakov is working in units of the 42nd division in order to help the command accomplish this mission," Firsov noted.
"The main streams of aid provision are arrangement of contracted personnel accommodation, creation of the allowance system (for distributing money, food, outfit and other kinds of allowance), solution of social problems that contracted servicemen are facing, and arrangement of combat training in units of the 42nd division," he said.
According to Firsov, the commission is also analyzing cases of contract termination.
"The number of contract termination cases is very low, it amounts to 0.1 percent of the total number of contracted servicemen that have arrived in the division. However, the Land Forces command believes that contract termination cases for which commanders or poor candidate selection are to blame must be reduced to zero," Firsov concluded.