Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on Monday raising the personnel cap of his armed forces by 180,000 more soldiers, to 1.5 million. If personnel dedicated to other duties are added, the army will now be able to count on a maximum of 2,389,130 members, according to the Kremlin order. This is the third time The president has ordered an increase in his armed forces since the invasion of Ukraine began in 2022, although in the Russian military sphere they believe that it will not be the last one due to the evolution of the war in Ukraine and “potential future conflicts.” Putin has alluded on several occasions to the threat that, in his opinion, NATO represents. According to a German think tank, Russia produces all of Germany’s current weapons in six months.
The Russian Defence Ministry has assured RIA Novosti that recruitment will be carried out through professional contracts and not through forced conscription, which would be unpopular. The Russian armed forces had a theoretical strength of 1.1 million combatants at the start of the war, although some analysts estimate that the real figure was lower.
Putin’s order will take effect in December and provides for the largest military buildup of any ordered so far. The Russian president demanded to increase his troop numbers by 137,000 by August 2022, two months before ordering the first forced mobilization of the population in September of that year; and the president ordered another new increase of 170,000 combatants in December 2023. Coincidentally or not, both decrees added up to the number of Russians killed estimated by Ukraine in October 2023.
With the decree a year ago, Moscow argued that this measure was necessary “due to the expansion of NATO.” Months later, in March of this year, the then Russian Minister of Defense, Sergei Shoigu, announced the creation of Two new combined arms armies14 divisions and 16 brigades.
Despite promises of a larger military corps, the war is bleeding the Russian military dry. Putin said in June this year that his loss ratio to the Ukrainians is one to five. “According to our calculations, the Ukrainian army loses about 50,000 people a month – killed and wounded,” he said, putting the Russian death toll at about 130,000 combatants in total, according to his calculations.
However, Moscow is hiding almost all of its information about the war and the reality described by Putin, at least in relation to Ukraine, bears no resemblance to kyiv’s version. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged in February this year that 31,000 of his own people had died.
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Russian war correspondents and bloggers agree that the Kremlin will seek more troops in the future and will not stop with Monday’s decree. “Taking into account current and potential threats, it is necessary to increase the total number of military personnel and volunteers to five million,” estimated pro-war blogger Alexei Zhivov on his Telegram channel.
“This will not be the last build-up of the Russian Armed Forces in the coming years,” said another popular military analyst in Russia, Boris Rozhin. “War, recruitment for two new military districts and the increase in military capabilities require an increase in the size of the army,” he added, before stressing that “in practice, the fantasy of a technologically advanced and compact army is not up to the challenges of this era.”
In any case, the Kiel Institute has sounded the alarm in Europe. “Germany is rearming too slowly to be able to confront Russia,” warned the German think tank. in a report where he noted that Berlin “needs a century to bring its military inventory back to the level of 20 years ago,” while Moscow “is radically increasing its weapons production, including advanced systems,” and is now able to produce “in six months as many weapons as the entire German Armed Forces currently have.”
