Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on Thursday ordering a 10% increase in the number of soldiers in the army, amid an offensive against Ukraine and in a context of growing tensions with Western countries.
The army will soon have two million members, including 1.15 million soldiers, according to this decree published by the government and which will take effect on January 1. In 2017, the Russian military consisted of 1.9 million people, including just over a million fighters.
Specifically, not counting civilian personnel, this represents an increase of 137,000 troops, or more than a tenth of the current fighting force.
Russian losses estimated at 15,000 soldiers
This measure, whose reasons are not explained in the decree, occurs when the Russian army has been carrying out an offensive in Ukraine for more than six months, very costly in human and material resources.
After failing to take Kyiv at the start of the intervention, Moscow’s forces are now concentrating their efforts in eastern and southern Ukraine, where the front lines have moved little in recent weeks.
Russia has not published the death toll among its forces since the first weeks of the war, when it reported 1,351 casualties, Reuters completes. Western estimates put the figure at around 15,000, while Ukraine claims to have killed or wounded 45,000 Russian soldiers since the start of the conflict.
The Kremlin has so far refrained from proceeding with a general mobilization, a move feared by many Russians. The increase in the number of Russian soldiers also comes at a time when relations between Moscow and Western countries are going through a crisis of a magnitude unprecedented since the end of the Cold War.
Source: BFM TV
