Military installations in the Kuriles. Military facilities will be built on the Kuril Islands

Deputy Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation Ruslan Tsalikov / Photo: function.mil.ru

Yesterday, Deputy Defense Minister Ruslan Tsalikov and Director of Spetsstroy Alexander Volosov checked the construction of infrastructure facilities for military camps on the Iturup and Kunashir islands of the Kuril chain.

During the working trip, R. Tsalikov and A. Volosov inspected the construction sites of the infrastructure facilities of the machine gun and artillery division stationed on the southern islands of the Kuril ridge.

“During the construction of new military camps, technological solutions are used that take into account the climatic and seismic features of the region of deployment”

The construction of military and social facilities on the islands of the Kuril chain has not been carried out since the late 1960s. At present, the forces of Spetsstroy of Russia in Kunashir and Iturup have launched a large-scale construction of two base military camps according to standard designs. Under the terms of state contracts, a phased construction of residential and barracks zones, a utility and warehouse zone and sectors of club and sports facilities is envisaged.

Next year, builders will have to complete reconstruction and new construction of more than 220 facilities, including more than 40 residential buildings and dormitories, 2 schools, 2 kindergartens, 2 universal sports complexes with a swimming pool, ice rinks, canteens, hospitals and clinics, shops, cafes, as well as combat training facilities and supporting infrastructure.

The commissioning of infrastructure facilities for military camps will be carried out in stages, as the launch complexes are ready. During the construction of new military camps, technological solutions are used that take into account the climatic and seismic features of the deployment region.

Following the results of the trip, R. Tsalikov instructed to increase the pace of construction work and optimize the processes associated with the passage of state examinations. He recalled that the construction of military infrastructure facilities on the Kuril Islands is monitored weekly by the leadership of the military department during thematic conference calls at the National Defense Control Center.

Construction of military facilities / Photo: function.mil.ru

reference Information

Currently, more than 250 complex facilities are being built and reconstructed on the territory of the Central and Eastern Military Districts, including housing construction for 16.8 thousand apartments in Syzran, Vilyuchinsk, Engels, Krasnoyarsk, Novosibirsk, Khabarovsk, Vladivostok, Ulan-Ude and other cities.

In addition, in accordance with the plans for the development of the Armed Forces, more than 20 constituent entities of the Russian Federation are equipping the existing and building a new infrastructure for quartering troops, and active construction is underway in the Arctic zone.

The construction and arrangement of military camps is carried out according to standard projects using the technology of prefabricated steel structures and mobile shelters.

MOSCOW, Press Service and Information Department of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation
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The Japanese Foreign Ministry has already responded to this information, saying that Tokyo is "closely monitoring the movement of Russian troops" and is studying the issue of building a Russian Navy base in the Kuril Islands. So why would Russia need a base in the Kuril Islands, the appearance of which will certainly provoke discontent on the Japanese side, and where will it be located?

To begin with, from a military point of view, the Kuriles should be considered a strategic territory, if only because we still do not have a peace treaty on these borders with our closest neighbor Japan, and the islands of Kunashir, Shikotan, Iturup and the Habomai archipelago Tokyo still considers its "northern territories". At the same time, the United States has its military installations on the territory of Japan itself.

In particular, the Japanese island of Okinawa is of great strategic importance for the United States. In fact, this is an outpost of the Pentagon in the Pacific Ocean. It deployed a whole network of military bases, training grounds and airfields. There is a US military air base Kadena, which plays an important role for the American presence in Southeast Asia. In addition, there are approximately 16,000 US Marines serving at Camp Hansen, Camp Schwab, and Camp Zookeran. In total, about 30,000 US troops are stationed in Okinawa - about half of the entire US military contingent in Japan.

Even if it is theoretically assumed that a potential enemy captures the Russian Kuriles, this immediately opens up for him a direct path to the entire territory of Russia from the Pacific Ocean. That is why in Soviet times the Kuriles were reliably protected by large groupings of troops. In particular, a powerful division of the Marine Corps was stationed there. But then, with the collapse of the Union, the number of troops in the Kuriles began to rapidly decrease. It was expensive to supply troops from the center, the authorities rarely got there for inspections, and numerous reformers preferred to “cut” and “optimize” rather than prove the need to strengthen the Far Eastern group. So, in fact, the current decision to create a naval base here is just a restoration of the "status quo" - the previously existing situation.

It is known that today the 18th machine gun and artillery division, numbering up to three and a half thousand people, is based in the Kuriles. It is well equipped with self-propelled artillery, air defense systems, rocket artillery and tanks. An attack from the sea on the island of Kunashir is capable of repelling the Bal complexes, and on the Iturup island - the Bastion complexes.

In addition to missile systems, coastal units are reinforced with Leer-3 universal highly automated systems, which include control stations and Orlan-10 drones, which can use various types of troops - from motorized riflemen and tankers to electronic warfare units.

However, according to the military, for the antiamphibious defense of the islands, as well as for a more tangible military presence of Russia in the area, especially given that the Japanese still claim them, it is still necessary to strengthen the naval grouping.

Now parts of the Pacific Fleet there are actually divided into two components - one is based in Vilyuchinsk, the other - in Vladivostok. "An intermediate base is absolutely necessary," said Alexander Khramchikhin, deputy director of the Institute for Political and Military Analysis.

It is not yet clear which of the Kuril Islands will become the site for the deployment of a new military facility of the Russian fleet. But the military department has been thinking about this task for a long time. Our sailors have repeatedly carried out many months of expeditionary trips around the islands of the Great Kuril ridge with the aim (Sergey Shoigu himself told about this) to study the possibility of a promising basing of the forces of the Pacific Fleet.

In particular, the joint expedition of the Ministry of Defense and the Russian geographical society(it, by the way, as well as the military department is also headed by Sergei Shoigu) visited the island of Matua, which the Japanese used during the Second World War as a naval and air base.

Matua is an island in the middle of the Kuril chain, formed by volcanic activity. By the way, Japan does not claim it, which is important if we consider the island as a potential site for the base of the Russian Navy. From this point of view, Matua is very well located. There are still three runways left from the Japanese. And the participants of the joint expedition were very surprised when they found that, taking into account the wind rose, even the most modern aircraft can still land on these runways in almost any weather conditions.

According to a number of military experts, it is this island that is most likely to be considered as the location of the new Russian naval base.

A few years ago, the Russian government turned its attention to the Kuriles as a Russian outpost in the Far East, deciding to create (primarily in Iturup and Kunashir) an updated military and social infrastructure based on the one that existed since Soviet times.

Construction work in the active phase began in the second half of 2014. In a relatively short time, the forces of contracting organizations: Spetsstroy Rossii and Instrakt-Proekt carried out a preparatory stage for the normal operation of construction units. Temporary comfortable housing was prepared for workers and engineers (two residential towns are now functioning). Meals are organized in canteens, a bathhouse and laundries with dryers (an important moment in the Kuril Islands with their unstable and dank weather). Delivered, mainly from the mainland, and placed the necessary contingent of qualified specialists: from drivers to concrete carpenters. They brought building materials, fuel and lubricants and the necessary new construction equipment: truck cranes, excavators, bulldozers, dump trucks and more. And the construction process began - both in the village of Goryachiye Klyuchi and in Burevestnik.

Pit pits appeared and the foundations of buildings began to be built. But then, for some time, there was a pause in construction work due to the fact that the Russian Ministry of Defense decided to increase the number of construction projects in all areas of the military social infrastructure in the Kuriles. And this led to the need to expand the built-up areas and, accordingly, to conduct additional surveys and design work.

Construction has resumed today. In Goryachichi Klyuchi, a residential complex of two-story buildings continues to be built. At the first stage, six such buildings should be built. The basis for them are steel frames sheathed with light hinged panels. Such structures are safe during earthquakes: they are designed for tremors with a force of up to nine or more points. In parallel, all engineering networks are connected to them: electrical, thermal, plumbing and sanitation.

It is planned to start construction of the Leisure and Sports Center in the near future, next in line is a hospital with 100 beds (medical and paramedical staff are already being recruited), a school and a kindergarten. Outdoor sports grounds will also be created. That is, everything will be done so that military personnel and their families, as well as civilian service personnel, do not feel cut off from the mainland. One thing will be required of them - to serve and work more efficiently than in the past. In order to intensify construction work in the future, we must mount another household camp for 150 people (now more than 300 people work) and add the number of construction equipment in anticipation of the already beginning warm season. But in order to accommodate the above objects, that is, to prepare construction sites for them, according to the construction management, it is necessary to demolish a number of existing old buildings and transfer engineering networks.

In addition to social facilities, active construction of military training campuses, parks for military equipment, storage facilities and warehouses for various purposes is underway. It is planned that some objects will be presented for acceptance by the state commission by the summer of this year.

It should be noted that more than 30 years have passed since the Soviet period of the construction of military camps on the Kuril Islands. People with such experience have been out of work for a long time, and a new generation of military builders is only gaining their experience in conducting construction work in a distant region with its own special climatic conditions. Of course, no one is pleased with the delay in the supply of building materials. It is on the delivery of materials that a significant share of construction costs falls. Most of them are absent on the island, and those that are available on Iturup, for example, inert materials, according to the laboratory conclusions of Spetsstroy of Russia, are not suitable for use everywhere because of their insufficient strength and frost resistance. Local materials can be used for filling, for some types of bases, for example, road. They cannot be used in the manufacture of critical structures, so military builders are forced to import the same crushed stone from across the sea, from Vladivostok. It is clear that such logistics are very expensive, although the material itself is quite inexpensive.

The bulk of building materials arrive on the island through the port terminal "Kurilsk", which allows JSC "Gidrostroy", which serves it, to earn decent money on unloading ships. The port's cargo turnover in 2015 amounted to about 70 thousand tons, of which building materials for military builders took about 45-50 percent. A number of island entrepreneurs who have their own trucks make money on the transfer of goods from the port to Goryachiye Klyuchi and Burevestnik (not the shortest shoulder by local standards). Of course, this is good for all participants in the delivery of materials. However, this situation does not suit the organizers of the construction, and it is clear for what reasons. Let me remind you that in the years of the USSR, cargo ships were unloaded almost next to construction sites in Kasatka Bay, temporary mooring facilities were used, which, by the way, did an excellent job with the tasks. Today we are talking about the need to build a capital deep-sea berth, similar to what is in the port of Kurilsk (after all, cargo must be imported not only for construction, but also for the regular supply of troops), and such a decision, according to our information, has already been made. In a good way, such a berth was needed "yesterday", but better late than never.

Builders are faced with the age-old Kuril problem - sending people to rest when changing shifts and going on vacation. As always, there are difficulties with the purchase of tickets in both directions, both for air transport and for sea transport. The management is trying to get around them, at least by organizing expensive charter flights, but this is not always possible, since everyone knows the situation with the availability of free "boards" in the Aurora airline.

It cannot be said that due to the reduction in the winter of 2015-2016. construction work in Kurilsk and Reidovo, some people with construction specialties went to work at Spetsstroy Rossii in Goryachie Klyuchi. Of course, his personnel service does not take everyone who wants it, but makes a selection, but there is an opportunity for employment for the local people. Information about vacancies is submitted to the Kuril employment center.

Significant for the island budget is the fact that Spetsstroy Rossii has registered its Iturup construction subdivisions (Main Department No. 2 and Spetsstroy-Service) in the Kuril region. This means that the income taxes of individuals working in these organizations will go to the district.

We add that the forces of Spetsstroy of Russia are carrying out construction on the neighboring island of Kunashir in almost the same volume.

it’s harder to count with each construction site ... As previously reported, Spetsstroy was going to rebuild a number of military facilities in the Sakhalin Region, among them completely autonomous military camps with residential buildings and dormitories, barracks, appropriate infrastructure, cultural and leisure and sports institutions. How these intentions are being implemented in practice can be found in the November publications related to the Ministry of Defense. In particular, they say that the authorities of the Federal Agency for Special Construction of Russia and the director of Spetsstroy A. Volosov, after an inspection trip to the South Kuril Islands in the middle of the year, assured that the problems with construction were resolved, the timing and order of delivery of social and military facilities were determined, and thus Thus, everything that is planned for the rearmament of the group of Russian troops in the South Kuriles will be done! Huge plans, judge for yourself:

Bay of Kitovaya.

On Iturup in the military camp of the village of Kitovoe, a contract from 2012 provides for the construction of dormitories for officers and soldiers, a division headquarters, a checkpoint, a first-aid post, storage facilities and warehouses for fuel and lubricants, a food plant, training grounds and playgrounds, a large educational building, a sports and fitness complex, etc. . according to the tender for the complex arrangement of the military camp. All this must be completed and put into operation by the contractor no later than November 15, 2015. More than 3 billion rubles were transferred in advance for the construction under the terms of the contract. However, not a penny reached the subcontractors. There is no design and estimate documentation for which the general contractor is responsible, there are no technical specifications and working documentation for the facilities, and there are no working resources: out of the required number of 700 builders, about a third are at the facilities. The general contractors of FSUE “Spetsstroyengineering”, GUIR No. 2 (organizations subordinated to Spetsstroy) arrived at the construction site only in July of this year, as if they had guessed for the inspection.

in / h in the item Hot Beach. Kunashir

The delay in the implementation of planned work is enormous; almost a year, it is impossible to catch up with such a lag in local conditions, in addition, failure to meet deadlines is fraught with the recovery of a large penalty. Well, the military will not receive many long-awaited residential infrastructure facilities - hostels and barracks. It turns out that soldiers and officers will have to serve in tents, as is now happening in Primorye through the fault of Spetsstroy? At the facilities of the economic zone, the training and material base, the missile and artillery weapons depot, the base area of ​​the group of support vessels and the facilities of engineering and technical support, construction work did not begin at all. Or maybe, in Kunashir, the contractors of Spetsstroy "Spetsstroyengineering" and GUIR No. 2 meet the deadlines?

military unit in the village of Lagunnoye, Kunashir.

Here, under a similar contract from 2012, the same military-based infrastructure must be handed over by 2015. Advance funding for this project has also been received in full, but by November only a temporary administrative campus has been set up for 20 people and some building materials have been brought. Construction on Kunashir requires about 600 specialists, but only 30 people work. A strange situation has developed ... The military department, for some reason, endures the turmoil and misunderstandings taking place in Spetsstroy. And the endless commissions, meetings, agreements between the military and the leadership of the builders are simply meaningless. For the reason that, according to the military, different people constantly come to all these events, often not related to the fulfillment of the contract. Since 2012, four subcontractors have been replaced at the Kuril construction sites, while the military department has not received any reports on the disbursed funds from any of them ... security on our eastern borders.

Image copyright AFP

Frants Klintsevich, Deputy Chairman of the Defense and Security Committee of the Federation Council, announced the construction of a naval base in the Kuriles. This is not the first mention of a military facility on the islands, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu spoke about this earlier, but for the first time this project was talked about in the present tense.

"The decision has been made. It is under implementation," Klintsevich said, without specifying exactly where the military facility would be located.

Perhaps he had in mind the island of Matua - a small piece of land in the center of the Kuril chain. In 2016, Defense Minister Shoigu said that Russia intended not only to restore, but also to actively exploit this island.

By that time, a large expedition of the Russian Geographical Society and the Pacific Fleet (Pacific Fleet) had already visited the island. The second expedition began in the summer of 2017 and continues to this day.

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"Specialists conducted more than 1,000 laboratory studies on physical, chemical and biological indicators, made more than 200 measurements of the relief and the external environment. Radiation and chemical reconnaissance was also carried out, the fortifications of the island and more than 100 historical objects were examined. Divers carried out work on a hydrographic study of bays and bays of the island of Matua," the RGS website says.

Image copyright Google

The reports of the expeditions talk a lot about the study of marine invertebrates and algae, the study of the activity of the Sarychev Peak volcano, but if the Ministry of Defense is really going to build a base on this island, then hydrographic studies of the seabed topography and the study of the remains of Japanese military installations are most likely especially important for it. .

The new base will be able to receive any ships, including the first rank, Klintsevich said on Thursday, without specifying which ships will be based at this facility.

The ships of the first rank include aircraft carriers, destroyers, missile and anti-submarine cruisers, and nuclear submarines. For such deep draft boats, it is really necessary to carefully prepare the seabed.

The ownership of some of the Kuril Islands by Russia is disputed by Japan. They went to the Soviet Union at the very end of World War II, when Soviet amphibious assaults landed on the islands. The ownership of some of the islands was not secured by international treaties.

Japan claims the Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan islands of the Kuril ridge and a group of small Habomai islands, referring to the Shimonoseki Treaty of 1855. The island of Matua, which Shoigu spoke about, does not belong to the disputable group - it is located in another part of the ridge, in its central region.

Russia insists that the islands belong to it, referring to the inadmissibility of revising the results of World War II.

Island as base

The Kuril Islands are located in a strategically important area: they separate the Sea of ​​Okhotsk from the Pacific Ocean, as if blocking access to it from the southern coast of the Russian Far East.

During the Second World War, a powerful system of fortifications, airfields, and naval bases was built on the islands. One of the objects was located just on Matua - there are still coastal concrete fortifications on the island, the remains of an airfield, warehouses, shelters.

Image copyright Google

In Soviet times and until 2001, there was a frontier post on the island, but in recent years the island has remained uninhabited.

At present, the 18th machine-gun artillery division (the only such formation in the Russian army) is deployed on the Kuril Islands with reinforcement units on Iturup and Kunashir. Recently, coastal missile systems "Bal" and "Bastion", as well as anti-aircraft systems "Buk" were placed on the islands. The Bastion complex was located on the island of Iturup, and the Bal complex was located on Kunashir.

Matua is not the most comfortable place to live and even to build a military base. Strong winds blow on the island, there are no large convenient bays on the coast. Finally, the entire northern part of the small island is a volcano that last erupted quite recently - in 2009.

The island is located at a great distance from supply bases, and communication with it, especially during the winter months, is difficult due to the fact that the Sea of ​​Okhotsk freezes in this place.

Image copyright NASA

In any case, building a large base on it will be extremely costly.

However, Russia seems ready to spend. On the one hand, the Kremlin has long sought to expand its military presence in the oceans. And the Pacific region, which has been attracting more and more attention in recent years, is extremely important for Russia.

For example, one of the two landing helicopter carriers that Russia intended to purchase from France was to be based in the Pacific Fleet.

"When I served in the Far East, the issue of deploying a ship formation of the Pacific Fleet in the Kuril Islands was considered. It is advantageous to create a base on the islands for the sole reason - direct access to the ocean. Of the places that were identified as suitable for it by geometry, the difficulties were as follows. First - difficult ice conditions in winter. The second is the ebb and flow of about six meters. The third is strong winds," Admiral Vladimir Valuev, former commander of the Baltic Fleet, said in an interview with RIA Novosti.

In the days of the USSR, which had a larger Pacific Fleet than Russia now, a large military base was never built on the Kuril Islands.

Russia's second goal is to gain a foothold on the Kuril Islands themselves. The unresolved issue with the Kuril Islands hinders the development of relations between the two countries, each time Moscow and Tokyo raise it and obviously greatly unnerves both sides.

What base can Russia afford?

Speaking about the scale of the future facility, Senator Franz Klintsevich said that the new base will be able to receive any ships, including the first rank.

At the same time, Klintsevich used the word "base", that is, he meant a rather large object, which should include not only berths, but also infrastructure for the maintenance of ships, ideally a dock and a shipyard, barracks for crew accommodation and base personnel, air defense units and the airfield.

And all this - on an island with an area of ​​​​52 square kilometers, a significant part of which is occupied by a volcano.

Vasily Kashin, a senior researcher at the Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies at the Higher School of Economics, told the BBC that as a result, only a small ship logistics center could appear on Matua, in Syria, and Russia would invest money in the already existing bases of the Pacific fleet.

There are five of them in the Far East - in Vladivostok, Fokino, Vilyuchinsk (nuclear submarines are based there), Sovetskaya Gavan and Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky.

“Maybe it will be a harbor where there will be several piers, again we don’t know how many; there will be an icebreaker and a couple of tugboats, and some small forces will be constantly deployed,” he said.

At the same time, Kashin noted that even if, for example, a large anti-submarine ship (of the first rank) can approach the island, it remains to be seen how many such ships can be serviced there at the same time and how much service they can receive there.