Talk:Russian Armed Forces

Removed Cleanup Tag

A lot of work's been done on this article since March. Anyone who thinks it should be further cleaned up, feel free to put the tag back, but please say what you think needs work. Buckshot06 01:14, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

New Table of Ranks

I created a table of ranks for Comparative military ranks, but as things turned out, it wasn't needed there, so I tried moving it here. Only there already is a table here. But this table is different (and somewhat messier)) than mine. I haven't replaced the table here yet because it contains information which my table does not. I hope the two can be reconsiled soon and then moved here. I will do this if nobody else is up to the task. --Oceanhahn 09:09, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)

budget needs adjusting

http://projects.sipri.se/milex/mex_rus_milex_02.pdf for figures for expenditure

according to the economicst russia's defence budget is second largest in the world which leads me to believe that the stated figure is wrong.

The stated Fikure is most certainly incorrect. The official budget last year was the same/more than this. This year the official is $28.4 Billion USD, however the DoD believes it's more like $100Billion Starcraftmazter 05:13, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

numbers

Availability and Fit for Service numbers make no sense. Same critaria, different numbers Elfguy 23:54, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I would assume that Availability is the number of men who could (theoretically) be conscripted and mobilised. While Fit for Service would mean the number of men who have completed their military service and could be mobilised without having to receive further training. --BadSeed 08:43, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

http://www.sipri.org/contents/milap/milex/bgpapers/cooper20060124.pdf/download <-- This confirms my figure of $28.4Bn, please don't change.

Active troops are said to be 1,130,000. "Some 330,000 young men are brought into the army via conscription in two call-ups each year. Conscripts are supposed to serve for two years but only 9% do, according to the Defence Ministry."

This doesn´t make much sense. Aren´t the 1.13 million soldiers rather the number of the men that SHOULD be in the army, but they aren´t there. So the real number of active troops could be something like 300 000 - 400 000.

If anyone knows the real situation, please set the statistics right.

about 1M according to some officials (V.Zhirinovski in TV interview). --jno 08:24, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Strategic Rocket Forces

The article claims that Russia's nuclear arsenal is second largest in the world, but a recent New York Times feature put Russia's numbers at 16,000 and had the USA coming in second with 10,000 nuclear weapons. Kazak 04:19, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Both nummbers are wrong, also Soviet /russian nuclear bombs are more powerfull because the earlier rockets weren't very accurate so the Soviets would just blast a bigger area and when accuracy came they didnt down grade the strength of the bomb for each missile.

Also Soviet/russian missiles are able to carry more mini missiles that seperate in flight and each of them hiting independent targets, other countries of course have similar kinds of missiles but the russians have more. And the biggest reason is that no way in hell does anybody except a very few people know how many nuclear weapons any country has, because those secrets will be secret forever. Deng 2005-11-29 23.45 CET

You're both wrong, and the NY Times is wrong. The number of strategic nuclear warheads operational is well known and fixed by START I and the new (post-NMD) agreement. NY Times just added tactical nuclear weapons as well (on missiles, torpedoes, free-fall bombs, non-conventional artillery shells etc) and came up with these numbers that no one knows where they come from. Emigrant 123

It doesn't matter. The U.S. is or has already stepping up their nuclear program. They are no longer destroying their nukes (like Russia) but creating MORE and LARGER nukes. Idiots no?

Listen up...the number of TOTAL nukes (tactical + stockpile) are 14k Russia, 10k USA, and the rest have jack all. Under the START III agreement, both Russia and USA will have no more than 2,500 Tactical Nukes. Currently they have 2x-3x this amount in tactical. Other nukes and nuke numbers are unknown. USA isn't looking at increasing their nuke arsenal, just replacing older ones with newer gen ones. Starcraftmazter 05:11, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Remember that an unspecified but large proportion of those thousands aren't kept at operational readiness... total figures are fairly irrelevant since at least half of US or Russian nukes thus can't be deployed in any reasonably short amount of time. I think this doesn't apply for other countries but as you say, jack all by comparison anyway. Leushenko 12:26, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Second largets nuclear force? I believe it has the largest but am not certain

The Soviet Union hade the Largest nuclear force on earth in what ever way you messure it, be it by nummber of nukes way of delivering them or blast power and size of them But the question is has Russia scraped enough of them to have fallen to nummber 2 No one ofcurse knows for certain but it would be very nice if anyone could give an estimate based on real facts And how do you messure what is largets is it by nummber ofnukes or how much they can blast or how likely they are to hit the target or is it a combo of diffrent figures?

Deng 2005-11-29 23.55 CET

These are figures I've seen. Russia has about 20,000 US has about 10,000 UK has about 5,000 France has about 5,000 Dudtz 2/22/06 9:13 PM EST

Slightly off-topic but the UK and France have closer to 200 each. Discussion of numbers is irrelevant anyway; Russia and the US each have more than ten times as many than the rest of the world combined; in both cases about 25% are operational with the others either in long-term storage or requiring repair, which will probably never arrive as both countries know it's not necessary. Leushenko 12:21, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Internal Troops

What about the Internal troops of the MVD?--68.85.27.47 01:45, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Internal Troops are under Ministry of Internal Affairs, and are not part of armed forcess (military) of Russian Federation, which are under Ministry of Defence. --DimaY2K 20:08, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

JFYI: There are also troops of Emercom, forces of FSB, etc.--jno 09:14, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Merge

I suggest Russian Winter be merged into this page. Thoughts? Guinnog 17:43, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

On reflection, Military history of the Soviet Union would be a better merge. Guinnog 17:47, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Equipment

I have created the section in the Russian Army/Russian Ground Forces the Equipment Section and the Russian Navy the Equipent. Tell me what you think about it and Ill improve it. Mathieu121 10:48, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm glad someone took the initiative to start working on such a section, but you included some military equipment that aren't used in the Russian Federation armed forces. I will work on removing the inaccuracies and adding things you missed throughout the day. I also plan on adding information next to most of the entries about the variant of the particular object being in service. Once again thanks for starting it out. :) --Skyler Streng 17:34, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Thankyou for the compliment. I always went to that section and there was never anything even started. So today I decided to start it. And thankyou for poiting it out and helping me. Mathieu121 10:48, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

You're welcome. I'm trying to make sure it's as accurate as possible, and give numbers in use and a quick sentence about each item. I should have it done in a couple days. :) --Skyler Streng 19:05, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Any link to these sections? --jno 08:06, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Huge addition to the Russian Ground Forces article

I just added all the stuff you now see in the "Current Inventory". I have been working on it for the past week, and I strove to make it as accurate as possible. All service numbers are active service and taken from warfare.ru .

I know it looks really messy but I tried to fit as much information on one line, as I felt more than one would break the flow. I'm sure you can tell that this is my first time trying something like this. I don't think it looks too bad but I have a feeling everyone else will, so I am open to suggestions on how to improve it without removing any of the content. Hopefully it's not so bad that you guys don't even think it's worthy of being used, as I put a considerable amount of time and effort into it.

I look forward to reading what you guys think. :) --Skyler Streng 02:17, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Its really nice and well done, excellent work. Mathieu121 12:08, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Thank you very much :D --Skyler Streng 18:59, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

billion

Folks, the multipliers like "billion" are not international enough. Should it be fixed out? --jno 11:49, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

A billion is 1,000,000,000. Its not 1,000,000,000,000. This is so because in order to follow scientific and mathematical progression:

1,000 is a thousand 1,000,000 is a million 1,000,000,000 is a billion 1,000,000,000,000 is a trillion

Also, think about it. You have kilo (1000). Then you have mega (1,000,000). Then you have Gega (1,000,000,000). Sorry I'm not sure if that answers ur question, or point....

Military Budget

I've added a slab on the budget by reorganising and putting in a lot of IISS data. Comments are very welcome. Buckshot06 03:54, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

The IISS and the US DoD indicates that the Russian military budget is $65 billion USD. [1] Edrigu 16:45, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

July 13, 2007 AVN new articles

Army

North Caucasian military district group holds anti-terrorist drill

MOSCOW. July 12 (Interfax-AVN) - A tactical battalion group of the 503rd motorized infantry regiment of the 58th army is in an exercise aimed at the destruction of a 500-man strong terrorist group at the Tarskoye training range in North Ossetia, assistant to the Russian Army commander Col. Igor Konashenkov told Interfax-AVN.

"Assault planes, helicopters, self-propelled artillery systems and Grad missile systems are taking part in the anti-terrorist drill at the Tarskoye training range on Thursday. The drill is part of the Caucasian Boundary 2007 exercises," Konashenkov said.

The exercises began last Saturday and will conclude on July 13. They involve over 6,000 servicemen, over 250 pieces of armor and artillery systems and more than 30 planes and helicopters.

Army

NATO planes monitoring Russian exercises

MOSCOW. July 12 (Interfax-AVN) - NATO reconnaissance aircraft have been shadowing military exercises being conducted by Russia's Northern Fleet, as well as exercises in the Far East and the North Caucasus.

"Flights by two or three NATO reconnaissance planes have been registered near Russia's borders since the exercises began," Col. Alexander Drobyshevsky, an aide to the Russian Air Force commander, told Interfax-AVN on Thursday.

"NATO is monitoring the exercises without violating Russia's airspace, that is why our Air Forces are not taking any retaliatory measures. We are only tracking these flights," Drobyshevsky said.

"Two or three NATO aircraft, including Orion, Atlantic and RS-135, have been flying near the scene of the exercises and shadowing them. Usually we register one NATO scout plane per day near these Russian districts," he said.

This week Russia is conducting Caucasian Frontier-2007 antiterrorist exercise, the Wing-2007 logistics maneuvers and the command post exercise of the Northern Fleet.

Army

Over 80 military units to shift to all-volunteer manning before 2008 - general staff

MOSCOW. July 12 (Interfax-AVN) - Deputy Chief of General Staff Col. Gen. Vasily Smirnov has claimed that 81 military units, with the total strength of 124,000 people, will shift to all-volunteer manning by January 1, 2008.

"I have no doubts that this transformation will proceed as planned. Presently, we have 93,000 professional servicemen in the Armed Forces," he said, noting though that there are problems enlisting volunteers, mostly related to the low wages and their bad qualifications.

He added that 174 volunteers from CIS member-states undergo service in the Russian Armed Forces now, emphasizing that they are enlisted under special order of the defense minister, which specifies the units and positions in which such professional servicemen can serve.

Number two military power

Why is there a "dubious-discuss" tag on the quote about Russia being the number two military power in the world? The citation is good; the quote really is there and has been represented correctly. There is nothing dubious about the fact that a senior US official said that. What is the issue here? Oneforlogic (talk) 02:18, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Infobox

I think an infobox like in so many other military articles, with statistical numbers about total armed forces, active troops and so on, would be good for this page.

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sources

-major power, such as nato forces or CHINA - this information is no neutral and it don´t has any sources. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mr nonono (talk • contribs) 20:27, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Russian Air Force

Needs more of a discussion of an air force than some speculation about how many MiG-29s might be flyable. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kamital (talk • contribs) 08:59, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Reform

I think we should mention the ongoing reforms in more detail. For example, see the material I added to Anatoliy Serdyukov's article. Offliner (talk) 18:24, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Military budget rising

Russian defense spending will increase by 60 percent, to more than 2 trillion rubles ($66.3 million) from 1.264 trillion ($42 million) by 2013, a leading Russian business daily said on Friday. The Russian government made the relevant decision during a meeting on Thursday. The largest growth is planned for 2013, when the figure will rise by 0.5 trillion rubles ($16.6 million), Vedomosti reported. http://en.rian.ru/mlitary_news/20100730/160003543.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.254.64.70 (talk) 08:29, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Commanders appointed for new OSKs

New Russian Strategic Level Commanders: Makarov’s Successor in the Making? Publication: Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 7 Issue: 149 August 3, 2010 11:23 AM Age: 5 days Category: Eurasia Daily Monitor, Home Page, Featured, Military/Security, Russia By: Roger McDermott

Russian Defence Minister Anatoly Serdyukov (L) and Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces Nikolai Makarov (R)

On July 22, Russian Defense Minister, Anatoliy Serdyukov, signed an order appointing acting commanders in the new operational-strategic commands (OSK’s). Serdyukov’s Press Secretary, Lieutenant-Colonel Irina Kovalchuk, told Interfax that Colonel-General Arkadiy Bakhin (Commander of the Volga-Urals Military District –MD) has become the acting Commander of the West OSK; Lieutenant-General Aleksandr Galkin (Commander of the North Caucasus MD) will command the South OSK; Admiral Konstantin Sidenko (Commander of the Pacific Fleet) now commands the East OSK and Lieutenant-General Vladimir Chirkin (Commander of the Siberian MD) commands the Central OSK (Interfax, July 22).

These appointments are highly significant for a number of reasons linked to the future course of Serdyukov’s reform program, and not least in strengthening the authority of the Chief of the General Staff (CGS), Army-General Nikolai Makarov. Each of these commanders are committed supporters of the “new look” and share common features in their career progression, especially Bakhin, Galkin and Chirkin, and these are arguably now possible candidates to replace Makarov in the future.

General Makarov was appointed as the CGS in June 2008, prior to the Russia-Georgia war in August of that year. At the time of his appointment he was 58 years old. Upon reaching the retirement age for an officer of his rank, 60, in October 2009, President Dmitry Medvedev, signed a ukaz extending his service by up to three years, partly in recognition of his crucial role in promoting and overseeing the implementation of military reform (Interfax, October 13, 2009). Consequently, by 2012, Makarov must be replaced; however, since the defense “tandem” that formed between Serdyukov and Makarov has worked so well and proved critical in advancing the military reform, the selection of the latter’s successor must also be handled very carefully.

In December 1997, Makarov was appointed as commander of the ground and coastal troops and deputy commander of the Baltic Fleet. By September 1999 Makarov was the chief of staff in the Moscow MD before becoming the commander of the Siberian MD in December 2002. Following a period as chief of armaments (April 2007) Makarov became the CGS on June 3, 2008. As a candidate of political sciences, his dissertation topic was: “Political Extremism as a Radical Model of the Political Process, and the Organization of State Opposition to Extremism” (Kommersant-Vlast, March 5, 6). Makarov will be 61 in October 2010, allowing a maximum of two years to select his successor.

Makarov’s only obvious similarity to Admiral Sidenko is the latter’s experience commanding troops and forces in Northeastern Russia in the late 1990’s. However, in the case of the other senior appointments, there are more clear indications of shared background and preference for those with service in the Siberian MD. General Bahkin, 54, in the 1990’s served as a commander of the 59th Motorized Rifle Regiment in the 85th Motorized Rifle Division (MRD) in the Siberian MD. Following a period as commander of the 102nd Military Base in Gyumri, Armenia, in 2000 he commanded the 42nd MRD in Chechnya. In 2002, Bakhin was appointed as deputy commander of the North Caucasus MD. In October 2004, he returned to the Siberian MD, commanding the 41st Combined-Arms Army in Novosibirsk, before becoming deputy commander of the Siberian MD in January 2006 (serving as Makarov’s deputy) and later its chief of staff. On December 3, 2008 he was appointed to command the Volga-Urals MD (Kommersant-Vlast, March 5, 6).

In 2003, General Galkin, 52, served as deputy commander of the 41st Combined-Arms Army (Novosibirsk), then as the chief of staff of the 36th Combined-Arms Army (Borzya, Chita Oblast) in the Siberian MD, before he became commander of the 41st Army in January 2006. In April 2008, Galkin was appointed as deputy commander of the Siberian MD, and following Makarov being promoted to the post of CGS in December 2008, Galkin was made its chief of staff. On January 11, 2010, Galkin was appointed as the new commander of the North Caucasus MD (Kommersant-Vlast, March 5, 6).

General Chirkin, 54, was chief of staff in the 19th MRD in the North Caucasus MD before commanding the 42nd MRD in Chechnya in 2000. By 2002, Chirkin was the chief of staff in the 58th Army within the same MD, before his appointment the following year to command the 36th Combined-Arms Army in the Siberian MD. He served from February 2007 as deputy commander of the Moscow MD, and in December 2008 became chief of staff in the Volga-Urals MD. On January 11, 2010, he was promoted to command the Siberian MD (Kommersant-Vlast, March 5, 6).

However, Bakhin, Chirkin and Galkin all benefitted during Makarov’s period commanding the Siberian MD. They are all outspoken supporters of Serdyukov’s reform, and the preference for those with experience in the Siberian MD was demonstrated in January 2010, in the largest reshuffling of generals since Serdyukov’s reform began (Argumenty Nedeli, January 22). These appointments confirm the high level of influence that Makarov has secured over the defense minister, favoring only those senior officers committed to the progress of the reform, and given the expansion of command responsibilities involved in forming the new OSK’s by December 1, 2010, it is likely that these generals will now compete to replace Makarov in 2012. Those confirmed in their posts in December will remain in the running, while given the intensification of Chirkin’s pro-reform interviews this year, as well as having commanded the Siberian MD, the others may have already identified a front runner.

http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews[swords]=8fd5893941d69d0be3f378576261ae3e&tx_ttnews[any_of_the_words]=OSK&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=36705&tx_ttnews[backPid]=7&cHash=3105c60244, Aug 3, 2010

Also http://www.jamestown.org/programs/edm/single/?tx_ttnews[tt_news]=36496&cHash=582e631d45, June 15, 2010 Also http://www.bu.edu/phpbin/news-cms/news/?dept=732&id=56306 (BU)

I dont get the reduction table

It says that in 2008, there was 1890 ground forces. I assume that means 1.89 million soldiers. In 2012, it says 172, a 90% reduction. Does this mean 172 000 soldiers? Jørgen88 (talk) 16:39, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Dear Sir/Madam, I am young Togolese guy of 29years of old.please i need a job I wished to be enlisted in the Russian Army. Please what are the requisites procedure to follow before I can be enlisted these very year. I would be much grateful if I am enlisted in it. You may contact me on victor1244@live.com Thank you Best Regards victor — Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.218.224.57 (talk) 19:31, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Ignoring the wierdness above and actually answering the question, the table means unit groups not troop numbers. Essentially the idea is merging units into bigger ones under a more unified structure rather than having lots of seperate units doing their own thing. The number of troops is pretty unchanged. 86.138.50.116 (talk) 18:20, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Largest weapon supplier? Unlikely.

The article states: "Russia is the world's top supplier of weapons, a spot it has held since 2001, accounting for around 30% of worldwide weapons sales." The only source provided for this statement says that in 2004 Russia sold most weapons to the developing world. This statement doesn't in any way confirm that Russia has been the major global supplier of weapons, not even in the only year it is referring to (as a matter of fact it rather confirms that the US have been number one). The statistics of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, which is a more reliabie source anyway, state that the US have held this position for at least twenty years except for the year 2002. It's pretty much safe to say that the statement in the article is nonsense. --188.102.163.121 (talk) 03:43, 19 October 2011 (UTC)