Russia’s Defense Ministry has initiated its most significant internal reform in over ten years, aiming to digitize its extensive bureaucratic structure to relieve commanders of administrative duties, as reported by the RBC news website on Wednesday, citing anonymous insiders familiar with the initiative.
The reform primarily targets administrative and logistical areas—including procurement, construction, healthcare, and benefits for military personnel and their families—rather than focusing on combat activities, officials noted.
So far, around 50 internal procedures have been revamped under the newly established Department for Efficiency Improvement.
The overarching aim is to create a paperless, accountable, and data-driven defense administration, according to RBC.
Among the most noticeable changes implemented so far is the elimination of paper orders and records, which previously resulted in the generation of 2.5 million documents annually.
Handwritten directives are now being substituted with digital records that can be entered once and reused across different systems.
“There’s no need to waste servicemen and unit commanders’ time on routinely filling out logs and duplicating information when data can be captured electronically once and utilized multiple times,” a source informed RBC.
The reform also seeks to address the longstanding issues within the military bureaucracy related to benefits disbursement for families. The report states that the waiting period for soldiers’ families to verify their status has decreased from five months to just five days in 2024. Furthermore, as of May 2025, certificates will be issued immediately via an automated registry.
The military has not released details on the cost or timeline for this initiative, which is part of Defense Minister Andrei Belousov’s wider push for digital transformation.
Nonetheless, analysts suggest that this move represents a strategic effort to modernize one of Russia’s most opaque institutions, aligning it with the government’s larger agenda for e-governance while ensuring tight control over its extensive administrative system.
