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13 décembre 2013 5 13 /12 /décembre /2013 12:40
Russian Military to Recruit 500,000 Professional Soldiers by 2022

 

December 12th, 2013 defencetalk.com (RIA Novosti)

 

Russia’s military will have 500,000 soldiers serving on professional contracts within a decade, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Tuesday.

 

Half of the armed forces will be made up of professional service personnel by 2022 under plans to shift away from conscripts and more than double the number of contract soldiers from the present 220,000.

 

But Shoigu also acknowledged at an expanded meeting of the Defense Ministry Board that Russia’s armed forces are currently short of nearly one in five troops.

 

“At present, the Russian military has 82 percent of the required manpower,” Shoigu said.

 

“We have prioritized full manning of airborne, special forces, naval infantry and peacekeeping units, including those involved in ensuring security during the Winter Olympics in Sochi.”

 

Russia is undertaking major reform of the military that includes plans to spend $650 billion by 2020 on new equipment and a transition from a conscript army to a largely professional force.

 

But it has struggled with a shortage of recruits as a result of draft dodging and a shrinking pool of eligible conscripts. Draft evasion and demographic decline have forced the Defense Ministry to halve the number of conscripts in five consecutive recruitment periods since autumn 2011.

 

The military needs to enrol about 300,000 men during each draft to keep the number of personnel at the required level of 1 million. All Russian men between the ages of 18 and 27 are obliged by law to perform one year of military service.

 

Shoigu said the Defense Ministry would continue the practice of large-scale snap-alert drills in 2014 to check the combat readiness of the armed forces.

 

The Russian military has held six surprise inspections of combat readiness and most of the 750 planned army-level exercises since the beginning of this year.

 

Shoigu said the exercises helped create a realistic picture of the current state of the Russian armed forces and adjust arms procurement plans for various branches of the military.

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13 novembre 2013 3 13 /11 /novembre /2013 08:30
Varyag missile cruiser

Varyag missile cruiser

 

MOSCOW, November 11 (RIA Novosti)

 

The flagship of Russia’s Pacific Fleet, the Varyag missile cruiser, docked on Monday at the Mediterranean port of Alexandria, making it the first Russian warship to visit Egypt since 1992.

 

The Varyag’s arrival comes two days ahead of a visit by a Russian delegation led by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu to bolster military and political ties with Egypt.

 

During the six-day stay, the warship’s crew will exchange visits with local government and naval officials and take part in a series of cultural and sports events, said the Pacific Fleet’s spokesman, Capt. 1st Rank Roman Martov.

 

The Varyag, a Slava-class missile cruiser designed as a surface strike ship with anti-aircraft and anti-submarine capability, is currently part of Russia’s standing naval task force in the Mediterranean, which comprises some 10 warships from all four Russian fleets.

 

For Moscow, the improvement of ties with Egypt could signify a return in force to the Middle East while US diplomacy is failing all over the region.

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16 octobre 2013 3 16 /10 /octobre /2013 07:25
Russian Defense Minister Due In Brazil For Talks

Oct. 15, 2013 – Defense news (AFP)

 

BRASILIA, BRAZIL — Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu will meet with Brazilian officials Wednesday following Brasilia’s decision to buy surface-to-air missile batteries from Moscow, the two sides said Tuesday.

 

The visit, a day after Shoigu was to hold top level meetings in nearby Peru, comes as Moscow has raised its profile throughout Latin America in recent years with strengthened military and trade ties.

 

Shoigu’s stop in Brazil also comes as President Dilma Rousseff is pressing for the release of a Brazilian biologist detained in Russia along with 29 other Greenpeace activists after protesting Arctic oil drilling.

 

Last February, Brazil agreed to open talks with Moscow on buying surface-to-air missile batteries during a visit in the Latin American country by Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.

 

Last December, Brasilia also bought 12 Russian helicopters.

 

Meanwhile Rousseff last week directed her foreign minister to make high-level contact with Moscow to find a solution for Brazilian Greenpeace activist Ana Paula Maciel.

 

Maciel was one of 30 activists from 18 countries arrested by Russia in late September and charged with piracy after authorities said they had found “narcotic substances” on the Dutch-flagged Arctic Sunrise, used in their protest.

 

Greenpeace has denied the allegation as a “smear,” and the arrests have raised international protests.

 

Putin has said that the activists “of course are not pirates,” but his spokesman Dmitry Peskov later said the Kremlin strongman had expressed his personal opinion.

 

Brazil and Russia are both members of the BRICS group of emerging powers along with China, India and South Africa.

 

The BRICs five are to hold their next summit in Brazil next March.

 

In Peru Tuesday, Shoigu was to meet with President Ollanta Humala, as well as with his counterpart Pedro Cateriano, and to sign agreements on military and education cooperation at the army headquarters.

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29 septembre 2013 7 29 /09 /septembre /2013 11:40
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu

 

 

MOSCOW, September 28 (RIA Novosti)

 

The Russian defense minister unveiled Russia’s wartime plan on Friday, saying that private and state companies should be ready to provide the Russian armed forces with everything they need in case of a military conflict.

 

He said that oil companies, such as Gazprom, LUKoil and Rosneft “should have such reserves, procurement plans and contracts concluded beforehand.”

 

“These companies should clearly know, what, when and at what time they should send to us,” he said.

 

The same applies to transport and power generation companies, such as Russia’s rail monopoly RZD, state-run hydroelectric power holding company RusHydro and others, Shoigu said.

 

He said the state’s National Defense Center, acting as the general headquarters for the Supreme High Command in wartime, will be built on Moscow’s Frunzenskaya embankment.

 

The minister earlier said that the center would consolidate command over the country’s armed forces, especially the nuclear triad and rapid reaction forces. It will also allow real-time monitoring of day-to-day activities of military units around the country.

 

This summer, the Russian military has started work on the creation of the center, which will enhance the operational management of the armed forces and ensure prompt response to strategic threats.

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