NEW DELHI: President Vladimir Putin on Monday, in a move that would make the Russian army the second largest in the world after China, ordered to increase the regular size of the army by 180,000 troops.
The Russian leader issued a decree on the Kremlin’s website ordering the overall size of the armed forces to be increased to 2.38 million people, of which he said 1.5 million should be active servicemen.
According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies data, a leading military think tank, such a decision would benefit Russia to get ahead of the United States and India in terms of the number of active combat soldiers and be second only to China in size. The IISS said Beijing has just over 2 million active duty service personnel.
This move marks the third time Putin has expanded the Russian army’s Ukraine’s invasion in February 2022. It comes as Russian forces push forward in eastern Ukraine on parts of a vast 1,000 km (627-mile) frontline and try to eject Ukrainian forces from Russia’s Kursk region.
Although Russia has a population thrice larger than Ukraine’s and has been actively recruiting volunteers on lucrative contracts to fight in Ukraine, it has – like Kyiv’s forces – been sustaining heavy battlefield losses, and there is no sign of the war ending anytime soon.
Both sides refrain from revealing the exact size of their losses.
Andrei Kartapolov, chairman of Russia’s lower house of parliament’s defense committee, said the increase was part of a plan to overhaul the armed forces and gradually increase their size to match what he described as the current international situation and the behavior of “our former foreign partners.”
“For example, we now need to form new structures and military units to ensure security in the north-west (of Russia) since Finland, with which we border, has joined the NATO bloc,” Kartapolov told Parlamentskaya Gazeta, the Russian parliament’s in-house newspaper.
“And in order to carry out this process, we need to increase the number of troops.”
Third increase since 2022
Since 2022, Putin previously ordered two official increases in the number of combat troops – 137,000 and 170,000 respectively. Additionally, Russia mobilized over 300,000 soldiers in September and October 2022 in a drive that prompted tens of thousands of draft-age men to flee the country.
According to the Kremlin, no new mobilization is planned at present, however, the idea is to rely on volunteers signing up to fight in Ukraine.
Dara Massicot, an expert in the Russian military at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think tank, questioned whether Moscow was ready to bear the bill for the increase in active servicemen. She had also released a report on Russia’s drive to regenerate its army.
“There are ways to staff a standing 1.5 million force but the Kremlin will not like them if they are truly grappling with what that requires,” Massicot wrote on X.
“Are they really able to boost the defense budget to sustain procurement AND this requirement?”
She further said that either Moscow could take the unpopular and challenging decision of expanding the draft size or it should amend the law to allow more women to work in the military to reach such a goal.
“Look for signs that this is a real initiative to recruit and expand, and not a kind of show to intimidate others. The current volunteer method is working but has strains. This means more expense/strain,” she said.
The Russian leader issued a decree on the Kremlin’s website ordering the overall size of the armed forces to be increased to 2.38 million people, of which he said 1.5 million should be active servicemen.
According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies data, a leading military think tank, such a decision would benefit Russia to get ahead of the United States and India in terms of the number of active combat soldiers and be second only to China in size. The IISS said Beijing has just over 2 million active duty service personnel.
This move marks the third time Putin has expanded the Russian army’s Ukraine’s invasion in February 2022. It comes as Russian forces push forward in eastern Ukraine on parts of a vast 1,000 km (627-mile) frontline and try to eject Ukrainian forces from Russia’s Kursk region.
Although Russia has a population thrice larger than Ukraine’s and has been actively recruiting volunteers on lucrative contracts to fight in Ukraine, it has – like Kyiv’s forces – been sustaining heavy battlefield losses, and there is no sign of the war ending anytime soon.
Both sides refrain from revealing the exact size of their losses.
Andrei Kartapolov, chairman of Russia’s lower house of parliament’s defense committee, said the increase was part of a plan to overhaul the armed forces and gradually increase their size to match what he described as the current international situation and the behavior of “our former foreign partners.”
“For example, we now need to form new structures and military units to ensure security in the north-west (of Russia) since Finland, with which we border, has joined the NATO bloc,” Kartapolov told Parlamentskaya Gazeta, the Russian parliament’s in-house newspaper.
“And in order to carry out this process, we need to increase the number of troops.”
Third increase since 2022
Since 2022, Putin previously ordered two official increases in the number of combat troops – 137,000 and 170,000 respectively. Additionally, Russia mobilized over 300,000 soldiers in September and October 2022 in a drive that prompted tens of thousands of draft-age men to flee the country.
According to the Kremlin, no new mobilization is planned at present, however, the idea is to rely on volunteers signing up to fight in Ukraine.
Dara Massicot, an expert in the Russian military at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think tank, questioned whether Moscow was ready to bear the bill for the increase in active servicemen. She had also released a report on Russia’s drive to regenerate its army.
“There are ways to staff a standing 1.5 million force but the Kremlin will not like them if they are truly grappling with what that requires,” Massicot wrote on X.
“Are they really able to boost the defense budget to sustain procurement AND this requirement?”
She further said that either Moscow could take the unpopular and challenging decision of expanding the draft size or it should amend the law to allow more women to work in the military to reach such a goal.
“Look for signs that this is a real initiative to recruit and expand, and not a kind of show to intimidate others. The current volunteer method is working but has strains. This means more expense/strain,” she said.