Not entirely new but very thorough description of how the Russian leadership perceives the strategic role and threats against Russia by Dmitry Gorenburg for Russia in Global Affairs. Fundamentally Gorenburg describes an interesting combination of aggressive behavior grounded in a perception of a defensive struggle that from a Western perspective can be hard to understand. […]
Russia
Russia’s biggest army is directed at its own people
I’ve been wanting to link to this for a while. Igor Torbakov has a really interesting analysis in Utrikesmagasinet about the possible meaning of the restructuring of the domestic forces into the Federal National Guard Service, Rosgvardiya. According to Torbakov the motivation can be found in this: “Western politicians do not understand the essence of […]
Pessimistic farewell by outgoing EU ambassador to Russia
Outgoing EU ambassador to Russia, the Lithuanian diplomat Vygaudas Ušackas, has a pessimistic farewell message in The Guardian: When I arrived in Moscow as the EU’s ambassador to Russia four years ago, relations between the two blocs were strained but functional. Within months, though, Russia would annex Crimea and intervene militarily in eastern Ukraine, plunging […]
Russia continues move to more professional military
Russia has called in 134,000 new conscripts to begin 12 months of military training in the fourth quarter of 2017. The schedule is such that new recruits begin in the second and fourth quarters, and together with the spring draft the total number for 2017 is up to 276,000 conscripts. Although that is a very […]
Russia destroys its last chemical weapons
Russia has destroyed the last chemical weapons from its arsenal. The occasion was announced by Putin personally, and the president was not slow to point out that Russia beat USA in reaching the milestone. That reports postimees.ee (in Estonian). In fact both Russia and USA have failed to meet the 2012 deadline for the destruction […]
Zapad perhaps smaller than expected
Mathieu Boulègue for Chatham House: Western commentators were obsessed with the numbers of Russian troops being mobilized during the course of exercise and stuck firmly to the “100,000 servicemen” narrative. But Russia proved them wrong by keeping the drills small, managed, and contained. The real numbers are still unconfirmed, but the actual number of troops […]
Russia growing non-nuclear deterrence
Speaking of Russia’s military transformation Kristin ven Bruusgaard has a terrific article in War on the Rocks called The Myth of Russia’s Lowered Nuclear Threshold: Non-nuclear deterrence involves both military and non-military assets that can convince an adversary that the costs of aggression against Russia would outweigh any benefit. These include precision strike capabilities, effective […]
Russia’s strategic transformation in the light of Zapad
Thoughtful points about the strategic transformation that Russia’s military is going through in this article by BBC in the wake of Zapad 2017: It is interesting that while much of the Western media discussion of [precision-guided munitions] rests upon their use as air-launched weapons in bombing campaigns, intended to increase accuracy and reduce the level […]
Will Russia have 6,000 more tanks in its army?
Dave Majumdar in a piece for War is Boring under the title “Russia Will Have 6,000 More Tanks in Its Army”: Russia is sharply curtailing the number of Soviet-era tanks that is planning to scrap. In previous years, Moscow had planned to send some 10,000 of its older model tanks to the junk yard for […]
Lukashenko not allowed in Russia during Zapad 2017
Belarusian president Aleksandr Lukashenko will not visit the Russian part of exercise Zapad 2017. Kommersant.ru reports that Lukashenko was scheduled to appear at training sites in Russia alongside Vladimir Putin but for unknown reasons the plans have changed. Putin may still show up to spectate the exercise in Russia but Lukashenko will only observe the […]
