Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on Thursday ordering a 10% increase in the number of soldiers in the army, in the midst of an offensive once morest Ukraine and once morest a backdrop of growing tensions with Western countries.
The army will have to have two million members, including 1.15 million soldiers, once morest 1.9 million, including just over a million combatants, in 2017, according to this decree published by the government and entering into force on January 1 next.
Concretely, without counting civilian personnel, this represents an increase of 137,000 soldiers, or more than a tenth of the current combat force.
This measure, the reasons for which are not explained in the decree, comes as the Russian army has been carrying out an offensive in Ukraine for more than six months, which is 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 fronts have moved little in recent weeks.
The Kremlin has so far refrained from proceeding with a general mobilization, a measure 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 unprecedented magnitude since the end of the Cold War.
