Russia and Britain to Continue Cooperation in Retraining Retired Russian Officers

The Russian and British Defence Ministries will continue their cooperation by creating a programme for retraining Russian officers who have left the armed forces in civilian professions. This announcement was made yesterday in St. Petersburg by British Defence Minister Geoff Hoon. In his turn, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov called the programme socially useful and necessary.

The current stage of the programme, which is being financed by Britain, will come to an end at the beginning of 2003. Experts from both countries are now preparing documents which will enable cooperation between the Russian and British military in the sphere of retraining retired Russian officers to be both extended and expanded. According to the British Defence Minister, statistics from July 2002 show that 15,000 retired Russian officers have passed through the programme.