Putin Orders Third Troop Expansion Of War, Making Army 2nd Largest After China’s

For the third time since the Ukraine war began in February 2022, President Putin has approved an expansion of Russia’s military, on Monday signing a decree to boost the number of soldiers by 180,000.

This means Russia’s armed forces will include 1.5 million active servicemen going into winter. It is also a clear signal that Russia doesn’t plan on reducing the intensity of the fight in the Donbass anytime soon. This will bring the overall number of military personnel within Russia’s army, including all reserve forces, to over 2,300,000. 

Getty Images

Putin had previously sign-off on two prior expansion waves: an increase of 137,000 in August 2022 and another expanse of 170,000 in December 2023.

In the fall of 2022, when Ukraine’s much-hyped counteroffensive was in full swing, Putin had called up some 300,000 reservists to join the fight.

With this latest troop increase, Putin could also be signaling NATO that Russia will not back down, at a moment the US and UK are mulling approving Ukraine’s use of long-range missiles to attack inside Russian territory.

The Associated Press summarizes of current estimated battlefield numbers:

The most capable Russian troops have been pressing an offensive in eastern Ukraine, where they have made incremental but steady gains in the past few months.

In June, Putin put the number of troops involved in what the Kremlin calls the “special military operation” in Ukraine at nearly 700,000.

And Reuters has highlighted that this makes Russia’s army second in manpower size only to China’s PLA military:

President Vladimir Putin on Monday ordered the regular size of the Russian army to be increased by 180,000 troops to 1.5 million active servicemen in a move that would make it the second largest in the world after China’s.

In a decree published on the Kremlin’s website, Putin ordered the overall size of the armed forces to be increased to 2.38 million people, of which he said 1.5 million should be active servicemen.

The Russian army will become the second largest army in the world after Putin’s decree.

According to statistics, the top three in terms of military personnel today were China, India and the United States. Now only the PLA will be larger than the Russian army in terms of numbers.… pic.twitter.com/Usz97R7SNM

— S p r i n t e r (@SprinterFamily) September 16, 2024

This new expanse might also be the result of Ukraine’s Kursk offensive. Kiev officials hoped that the invasion of southern Russia might force the relocation of regular troops from Donetsk to defend and take back villages on Russian soil.

But so far that calculation appears to have failed. Moscow has denied that it was forced to relocate significant amounts of troops. A Russian counteroffensive is underway, confirmed to be intensifying starting days ago, while at the same time Russian troops in Ukraine’s east are making steady gains.