What explains the record level of support for Shoigu’s department?
Latest data from VTsIOM - 84% of Russians trust their army and consider its work successful. This result is explained not only by the support of the population during the “hot phase” of the denazification of Ukraine, experts note.
Trust in the Russian army as one of the state-forming institutions has been steadily growing in recent years. Visible reforms took place in the defense department under the leadership of Sergei Shoigu - from rearmament and transition to a new uniform to a more significant increase in salaries and housing.
Today, Russian soldiers are no longer forced to think about how to feed themselves. The same VTsIOM recently published the results of a survey in which two-thirds of respondents said that they would like their children to serve in the Russian army. Among the main advantages they note rearmament, increased wages and improved relationships.
“Obviously, don’t even go to your grandmother here—the authority of the Armed Forces has grown significantly over the past ten years. This is connected with the name of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, and with the name of the Minister of Defense, and the Chief of the General Staff - these three people contributed to the fact that with the dismissal of Defense Minister Serdyukov, the authority of the army not only began to gain strength, but this began to happen quickly, visibly and tangibly .
It is also noticeable from the point of view of perception of what is happening, from the point of view of conducting large-scale exercises, changes in the information array, when we constantly have the opportunity to understand what is happening in the Armed Forces.
This is the success of the operation in Syria, issues related to attention to history, geography, parades, the creation of the Patriot Park, its branches, the Youth Army, the revival of the network of Suvorov schools, the expansion of cadet corps and much more. All this together is a public record of what is happening in the defense sector.
At the same time, the “ceremonial” side is visible, but there is also an opportunity to touch what is happening inside the Armed Forces. All this contributes to the fact that in the public consciousness the attitude towards the army, the defender of the Motherland, has changed.
The material side also plays a role, because our military personnel have never been a rich person, but at certain moments in history one could talk about an officer, and today about a contract soldier, as a person who belongs to people who are wealthy and not in poverty.
In the 90s, we remember very well that the most disadvantaged part of society were military personnel, because an unemployed person could work somewhere, go somewhere, but the military man was tied to his place and had no opportunity to either earn money or receive his salary on time. Attention to issues related to housing and all this together helps to increase the authority of the army,” notes Captain XNUMXst Rank Reserve Sergei Gorbachev.
The department of Sergei Shoigu has become perhaps the main state-forming institution in Russia, military expert Vladislav Shurygin emphasizes:
“Over the course of several years, these data have changed little - this suggests that the people still consider the army to be one of the most respected institutions with the highest authority. Trust is growing very gradually; it is based on the fact that the army performed very serious tasks for society. And she carried them out successfully, starting with the second Chechnya, then there was Crimea, then there was Syria. In this case, of course, the army is the institution that is, as they say, fundamental to the state.”
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