Defence ministry says reports that it plans to train soldiers in the sport to improve their battlefield skills are untrue

Once feared around the world, the Russian army has spent recent years fighting a losing battle to keep its reputation intact – playing down tales of soldier abuse, rotting armaments and a plan to replace tanks with inflatable weapons.

The campaign may have reached a low point on Mondaywhen the defence ministry was forced to deny a report that the latest weapon in its army's once mighty arsenal was little more than a badminton racket.

According to a report in Izvestiya newspaper, the ministry was preparing to implement an army-wide programme to boost soldier skill through games of badminton, a sport recently elevated to new heights in Russia following official sanction from the ruling duo, President Dmitry Medvedev and the prime minister, Vladimir Putin. The ministry was planning to buy 10,000 badminton rackets and tens of thousands of shuttlecocks to ensure that soldiers were properly armed, Izvestiya said.

"The same muscles are used during a game of badminton as those used when throwing grenades, knives and other objects," Colonel Alexander Shchepelev, the head of the defence ministry's physical preparation department, told the newspaper. "That's why this sport is very useful for all servicemen without exception."

"But it will be especially useful for riflemen and snipers, since following the shuttlecock trains the eye muscles, strengthens the cardiovascular system and develops reaction speed," he added.

The article quickly went viral, eliciting mocking laughter in a country that has grown increasingly tired with the antics of its ruling duo. Medvedev began promoting the sport last month with a video blog that hailed the sport's virtues and showed him playing a quick match with his mentor, Putin.

"Badminton is not a military applied sport in the Russian armed forces, and its development is not included in the physical training programme for military personnel," the ministry said, adding that it was "surprised" by the report. "The passage about snipers 'beginning to be obliged to study' badminton is the personal opinion of the journalist," it said.

Izvestiya stood by its story. "The defence ministry is a very closed organisation and deny any information that is not got through official channels," said the report's author, Denis Telmanov. He added that two other sources had confirmed the existence of the badminton plan. "We know it's true. There are courts. There are rackets."

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