page_title: Russian Armed Forces
section_title: 2008 military reform
hierarchical_section_title: Russian Armed Forces / History / 2008 military reform
caption_attribution_description: Русский: Основной этап манёвров «Восток-2018» на полигоне Цугол в Забайкальском крае.
context_page_description: The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, commonly known as the Russian Armed Forces, are the military forces of the Russian Federation, established after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
  On 7 May 1992, Boris Yeltsin signed a presidential decree establishing the Russian Ministry of Defence and placing all Soviet Armed Forces troops on the territory of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic under Russian control. The Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces is the President of Russia. The Russian Armed Forces were formed in 1992. It is the most powerful military in Europe, and is one of the world's largest military forces. According to Credit Suisse, Russia has the world's second-most powerful military. The Russian Armed Forces also possess the largest stockpile of nuclear warheads in the world.
  Under Russian federal law, the Armed Forces along with the Federal Security Service's Border Troops, the National Guard, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Federal Protective Service, the Foreign Intelligence Service, and EMERCOM's civil defence form Russia's military services and are under direct control of the Security Council of Russia.
context_section_description: Significant reforms were announced in late 2008 by Defence Minister Anatoliy Serdyukov (in office 2007-2012), and major structural reorganisation began in 2009. Key elements of the reforms announced in October 2008 included reducing the armed forces to a strength of one million by 2012 (planned end-date was 2016); reducing the number of officers; centralising officer training from 65 military schools into 10 "systemic" military training centres; reducing the size of the central command; introducing more civilian logistics and auxiliary staff; elimination of cadre-strength formations; reorganising the reserves; reorganising the army into a brigade system; and reorganising air forces into an air-base system instead of regiments. On 17 October 2012 the head of the State Duma's Defence Committee told RIA Novosti that Russia planned to boost annual defense spending by 59 percent to almost 3 trillion rubles ($83.3 billion) in 2015 up from $61 billion in 2012. "Targeted national defence spending as a percentage of GDP will amount to 3.2 percent in 2013, 3.4 percent in 2014 and 3.7 percent in 2015", Defence Committee chairman Vladimir Komoedov is quoted as saying in the committee's conclusion on the draft budget for 2013–2015.
  The number of military units is to be reduced in accordance with the table:
  An essential part of the military reform involves down-sizing. At the beginning of the reform the Russian Army had about 1,200,000 active personnel. Largely, the reductions fall among the officers. Personnel are to be reduced according to the table:
  The schedule envisaged reducing the total numbers in the officer corps from 335 thousand to 150 thousand, but in early February 2011 Defence Minister Anatoly Serdyukov announced the decision to increase officers by 70,000 - to 220 thousand to counteract this.
caption: Russian President Vladimir Putin (center) meeting with Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu (left) and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov  (right) at the Vostok 2018 drills
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