There is more wood in the furnace to guard the pulse of Kyiv and NATO on the war front. President Vladimir Putin of Russia signed a decree this Friday to increase the army by about 170,000 soldiers, a move that raises the ranks by roughly 15 percent. The Kremlin justifies this step as a response to perceived threats from the conflict with Ukraine and what it calls the ongoing expansion of NATO.
According to the document, the Russian Armed Forces would total around 2.2 million personnel, with about 1.3 million serving on the front lines. Both Ukraine and Russia appear intent on securing a decisive victory on the battlefield after months of limited movement at the front. Putin described enlargement as an appropriate reaction to NATO’s perceived aggression. This marks the tenth presidential decree on military growth since 1996, with the most recent one signed by Putin himself in August 2022.
The Russian Ministry of Defense characterizes the measure as a response to the West’s growing war potential. It notes that the United States plans to replace about 200 aging freefall bombs with a new high-precision variant by the end of 2025, deployed in Europe and Turkey. Under current conditions, increasing combat power and manpower is framed as a necessary response to what Moscow calls aggressive activity by the NATO bloc.
No mobilization in sight
To prevent a sense of panic, Putin stated that the recruitment will be used to bring in an additional 170,000 soldiers, mirroring the approach of the late-2022 partial mobilization. It is explained that this personnel pool will grow gradually to meet the target. Critics argue that the regime has already engaged in what some describe as a form of secret mobilization, pointing to pressure on naturalized workers from Central Asia to fight on the front or to convicts fighting under the Wagner flag.
Some critics have noted that both official recruitment and partial mobilization were high last year, and that the effect appeared more persistent in some regions such as Siberia and the Caucasus, with major urban centers like Moscow and Saint Petersburg feeling the impact as well.
To avoid alarm about future mobilization, more than a million Russians reportedly left the country in the previous year. Starting today, a man mobilized would face travel restrictions—no leaving the country by land, sea, or air—until the mobilization completes. Many chose destinations such as Georgia, Armenia, and Kazakhstan, drawn by cultural ties and geographic proximity. Those flows were influenced by local conditions and political pressure, and in 2022 the options to move faced new challenges amid evolving sentiments and government pressure.