MONITORING (SW) – Russia’s president Vladimir Putin has ordered the regular size of the Russian army to be increased by 180,000 troops to 1.5 million active servicemen in a move that would make it the second largest in the world after China’s.
In a decree published on the Kremlin’s website on Monday, Putin ordered 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 data from the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), a leading military think tank, such an increase would see Russia leapfrog the United States and India in terms of the number of active combat soldiers it has at its disposal and be second only to China in size.
Although Russia has a population more than three times larger than Ukraine’s and has been successfully 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 say the exact size of their losses is a military secret, reported Associated Press.
Putin since 2022 had previously ordered two official increases in the number of combat troops – by 137,000 and 170,000 respectively.
In addition, Russia mobilized over 300,000 soldiers in September and October 2022 in an exercise which prompted tens of thousands of draft-age men to flee the country.
