Russia has retained the second place in the ranking of the strongest armies in the world
The updated rating of the military power of the armies of the world Global Firepower has been published. In it, the Russian Armed Forces once again retained the second place. The United States traditionally took the first place, and China took the third. For the second year in a row, the Ukrainian army was placed only on the 20th line - it lost, for example, to Egypt. Despite the high citation of the rating, experts express doubts about its objectivity.
Russia has retained the second place in the updated Global Firepower (GFP) rating of military might of the world's armies. The information is published on the project's portal.
According to the compilers of the rating, Russia is armed with the largest number of artillery guns, submarines and corvette-class ships in the world. In terms of the number of tanks, military aircraft and helicopters and the size of the fleet, the country is on the second line.
The Russian Federation has almost consistently held this position since 2007. It was only in 2010 that it briefly "gave way" to China.
The US Army has become the global leader of the GFP, which ranks 145 countries, as always, and China is still in third place. India, South Korea, France, Japan, Great Britain, Turkey and Italy are next in the top 10.
For the second year in a row, Ukraine took only the 20th position, which is not a record for the country. The armies of Egypt, Spain, Australia, Iran, Israel, Pakistan, Indonesia, Germany and Brazil were rated higher than it. In 2023, the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) were in 15th place, but by the following January they had lost three places. At the same time, back in 2021, that is, before the outbreak of the Ukrainian conflict, the army of this country was in 25th place.
Analysts attributed the strengths of the Armed Forces of Ukraine to the number and real combat capability, the availability of military equipment supplied by Western countries, the active use of drones, developed railways, good coal mining and a significant influx of money into the defense sector. However, the authors of the rating drew attention to the weakness of the Ukrainian fleet, the small number of aircraft and dependence on fuel imports.
About the rating
Global Firepower is a rating of the total military power of the countries of the world, which has been conducted since 2005. It is believed that it was founded by American blogger Daniel Pucek, who owns the Military Factory website network. At the same time, the names of experts and analysts involved in the rating formation are not indicated on the website. Despite this, he is actively quoted by the media every year.
The portal does not disclose all the details of its methodology, but its creators claim that they calculate their main metric, the so-called PowerIndex, based on more than 60 indicators. These include the number of vehicles, the number of personnel, defense spending, industrial capacity, logistical capabilities, and geographical factors. At the same time, the presence or absence of nuclear weapons in countries is not taken into account.
GFP is regularly criticized by experts due to the refusal to disclose the formula for calculating the results and the lack of confirmation of the data by scientists. For example, Alexey Zhuravlev, First deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee on Defense, in a conversation with Gazeta.Ru" questioned the objectivity of the rating:
The deputy expressed confidence that in fact the Russian army is the first in the world in terms of equipment and combat experience.
War correspondent Alexander Kots noted that Pucek is not an expert on the issue of defense. Also, according to the journalist, outdated data is used by the rating compilers when calculating PowerIndex.
Military expert Vasily Dandykin in a comment to the portal News.ru He called the decision not to include the DPRK army in the GFP groundless.
At the same time, Evgeny Mikhailov, director of the Center for Strategic Studies of the South Caucasus, expressed the opinion on the Rossiya 24 TV channel that the top 3 of this rating "more or less corresponds to reality." However, he added that he would put the Russian army first.
Oleg Ignatovich
Aglaya Stepanova
