The National Guard of the Russian Federation, also known as the Rosgvardiya, is the national gendarmerie and internal military force of the Russian Federation, comprising an independent agency that reports directly to the President of Russia Vladimir Putin under his powers as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and Chairman of the Security Council.
The entrance to the National Guard headquarters at 9 Krasnokazarmennaya Street in the South-Eastern Administrative Okrug of Moscow
A national guard banner awarding ceremony, 27 March 2017
Soldiers of the National Guard providing security in Nizhny Novgorod during the 2018 FIFA World Cup
Rosgvardia personnel on Red Square, 2019
A gendarmerie is a military force with law enforcement duties among the civilian population. The term gendarme is derived from the medieval French expression gens d'armes, which translates to "men-at-arms". In France and some Francophone nations, the gendarmerie is a branch of the armed forces that is responsible for internal security in parts of the territory, with additional duties as military police for the armed forces. It was introduced to several other Western European countries during the Napoleonic conquests. In the mid-twentieth century, a number of former French mandates and colonial possessions adopted a gendarmerie after independence. A similar concept exists in Eastern Europe in the form of Internal Troops, which are present in many countries of the former Soviet Union and its former allied countries.
Members of Italy's Carabinieri on public order duties in Florence
A Turkish Gendarmerie General Command trooper on guard at Topkapı Palace in Istanbul