Russian President Vladimir Putin today decreed an increase of 27,000 personnel in the Armed Forces, at a time when rumors are intensifying about a new mobilization of reservists to fight in Ukraine.
The increase includes 25,000 military personnel and 2,000 administrative staff. With this expansion, Russia’s Armed Forces will now total 2,426,000 personnel, of whom 1,535,000 are military service members.
According to the decree published on the Russian state’s official legal information portal, which takes effect on August 1, the increase stems from the creation of a military construction unit.
Since the start of the war, the Russian head of state has ordered increases to the size of the Armed Forces on several occasions. As a result, military personnel numbers have grown from 1.9 million in February 2022, when the so-called “special military operation” began, to roughly 2.5 million today.
Read more: Putin to wipe out debt for citizens who fight in Ukraine
When Putin came to power in 2000, at a time when Russia was engaged in the Second Chechen War, the Russian army numbered one million service members. The Kremlin, which has around 700,000 troops deployed in Ukraine, faces growing difficulty recruiting volunteers among conscripts and other men of military age.
Local media, citing the outlet Meduza, has reported for several weeks that authorities are discussing a second mobilization “at all levels,” though it stresses that no decision has yet been made and that, in any case, it would not be announced before the September legislative elections.
The Ministry of Defense is reported to have already prepared training camps for this potential process.
According to Western sources cited by the Spanish news agency EFE, Russia’s Armed Forces have already suffered approximately 1.5 million casualties, of which half a million are believed to correspond to service members killed in combat.
