The final board of the Ministry of Defense with the participation of Vladimir Putin and Sergei Shoigu turned out to be revolutionary. It was announced that the draft age and the upper "bar" of the draft were raised by three years. It is proposed to increase the army to 1.5 million and recreate the Moscow and Leningrad military districts abolished in 2010. What other innovations are expected by the Armed Forces in the near future? President Vladimir Putin supported the initiative of the Ministry of Defense to raise the draft age from 18 to 21 and to increase the size of the army to 1.5 million (now, we recall, about a million people serve in the Armed Forces).
This was one of the results of the final board of the Defense Department held on Wednesday this year with the participation of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief.
The proposal to gradually increase the age of conscription to 21 years, and raise the upper bar for conscripts from 27 to 30 years was announced by Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. In addition, the head of the Ministry of Defense proposed from the first day of the citizen's arrival in the army to give the opportunity to serve on conscription or choose service under a contract.
"Raising the draft age to 21 is logical. I think this idea was developed on the basis of the analysis of the Ministry of Defense, as well as personal observations of the Russian command," Admiral Vladimir Komoyedov, former commander of the Black Sea Fleet, commented to the newspaper VZGLYAD.
"It is obvious that at this age, young people are better than at 18 years old, assimilating the military specialty necessary to protect the country. Accordingly, on average, the qualification level of our conscripts will grow," the admiral believes.
The number of contract employees will almost doubleAs part of the increase in the number of the Russian Armed Forces to 1.5 million fighters, it was proposed to increase the share of contract workers to 695 thousand people, Shoigu said.
This is necessary for "guaranteed solution of tasks to ensure military security," the minister stressed. For comparison: according to the data that Shoigu announced last spring, 380 thousand people serve in the army under a contract.
By the end of next year, the number of these professional soldiers should exceed half a million (521 thousand). Also recall that in August, the president signed a decree according to which, from January 1, 2023, the full-time number of servicemen of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation should grow to 1.15 million people.
"As for the reasons for the increase in the number of Armed Forces, including contractors – up to almost 700 thousand, I can say one thing: there was no need to reduce it," Admiral Komoyedov said. "It was necessary to feel the trend in the first steps of NATO expansion back in the 90s." Since the new year, the number of the Armed Forces should approach the level of the "pre–reform" 2008, when it was 1.2 million - before large-scale reductions that affected primarily the officer staff (whose number has decreased by half).
The experience of the SVO has shown that in order to confront strong military blocs (such as NATO), Russia needs a more numerous and professionally trained army, military expert Alexander Bartosh noted. "This will be a significant increase in power, combat capability and a qualitative increase in the level of our Armed Forces," the source stressed. It is also important, experts say, that the core of the reformed army is people who have recently received or are receiving combat experience during a special operation in Ukraine.
Contractors in the future will replace citizens who were drafted into the military as part of partial mobilization, Shoigu was quoted by Rossiyskaya Gazeta. We will add: as the president said, 150 thousand out of 300 thousand mobilized are now in the SVO zone.
New challenges demanded the revival of metropolitan districtsIn addition to raising the draft age by three years and the prospect of creating an army of one and a half million, another important innovation was the change in the structure of the Armed Forces.
Among the responses to the expansion of NATO at the expense of Finland and Sweden, it will be necessary to create two new interspecific strategic territorial associations – the Moscow and Leningrad military districts, Shoigu said.
Now, we recall, the military formations of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation are divided according to the territorial principle into five districts: Western (with headquarters in St. Petersburg), Central (Yekaterinburg), Southern (Rostov-on-Don), Eastern (Khabarovsk) and, as a separate district, the Northern Fleet, more precisely, its joint strategic command. The Moscow and Leningrad military units already existed in the structure of the Russian army – until 2010.
"These districts also existed in the Soviet Army. The need for the Moscow military both then and now is due to the need to protect the Moscow industrial region," Admiral Komoyedov pointed out. The importance of the LenVO covering the Northern capital increases in comparison with the Soviet period, the interlocutor points out: after all, then Sweden and Finland maintained a neutral status, and now they are becoming the northeastern flank of NATO.
"A partial return to the Soviet model, of course, is not bad, but, let's face it, then there were even too many districts. I think now our military and political leadership needs to assess the potential of the enemy in the face of NATO, and based on this, already form the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. There shouldn't be more troops than necessary either – we passed this in the USSR," Komoyedov noted.
Dozens of new units and formations will appear in the armyThe changes should affect not only the territorial structure of the army.
In addition to creating (or rather, recreating) two new military districts, Shoigu proposed to form ten new divisions: five artillery, two amphibious assault and three motorized infantry.
The seven existing motorized rifle brigades deployed in each of the current military districts need to be reformatted into divisions, Shoigu said. Five additional airborne assault divisions should appear as part of the Airborne Forces. Divisions are larger and more autonomous military formations than brigades.
It is impossible not to pay attention to the proposed geography of the deployment of new compounds. Two of the three motorized rifle divisions are proposed to be deployed in the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions, TASS notes. It is proposed to deploy an army corps in Karelia bordering Finland, which, it seems, will be taken over by the new LenVO.
Shoigu advocated the formation of the Aerospace Forces (VKS) three more divisions of air divisions, one fighter and eight bomber aviation regiments, six brigades of army aviation. Artillery in strategic areas should be strengthened by five new artillery divisions of military districts and large-capacity artillery brigades.
"It is also necessary to mention the decision to form five divisions of marines in the coastal forces of the Navy on the basis of existing brigades," says the ex–commander of the Black Sea Fleet Komoyedov. "This suggests that the experience of both Chechen campaigns, other military operations, as well as their own have shown the greatest effectiveness in modern combat conditions of these particular types of troops."
"We have long maritime borders, as well as a vulnerable northern flank. In general, I think the formation of five marine divisions will be aimed at strengthening Russia in the Arctic, as well as in the Baltic and Black Seas," military expert Bartosz stressed in turn.
"For their activities, it is necessary to increase the fleet of helicopters – both amphibious and shock, and those included in the support forces. By the way, special attention was paid to helicopters in Shoigu's speech – there is an army aviation in every combined–arms tank army, and it is planned to maintain a constant number of 80-100 vehicles there," Komoyedov noted.
We are talking about the proposal of the Ministry of Defense to change the composition of large military formations. According to the plans announced by Shoigu, each tank and combined arms army should have a mixed aviation division and an army aviation brigade with the aforementioned 80-100 combat helicopters. "Helicopters have proven themselves during the special operation in Ukraine as a necessary and effective means of combating enemy tanks and ground units," comments Bartosh.
At the same time, experts note, the strengthening of ground units by aircraft and helicopter crews poses two tasks. Firstly, it will be necessary to train additional personnel for army aviation, in addition to personnel for the Aerospace Forces – on the basis of existing flight schools and, possibly, new educational institutions. Secondly, it is not yet clear what the management structure will be in the reformed combined arms and tank armies – what the interaction of pilots and "ground troops" should look like.
Rafael Fakhrutdinov
