Chapter Five: Russia and Eurasia

ss ia a nd E ur as ia with precision-guided, non-nuclear and nuclear weapons, funding for the navy will almost certainly be reduced in the new State Armament Programme (GPV) 2018–27. This makes no provision to build large surface combatants, such as a new aircraft carrier, cruisers and destroyers, before 2025. Despite this, the navy should still achieve some significant, if more limited, ability to pose major challenges to potential adversaries, at least close to home waters. Overall, total spending under the period of the GPV 2018–27 is planned fall from 20 to 17 trillion roubles (US$318 billion to US$270bn) (see pp. 177–8). During this time, the aerospace forces and land forces will be prioritised. The need to upgrade equipment has led to a significant rise in costs for the land forces and the airborne troops (VDV), but it is expected that the pace of rearmament will slow and there will be greater focus on modernisation at the expense of new weapons purchases. The merger of the Interior Troops and various law-enforcement agencies into the National Guard (Rosgvardiya) was completed in 2017, bringing the organisation’s overall personnel strength to around 340,000. The new National Guard structure is intended to tackle internal threats, but has not received any additional heavy weapons except what had been issued to the Interior Troops (although this in itself is significant in terms of capability). Under existing legislation, the National Guard can be used abroad for peacekeeping operations and to train foreign law-enforcement agencies. In Syria, however, Russia has instead used the military police for work with the civilian population. New legislation, which gave the military police additional functions, was adopted in 2015 with this purpose in mind. The civilian Federal Agency for Special Construction (Spetsstroy) was disbanded by September 2017. Spetsstroy was responsible for the construction of military infrastructure; however, this function and some of the agency’s personnel have now been transferred to the defence ministry.