The Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation (Russian: Министерство обороны Российской Федерации; MOD) is the governing body of the Russian Armed Forces. The President of Russia is the Commander-in-Chief of the forces and directs the activity of the ministry. The Minister of Defence exercises day-to-day administrative and operational authority over the forces.[2] The General Staff of the Armed Forces executes the instructions and orders of the president and the defence minister.
| Министерство обороны Российской Федерации | |
Ministry emblem
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Ministry flag
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 The building of the National Defense Management CenteronFrunzenskaya Embankment (house No. 22) in Moscow, the ministry headquarters | |
| Agency overview | |
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| Formed | 16 March 1992 (first in 1717 as College of War) |
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| Jurisdiction | President of Russia |
| Headquarters | Znamenka 19, Moscow, Russia[1] 55°43′40″N 37°35′22″E / 55.72778°N 37.58944°E / 55.72778; 37.58944 |
| Annual budget | US$69.3 billion (2014) |
| Minister responsible | |
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| Website | eng |
The ministry is headquartered in the General Staff building, built in 1979–1987 on Arbatskaya Square, near Arbat Street in Moscow. Other buildings of the ministry are located throughout Moscow. The supreme body responsible for the ministry's management and supervision of the Armed Forces and the centralization of the Armed Forces' command is the National Defense Management Center, located in the Main Building of the Ministry of Defense, built in the 1940s on Frunzenskaya Embankment.
The current Minister of Defence is Andrey Belousov (since 14 May 2024).
The U.S. Library of Congress Country Studies' volume for Russia said in July 1996 that:
[The] structure [...] does not imply military subordination to civilian authority in the Western sense [...]. The historical tradition of military command is considerably different in Russia. The tsars were educated as officers, and they regularly wore military uniforms and carried military rank. Stalin always wore a military uniform, and he assumed the title generalissimo. Even General Secretary Leonid I. Brezhnev [...] appointed himself general of the army, and he encouraged portraits of himself in full uniform. By tradition dating back to the tsars, the minister of defense normally is a uniformed officer. The State Duma also seats a large number of deputies who are active-duty military officers—another tradition that began in the Russian imperial era. These combinations of military and civilian authority ensure that military concerns are considered at the highest levels of the Russian government.[3]
On 18 May 1992, President of Russia Boris Yeltsin appointed General of the Army Pavel Grachev to the post of Minister of Defence. Despite intense criticism of Grachev's management of the First Chechen War and the Russian military establishment in general, Yeltsin retained Grachev till 18 June 1996. The new minister of defence became General of the Army Igor Rodionov, who subsequently was substituted by Marshal of the Russian Federation Igor Sergeyev.
In March 2001, Sergei Ivanov, previously secretary of the Security Council of Russia, was appointed defence minister by President Vladimir Putin, becoming Russia's first non-uniformed civilian defence minister.[4] Putin called the personnel changes in Russia's security structures coinciding with Ivanov's appointment as defence minister "a step toward demilitarizing public life." Putin also stressed Ivanov's responsibility for overseeing military reform as defence minister. What Putin did not emphasise was Ivanov's long service within the KGB and FSB and his then rank of General-Lieutenant within the FSB. Such military and security agency associated men are known as siloviki.
As of 2002 there were four living Marshals of the Soviet Union. Such men are automatically Advisors to the Defence Minister. The Marshals alive at that time were Viktor Kulikov, Vasily Petrov, Sergei Sokolov, a former Minister of Defence of the Soviet Union, and Dmitri Yazov. Yazov was listed by the American analysts Scott and Scott in 2002 as a consultant to the (former 10th) Directorate for International Military Cooperation.[5]
Perhaps the first 'real' non-uniformed Defence Minister was Anatoly Serdyukov, appointed in February 2007. Serdyukov was a former Tax Minister with little siloviki or military associations beyond his two years' military service. Serdyukov launched the military reform in 2008.
On 19 August 2010 Serdyukov appointed Tatyana Shevtsova as his deputy. As of that date more than 50 women had been appointed by Serdyukov, and mainly in the tax accountant profession.[6]
In 2012, he was substituted by General of the Army Sergey Shoigu, who hold at that moment the position of the Minister of Civil Defence, Emergency Situations and Disaster Relief.
In May 2024 simultaneous with the Fifth inauguration of Vladimir Putin on the 14th, Sergey Shoigu was released from duty and several of his staff were investigated for corruption or other misdeeds: Yuri Vasilievich Kuznetsov, Timur Ivanov, Ruslan Tsalikov,[7] as well as Vadim Shamarin,[8] Ivan Ivanovich Popov,[9] Vladimir Verteletsky,[10] and Sukhrab Akhmedov.[11]
In May 2024, it came to wider attention through correspondence with the Ministry that the Russian Military Police had detained a Ukrainian journalist by the name of Victoria Roshchyna. Her August 2023 arrest by Federal Security Bureau agents occurred somewhere in the vicinity of Mariupol, which then was under the control of the most recent Special Military Operation in Ukraine.[12]
On 17 June 2024 it was noted that four deputy defence ministers, Nikolay Pankov, Ruslan Tsalikov, Tatiana Shevtsova and Pavel Popov, had been sacked for nepotism that had entered the Ministry. Russian energy minister Sergey Tsivilyov's wife, Anna Tsivileva, the daughter of a cousin of the President, was appointed deputy defence minister. Her responsibilities include improving social and housing support for military personnel. Leonid Gornin, previously first deputy finance minister, was appointed as first deputy defence minister. Other personnel changes included Oleg Savelyev and the son of former Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov. Pavel Fradkov would oversee the management of property, land and construction relating to the military.[13][14] Other reports had Tsivileva as Putin's niece.[15]
The Ministry of Defence is managed by a collegium chaired by the Defence Minister and including the deputy Defence Ministers, heads of Main Defence Ministry and General Staff Directorates, and the commanders of the Joint Strategic Commands/Military Districts, the three Services, and three branches, who together form the principal staff and advisory board of the Minister of Defence.
The executive body of the Ministry of Defence is the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, which is headed by the Chief of the General Staff. U.S. expert William Odom said in 1998 that "the Soviet General Staff without the MoD is conceivable, but the MoD without the General Staff is not."[16] Russian General Staff officers exercise command authority in their own right. In 1996 the General Staff included fifteen main directorates and an undetermined number of operating agencies. The staff is organized by functions, with each directorate and operating agency overseeing a functional area, generally indicated by the organization's title.
Military Thought is the military-theoretical journal of the Ministry of Defence, and Krasnaya Zvezda is its daily newspaper.
Senior staff in 2024 included:[17]
Senior staff in 2021 included:[17]
Entities directly subordinated to the Minister of Defence in August 2012 included:[17]
The Office of Inspectors General of the Ministry of Defence was established in 2008, consisting of around thirty retired senior officers. The main task of the office is "to promote the organization of combat and operational training of troops, the construction and further development of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, the development of the theory and history of military art, and the education of personnel."[18] It is the successor to the Soviet Armed Forces's Group of Inspectors General, which was dissolved in 1992.[18]
An outline structure of the Ministry of Defence includes the groupings below, but this structure was in transition when it was recorded in 2004, with several deputy minister posts being abolished:[19]
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