Armed Forces of The Russian Federation - Structure

Structure

The Defence Ministry of the Russian Federation serves as the administrative body of the Armed Forces. Since Soviet times, the General Staff has acted as the main commanding and supervising body of the Russian armed forces: U.S. expert William Odom said in 1998, that 'the Soviet General Staff without the MoD is conceivable, but the MoD without the General Staff is not.' However, currently the General Staff's role is being reduced to that of the Ministry's department of strategic planning, the Minister himself, currently Sergey Shoygu may now be gaining further executive authority over the troops. Other departments include the personnel directorate as well as the Rear Services of the Armed Forces of Russia, railroad troops and construction troops. The Chief of the General Staff is currently General of the Army Valery Gerasimov.

The Russian military is divided into the following services: the Russian Ground Forces, the Russian Navy, and the Russian Air Force. There are also three independent arms of service: Strategic Missile Troops, Russian Aerospace Defense Forces, and the Russian Airborne Troops. The Air Defence Troops, the former Soviet Air Defence Forces, have been subordinated into the Air Force since 1998. The Armed Forces as a whole are traditionally referred to as the Army (armiya), except in some cases, the Navy is specifically singled out.

Since late 2010 the Ground Forces as well as the Air Forces and Navy are distributed among four military districts: Western Military District, Southern Military District, Central Military District, and the Eastern Military District which also constitute four Joint Strategic Commands - West, South, Central, and East. Previously from 1992 to 2010, the Ground Forces were divided into six military districts: Moscow, Leningrad, North Caucausian, Privolzhsk-Ural, Siberian and Far Eastern and Russia's four fleets and one flotilla were organizations on par with the Ground Forces' Military Districts. These six MDs were merged into the four new MDs, which now also incorporate the air forces and naval forces.

There is one remaining Russian military base, the 102nd Military Base, in Armenia left of the former Transcaucasus Group of Forces. It likely reports to the Southern Military District.

The Navy consists of four fleets and one flotilla:

• Northern Fleet (HQ at Severomorsk) subordinated to Joint Strategic Command West.
• Baltic Fleet (HQ at Kaliningrad in the exclave of Kaliningrad Oblast) subordinated to Joint Strategic Command West.
• Black Sea Fleet (HQ at Sevastopol, Ukraine subordinated to Joint Strategic Command South. (In 1997, the Ukrainian government agreed that Russia would be allowed to lease several base areas around Sevastopol until 2017.) This lease has been extended by 25 years through 2042 with an option for an additional five years through 2047.
• Caspian Flotilla (HQ at Astrakhan) subordinated to Joint Strategic Command South.
• Pacific Fleet (HQ at Vladivostok) subordinated to Joint Strategic Command East.

The Kaliningrad Special Region, under the command of the Commander Baltic Fleet, coprises Ground & Coastal Forces, formerly the 11th Guards Army, with a motor rifle division and a motor rifle brigade, and a fighter aviation regiment of Sukhoi Su-27 'Flanker', as well as other forces.

Similarly, the Northeast Group of Troops and Forces, headquartered at Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy, comprises all Russian Armed Forces components in the Kamchatka Oblast and the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug and is subordinate to the Commander Pacific Fleet headquartered in Vladivostok.

In mid 2010 a reorganisation was announced which consolidated military districts and the navy's fleets into four Joint Strategic Commands (OSC). Geographically divided, the four commands are:

• Joint Strategic Command West - Western Military District (HQ in St. Petersburg), includes the Northern and Baltic Fleets;
• Joint Strategic Command South - Southern Military District (HQ in Rostov-on-Don) includes the Black Sea Fleet and Caspian Flotilla;
• Joint Strategic Command Center - Central Military District (HQ in Yekaterinburg);
• Joint Strategic Command East - Eastern Military District (HQ in Khabarovsk), includes the Pacific Fleet.

The plan, was put in place on December 1, 2010, and mirrors a proposed reorganisation by former Chief of the General Staff Army General Yuri Baluyevsky for a Regional Command East which was not in fact implemented. The four commands were set up by a decree of President Medvedev on 14 July 2010. In July 2011, an Operational-Strategic Command of Missile-Space Defence has also been established on the basis of the former Special Purpose Command of the Russian Air Force. It is expected to be operational on December 1, 2011. A decision whether the VKO will be subordinated to the Air Force or the Space Forces has yet to be taken. Commander of the VKO is General-Lieutenant Valery Ivanov. A Presidential decree of January 2011 named commanders for several of the new organisational structures.

Russian military command posts, according to Globalsecurity.org, include Chekhov/Sharapovo about 80 kilometres (50 mi) south of Moscow, for the General Staff and President, Chaadayevka near Penza, Voronovo in Moscow, and a facility at Lipetsk all for the national leadership, Yamantau in the Urals, and command posts for the Strategic Rocket Forces at Kuntsevo in Moscow (primary) and Kosvinsky Mountain in the Urals (alternate). It is speculated that many of the Moscow bunkers are linked by the special underground Moscow Metro 2 line.

Russian security bodies not under the control of the Ministry of Defence include the Internal Troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Border Guard Service of Russia (part of the Federal Security Service), the Kremlin Regiment and the rest of the Federal Protective Service (Russia), and the Ministry of Emergency Situations, the country's civil defense service since 1995 and successor to earlier civil defense units.