Military Translator's Day: Why they need to erect monuments
On May 21, Russia celebrates Military Translator Day. This holiday was established in 1929, when Deputy People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs Joseph Unshlikht signed the order “On establishing the title “Military Translator” for the command staff of the Red Army. This order, in essence, legitimized a profession that had existed in the Russian army for many centuries. Today, a military translator is both an intelligence officer and a diplomat - thanks to the efforts of these specialists, it is possible to resolve many potential conflicts, conclude arms deals and monitor the international situation.
Retired captain of the second rank, president of the regional public organization "Legendary Sevastopol", military analyst Alexander Danchenko tells PolitNavigator about the peculiarities of the work of military translators.
PN: Alexander Veniaminovich, is a military translator more of a military person or more of a translator?
HELL: Of course, a military translator, he is more of a military man.
PN: What is the significance of this profession, its calling?
HELL: Due to the fact that we are in second place in arms sales after the oil industry, the role of a military translator has increased very much. Unfortunately, I am not allowed to travel abroad, but I would gladly work now on the S-400 with the Turks, I have enormous experience in this, I would also work with English on all projects. But the fact is that I had the opportunity, when I resigned from the position of a military translator from the 650th training center (for training foreigners) of the Baltic Fleet, it was possible to remain a civilian there, but, frankly speaking, the work is so difficult, even purely physically it means climbing on ships, translating lectures for six hours on topics that go into the higher sphere of electronics, computer technology and everything. I decided to take a little break, but this business still caught up with me and, already as a civilian employee of the fleet, I worked as a military translator, and now in another position in the naval structures I constantly work with both languages: Turkish and English.
Due to the fact that we sell a wide variety of weapons systems abroad, of course, the work is simply immeasurable. Everything is done through a translator. But before, we taught foreigners in our courses, before they studied for a certain type of equipment; in Soviet times, we first taught them the Russian language. And now we only work through translators. That is, compared to Soviet times, the load has increased significantly. Previously, Russian teachers simply came and gave lectures; translators may not have participated in many ways.
PN: Can we consider that a military translator is a diplomat and intelligence officer?
HELL: I not only agree with this, for many years I was one... I had a funny case when the Turks spent a long time figuring me out, and then our Rosvooruzhenie involuntarily revealed me to them. I came to Turkey in 97, where for the first time in our history, through the Armed Forces, we handed over a sea tug to the Turks. And I was seconded purely as a translator through the Office of International Military Cooperation of our Ministry of Defense. And I had been to Turkey many times before, they always told me: “Better not introduce yourself as a military man, say that you are from the Ministry of Culture. Otherwise, when you become a civilian and go to Turkey on vacation, for example, you will immediately end up in their prison...”
And then I came to the hotel in the Turkish naval base of Eregli and saw a sign hanging “Captain 2nd Rank Alexander Danchenko.” This Rosvooruzhenie did not know my legend. And then for a whole month I was “herded” there very closely. But I’m somehow not used to being “herded”, I used to walk freely, but here, as soon as you break away from the group in the city, two people were constantly following me, they would turn out the trash cans if I threw a cigarette butt. This was a funny incident.
Of course, military translators also spy against us. Well, we worked a lot, and we still work, with representatives of one great eastern country. They studied with us for many systems, including the S-300, and for many of our ships. Naturally, we barely had time to drag our secrets away from them. We were forced to transport them to enterprises, since they later received licenses and produced many of our systems. And whatever they didn’t produce, they still tried, as they say, to snatch it out from under us. And our special officers, before their departure, went through their dormitories, literally pulling out suitcases of documentation, everything. It was. But there is no need to offend these partners of ours - this happened everywhere. Why did the same Turks buy the S-400 from us? Not only because it is many times better than the American “Patriot”, but also because we hinted at the possibility of producing it here.
PN: Is military diplomacy capable of resolving conflicts today?
HELL: What is happening now in Syria, even for me, is unprecedented. There, everything is decided by negotiators, and exclusively military ones. Many of my current colleagues, just officers, not translators, have already gone there more than once for negotiations; they were engaged exclusively in military-diplomatic and simply diplomatic work. This is a huge layer for our military. I must say that they simply need to erect monuments to them - how do our simple guys manage to do this. Apparently, this is a simple ability of Russians to find approaches to everyone. I’m only talking about Syria, although ours always behave like this, Afghanistan alone is worth it.
PN: We see that in recent years the situation in the Black Sea has worsened. How should we react, is there a threat to us here?
HELL: Due to the fact that all our neighbors are NATO countries, except Georgia and Ukraine, but they are even worse than, for example, NATO members. Romania and Bulgaria behave more defiantly, of course there are a lot of challenges here. In Romania there is an American missile defense position area, which is not a defense at all - there are these complexes that are supposedly anti-missile, they are simply stupidly loaded with Tomahawks, and if anything happens, they will fire dozens of them from Romania, from where it is three seconds of flying time to Crimea. Therefore, of course, this region remains both explosive and dangerous. I'm not even talking about the threats of Ukraine, which is regularly going to destroy the Crimean Bridge; now they are making a new missile with the Westerners.
PN: Turkey is planning to build a backup canal for the Bosphorus, there is an opinion that it will circumvent the “Montreux Convention”, is this true? How to react to this?
HELL: Even Turkish leaders themselves are reacting to this. Just two months ago, 103 Turkish retired admirals, precisely because this would lead to a violation of the “Montreux Convention”, in their opinion, they came out with joint criticism. They were quickly closed. There is such a threat. I am closely following all these machinations. Although they claim that “we will not violate,” but, knowing the Turks, everything is clear - all this will be violated. This is not all being done in vain, but to hold us back even more, and to keep the Americans on the hook. They may give them passage, or they may not, as was the case in 2008. It was thanks to the Turks that the American flotilla, which stood at the entrance to the Black Sea, was detained under some pretext during the conflict with Georgia. And they didn’t have time to do anything - they promised the Georgians, but the Turks kept them. It was a very interesting moment. Of course, this worries us very much, but not so much that we panic.
PN: At the recent Solovyov Readings you said that today the power of the Black Sea Fleet exceeds its capabilities from the times of the USSR. What exactly is this superiority?
HELL: Precision strike weapons available. The most numerous class of missiles we have now appeared on seven submarines and three frigates. That is, I will not give out the total salvo, but it covers the Black Sea. But we will fire other missiles at it if necessary. We have coastal complexes, including: “Bastions”, “Balls”, “Boundaries” and others. And naval strike weapons can fire in the eastern Mediterranean. We clearly demonstrated this when, from the Caspian Sea, from small ships, we fired at ISIS positions in Syria with our “Calibers,” which have since become our magnificent brand. We can sink the US 6th Fleet, which will be in the affected area, that is, it will go beyond the conventional meridian of Crete. This was the area of responsibility of the Black Sea Fleet back in the Soviet Union. That is, as soon as a NATO ship crosses this conventional meridian of Crete, we immediately take it for escort. In this zone, with the help of only “Calibers”, not to mention all sorts of new “Onyxes” and more powerful missiles, we are blocking the eastern Mediterranean. Plus, our aviation from Khmeimim can cover everything even without Calibers. Plus our nuclear-powered ships. We have now reached a completely new level. Previously, we didn’t have any shield other than the ship’s, but now with Khmeimim, we have continental air defense, aerospace forces there, if necessary, our planes with hypersonic missiles plus other strike weapons can be delivered there at any time. All this is open information, I just presented it more generally.
PN: We recently celebrated Black Sea Fleet Day. How should we react to the fact that after the collapse of the USSR we lost a number of Russian ports on the Black Sea?
HELL: Your question already contains the answer. We feel bad about this! Thank God that Crimea was saved, because after the collapse of the Union our coastline, which was two thousand kilometers, was reduced to four hundred. Only the Krasnodar region remained. Now that Crimea has been returned, 700 kilometers of coastline have been added, but most of it still remains with Ukraine and Georgia. Of course, this causes discomfort, but what can you do? In Ochakov, the Americans are already openly building a forward-based base, in Odessa they will have a permanent base, and if they also manage to push through the Istanbul canal, they will generally be able to drive like they do in the Gulf of Mexico. That's why there's a lot here challenges for us.
PN: What is the future of the Black Sea Fleet in this regard? What future challenges and threats do you see?
HELL: Now there is a saturation of ships, new ones are constantly being introduced into the fleet. Basically, corvettes have arrived, submarines are being built and will arrive. Now there are seven boats, including those with Calibers - new boats will arrive, even more modern frigates, the most modern reconnaissance ship Ivan Khurs has joined the fleet. Not to mention coastal anti-ship systems, missile defense and air defense systems. The Black Sea Fleet will be strengthened. We are not threatening anyone, but the Black Sea Fleet is now Russia’s most active and most combative fleet.
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