Ministry of Defence (Russia)

The Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation (Russian: Министерство обороны Российской Федерации; MOD) is the governing body of the Russian Armed Forces. The president of Russia is the commander-in-chief of the forces and directs the activity of the ministry. The minister of defence exercises day-to-day administrative and operational authority over the forces. The General Staff of the Armed Forces executes the instructions and orders of the president and the defence minister.

The ministry is headquartered in the General Staff building, built-in 1979–1987 on Arbatskaya Square, near Arbat Street in Moscow. Other buildings of the ministry are located throughout Moscow. The supreme body responsible for the ministry's management and supervision of the Armed Forces and the centralization of the Armed Forces' command is the National Defense Management Center, located in the Main Building of the Ministry of Defense, built in the 1940s on Frunzenskaya Embankment.

The current Minister of Defence is Andrey Belousov (since 14 May 2024).

The U.S. Library of Congress Country Studies' volume for Russia said in July 1996 that:

[The] structure [...] does not imply military subordination to civilian authority in the Western sense [...]. The historical tradition of military command is considerably different in Russia. The tsars were educated as officers, and they regularly wore military uniforms and carried military ranks. Stalin always wore a military uniform, and he assumed the title generalissimo. Even General Secretary Leonid I. Brezhnev [...] appointed himself general of the army, and he encouraged portraits of himself in full uniform. By tradition dating back to the tsars, the minister of defence normally is a uniformed officer. The State Duma also seats a large number of deputies who are active-duty military officers—another tradition that began in the Russian imperial era. These combinations of military and civilian authority ensure that military concerns are considered at the highest levels of the Russian government.

On 18 May 1992, President of Russia Boris Yeltsin appointed General of the Army Pavel Grachev to the post of Minister of Defence. Despite intense criticism of Grachev's management of the First Chechen War and the Russian military establishment in general, Yeltsin retained Grachev till 18 June 1996. The new minister of defence became General of the Army Igor Rodionov, who subsequently was substituted by Marshal of the Russian Federation Igor Sergeyev.

In March 2001, Sergei Ivanov, previously secretary of the Security Council of Russia, was appointed defence minister by President Vladimir Putin, becoming Russia's first non-uniformed civilian defence minister. Putin called the personnel changes in Russia's security structures coinciding with Ivanov's appointment as defence minister "a step toward demilitarizing public life." Putin also stressed Ivanov's responsibility for overseeing military reform as defence minister. What Putin did not emphasise was Ivanov's long service within the KGB and FSB and his then rank of General-Lieutenant within the FSB. Such military and security agency-associated men are known as siloviki.

As of 2002, there were four living Marshals of the Soviet Union. Such men are automatically Advisors to the Defence Minister. The Marshals alive at that time were Viktor Kulikov, Vasily Petrov, Sergei Sokolov, a former Minister of Defence of the Soviet Union, and Dmitri Yazov. Yazov was listed by the American analysts Scott and Scott in 2002 as a consultant to the (formerly 10th) Directorate for International Military Cooperation.