The decree is posted on the portal of Russia’s legal information. With the move, the Northern Fleet is now officially absorbed into a renewed Leningrad Military District.
The Northern Fleet Joint Strategic Command was given the status of a military district on 1 January 2021, a move seen to mirror the importance of Russia’s Arctic regions. In geographical size, the Northern Fleet was until today the third largest of Russia’s five military districts. […]
Katarzyna Zysk, a professor with the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies (IFS), agrees that the ongoing restructuring is linked to the fact that Russia has got a much long land-border with NATO.
“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,” Zysk previously said to the Barents Observer.
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.
In addition to the new Leningrad- and Moscow military districts, Putin’s decree also adds the illegally occupied Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporozhye and Kherson as part of the Southern Military District.
The changes in Russia’s military districts take effect from March 1, Putin writes in his decree. Läs artikel