Military-
Branches of armed forces:
-Ground Forces
-1 year Conscription
-Eligible age 18-27
-300,000 Active troops
| Main Battle Tanks | 22,800+ (~6,500 active)[78][79] |
| Light Tanks | 150 PT-76;[80] None[81] |
| Armoured Infantry Fighting Vehicles | 15,000+ (~6,000 active)[82] |
| Armoured Personnel Carriers | 9,900+ (~6,400 active)[79] |
| Towed Artillery | 12,765 (~7,550 active)[79] |
| Self Propelled Artillery | 6,000 (~3,500 active)[83] |
| Multiple Rocket Launchers | about 4,500 (~900 active)[84] |
| Mortars | 6,600 (~2,600 active)[83] |
| Self-Propelled Surface to Air Missiles | about 2,500 |
-Air Force
-210,000 troops
-2,750 aircraft
-40,000 metric tons of chemical agents
-Navy
-161,000 active force
-233 ships
-24 operational nuclear submarines
-56 operational war ships
-Baltic fleet
-Northern fleet
-Pacific fleet
-Black Sea fleet
-Caspian flotilla
-Airborne troops
-35,000 active troops
-Strategic rocket forces
-369 ICBM capable of delivering 1247 nuclear warheads
-Space Forces
-space launch and satellite communications
Budget: $56 Billion (3.5% GDP)
Safety-
-Public medical services are below western standards in regards to patient care, medications, and surgery.
-Rates of infectious disease such as HIV are high.
-Police and public officials have a high rate of corruption.
-Organized crime is widespread and the lines between organized criminal organizations and governments and corporations are often non existent.
-Due to the largely unpopulated landmass of Russia, emergency services are limited to major developed areas.
Technology-
Russia has modern telecommunications networks including internet, television, radio, and cellular. The Russian space program has an advanced space program capable of launching satellites and reaching space stations. Russian controlled satellites include those designed for land sensing and optical imaging, communications, scientific research, extra planetary research, and space based weapons platforms. The Cold War produced a large military research and development program, and was a leader in fields of aerospace, atomic development, naval research, communications, and weapons technology. Russia’s military technologies budgets have been dramatically reduced since 1991. The Soviet Union had an extensive biological and biochemical weapons development and research system which produced biological weapons and also developed defence against such weapons.
History-
1547-1682 Russia was a feudal society rules by the tsars. In Russia’s early history power and rule was located in present day Ukraine and Moscow. In 1721 Peter I proclaimed Russia an Empire and himself the emperor after 39 years of rule. St. Petersburg became the capital as Russia became a European power and adopted European Culture. in 1812 Napoleon’s army invaded Russia but was defeated as harsh Russian winter set in. France’s army was pushed back by Russia all the way to Paris. in 1861 Alexander II ended serfdom, in which the widely peasant population was freed from service of noble land owners and granted land parcels. This initiated a period of social and industrial modernization. Following the 1917 February revolution and the following russian civil war Nicholas II abdicated his rule and was later executed. The following october Lenin’s bolshevik party overthrew the interim provisional government. Ending its WWI involvement Russia gave up its eastern european holdings. The USSR was formed in 1922. Stalin succeeded Lenin and imposed restrictive rule, executing hundreds of thousands in the great purge of the late 30’s and sending over 10 million more to death or prison camps over the following 20 years. Stalin’s goals were to create an economy based on heavy industrial production. In 1941 Germany invaded Russia, resulting in the death of nearly 25 million russians. The defeat of Germany resulted in Russian control of eastern europe. Stalin’s govt controlled economy focused almost entirely on heavy industrial production. Khrushchev followed Stalin and eased stalinist policies and his sucess with the Russian space program initiated the cold war with the launch of sputnik. The 1970s-80s in Russia were a time of economic stagnation characterized by a lack of consumer goods. In 1979 Russia occupied Afghanistan and was forced out in 1989 due to the cost and lack of support for the occupation. in 1991 the military held a coup in an attempt to preserve soviet power, which resulted in collapse of the soviet union and the creation of 15 ex soviet states.
The Russian federation was formed in 1991 with Boris Yelsin elected president. The previously soviet controlled industries went up for privitization in a radical move to attempt to start a capitalist economy. This resulted in a massive drop to russian productivity and gdp. In an attempt to prevent communists from regaining control of the government Yeltsin made a series of corupt deals in which newly created banks and media empires were given control of the largest industrial complexes, monopolies and govenment influence in exchange for loans and political support in his 1996 election. This created and Oligarchy in which 8 men controlled the majority of Russian wealth, each with fortunes of nearly a billion dollars or more. Putin gained control in 1999 and has since worked to take back control from the oligarchs and break up or regain control of major monopolies in natural resources, especially Siberia’s oil fields, arresting several oligarchs in attempts to force them to give up their empires. Despite evidence of un-democratic practices and falsified terrorist attacks used to drum up support for war in the caucasus, Putin has been widely popular and has seen dramatic increase in economic growth.
Geography-
Northernmost Asian country. Area west of Ural mountains, which run north south separating the western ⅓ of the country, lies within Europe. Southern regions are mountainous along with the Ural region. East of the Urals lies Siberia, which includes Taiga subarctic forest and tundra in the northern regions reaching well north of the arctic circle. Port access to Sea of Japan, Arctic ocean, Black Sea, Caspian Sea. The largest country in the world, Russia covers 17,098,242 sq km with 20,241.5 km of land boarders and 37,653 km of coastline.
Bordering countries: Azerbaijan 284 km, Belarus 959 km, China (southeast) 3,605 km, China (south) 40 km, Estonia 290 km, Finland 1,313 km, Georgia 723 km, Kazakhstan 6,846 km, North Korea 17.5 km, Latvia 292 km, Lithuania (Kaliningrad Oblast) 227 km, Mongolia 3,441 km, Norway 196 km, Poland (Kaliningrad Oblast) 432 km, Ukraine 1,576 km.
Russia has vast reserves of oil, numerous minerals such as coal and metals, and timber.
10 largest cities are: Moscow, St. Peterburg, Novosibirsk, Nizhniy Novgorod, Yekaterinburg, Samara, Omsk, Kazan, Ufa, Chelyabinsk. Population in mostly located west of Urals, 73% urban.
Climate-
The climate of European Russia is a humid continental climate while northern Russia and Siberia have a subarctic climate, experiencing extreme winters. 65% of the country is covered by permafrost. Average yearly temperatures in Moscow are 42 degrees F. Temperatures in Sibera can reach as low as -90 degrees F. The southern central regions of Russia are are arid steppe lands.
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