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While congratulating the servicemen, President Putin noted that the armed forces, all elements of the country’s forces, were currently in the uneasy process of modernisation. The main objective, he said, was to make the army battle-ready and the service in it prestigious. The President stressed that the Government would as before do everything possible to modernise the armed forces.

President Putin particularly noted that the heads of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine, Russia’s neighbours and close allies, were attending the present festivities. In that context, President Putin called Defender of the Fatherland Day “part of our common history”.