Russia
The Russian military is divided into the Ground Forces, Navy, and Air Force. There are also three independent arms of service: Strategic Missile Troops, Aerospace Defence Forces, and the Airborne Troops. , the military comprised over 1 million active duty personnel, the fifth largest in the world. Additionally, there are over 2.5 million reservists, with the total number of reserve troops possibly being as high as 20 million. It is mandatory for all male citizens aged 18–27 to be drafted for a year of service in Armed Forces.
LGBT rights in Russia
Military service: According to reporting in "Pravda.ru", in the past some young Russians would claim they were gay as a pretense to avoid military service duty. The Major-General of the Medical Service attempted to change that in 2003 when he announced that under a new statute, homosexuality would not be a justification for exclusion from military service: "The issue of a person's homosexuality is not medical. There is no such diagnosis as homosexuality in medicine. There is no such illness in the classification of [the] World Health Organization. The new statute about military and medical expertise follows international law practice. Therefore the reasons for evaluating the ability to serve for homosexuals are the same: physical and mental health". However, he added that people of non-standard sexual orientation should not reveal their sexual orientation while serving in the army because "other soldiers are not going to like that, they can be beaten". President Vladimir Putin said in a U.S. television interview in 2010 that openly gay men were not excluded from military service in Russia. In 2013, it was reported that the Defense Ministry had issued a guideline on assessment of new recruits' mental health that recommends recruits be asked about their sexual history and be examined for certain types of tattoos, especially genital or buttocks tattoos, that would allegedly indicate a homosexual orientation.
Visibility of LGBT organizations & services: There is a visible LGBT community network, mostly in major cities like Moscow and Saint Petersburg, including nightclubs and political organizations.