Understanding Russia's plans to upgrade its military hardware and capabilities - and the profound challenges it faces in doing so - is critical to assessing the short- and long-term threats Russia will continue to pose to Ukraine, the US, NATO and their allies, a team of experts wrote for "Chatham House" ;.
More than two years after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, understanding the prospects for a rebuilding of Russian military power is critical to predicting the Kremlin's ability to continue waging war or even escalate hostilities.
Moscow's war against Ukraine has made clear the extent of Russia's military capabilities and the ability of the Russian armed forces to sustain sustained, high-intensity military operations. Despite high rates of attrition in many areas and the destruction of significant parts of the ground forces, the Russian armed forces are rapidly recovering and continue to pose a significant threat to the US, NATO and their allies.
Considered in all areas, the Russian military remains a force capable of opposing equal and near-equal competitors. Their complete disinterest in losses makes them a dangerous adversary even for more technologically advanced adversaries like the US.
Therefore, the question of how quickly and how well Russia can rebuild its armed forces is vital to understanding the future threat environment in the medium term - this can be defined as the time frame of the next round of Russia's State Armament Program (GPV ) after 2027, although the exact details and duration of the GPV after 2027 are still to be determined.
Ongoing studies of the Russian military should include deciphering current and future trends affecting or potentially affecting the recovery of Russian forces in terms of manpower, force structure, command and control. This research focuses on the challenges and opportunities facing Russia in relation to the supply of military equipment and platforms.
The complexity of the situation is further compounded by several key factors: the volatile nature of Russian operations in Ukraine; Western policy expectations regarding a potential peace agreement; questions about the sustainability of international support and military aid to Ukraine; and the impact of international sanctions on the Russian defense industry. However, this is not an exhaustive list.
This research paper provides a mid-term assessment of Russia's ongoing military buildup and its efforts to replenish or modernize military equipment. The paper examines the scope, scale and successes of this process since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, as well as the challenges and setbacks Russia has faced so far.
The intention of this research is to help Western politicians and military planners understand how Russia seeks to adapt or develop its armed forces in the medium term, whether it can succeed and especially in which areas and sectors it will continue to be a real threat for Ukraine, as well as the US and its allies.
Despite heavy battlefield losses and mistakes over the past two years, the Russian military has proven capable of sustaining significant pressure from the tactical to the operational level across much of the front line. Russian forces appear capable of absorbing personnel losses and plugging holes in the line with recruits. At the same time, the Russian high command is undertaking large-scale reforms aimed at increasing conventional military capabilities over the long term. However, the continuation of the war in Ukraine will limit Russia's ability to implement and integrate these reforms.
Of all Russia's military services, its ground forces are the most seriously engaged in the war. They have the biggest losses in personnel and equipment. As a result, their ability to regenerate will depend even more on how and when the Russo-Ukrainian war ends than is likely for other services. Although the recruitment of many volunteers has improved the situation, the losses of equipment seem more difficult to maintain. Replacing equipment at sufficient volume and speed will be challenging, and Russia will struggle to conduct effective combined arms operations beyond the company level. However, the Army has improved its intelligence, precision targeting, and dynamic targeting capabilities.
As for the Air Force, available resources for the recapitalization and regeneration of the Aerospace Forces (VKS) aircraft and weapons will be limited by the urgent demand for large-scale production of equipment in other areas to support the ongoing war against Ukraine. Therefore, for the foreseeable future, the greatest threats to NATO from Russia in the air domain are likely to remain - as they are now - Russia's multiple, lethal and multi-layered missile (SAM) systems, together with its growing long-range strike arsenal .
Although the Russian Navy has suffered embarrassing losses at the hands of Ukrainian forces in the Black Sea, the Russian Federation Navy (RFN) remains more powerful than sometimes assumed. With two notable exceptions, most of Ukraine's naval achievements against Russia have involved attacks against very old or limited ships. However, the RFN has lost none of its ocean water combat capabilities. Ukrainian success at sea is impressive, but this should not hide the fact that Russia's opportunities for global power projection are undiminished.
Russia has long pursued asymmetric capabilities that are critical to a vision of modern, information-driven warfare - including cyber tools, information and electronic warfare, unmanned and autonomous systems, counterspace operations, advanced data analytics and artificial intelligence . Since the start of full-scale war with Ukraine in 2022, Russian capabilities in these areas have been tested - revealing areas of continued strength, but also points of weakness, degradation and future uncertainty. To reduce the long-term viability of Russia's asymmetric approach, the West must pursue a policy and strategy to further degrade Russian technological capabilities and undermine the Kremlin's information strategy both in Russia and abroad.
International targeted sanctions and the demands of the conflict have seriously affected Russia's military-industrial complex (OMC). The current situation is unsustainable for Russia: the country's military industry is headed for a period of decline and innovation stagnation, and must simplify production to cope. This will affect the ability of Russian forces to recapitalize military equipment and modernize, and the speed with which they are able to do so. Despite the above problems, Western military planners should remember that the military will likely continue to produce "good enough" systems that will remain a significant threat to Ukraine as well as NATO and its allies. This is especially true of the adversarial and asymmetric Russian capabilities that have not yet been used in the war against Ukraine.
The decline of OPC will increasingly limit Russia's ability to symmetrically oppose the West and NATO in conventional and strategic competition, especially as technology becomes an even more important element of national power. The use of tougher and expanded sanctions will be the best tool for Western militaries and their allies to "technologically outpace" Moscow and blunt Russia's ability to compete militarily and geopolitically.
Ultimately, the single most significant factor that could harm Russia's ability to rebuild its military in the coming years will be continued Western support for Ukraine. Western countries must continue to work together to provide Ukraine with arms, ammunition, financial support and refugee aid, and to show moral solidarity with the Ukrainian military effort. Denying Russia a victory and forcing her to continue a long struggle of attrition will further degrade all elements of her war-making capacity.
Just as the war in Ukraine has highlighted both the weaknesses and the resilience of the Russian military, the lessons for the West are just as mixed. The signs of Russian vulnerability do not give the West cause for complacency - but they do point to the importance of reducing Russia's capacity to wage war through attrition. Above all, continued Western support for Ukraine will remain crucial.
Russia remains able to simultaneously continue to pursue its military objectives and make wartime adaptations of its command structure. With varying degrees of success, the Kremlin has been able to rapidly mobilize reservists, hire private military companies, maintain military-industrial production for major systems, and heavily militarize the public information space in support of the war.
In terms of command structure, the division of the Western Military District into the Moscow and Leningrad Districts in March 2024 is also telling. Moscow is now returning to its "comfort zone", namely the Soviet-era command structures of the European theater. The new Moscow Military District will deal exclusively with Ukraine, Belarus and Kaliningrad, which will inevitably be directly involved with the US and NATO in the Baltic theater as well as on the Alliance's eastern flank.
However, the speed of implementation and effectiveness of the ongoing reforms in the command structure remains to be seen. They will depend in part on the effectiveness or otherwise of new Defense Minister Andrei Belousov, appointed in May 2024. Similarly, it is not known whether the Russian armed forces can be a "learning organization" capable of implementing real change, whether or not are structural or cultural.
In addition to wartime adaptations in the command structure, the military industry has shown resilience in its ability to supply military hardware and equipment in the war against Ukraine.
Russian armed forces remain a real threat to NATO and its allies. In Ukraine, the Russian military has shown that it can absorb losses and maintain tactical-operational reliability despite strategic failures. Russian forces can rely on improved reconnaissance fire and strike systems equipped with a vast arsenal of long-range precision munitions, as well as greater numbers of improved unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Russia's long-range strike and anti-aircraft munitions, combined with multi-layered air defense systems, pose the greatest conventional threat to NATO.
The Aerospace Forces (VKS) and the Naval Forces of the Russian Federation (RFN) remain critical parts of the nuclear and conventional strategic deterrent forces, potentially holding NATO assets at risk of destruction. Finally, asymmetric capabilities - particularly the use of cyber and information warfare; electronic warfare for operations against UAVs and counter-precision-guided munitions; and space-based assets - are still able to offset the conventional superiority of NATO and the US.
Russia's prospects for rebuilding its military machine remain mixed, both in terms of speed and effectiveness. Yet as long as the war against Ukraine continues, and regardless of the depth of Russia's military recovery, the current Kremlin leadership will remain a threat to European and transatlantic security, as well as a strategic competitor to NATO and its allies.
Analysis of Moscow's nuclear declarative policy suggests that if Russia were to suffer a severe enough degradation of its conventional military power that the leadership would consider the existence of the Russian state threatened, this would create the conditions under which Russia might consider using nuclear weapons. However, this possibility remains remote, especially as long as Russia's air weapons and its naval forces across the Black Sea remain relatively intact.
In addition, Russia will continue to use its toolkit of asymmetric capabilities and ambiguous subthreshold tactics. These tools should no longer be analyzed as part of a "grey area" or "hybrid" a range of measures aimed at blurring the line between war and peace. They are fundamentally part of Russia's ongoing low-intensity war against Western interests.
Continued assessments of Russian military reform and ongoing rearmament are vital to understanding in which sectors Moscow still poses a threat to Western interests. Such assessments will be essential for the US and NATO in terms of maintaining both a technological and general deterrence advantage against the Kremlin.