Russian soldiers have to carry on making do and mending

On the subject of cuts in the Russian military (see below), Moscow has decided that it can now no longer afford to go ahead with the planned replacement of the army's uniforms.

Last July the Russian Federation Ministry of Defence announced that it was going to replace the current drab Soviet-style uniforms with snazzy, designer outfits more appropriate (well, they thought anyway) for a modern army.

Since then, like everywhere else, money has become tight in Moscow and so the guys in the Russian army are going to have to carry on patching their old kit. Mind you, having reduced the size of the army so massively, there must be storage depots packed full of surplus stuff; but there again, that's probably long since mysteriously disappeared.

BBC: Russian army scraps new uniforms