MOSCOW. July 10 (Interfax-AVN) - Contracted volunteers will not replace all of the conscripts in the Russian Armed Forces in the foreseeable future, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov told a briefing in Moscow on Thursday.
Both kinds of servicemen will man the Armed Forces for a long time, he said.
"I believe that this (the replacement of all conscripts by volunteers - Interfax) will happen sometime, but it won't be anytime soon," he said.
"Naming the deadline would be silly, like going back to 1960s when the deadline for the advent of communism was announced," Ivanov said.