Putin orders Russian military to increase its forces

It was not clear from Thursday’s decree how Moscow planned to beef up its troop numbers or whether it would involve employing more contractors, boosting the number of conscripts or both. The Kremlin has insisted on calling the war a “special military operation,” with Putin refraining from calling for complete mobilization at home. 

“Putin has been reluctant to do this because he has tried to isolate the Russian population from the costs of the war through using mercenaries from the Wagner private security organization, recruiting in the non-Russian ethnic republics of the country, from the prison population and using press gangs in occupied parts of Ukraine,” said Neil Melvin, the director of international security studies at the Royal United Services Institute, or RUSI, a London-based think tank.

“But now the Russian army is exhausted, and the ad hoc recruitment techniques are not providing enough fresh troops. So the Russian authorities have announced an increase in the size of the army to fill the gaps from war losses,” he said. “This is a dangerous moment for the Russian president, as the announcement is an admission that the ‘special military operation’ has gone seriously off plan, and now the wider Russian population will have to start paying the price with the lives of their sons.”

Other experts raised doubts about whether the decree would actually boost troop numbers substantively, especially in the short term.

“This is easier to decree than do,” Mark Galeotti, a senior associate fellow at RUSI, said on Twitter.

Michael Clarke, professor of war studies at King’s College London, said the order “is an obvious indication that Russia now knows it is in for a long campaign.”

“Nothing in this decree will make a difference until next spring,” he said. “That is when we can expect a second major Russian offensive, after they have effectively dug themselves in for the winter and geared up for it in the spring — hoping to be more efficient than when they began this operation.” 

All Russian men ages 18 to 27 must serve one year in the military.

The Russian military rounds up draftees twice a year, starting April 1 and Oct. 1. Putin ordered the drafting of 134,500 conscripts during the latest spring draft this year and 127,500 last fall.

In recent years, the Kremlin emphasized increasing the share of volunteer contract soldiers as it sought to modernize the army and improve its readiness.

The Associated Press contributed.