Kremlin shares numbers for the first time
More than 640,000 regular soldiers serve in the Russian military
December 28, 2023, 12:13 p.m
Since the attack on Ukraine, Russian President Putin has not only increased the number of soldiers but has also attracted thousands of volunteers to the front. Now, for the first time, concrete figures are coming from Moscow about its contract soldiers. Meanwhile, Ukraine is struggling with personnel problems at the front.
According to its own information, the Russian military has more than 640,000 contract soldiers under contract. This emerges from documents from the Ministry of Defense, which the Internet portal RBK quoted. It is the first time since the beginning of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine that the ministry in Moscow has named the exact number of contract soldiers in its own ranks.
On December 1, Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a decree to increase the number of soldiers in the Russian military by 170,000 to a total of 1.32 million. This was the second increase since the start of the war, after he only ordered an increase in the Russian armed forces to 1.15 million men in the summer of 2022. The Ministry of Defense explained that the expansion of the army will be carried out by recruiting volunteers for temporary service.
At his annual press conference two weeks ago, Putin announced that almost half a million volunteers had signed contracts as temporary soldiers this year. For his war of aggression in Ukraine, the Kremlin chief also forcibly recruited around 300,000 men in a partial mobilization in the fall of 2022.
Ukrainians are fleeing military service
Meanwhile, Ukraine is suffering from a shortage of soldiers. For months, the commanders of the armed forces equipped with Western weapons have been demanding more personnel for front-line operations. There is talk of a need for 450,000 to 500,000 additional soldiers. But in addition to the costs, which according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj are around 500 billion hryvnia (12.2 billion euros) and still have to be raised, there is also a motivation problem.
Thousands of Ukrainian men are trying to avoid military service by fleeing abroad. Controls at the borders are strict, with officials searching cars and tearing up panels on trains. Men are repeatedly picked up on the green border to Romania. There are also many known cases in which conscripts at muster offices use bribes to buy their way out of service.
In the third year of the war, Zelensky not only has to worry about the crumbling financial support from his Western allies – despite the dwindling reserves there, he is urgently asking for weapons and ammunition. Above all, the military leadership expects him to solve the personnel problem. There are many deaths and injuries every day and thousands of Ukrainian soldiers are taken prisoner.