Mihai Fifor, the Romanian defense minister, admitted before a joint session of the parliament’s national security and defense committees that the country did not manage to spend 2 percent of GDP on defense in 2017. The government did allocate the necessary funds, but the Ministry... MORE

The Vladimir Putin regime, which is generally given credit for coming up with the concept of “hybrid war” (“New Type Warfare”) and deploying it against other countries, is now struggling with another task: figuring out how to defend the Russian Federation from “hybrid war” attacks.... MORE

Vladimir Putin’s presidential campaign from its first days was dressed in a military uniform. Like Caesar 2,000 years ago, Putin decided that military triumph is much more convincing than election promises. Last December, four days after announcing his intention to lead the country for another... MORE

Sergei Skripal (66), a former Russian military intelligence (GRU) colonel, was arrested in Moscow in 2004 for allegedly being an agent of the United Kingdom’s MI6 intelligence service. Skripal was convicted, in 2006, to serve 13 years in prison for treason. In 2010, he was... MORE

The Russian Duma (the lower chamber of the Russian parliament) adopted a law, on February 21, introducing requirements for a mandatory psychological evaluation for those who aspire to join the Russian military (TASS, February 21). This provision concerns not only private and contract soldiers, but... MORE

Several statements and interviews from Russia’s military top brass, especially marking the fifth anniversary of the appointment of Sergei Shoigu as minister of defense in November 2012, note the effort to reintroduce a number of divisions to the order of battle (OOB). These structural-level changes... MORE

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson happened to be in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the same day last week as Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, but opted not to have a meeting with his Russian counterpart as Moscow had suggested rather persistently. Tillerson’s brief probably was... MORE

Russian telecommunication experts paid close attention to the February 22 announcement of the launch into orbit of two experimental micro-satellites by the private space exploration company SpaceX (Vedomosti, February 22). The main goal of the launch of SpaceX’s Falcon-9 rocket was advertised as the deployment... MORE

During his annual address to the parliament, on March 1, Russian President Vladimir Putin unveiled an array of nuclear superweapons, claiming Russia has secretly overcome the mighty United States and assumed a dominant military position. Putin demanded the West now “negotiate,” which sounded more like... MORE

The ataman (head) of the Kuban Cossack voisko (army), Nikolay Doluda, reported that a National Guard platoon made up entirely of Cossacks is being created in Krasnodar Krai. This Cossack National Guard platoon will eventually be scaled up to a company, a battalion or even... MORE