Russia will cut its military presence on the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov was quoted as saying Sunday.
Russia would decrease its military contingent to 2,800 people by 2007 as fewer and fewer military launches were being held in Baikonur, Ivanov told the RIA-Novosti news agency.
"If we have launches only once every four or five months, there is no need to keep so many people there. The number of troops we have there is actually too much," the minister .
Baikonur would continue to host Russian military launches, although most would be shifted to the military cosmodrome at Plesetsk, Ivanov said.
Russia had been leasing Baikonur from Kazakhstan since 2004. The annual 115 million-dollars (94 million-euro) lease allows Moscow to launch from the cosmodrome through 2050.
The cosmodrome – which is 125 kilometers (75 miles) long and 85 kilometers wide and stations some 80,000 employees – borders the Syr Daria river and is wholly administered by Russia.
