Medvedev retreats: number of officers to increase again

02.02.2011 Number of officers in Russian Armed Forces will be increased, reports RIA Novosti referring to the statement made by president Medvedev at a meeting on military pay issues.

New monetary allowance law will consider "a number of new details" associated with increased amount of commissioned staff, added the president.

According to defense minister Anatoly Serdiukov, amount of officers will increase on 70,000 comparing to initial plans of military reform.

Serdiukov said the reason of this staff increase was deployment of additional military formations and establishment of military space defense.

Defense minister reported late in Oct 2010 that manpower of Russian Armed Forces had been reduced down to 1 mln men, and amount of officers had been decreased from 350,000 to 150,000 in accordance with the military reformation program.