“I have already anticipated this. Even you may be shocked at how quickly it can be done,” the general said with a grin.
Borodin chuckled. “I should have known you would read my mind,” he said. “Are there any troubles that you foresee?”
“The only drawback has been a few of the small pacifist groups who keep showing up at our bases. Up till now we have ignored them, but seeing them has a bad effect on the men,” he said.
Borodin thought a moment, then looked directly into Pusko’s eyes. “Then I would say the time is good to arrest them and make an example. If any of the troops say anything, they can be made an example themselves. We are too close to let these low class extremists become a bother. After the war, they won’t have anything to complain about anyway,” he said with a grin.
Pusko smiled. “I was hoping you might say that. I will begin rounding them up.”
Borodin smiled. “It’s people like them that caused the downfall of the old order. We need discipline for our people. That is what will make us great,” he said as he got up and made his way toward the door. He stopped and turned back to Pusko. “Have someone take photographs. I’d like to see what happens,” he said as he turned again and left the room.
Borodin was not one to listen to protesters. He had started out in the old KGB and had continued in the Federal Security Service after the Soviet downfall. From there he had access to files and materials which he would find beneficial. Some had speculated that he made his way through blackmail and intimidation. During the Chechen uprisings, he claimed to have fouled several Chechen attempts to blow up government buildings. When some buildings were attacked, he led the troops to track down the terrorists and bring them to justice, though few ever made it to trial. He seemed to always get the credit and the publicity for the events. At one time, someone had told a member of the media that Borodin himself had placed the charges and was using the event to feather his own nest. Shortly afterward the person disappeared and was never seen again. Eventually Borodin rose to a cabinet level under Putin. He became well known as a ruthless supporter of Russia and Russian culture. He garnered friends in the military and promoted stronger military presence across the globe. At the same time, his intelligence ties helped him get rid of those in government who opposed his ideas. After the death of President Wiclow, he ruthlessly gathered the support necessary to be elected President. Several months later he dissolved the Duma and assumed both the Presidency and position of Prime Minister. He had been running the nation almost as a dictatorship ever since.
Borodin walked into his office and looked out of his window. He could see the protesters chanting below. He was gratified as two vans pulled up and the police shoved the protesters inside. Within minutes they were gone.
Borodin chuckled. No one would slow him from what he was going to do.
“Our team was tasked with looking at what we may be up against. Thanks to General Best, Admiral Hustvedt and Colonel Meyers, we now have a very good idea of what might be thrown at us,” said Colonel Peterson. ‘Please follow along with your briefing sheets. I will give just the overview. The specifics are all on the sheets in front of you.” He turned on the PowerPoint presentation. Picking up a pointer he began rattling off the dire statistics.
“For the army side, we expect to run up against 35,000 tanks of various types from the T-72s to the T-90s. There are over 50,000 various armored personnel carriers, and there are an additional 25,000 other armed infantry vehicles such as BMPs. Lighter vehicles, including their version of the Humvee number over 20,000. Add to that the self-propelled anti-aircraft and artillery vehicles and we have about 200,000 vehicles to go up against. One interesting note is that they seem to have been going all out producing more of the anti-aircraft vehicles. The artillery has increased as well, but not at the rate of the anti-air assets. We were talking about this and it appears they want to counter our air attack forces to allow them to maneuver more freely. It seems they learned a little from the Iraq wars,” he said with a straight face.
“On the attack helo front, you can expect nearly 5,000 various Hinds, Havocs and Hokums. These things are armored and dangerous, but they have their weaknesses. You just have to survive long enough to kill it.”
“Now for the interesting part. Over the last three years the Russian Army hasn’t gotten smaller, despite the claims. They extended their length of service from one year to five. At the same time, they have not slowed down their intake. As you know, there is mandatory service in Russia. When it was just for one year we figured the troops we might go up against would be pretty green and not very effective. That has now changed. We estimate a standing army of a minimum of 5 million people” said Peterson. There were some gasps in the cluster of officers. Peterson looked at the faces in the room. He could tell the news he was giving them was causing great concern. He pressed on. “One thing we are noting is that it looks like what we can put up against this is around 1 million.” He pointed back to the graphs. “Current force dispositions are here in red. As you can see, there is a much heavier concentration on the western front. They are keeping these assets within 100 miles of the borders, which means they can attack anywhere within 24 hours. The Russian combat troops are armed very similarly to our troops, so that gives you some idea what will be coming at us from the Army side. For the air force, I will hand it over to Colonel Meyers.” Peterson took at seat as Meyers stood and began his part of the program.
“Air assets in Russia are also climbing. There are currently over 1500 fighter aircraft from the SU-27s to the MiG-31s. Intelligence reports there is a new stealth type fighter, the MiG-35 entering production. It is similar to the F-117, a little larger and more difficult to fly. We don’t know how stealthy it is, but we cannot sell them short. Strike aircraft number between 500 and 600 aircraft, mostly Sukhois. Their bombers number over 250. These include our infamous Bears as well as the Backfires, and a whole lot of Blackjacks, which are their equivalent of our B-1. If you look at their tactics, they plan on using the fighters to keep the air clear while the others do the dirty work. Keep something in mind, the Russian Air Force has more attack helicopters. There are another 10,000 of them. They will work in conjunction with the ground assault forces and army units. I believe you can see what this indicates to us. Everything is centered on supporting ground troops. The fighters keep our air forces away and the rest get in there and attack targets on the ground. The air force personnel number 400,000 of the 5 million. We are holding the missile programs until last,” Meyer said. “Now I turn it over to Admiral Hustvedt.”
Hustvedt took the podium and looked grim. “During the Reagan Administration we boasted a 600 ship navy. We are going to wish we had that today. The total number of ships available in the Russian Navy is 573. To counter that we have 338 in all our allied forces. They now have two aircraft carriers and have brought back three of the Kirov battlecruisers. But the largest part of their fleet is submarines. There are over 200 of them. Leading the pack are twenty Yasen class attack submarines. These are the improved Akulas we often talk about. They are not like those of the old Soviet Navy. They are quiet, fast and deadly. Our guys have a difficult time finding them. If the Russians send out their submarine force, we are going to have a very difficult time for a while. There are over 280,000 people in their navy and marines. That’s more than twice our manpower. There’s one thing we have going for us. They are still geared toward home defense. True, they are learning to use those carriers, but they still are not using any kind of tactic for true ocean-going power projection. But that won’t go for much if they go all out. My guess is they will throw away their fleet just to keep their soldiers advancing,” said Hustvedt.