SHANGHAI, March 31. /TASS/. Russia will get the world’s most battle-capable army after the Ukraine conflict that has become unprecedented in its scale and new technology use over the past few decades, Director of the Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies at the Higher School of Economics National Research University Vasily Kashin said on Monday.
"Now we are stronger than at any other time. The main thing for us will be to maintain this potential. It is perfectly clear that there will be no retreat after the war. We will have no steep declines in military spending. These expenditures will be lower than during the war but still, they will be much higher than in 2021. And this will be a large, about 1.5 million-strong army wholly based on the experience of the first full-scale war over several decades. This will be the only such army in the world," the expert said at a Russian-Chinese international conference.
The confrontation in Ukraine was accompanied by "the use of a large amount of technologies that had never been employed before and that began to play a completely critical role in modern warfare," Kashin said.
"In this regard, it can be compared to World War I, i.e. when all the principles of the warfare changed at once," the expert went on to say.
"Naturally, the armed forces that have had to participate in such a war they always face very big challenges as was the case with all the participants in World War I. You cannot conduct this war without casualties but, as a result, you will get a new army and new experience," he said.
The armies that did not take part in this conflict "will not gain this experience," the expert said. "They can look from the outside but it’s something different," the expert added.
In this context, some of Russia’s partners also want "to gain such experience because they understand that this provides an edge," he concluded.
Russian-Chinese conference
The conference organized by the Valdai International Discussion Club and the Center for Russian Studies of East China Normal University is running in Shanghai on March 31 - April 1 on the University’s premises. The forum has brought together over 60 leading experts from Russia and China. Specialists are discussing the issues of the global and Eurasian agendas and bilateral Russian-Chinese relations. The conference is entitled: "Space of Joint Development: Global and Eurasian Dimensions."