This is the first document allowing an assessment of the scale of the military construction units system being created in the ministry led by Russian Defense Minister Andrey Belousov, writes the portal “Agentstvo”.
According to the signed order, from August 1, the total established number of armed forces personnel will increase from 2,399,130 to 2,426,130 people, and the number of soldiers – from 1.51 million to 1.535 million.
Thus, the armed forces’ staffing is increased by 25 thousand soldiers and 2 thousand civilian employees. Although the document does not specify how these positions will be distributed among individual units, it seems that all of them are related to the formation of military construction units and ensuring their activities.
This is the first increase in the army’s civilian personnel staffing since January 1, 2018. During all previous armed forces development stages, this number remained unchanged – 889,130 people. In the last five army staffing increases, only the number of active service soldiers grew – a total of 496 thousand people over four years.
What was devised: who needs the “strojbats”?
The creation of military construction units was planned in December 2024 in the construction complex reform announced by A. Belousov. At that time, the minister proposed transferring part of the powers, funds, and construction capacities to military districts.
By December 2025, the first stage of the reform was completed: the Main Capital Construction Directorate was established in the Russian Ministry of Defense, and corresponding profile units were created in force units and military districts. The task for 2026, according to A. Belousov, is to prepare the legal framework for military construction units and to staff the formed units. According to him, commanders must have their own tool for the construction of the most important army facilities.
The new units resemble Soviet “strojbats” in their purpose. They will be integrated directly into the military structure and will carry out construction work for the army. This model began to be abandoned on the eve of the USSR’s collapse, and the process continued in Russia. In 2006, then Defense Minister Sergey Ivanov stated that the ministry’s military construction detachments would be completely disbanded, and “all the notoriously infamous ‘strojbats’ are being liquidated as a class.”
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Experts named the reasons
Why are the “strojbats” being restored? Experts highlight several reasons.
First, the demand for army construction work has sharply increased. As political scientist Nikolay Mitrochin told the portal “Agentstvo,” the potential scope of work for the created units is enormous – from the construction of military towns and defensive infrastructure at the border with Finland to crossings, bridges, and other engineering objects at the front.
The second reason is related to the need to carry out construction in dangerous areas, where civilian contractors may refuse to work due to shelling and Ukrainian drone activity, “Agentstvo” said citing a representative of the “Conflict Intelligence Team.” According to the expert, military builders will simply carry out the order in such cases. Military expert Pavel Luzin agrees that civilian contractors are clearly poorly prepared to work in a wide combat zone.
During the Soviet era, there were up to 400 thousand “strojbat” soldiers
However, the currently created structure is significantly smaller in scale than the Soviet one, writes “Agentstvo”.
“The Soviet army had from 300 to 400 thousand ‘strojbat’ soldiers,” recalls N. Mitrochin. In his opinion, this may be because the new units can be created for specific projects – for example, the demonstrative reconstruction of destroyed cities in occupied territories.
Moreover, those who the army would not be ready to entrust with weapons, as well as persons refusing service due to beliefs in case of possible mobilization, may be sent to the “strojbats,” the expert says.
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