MOSCOW, November 15 (AVN) -- Russia should stop the reduction of its troops stationed east of the Ural mountains, Academician Vladimir Petrovsky, full member of the Academy of Military Sciences, said on Monday.
The draft military doctrine does not take into account a demographic threat from Russia's Asian neighbours, Petrovsky told the militray News Agency. The population of Siberia and the Russian Far East will reduce by almost 10 percent in the next 10 years, he said. At the same time, the population of the neighbouring Asian countries will increase by over 30 percent, he added.
Dute to lack of living space in those countries, experts pedict a huge outbreak of immigration to Russia, Petrovsky continued. Most of the newcomers will settle in Siberia and the Far East where elements of demographic expansion are already visible. Such scenario is a serious risk for Russia's national security, but the draft military doctrine hardly ever takes it into account, he stressed.
According to him, Russia is unable to stop the flow of immigtrants, that is why large military and police forces should be preserved east of the Ural mountains.