The claims

fiction_108x60“We only have two military bases abroad…and American bases are all over the world.”

 

factfiction_108x60“The budget of our defence ministry for the next year has increased, in dollars it is about 50bn. And the Pentagon budget is almost 10 times bigger.”

Vladimir Putin, 18 December 2014

The background

Vladimir Putin played down the scale of Russia’s military might today in a three-hour press conference.

Under pressure over allegations that Russian forces are interfering in the conflict in neighbouring Ukraine, the Russian president said his country’s military reach paled into insignificance compared to the United States.

Russian President Putin attends his annual end-of-year news conference in Moscow

Mr Putin said Russia only had two bases abroad. “The American bases are throughout the globe, and you want to say we are the aggressors?” he added.

He also said that the US defence budget was almost 10 times bigger than Russia’s.

The analysis

Mr Putin’s claim that Russia only has two military bases abroad is easy to debunk. He said the bases in question are in Kyrgyzstan, built at the request of the country’s then president, and in Tajikistan, near the Afghan border.

He appeared to forget about Russia’s naval facility in the port of Tartus in Syria – very much still operational, according to official government statements.

He also failed to mention Sevastopol, home of the Black Sea fleet. It may be ominous that Mr Putin does not consider the Crimean base to be “abroad” after Russia’s de facto annexation of the peninsula earlier this year.

The Russian president doesn’t appear to count the many other Russian military bases in other former Soviet countries as being “abroad” either.

Russia in fact has a heavy military footprint in many of its neighbours, with significant troop presence in Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan and others.

These figures are from the US-based Council on Foreign Relations:

18_cfo_fc

In addition, Russia has thousands of troops stationed in the “frozen conflict” zones of Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Transnistria.

The presence of forces in these territories also gives the lie to another claim made by Mr Putin today that Russia “did not invade anybody”.

The troops are there following Russian military interventions in the three disputed border regions.

The latest of these conflicts in 2008 saw Russian forces penetrate deeply into Georgian territory and temporarily occupy several Georgian cities before withdrawing to the disputed region of South Ossetia.

A Russian serviceman stands near a road sign as troops prepare to leave a checkpoint in the Georgian village of Karaleti

Russian soldier in Georgia, 2008 (Reuters)

Like the intervention in Ukraine, Russia has consistently denied that these interventions represented a military invasion.

It has variously denied its soldiers were fighting alongside pro-Russian separatists or classed its operations as peacekeeping or humanitarian missions.

Dr Igor Sutyagin, a Russia specialist at the Royal United Services Institute, said Mr Putin’s claim not to have invaded anyone was “absolutely insupportable” but not surprising.

“This press conference was for a domestic audience, and that is the way the domestic audience is being ‘educated’. Memories are short in Russia. He might believe that people would not recall that these things actually happened.

“Or he is basing this on statements that the interventions done in self-defence or for humanitarian reasons.”

Dr Sutyagin also said it was “absolutely wrong” to state that Russia only had two bases abroad, adding: “That tells us how he thinks about ‘abroad’. It’s very interesting.”

- FILE PHOTO 13DEC00 - The secret Russian listening station at Lourdes some 30 km south of Havana is..

Lourdes listening post, Cuba (Reuters)

More foreign affairs?

In 2012 reports began to circulate that Russia was planning to re-establish previous military facilities in Cuba and Vietnam, and was interested in new ventures elsewhere.

This year Russia’s defence minister Sergei Shoigu was quoted as saying that his country planned to sign agreements with Vietnam, Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, the Seychelles and Singapore among others.

Some commentators were sceptical about whether this represented a realistic aspiration and Mr Putin has specifically denied rumours that Russia would reopen its Cold War signals intelligence facility at Lourdes in Cuba.

Dr Sutyagin told us Russia was also in talks with countries including Algeria and Cyprus, also home to a major UK military base, for the right to refuel ships and aircraft at strategic locations.

What about America?

Mr Putin may be underplaying Russia’s foreign interests, but he is right about the massive international reach of the US military.

According to the US Department of Defense, there are 576 US military bases overseas, in 40 countries. Most are in Germany (174), Japan (113) and South Korea (83). They vary in size.

Other documents suggest there are around 125,000 US military personnel stationed in about 150 countries around the world, although in many the presence amounts to a handful of people.

About 88,000 US military personnel were also serving overseas in contingency operations as of September this year, 33,000 of them in Afghanistan.

Spending power

According to the respected Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri), Russia actually spent the equivalent of nearly $88bn on defence in 2013, compared to $640bn for the United States.

So that’s not the $50bn quoted by Mr Putin, and the difference is not quite tenfold, though clearly Russia is a long way behind America in the spending stakes.

Russia still has the third biggest cash military budget, behind China and the US, and of course a dollar goes further in Russia when it comes to buying equipment and paying soldiers, so the comparison might not be entirely helpful.

As a percentage of GDP, Russia spends 4.1 per cent of its national wealth compared to 3.8 per cent for the US.

And Russia’s defence budget has gone up in real terms every year since 1999, whereas US spending has fallen since 2008.

Russian President Putin attends his annual end-of-year news conference in Moscow

The verdict

Mr Putin is demonstrably wrong to say that Russia only has two foreign bases, though his point that the US has far more overseas military strength than Russia or indeed anyone else is certainly certainly correct.

He was also wrong on the detail of how much Russia spends on its armed forces. Again, the broader point that the US is way out in front is right.

There is one other basic fact we have to keep in mind when comparing the two superpowers: Russia is the largest country in the world, covering 11 time zones from the Baltic in the east to the Sea of Japan in the west.

The Kaliningrad Oblast – a Russian enclave separated from the rest of the country by the Baltic States – is home to the Baltic fleet, airborne troops, bombers, tanks, artillery and Iskander missiles.

Russia carried out surprise military drills in the region, which borders Nato members Lithuania and Poland, earlier this month.

This is a country that would have an enormous strategic reach even without a single foreign base.