The research on emerging Russian military capabilities will involve monitoring, description and assessment of the modernisation efforts directed at the Russian armed forces and of the arms programmes and structural changes related thereto. Media articles and ICDS policy papers will deal with the following issues: What ambitions does the Russian political leadership harbour when modernising the armed forces and are these ambitions backed by sufficient resources and technological capabilities? What is the content of Russia’s main arms programmes and how do they affect the military capabilities of the armed forces? What is the aim of the changes implemented in the leadership and command structure of the armed forces?
The last forecast was written against the background of general instability in Russia that caused a degree of uncertainty regarding the developments in the Russian military. However, several trends and events that were deemed...
Kaarel Kaas: Since the mid-1990s there have been numerous attempts to reform and modernize the Russian military. All these efforts remained on paper, faded, or resulted in minor reorganisations like merging or splitting different...
The Russian-Georgian conflict, which had been going on for years, escalated into a full-scale war in August 2008. The Five-Day War was, and still is, remarkable and significant in many different ways.
