According to ITAR-TASS, General-Colonel Valeriy Gerasimov told journalists yesterday that the new Western Military District (MD) was fully formed and functional on 1 September. Gerasimov said:
“The Western Military District started functioning on 1 September. Command and control organs of the former Leningrad and Moscow Military Districts, Northern and Baltic Fleets, and also the 1st Air Forces and Air Defense Command went into the composition of the staff located in St. Petersburg.”
Gerasimov said the majority of Moscow MD staff officers:
“. . . were appointed to positions in the staff of the Western Military District and other organs of military command and control. Part of the officers, having served out their prescribed terms, were dismissed, but those who have a half-year to a year remaining to serve are at the disposition [of their commanding officers].”
Gerasimov himself went from Commander, Moscow MD to become a deputy chief of the General Staff.
The Defense Ministry now wants the other three new MDs / OSKs to be functional by 1 October.
Russian Defense Policy 