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The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, commonly referred to as the Russian Armed Forces, are the military of Russia. In terms of active-duty personnel, they are the world's fifth-largest military force, with 1.15 million and at least two million reserve personnel.
- Russian Ground Forces
The Russian Ground Forces, also known as the Russian Army,...
- Russian Air Force
The Russian Air Force (Russian: Военно-воздушные силы...
- Russian Aerospace Forces
President Putin presenting the banner of the Aerospace...
- Russian Airborne Forces
The Russian Airborne Forces (Russian: Воздушно-десантные...
- Logistical Support
Logistical Support of the Russian Armed Forces (Russian:...
- Special Operations Forces
The Special Operations Forces of the Armed Forces of the...
- Valery Gerasimov
Valery Vasilyevich Gerasimov (Russian: Валерий Васильевич...
- Space Forces
The Russian Space Forces (Russian: Космические войска...
- Military History of Russia
During the Cold War, the greatly enlarged armed forces...
- Military History of The Russian Federation
The Transnistria War was an armed conflict that broke out on...
- Russian Ground Forces
Estimated list of the equipment of the Russian Ground Forces in service as of 2022. Note that due to the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine quantities of operational equipment are highly uncertain. Also note that this list does not include information on Ukrainian equipment captured by Russian forces during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine .
ModelCaliberOriginTypeSuppressed semi-automatic pistolSemi-automatic pistol- Names
- History
- Structure and Leadership
- Personnel
- Party Control of The Armed Forces
- Weapons and Equipment
- See Also
- References
- Further Reading
- External Links
Origins
The Council of People's Commissars set up the Red Army by decree on January 15, 1918 (Old Style) (January 28, 1918), basing it on the already-existing Red Guard. The official Red Army Day of February 23, 1918, marked the day of the first mass draft of the Red Army in Petrograd and Moscow and the first combat action against the rapidly advancing Imperial German Army. February 23 became an important national holiday in the Soviet Union, later celebrated as "Soviet Army Day", and it continues as...
Polish–Soviet War
The Polish–Soviet War represented the first foreign campaign of the Red Army. The Soviet counter-offensive following the 1920 Polish invasion of Ukraine at first met with success, but Polish forces halted it at the disastrous (for the Soviets) Battle of Warsaw (1920).
Far East
In 1934, Mongolia and the USSR, recognising the threat from the mounting Japanese military presence in Manchuria and Inner Mongolia, agreed to co-operate in the field of defence. On March 12, 1936, the co-operation increased with the ten-year Mongolian-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, which included a mutual defence protocol. In May 1939, a Mongolian cavalry unit clashed with Manchukuoan cavalry in the disputed territory east of the Halha River (also known in Russian as Халхин-Гол, Halhin Gol). T...
The Soviet Armed Forces were controlled by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Ministry of Defence. At its head was the Minister of Defence, generally a full member of the Politburo (the Politburo, in turn, was chaired by the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, generally the de facto leader of the Soviet Union)...
Ranks and titles
The early Red Army never adopted the idea of a professional officer corps. It was seen as a "heritage of tsarism.". In particular, the Bolsheviks condemned the use of the word "officer" and used the word "commander" instead. The Red Army never adopted epaulettes and ranks, using purely functional titles such as "Division Commander", "Corps Commander", and similar titles. In 1924 it supplemented this system with "service categories", from K-1 (lowest) to K-14 (highest). The service categories...
General Staff
On September 22, 1935, the authorities renamed the RKKA Staff as the General Staff, which essentially reincarnated the General Staff of the Russian Empire. Many of the former RKKA Staff officers had served as General Staff officers in the Russian Empire and became General Staff officers in the USSR. General Staff officers typically had extensive combat experience and solid academic training.
Military education
During the Civil War the commander cadres received training at the General Staff Academy of the RKKA (Академия Генерального штаба РККА), an alias of the Nicholas General Staff Academy (Николаевская академия Генерального штаба) of the Russian Empire. On August 5, 1921, the academy became the Military Academy of the RKKA (Военная академия РККА), and in 1925 the Frunze (М.В. Фрунзе) Military Academy of the RKKA. The senior and supreme commanders received training at the Higher Military Academic...
The Communist Party had a number of mechanisms of control over the country's armed forces. First, starting from a certain rank, only a Party member could be a military commander, and was thus subject to Party discipline. Second, the top military leaders had been systematically integrated into the highest echelons of the party. Third, the party plac...
The Soviet Union established an indigenous arms industry as part of Stalin's industrialization program in the 1920s and 1930s. The five-round, stripper clip-fed, bolt-action Mosin–Nagant rifle remained the primary shoulder firearm of the Red Army through World War II. Over 17 million model 91/30 Mosin–Nagant rifles were manufactured from 1930 to 19...
Donnelly, Christopher, Red Banner: the Soviet military system in peace and war, Coulsdon, Surrey: Janes's Information Group; Alexandria, VA: 1988.Fischer, Benjamin B. (1999). "The Katyn Controversy: Stalin's Killing Field". Studies in Intelligence. Archived from the original on 13 June 2007. Retrieved 16 July 2007.Krivosheev, G. F. (1997). Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses in the Twentieth Century. Greenhill Books. ISBN 978-1-85367-280-4.Krivosheev, G. F. (1993). "Soviet Armed Forces Losses in Wars, Combat Operations and Military Conflicts: A Statistical Study" (PDF). Translated by U.S. government. Moscow: Military Publishing House...Lehrke, Jesse Paul. "The Transition to National Armies in the Former Soviet Republics, 1988–2005." Oxfordshire, UK: Routledge (2013). See especially Chapters 1–4 (see: The Transition to National Ar...Lester W. Grau and Ali Ajmad Jalali, "The Campaign for the Caves: The Battles for Ahawar in the Soviet-Afghan War" Foreign Military Studies Office, Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas, reprinted from Journal o...Michael MccGwire, 1987. Military Objectives in Soviet Foreign Policy. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press. ISBN 978-0815755524Brenda J. Vallance, "Corruption and reform in the Soviet military," The Journal of Slavic Military Studies, Volume 7, 1994 - Issue 4- 5,300,000 (1985)
- 35,745,000
- 18–35
The Main Military-Political Directorate of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (GVPU VS RF) ( Russian: Главное военно-политическое управление Вооружённых сил Российской Федерации (ГВПУ ВС РФ)) is the central military-political organization of the Russian Armed Forces, responsible for instilling ideological loyalty to the ruling government...
- 30 July 2018
- Russian Federation
Traditionally, the military uniforms of the Russian Armed Forces have been subdivided into parade, service dress, and field uniform roles, each with summer and winter variations, largely based on rank, season, and gender differences.
The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation are the military of Russia, created after the breakup of the Soviet Union. The Armed Forces is known to be one of the biggest in the world with about 1,200,000 troops active. Russia also makes its own weapons. [1] .
