Putin orders 3rd increase in Russian troop numbers

Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered the country’s military to increase its troop numbers by 180,000 to a total of 1.5 million active servicemen in a move that would make Russia’s army the second largest in the world after China.

The decree, published on the official government website, will take effect on December 1. It says the overall size of the armed forces is to be increased to 2.38 million people, reports Aljazeera.

According to data from the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), a leading military think tank, such an increase would leave Russia with more active combat soldiers than the United States and India and make its army second only to China in size. Beijing has just more than 2 million active duty service personnel, according to IISS.

The decree marks the third time Putin has expanded the army’s ranks since launching his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and comes as Russian forces inch forward in eastern Ukraine and try to push Ukrainian forces out of Russia’s Kursk region.

In June, Putin put the number of troops involved in the fighting in Ukraine at nearly 700,000.

After calling up 300,000 reservists in the face of Ukraine’s counteroffensive in the latter part of 2022, Russia has relied on recruiting volunteer soldiers, lured by relatively high wages._Agencies.