Facing losses in Ukraine, Putin orders up over 100K more troops
Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered another 137,000 troops Thursday — an indication of the cost of six months of war — after months of relying on “volunteer” forces from Kremlin satellite states.
The last time the size of Russia’s standing army was increased was in 2017, according to state-run Russian news outlet RIA.
The major buildup, issued in a decree, constitutes a 13% increase in the Kremlin’s military might.
It was not clear based on the decree whether the additional roles would be filled through recruitment efforts or conscription, but Russia experts have long expressed concern over a public backlash should troops be drafted.
Britain’s intelligence chief Richard Moore said last month that Russia continues to be reliant on blue collar volunteers and unable to mobilize soldiers from the country’s cultural and political centers.
“These are not middle-class kids from St. Petersburg or Moscow,” he said at July’s Aspen Security Forum. “These are poor kids from rural parts of Russia, they’re from blue-collar towns in Siberia, they are disproportionately from ethnic minorities — these are [Putin’s] cannon fodder.”
Western intelligence agencies estimated some 15,000 Russians killed in action — a stunning loss for just six months of warfare. By comparison, the Soviet Union lost roughly the same number of troops over a decade of doomed fighting in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
The Pentagon said earlier this month that as many as 80,000 Russian soldiers may be dead or injured from the fighting — a number that, if accurate, could seriously hamper any Russian efforts to regain momentum in its flagging offensive against Ukraine.
