Kremlin Raising Military Pay

Deputy Defense Minister Tatyana Shevtsova told journalists on Friday that military pay and pensions will increase four percent per annum in 2018, 2019, and 2020. RIA Novosti reported that the defense budget will include 18, 22.6, and 41.2 billion rubles each year for that purpose.

Shevtsova said a lieutenant serving as a platoon commander will make 66,100 rubles on average this month. That’s roughly 2,500 rubles more than he earned each month in 2017. A lieutenant colonel battalion commander will add 3,400 rubles making his pay 88,700 per month.

It’s sounds like four percent is being applied to the entire pay package — to rank and duty pay and to supplements [надбавки] that not all serviceman get. If this is the case, four percent won’t have the same monthly impact for officers and contractees not receiving supplemental pay. Past pay increases have typically applied only to rank and duty pay.

Shevtsova’s 18 billion would provide an extra 30,000 rubles a year for 600,000 officers and contractees, but 41.2 billion in 2020 won’t cover that year’s bill. A lieutenant might get an extra 8,000 per month or 96,000 in 2020. Multiply that times 600,000 and the MOD will need 57.6 billion rubles.

Shevtsova says a retired battalion commander will receive an extra 947, 1,932, and 2,956 rubles in his pension every month in 2018, 2019, and 2020. That means the pension for that lieutenant colonel is 23,675 rubles at present. The increase reportedly will go to 2.6 million military pensioners, according to RIA Novosti.

As NVO noted, in June 2017, Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin addressed military pay publicly for the first time since 2012. It hasn’t been indexed for inflation once during the interval according to NVO.

But Putin said he wants to improve the “material stimulus” for the MOD, MVD, FSB, and SVR. With another presidential election looming, he wanted to show he’s still concerned about men in uniform.

This isn’t easy when the federal budgets scarcely have money for it and economic recovery is weak.

Still four percent raises will be welcome. But they won’t make up for the eroded purchasing power of military pay. The CPI in Russia has increased more than 50 percent since May 2012. 

Military men are doing reasonably well in the Russian economic context now.

Shevtsova claimed the average monthly military salary in 2014 was 62,000 rubles, roughly the same as in 2017. She said that was 10 percent more than average pay in Russia’s oil and gas sector, according to RIA Novosti. It also appears to exceed what’s paid to the average worker in defense industries.

As long as that pay arrives on time, their housing needs are met, and their work is the focus of national resources and attention, servicemen should be satisfied with their lot. So it’s interesting that Putin still felt a military pay increase was needed in an election year. But, as some say, campaign promises are made to be broken.