CNN
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Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered the country’s military to increase its strength by 180,000 troops, the third time he has expanded its ranks since launching his invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The increase would bring the total number of Russian military personnel to nearly 2.4 million, including 1.5 million servicemen, according to the decree published by the Kremlin on Monday. The new numbers will come into effect in December, it said.
Putin’s decree comes after Ukraine launched a lightning attack on the Kursk region in southern Russia last month, the first foreign invasion of Russian territory since World War II. Russia has stepped up efforts to expel Ukrainian troops from Kursk in the past week and is inching toward the crucial Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk in the eastern Donbass region.
Since 2022, Putin has ordered two previous increases in the number of combat troops, in addition to a mobilization of reservists and military conscripts.
In August 2022, Putin ordered an increase of 137,000 troops by the start of the new year, bringing the army’s strength to just over 2 million people, including 1.15 million soldiers.
The following month, after a sudden and successful Ukrainian offensive that liberated most of the eastern Kharkiv region, Putin ordered the immediate “partial mobilization” of Russian citizens. This mobilization meant that citizens with military experience were subject to conscription and military reservists could be called up.
The mobilization has prompted hundreds of thousands of people to flee the country – many to neighboring Georgia and other former communist countries near the Russian border – and sparked angry protests, particularly in ethnic minority regions of Russia that have borne the brunt of previous recruitment drives.
The mobilization was suspended in November 2023 after officials said the recruitment target of 300,000 people had been reached.
Then, in December, Putin ordered another official increase in troops by 170,000, bringing the total to 1.32 million.
The number of Russian casualties remains shrouded in secrecy. In September 2022, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said that 5,937 soldiers had been killed in the war. The ministry has not released an update since.
Estimates by Ukrainian and Western intelligence agencies put the toll much higher. In an update this month, the Ukrainian military’s General Staff said Russia had lost 616,300 soldiers. The British Ministry of Defense also estimates Russia has suffered more than 610,000 casualties.
“Russia’s casualty rate will likely continue to average over 1,000 per day throughout September 2024 as Russia continues operations along a broad front from Kursk in the north to Robotyne in the south,” he said.
