Russia spent two-thirds of its £44.1 billion military budget last year on purchasing and modernising military gear, and it lists 900,000 troops as its active military personnel, the world’s fourth largest.

However, it still lags far behind the United States, China and the UK in terms of defending spending per capita.

Firing and hiring

In the early 2000s, Mr Putin complained that Russia had 1.4 million servicemen but that he could barely scrape up 50,000 combat-ready troops to fight separatists in Chechnya.

“Chechnya was an eye-opener when it turned out there were no people to fight,” Pavel Luzin, an independent military analyst, told The Telegraph.

“It was a trauma for Russian society.”

Mr Putin’s reforms aimed to build a more professional military, striking at the core of the Russian military which as recently as the mid-2000s relied on call-up reservists – not the kind of force that can be quickly deployed.