The Russian Armed Forces must keep up with...

In a televised phone-in, he said military reform was crucial to making the military leaner and meaner, enabling it to deal with any conflicts that could arise.

"New types of arms, new equipment and new methods of waging war are necessary for that," he said.

He stressed the importance of making military units more mobile to be able to cope with their missions.

Putin said a key element to military reform was the reorganization of the command and control system.

Command and control optimization aims to eliminate superfluous elements, in particular by moving away from a four-tier (military district - army - division - regiment) to a three-tier system (military district - operation command - brigade).

In accordance with the reform concept, the division is considered to be too large for local armed conflicts in the modern world.

Putin also said Russia would continue to rely on its own defense industry to develop and produce new weaponry, adding,

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