Russia to prioritise development of capital construction for nuclear forces in 2023

Russia will be paying special attention in 2023 to the development of capital construction for its nuclear weapons, said Russia's defence minister Sergei Shoigu. "When preparing the list of capital construction projects for 2023, special attention will be paid to construction for strategic nuclear forces," said the Russian defence minister, as per a report from Sputnik news. He further stressed that Russia needs to maintain a balanced approach in its defence expenditure, ensuring appropriate importance is given to building infrastructure and supplying weapons to troops. 

Russia's nuclear forces are quite different from the US' nuclear force structure as Moscow has a significant amount of tactical nuclear weapons, which are different from strategic nuclear weapons. Russia's defence minister said Moscow is also constructing infrastructure which will be used to deploy new missile systems as a part of the Strategic Rocket Forces. A test site at Krasnoyarsk Territory is also being constructed for Russia's space forces. 

Russia is drawing lesson from the war with Ukraine

"At the moment, the construction of infrastructure facilities for the deployment of new missile systems has been begun in five units of the Strategic Rocket Forces. As for the space forces, work continues on the creation of an interspecific test site in the Krasnoyarsk Territory," he said.

The Russian defense minister also divulged that the Russian military is testing new ways to use artillery and rockets in the Russia-Ukraine war. Shoigu pointed out that fire defeat of the enemy is a crucial factor that determines success of military operations. He added that Russia is learning from its experience in the Russia-Ukraine war and working to improve its counter-battery fighting. It is to mention that Moscow launched a war against Ukraine in February and contrary to expectations, despite the armed forces modernisation carried out by Kremlin leader Valdimir Putin, Russian gains in the theatre of war have been slow. It is not clear if Putin will carry out another military modernisation effort.