Russia announces major arms buildup

MOSCOW, Russia Russia is planning a "comprehensive rearmament" of its military, President Dmitry Medvedev said Tuesday.The announcement comes amid concerns in Moscow over the performance of its forces during last year's invasion of Georgia. Christopher Langton, an analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, said the campaign against the former Soviet republic had revealed significant weaknesses within Russia's armed forces. "The Georgia thing was a wake-up call on a number of fronts," said Langton, a former British military and defense attache in Russia. "Things they expected to perform well didn't -- communications, the air force. It took five days, which is quite a long time, to suppress another country's air defenses, quite a small country's." Medvedev said the "most important task is to re-equip the [Russian] Armed Forces with newest weapons system," in televised remarks to defense ministry officials. He said the process had already begun and would accelerate through 2011.