With Finland in NATO, Russia restructures forces, depriving the Northern Fleet of the status as a military district

“The dividing of the Western Military District into the Moscow Military District and Leningrad Military District, as well as possibly subordinate the Northern Fleet to the latter, is a response to NATO enlargement in Northern Europe and expected further changes in allied defense posture,” says Zysk.

She explains that seen with Russian eyes, it is necessary to improve the ability to fight full-scale land operations along the Finish border and in the Baltic theatre of military operations

Restructuring of the command and personnel organization comes as a result, Zysk says.

“At large, these plans continue the trend to a partial return to the Soviet era military organization of forces, effectively rejecting the military reforms implemented by the former Defence Minister Anatoly Serdyukov between 2008-2012.”

Professor Zysk believes that ultimately, “the objective is to make Russia capable of facing a possible confrontation with NATO, which is the best way to strengthen strategic deterrence.”

Russian Military Analyst Yuri Fedorov also asses that reestablishing Leningrad Military District is designed for warfare in “the Baltic countries and Finland”. These areas “must be saturated with troops,” he wrote in his Telegram channel.

Government-operated Rossiskaya Gazeta on Sunday published an article underlining that depriving the Northern Fleet of the status as a military district “will in no way diminish the importance,” but actually opposite as forces will be “optimized, and becoming more flexible and efficient.” 

Aftermath of South-Ossetia invasion  

Katarzyna Zysk compares what now happens with the aftermaths of Russia’s invasion of Georgia in 2008. 

“The extensive Russian failures and losses in Ukraine have spurred the process of a major military change in Russia – just like earlier the shock of weaknesses exposed in the war in Georgia in 2008 pushed a major military reform back then.”

Zysk suspects we are only the start of a restructuring of Russia’s armed forces. 

“The process is fanned by both the swiftly changing geopolitical situation along the Russian border and the conclusions drawn from the battlefield in Ukraine,” she says and points to the country’s plans to significantly increase the size of the army, to 1.5 million, including adding more than a dozen new divisions.

“It will be hard to achieve that as long as Russia is fighting the war in Ukraine, but this should be seen as a long-term objective,” the professor says.

Today’s Northern Fleet Military District includes the regions of Murmansk, Arkhangelsk, Komi Republic and Nenets Autonomous Okrug.

When Russia launched its all-out war on Ukraine in February last year, the Arctic brigades of the Northern Fleet lost hundreds of soldiers on the battleground north of Kharkiv during the first days.

The 200th Brigade is located in Pechenga, some 10 to 15 kilometers from the border with NATO-member Norway.