“I hereby order: The personnel of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation will consist of 2,389,130 people, including 1,500,000 military personnel,” Putin’s decree reads. Through him, Putin ordered the government to release the necessary funds to the Ministry of Defense for the purpose of implementing the new regulations.
Putin last issued a similar decree last December, when he set the total number of members of the armed forces at 2,209,130 people, while counting on 1.32 million professional soldiers. Before the invasion of Ukraine, the Russian army had roughly one million soldiers, reports Ukrainska Pravda.
Vladimir Putin
The Russian Ministry of Defense, which must now put Putin’s decree into practice, has not commented on it yet. However, after the one in December, it issued a statement that “citizens who want to serve on the basis of service” will take care of the increase in numbers, and thus described a significant increase in the number of conscripts or mobilization as unnecessary. Whether it will be different under the new leadership of the ministry remains to be seen.
