4000 to be dismissed from the Northern Fleet

So far there has been no official information about the cutbacks in the Northern Fleet, but different sources say that 4000 employees will be dismissed as part of the ongoing military reforms in Russia.

- I believe there could be major unemployment problems as a consequence of the reductions, Voloshin says to the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda. – We had a similar situation in the 1990-s, when we had to re-educate and find work for navy personnel, but now the town administration has very limited possibilities to contribute on the process.

Personnel, who have served long enough to obtain housing certificates, will surely leave for central parts of Russia, but this will be the minority. The rest will have to stay in Severomorsk and cope with their problems on their own.

- Minister of Defence Anatoly Serdyukov’s claim that all dismissed personnel will be given jobs, is nothing more than cheap populism, says Sergey Klimenchenko, Lieutenant Colonel in the reserve and Head of the regional department of the military servicemen’s trade union. – Nobody says anything about how this is supposed to be done, and from my own experience, I believe that people will be put on the street and left to their own devices, Klimenchenko says.

Klimenchenko fears possible social unrest if thousands of people are dismissed at the same time as a consequence of the financial crisis and the military reforms.