Russia's Military, Once Creaky, Is Modern and Lethal
Anton Troianovski, Michael Schwirtz and Andrew E. Kramer
Thu, January 27, 2022, 7:47 AM·9 min read
MOSCOW — In the early years of Vladimir Putin’s tenure as Russia’s leader, the country’s military was a hollowed-out but nuclear-armed shell.
It struggled to keep submarines afloat in the Arctic and an outgunned insurgency at bay in Chechnya. Senior officers sometimes lived in moldy, rat-infested tenements. And instead of socks, poorly trained soldiers often wrapped their feet in swaths of cloth, the way their Soviet and Tsarist predecessors had.
Two decades later, it is a far different fighting force that has massed near the border with Ukraine. Under Putin’s leadership, it has been overhauled into a modern sophisticated army, able to deploy quickly and with lethal effect in conventional conflicts, military analysts said. It features precision-guided weaponry, a newly streamlined command structure and well-fed and professional soldiers. And they still have the nuclear weapons.
https://news.yahoo.com/russias-military-once-creaky-modern-124721425.html?fr=yhssrp_catchall
