In January, Russia lowered its nuclear threshold, saying it would use nuclear weapons if all other means of repelling armed aggression had failed.

Proposed cuts

365,000 Defence Ministry troops, of about 1.2m total 130,000 civilian staff, of about 966,000 total 105,000 non-Defence Ministry armed forces, of about 900,000 total

Under the previous defence concept, Russia had said it would use nuclear weapons only if its very existence was threatened.

At least one expert has doubts about the significance of Thursday's annoucement.

On the one hand, the military will resist the Security Council proposal, said Paul Goble, publisher of Radio Free Europe's Newswire.

"The powerful military lobby will be very upset about this," he said.

Saving face?

At the same time, Mr Goble said that the announcement might merely be an acceptance of the facts rather than an actual plan.

Russia can no longer afford the massive armies it relied on in the First and Second World Wars, he said.

"And they can't count on people to show up when they draft them, and they can't pay them if they do show up," he added.

He suggested Mr Putin might be putting a brave face on harsh reality.

Putin: Security depends on cuts

"One of the ways to make it appear that you are a leader is to announce that a trend is your plan", Mr Goble said.

Not all new

Some cuts announced on Thursday are not new.

The Defence Ministry had already planned to cut 365,000 servicemen.

Thursday's announcement included an additional 130,000 civilian staff and 105,000 military personnel from non-Defence Ministry bodies such as the border guards, Interior Ministry and intelligence services.

Russia says it has just over three million military personnel, but that includes areas not normally counted in Western defence estimates, such as police.

Mr Putin had called off two previous Security Council meetings because of inability to agree where the axe would fall.

Each department had fought hard to preserve its strength, he said.