The armed forces currently comprise 1.2 million military personnel and 800,000 civilians, the report said, although some analysts have earlier suggested the total figure may be closer to three million.

Russia has repeatedly delayed cutting staff from its Soviet-era armed forces, with generals hoping to keep their troops despite orders from the Kremlin for money-saving reforms.

President Vladimir Putin and his predecessor Boris Yeltsin have issued repeated instructions to transform the army, now bogged down in a guerrilla war in Chechnya but originally built for fighting the United States during the Cold War, into a smaller, more mobile force.

The plan has been opposed by generals who fear that a switch from mandatory conscription to contracted military service would decimate the numbers of Russian soldiers including senior commanders.

Russia had initially planned to eliminate the draft by 2000. Now the plan has been pushed back by at least a decade.

WAR.WIRE