President Putin has directed the Russian army to expand to 1.5 million personnel, making it the second largest in the world after China’s

President Vladimir Putin on Monday issued an order to increase the regular size of the Russian army by 180,000 soldiers to 1.5 million active servicemen. This action would result in the second-largest army in the world, following China’s.

Vladimir Putin issued a decree on the Kremlin’s website that mandated the expansion of the armed forces to a total of 2.38 million personnel, with 1.5 million of them designated as active service members.

In terms of the number of active combat soldiers it has at its disposal, Russia would surpass the United States and India, and would be second only to China in size, according to data from the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), a prominent military think tank. Beijing has just over 2 million active-duty service personnel, according to the IISS.

Putin’s third expansion of the army’s ranks since his military’s entry into Ukraine in February 2022 is taking place in eastern Ukraine, where Russian forces are advancing on portions of a vast 1,000 km (627-mile) frontline and attempting to eject Ukrainian forces from Russia’s Kursk region.

While Russia has been successful in recruiting volunteers on lucrative contracts to fight in Ukraine and has a population that is over three times that of Ukraine, it has also been suffering significant battlefield losses, similar to Kyiv’s forces. There is no indication that the war will conclude in the near future.

Both parties maintain that the precise magnitude of their losses is classified as a military secret.

According to Andrei Kartapolov, chairman of the defense committee of the lower house of parliament in Russia, the increase in active troop numbers is part of a strategy to restructure the armed forces and gradually increase their size to align with the current international situation and the behavior of “our former foreign partners.”

Kartapolov stated to Parlamentskaya Gazeta, the in-house publication of the Russian parliament, that there is a necessity to establish new military units and structures to guarantee security in the northwestern region of Russia in light of Finland’s accession to the NATO alliance.

“And in order to carry out this process, we need to increase the number of troops.”

The third increase since 2022

The number of combat forces has been officially increased by 137,000 and 170,000 by Putin since 2022.

Additionally, in September and October 2022, Russia mobilized more than 300,000 soldiers in an exercise that resulted in the departure of tens of thousands of draft-age males from the country.

At present, the Kremlin has stated that there are no plans for a new mobilization. The intention is to continue to rely on volunteers who have signed up to fight in Ukraine.

The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think tank’s Dara Massicot, an expert in the Russian military, questioned whether Moscow was prepared to cover the cost of the increase in active servicemen.

“There are ways to staff a standing 1.5 million force but the Kremlin will not like them if they are truly grappling with what that requires,” Massicot wrote in reference to X.

“Are they really able to boost the defense budget to sustain procurement AND this requirement?”

Massicot, who has published a report on Russia’s efforts to revitalize its military, has suggested that Moscow may need to face the unpopular and challenging decision of increasing the conscription size or amending the law to permit a greater number of women to serve in the military in order to achieve this objective.

“Observe indicators that this is a genuine endeavor to recruit and expand, rather than a mere demonstration intended to intimidate others.”” There are strains associated with the current volunteer approach, despite its effectiveness. “This (the expansion) entails an increase in strain and expense,” she stated.