In a new report, FOI researcher Jonas Kjellén examines Russian military manning and organisational reforms since the fall of the Soviet Union, and how they help explain the difficulties the country has faced during the first year of the ”special military operation” in Ukraine.
[…] Series of reforms
Since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Russian army has undergone a series of reorganisations and structural reforms. Over the intervening decades, it has evolved from the massive army designed to fight a prolonged, large-scale conflict into a smaller, better-educated and equipped force, more focused on attracting and training contract soldiers than mobilising loads of conscripts and reserves.
“The result of these reforms has been that the capability to raise and support a large army for conventional warfare in Europe has been gradually dismantled in favour of a small high-readiness, professional force,” Kjellén explains.
The report focuses on reforms implemented in 2009-2012 under then-Minister of Defence Anatoly Serdyukov, and Chief of the General Staff Nikolai Makarov. These reforms targeted three specific areas starting with structural changes, followed by social reforms, and ending in a comprehensive rearmament that modernised the entire military inventory and laid the foundation for how the military operates today.
Focus on contract soldiers
While mandatory conscription has historically been the principal way for Russia to recruit soldiers, the army has since the post-Soviet period moved towards reducing mandatory military training and instead focused on recruiting contract soldiers.
This new structure may have been suitable in a post-Cold War world, and even proven successful in other recent Russian military operations such as the 2014 annexation of Crimea, its direct involvement in Syria civil war in 2015 and social unrest that rocked Kazakhstan in 2022.
However, the past year has shown starkly how the military’s current organisational structure fails to meet the needs and challenges of a large-scale ground invasion like the one the war against Ukraine has become, Kjellén says.
“In Ukraine the Russian armed forces was handed a task that it was neither cut out or properly prepared for,” he says. Läs rapporten