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Russia Command Structure
The armed forces chain of command prescribed in the military doctrine clearly establishes central government control of the military. The president of the Russian Federation is the commander in chief. The Government (called a council of ministers or ca
binet in other countries) is responsible for maintaining the armed forces at the appropriate level of readiness. Direct leadership of the armed forces is vested in the Ministry of Defense; the General Staff exercises operational control.
Executive authority over the military lies in the office of the president of the Russian Federation. The State Duma exercises legislative authority through the Government. The minister of defense exercises operational authority, and the General Staff i
mplements instructions and orders. This structure, which has a superficial similarity to the division of power in the United States military establishment, does not imply military subordination to civilian authority in the Western sense, however. The hist
orical 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 generalissi
mo. Even General Secretary Leonid I. Brezhnev (in office 1964-82) 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. They also demonstrate that strict subordination of the military to civilian authority in the Western sense is nei
ther a tradition nor a concern in Russia.
The minister of defense is the nominal commander of all the armed forces, serving under the president of the Russian Federation. In this capacity, the minister exercises day-to-day authority over the armed forces. President Yeltsin appointed General of
the Army Pavel Grachev to the post in May 1992. Grachev's decision to side with Yeltsin in the president's October 1993 confrontation with parliament deprived a rebellious State Duma of an opportunity to overturn the president's authority. At least partl
y for that reason, Yeltsin retained his defense minister despite intense criticism of Grachev's management of the Chechnya campaign and the Russian military establishment in general. Finally, victory in the first round of the 1996 presidential election sp
urred Yeltsin to dismiss Grachev; General Igor' Rodionov, who had commanded troops in the controversial occupation of Tbilisi in 1989 but had a reputation as a soldier of integrity who was sympathetic to reform, was appointed minister of defense in July 1
996.
The Ministry of Defense is managed by a collegium of three first deputy ministers, six deputy ministers, and a chief military inspector, who together form the principal staff and advisory board of the minister of defense. The executive body of the Mini
stry of Defense is the General Staff. It is commanded by the chief of the General Staff. In keeping with the Soviet practice of permitting senior officers to hold civilian positions, in 1996 the chief of staff also was a first deputy minister of defense.<
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Contrary to the United States tradition of military authority derived strictly from the civilian sector, Russian General Staff officers exercise command authority in their own right. In 1996 the General Staff included fifteen main directorates and an u
ndetermined 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 (see table 28, Appendix).
The most secret of the General Staff directorates is the Main Intelligence Directorate (Glavnoye razvedochnoye upravleniye--GRU), which has been an important and closely guarded element of national security since its establishment in the 1920s. The GRU
system delivers detailed information on the capabilities of Russia's most likely military adversaries to the General Staff and to political leaders. The organization is divided into five operational directorates, each covering a designated geographical a
rea. The first four cover Europe, Asia, the Western Hemisphere and Britain, and the Middle East and Africa, respectively. In the Soviet era, the fifth directorate coordinated military intelligence activities, but in the 1990s that agency has been assigned
to provide intelligence from the other former Soviet republics. Headquartered in Moscow, the GRU has an estimated 2,500 personnel, including area and technical specialists and field offices abroad. Each military district and fleet also has its own intell
igence directorate.
Ground Forces
The commander in chief of the ground forces, who in 1996 was Colonel General Valeriy Patrikeyev (appointed in September 1992), has two first deputy commanders, three deputy commanders, and a Main Staff. The first deputies have general responsibilities,
and the deputies have specified functional responsibility for armaments, aviation, and combat training, respectively. The executive agency for the commander in chief is the Main Staff of the Ground Forces.
The Ground Forces of the Russian Federation are estimated to number approximately 670,000 officers and enlisted personnel. Of that number, about 170,000 are contract volunteer enlistees and warrant officers, and about 210,000 are conscripts. Presumably
, the remaining 290,000 are commissioned officers. These figures indicate that 43 percent of ground forces personnel are officers, an extraordinarily high percentage that reflects the Soviet and Russian tradition of giving little authority to the enlisted
ranks, as well as the vestiges of the much larger military cadre inherited from the Soviet army. Much of this bulge is made up of senior field-grade officers and generals who no longer are needed in a smaller military but who are too young to retire. In
the mid-1990s, this situation was one of the most difficult personnel problems facing the ground forces command.
The ground forces are organized into eight military districts, one independent army, and two groups of forces (see fig. 14; fig. 15). Although the districts are ground forces commands, they may include forces from the other services, in which case they
also serve as regional commands. In February 1996, four of Russia's eight independent airborne brigades were placed under ground forces command, with one each going to the North Caucasus, Siberian, Transbaikal, and Far Eastern districts. At the same time
, two of five airborne divisions, stationed at Pskov and Novorossiysk, were assigned for special joint operations to the Northern and Siberian districts, respectively. These shifts, which outside observers interpreted as the end of plans to form a mobile
force for rapid insertion in trouble areas, reflected a shortage of the airlift capacity needed to support independent operations by such troops, as well as a possible fear of coup activity in independent elite military units.
Altogether, in 1996 the ground forces included sixty-nine divisions: seventeen armored, forty-seven motorized infantry, and five airborne. Included in their armaments were 19,000 main battle tanks, 20,000 artillery pieces, 600 surface-to-surface missil
es with nuclear capability, and about 2,600 attack and transport helicopters.
Among the specially designated units, the Operational Group of Russian Forces in Moldova (also known as the Group of Russian Forces in the Dnestr Region) is part of the ground forces, but operationally the group is directly subordinate to the Ministry
of Defense. This command arrangement probably derives more from political than military concerns. The second force group, the Group of Russian Forces in the Transcaucasus, stationed in Armenia and Georgia, is operationally subordinate to the ground forces
command (see The Commonwealth of Independent States, this ch.). The Northwest Group of Forces is an administrative title given to ground forces headquarters in Kaliningrad, whose troops are under the command of the 11th Independent Army. That army, in tu
rn, is operationally subordinate to the ground forces.
The eight military districts are the Northern, Moscow, Volga, North Caucasus, Ural, Siberian, Transbaikal, and Far Eastern. The Northern Military District is the successor to the Soviet-era Leningrad Military District, although the old name still was i
n use in 1995, and reports in 1996 indicated that it might be reinstated officially. The district includes the 6th Combined Arms Army, the 30th Army Corps, the 56th District Training Center, and several smaller units. One air army also is stationed in the
district, but it appears to be subordinate to the Air Force High Command. The airborne division stationed at Pskov, formerly operationally subordinate to the Ministry of Defense, was reassigned for special combined duty in 1996.
The Moscow Military District is an anomaly in the command structure because it includes the national capital. It has special significance because of its proximity to the western border with Belarus and Ukraine, traditionally the routes followed by inva
ders from the west. The district's official troop strength includes the 1st and 22d combined arms armies and the 20th Army Corps. However, CFE Treaty data indicate that operational control of these forces is vested in the Ministry of Defense rather than t
he ground forces or the district commanders. Other forces within the Moscow district include the Moscow Air Defense District, one airborne brigade, and one brigade of special forces (spetsnaz
) troops. The Moscow Air Defense District has boundaries coterminous with those of the Moscow Military District, but it is under the command of the air defense forces. The special forces brigade is directly subordinate to the Ministry of Defense.
The Volga Military District, headquartered at Samara, is an interior district that includes the 2d Combined Arms Army, together with an airborne division that is operationally subordinate to the Ministry of Defense. The 2d Combined Arms Army is an unde
rstrength unit consisting of the 16th and 90th Tank Divisions. Also in the Volga district are the 27th Motorized Rifle Division and the 469th District Training Center, which are directly subordinate to the district commander.
The North Caucasus Military District, headquartered at Rostov-na-Donu, faces the former Soviet republics of Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. It is defended by the 58th Combined Arms Army and the 8th and 67th Army Corps. However, these are not robust f
orces. The 8th Army Corps and the 58th Army each include only one motorized rifle division, and the 67th Army Corps has only reserve forces with no heavy equipment. The weakness of these units has helped motivate Russian proposals to renegotiate CFE Treat
y limitations to allow additional forces along Russia's southern flank.
The Ural Military District lies south of the Northern district and east of the Ural Mountains, with the Siberian district to its east. The Ural district, whose headquarters is at Yekaterinburg, includes two tank divisions and two motorized rifle divisi
ons. The Siberian Military District lies in the center of Asiatic Russia, with its headquarters in Novosibirsk. Its ground forces are organized into one corps of four motorized rifle divisions and one artillery regiment.
The Transbaikal Military District is headquartered in Chita. The district comprises three combined arms armies totaling four tank divisions and six motorized rifle divisions. One tank division and one motorized rifle division are headquartered at distr
ict training centers that are believed to be directly subordinate to the district headquarters. One artillery division and two machine gun-artillery divisions deployed on the Chinese border also have district training-center status.
The Far Eastern Military District, headquartered in Khabarovsk, includes four combined arms armies and one army corps. Among them, those units have three tank divisions and thirteen motorized rifle divisions, of which one tank division and two motorize
d rifle divisions have headquarters that serve as district training centers. One artillery division and five machine gun-artillery divisions are directly subordinate to the district headquarters.
Data as of July 1996
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