Putin beordrar styrkor att gå in i Ukraina - INVASION NU (2022-02-24)

According to data from the Council for National Strategy published in November 2007 published in a report entitled Results under Vladimir Putin: Crisis and Decay of the Russian Army, between 2000 and 2006, the Armed Forces received deliveries of only 27 ICBMs (27 warheads) while 294 (1779 warheads) were written off. In the penniless years 1992-1999, the army received 92 ICBMs (92 warheads). Since the year 2000, only 3 new aircraft have been delivered: one Tu-160 and two Su-34s. Around 100 aircraft were delivered during the 1990s. Since the year 2000, a little over 60 T90 tanks have been purchased while the total for the 1990s was 120.

The Navy and seaborne frontier forces took delivery of over 50 surface and subsurface vessels. The figure for the current decade is less than ten. The state armaments programme for 2007-2015 plans to deliver a mere 60 aircraft to the armed forces in that time. This means that it will take … 80 years …. to renew our existing air fleet.

During the Putin years, Russia’s strategic nuclear forces have decayed at a frightening rate. More data from the Council for National Strategy’s report quoted above shows that between 2000 and 2007 the strategic nuclear forces wrote off 405 delivery units and 2498 warheads (as against 505 warheads only in the 1990s, during which time 60 new delivery units were bought while the army also took delivery of 1960 Tu-95 and Tu-160 strategic bombers). Under Putin, only 27 rockets have been produced – three times fewer than in the 1990s.

If Russia’s nuclear arsenal continues to be shrunk at current rates, by the middle of the next decade Russia’s SNF will have at its disposal no more that 300 ICBMs and 600 warheads. In that case, it is questionable if it will be able to perform its nuclear deterrence function: it becomes possible for an aggressor to make a disarming non-nuclear strike with high accuracy weapons to annihilate practically all of Russia’s nuclear strike power and take out the few rockets that the country does manage to launch with its anti-missile defence capability. China’s strategic nuclear force will equal that of Russia in the next 10 years or maybe even exceed it.

In the 1990s, Russian arms exports amount to an average of just over $1 billion a year. In 2007, income from arms exports amounted to $7 billion. We arm foreign armies, including those of potential opponents – China first and foremost. These foreign armies are supplied with many times more Russian armaments than our own. The arms export monopoly is run by Rosoboronexport, headed by yet another Peterburger and friend-of-Putin Sergei Chemizov.

No clear R&D programme for future weapons and equipment has been developed. Furthermore, in the absence of a clear military doctrine, it is impossible to define a proper strategy for supplying the armed forces with weapons and equipment: we do not properly understand who are our friends and who our potential enemies, our generals still go on preparing for a large-scale war with the USA while Russia remains unprepared and without defence against real threats, in particular from China.

There are still over 157 thousand families of servicemen without housing. Of these over 70 thousand do not have permanent accommodation. In January 2008, the Deputy Chief of the General Staff, General Smirnov told journalists that 30% of the total number of young men called up in the autumn round were found to be unsuitable for military service and over 50% had health problems preventing their deployment to specialised forces.
Instead of developing a system for the reserve mobilisation of citizens in case of potential emergencies, the Ministry of Defence is continuing with its policy of filling barracks with called-up youths. Meanwhile, the dedovshchina problem is not going away. It is important to understand that dedovshchina is not just “something that happens” in some units, but a deliberately cultivated and condoned system providing a criminal way of managing the troops by allowing seniors to abuse juniors. A stop must be put to this criminal practice and the Russian Army must complement itself by becoming a contract force.

Putin’s policies towards China should rightly be called “capitulatory”. Under Putin, Russia’s military-industrial complex has mostly worked to arm the Chinese. Russia has become the top supplier to China’s armed forces as they rapidly grow in might. We have sold minesweepers, aircraft, submarines, air-to-air and ground-to-air missiles to China. Putin has even allowed Chinese military units into Russia to carry out military exercises.

Allt ovan hämtat ifrån Boris Nemtsovs "White Papers", Putins opponent som blev mördad 2015 på bron utanför Kreml.