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Ministry of Defence (Russia)

Government ministry of Russia

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Through Joseph Stalin

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).

History

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 ranks. 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 defence 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.

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. 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 (formerly 10th) Directorate for International Military Cooperation.

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 of 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.

In 2012, he was substituted by General of the Army Sergey Shoigu, who held 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, as well as Vadim Shamarin, Ivan Ivanovich Popov, Vladimir Verteletsky, and Sukhrab Akhmedov.

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 the first deputy finance minister, was appointed as the 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. Other reports had Tsivileva as Putin's niece.

On 18 July it was revealed that Lt Gen Shamarin had been formally dismissed from his post because he had accepted bribes from a supplier. He had been serving as deputy chief of the army’s general staff overseeing the signals corps and military communications.

On 24 July the Deputy Chief of the Satellite Communications Center for Strategic Nuclear Missile Forces Andrei Torgashev was apparently victimized at his residence by a car bomb.

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