In an article published in the June issue, Colonel General Yevgeny Burdinsky, Deputy Chief of the General Staff, stated that Russia planned to form two new armed components in 2023: two military districts, Moscow and Leningrad, each comprising combined arms and air forces. This information appeared in the journal Military Commissariats of Russia, the magazine of the Ministry of Defense.
He emphasized that 2023 would require timely organizational and personnel support for creating these formations, including a combined arms army and an air army, one corps, the Azov sea region, five divisions, and 26 brigades. He noted that the tasks related to forming these units and expanding the armed forces should be completed rapidly within the year.
To achieve this, Burdinsky explained the need to equip, deploy, and staff the new formations in an orderly fashion, while aligning these efforts with deadlines for testing military equipment, weapons, and other supplies.
According to him, the main objective for the year was the selection of citizens for military service under contract, along with the implementation of compulsory conscription norms for other citizens.
The Russian Armed Forces planned 863 events at various levels to enhance the readiness of military commissariats, taking into account lessons learned from partial mobilization and the mobilization of human and transport resources.
Changes after partial mobilization
The general noted that the partial mobilization announced in Russia on September 21, 2022 enabled the creation of more than 280 military units and sub-units within the army.
He pointed out that such mobilization efforts marked a scale not seen since the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945. He compared these actions to earlier mobilizations for Afghanistan in December 1979, when about 55 thousand citizens were called from reserve components.
Burdinsky recalled that during the response to the Chernobyl accident, more than 310 thousand people were mobilized for training over four and a half years, and 88 military units were formed.
Increase in the size of the army
Currently, Russia maintains four military districts: Central, Western, Eastern, and Southern. In December 2022, the need to create the Moscow and Leningrad military districts was publicly announced by the Minister of Defense. The minister attributed the move to NATO’s efforts to expand military potential near Russia’s borders and to broaden alliance presence by admitting Finland and Sweden.
He proposed forming a corps in Karelia to strengthen the structure and readiness of the armed forces. At the same time, the defense head outlined plans for creating self-contained troop groups in annexed territories. The minister called for an increase in the overall armed forces to about 1.5 million personnel, including up to 695,000 contract soldiers, to secure the nation’s military objectives. President Putin supported this goal. A draft law to increase the military age from 18–27 to 21–30 was submitted to the State Duma in March.
In January, the defense minister announced that all planned changes in the Russian army would be implemented by 2026. The focus was to recruit more contracted personnel and to expand training areas across military districts. By the end of May, a bill was introduced to allow citizens with criminal records and those serving under mobilization to serve on a contract basis during mobilization and wartime.