MOSCOW, July 17 (AVN) -The Defence Ministry and the General Staff started drafting a report to the Russian president on the Armed Forces development until 2010, a source in the ministry told the Military News Agency.
The report has to produce an unbiased estimation and adjustment of all the variants of the army reform. The respective order was given by President Vladimir Putin on Sunday during the extra meeting with Security Council Secretary Sergei Ivanov, Defence Minister Igor Sergeyev and Chief-of-Staff Anatoly Kvashnin in the residence of Bocharov Ruchei, in the southern Russian resort of Sochi.
According to the Kremlin press release, the meeting continued the preparation for the RF Security Council meeting to be devoted to the Armed Forces development until 2010. The meeting lasted for three hours instead of one planned. It focused primarily on the views of both Sergeyev and Kvashnin on the restructuring the country's Armed Forces and first of all the Strategic Missile Forces. According to the source, the parties agreed in that the reduction of the SMF will not be so profound and radical as it was proposed by the chief-of-staff. It is not planned to diminish the status of the forces.
"A unified estimation of the situation in the Armed Forces has been reached," Sergeyev told reporters after the meeting. The fact the minister is still in Sochi is a circumstantial evidence pointing out that Sergeyev's position is cherished by the president. The minister is included in the lineup of the Russian state delegation headed by Vladimir Putin that will visit China later on Monday, a source in the Defence Ministry foreign relations department told the Agency.