Does Putin’s order to increase the Russian army by 180,000 soldiers mean a new wave of mobilization is coming?

On September 16, the Kremlin published a decree from Vladimir Putin ordering the expansion of the Russian army to 1.5 million servicemen. That same day, Google Trends data showed a surge in searches by Russians curious about the decision’s implications, with many asking if it signaled a new wave of mobilization. Meduza assesses the odds that the decree suggests another draft is in Russia’s future.

This past Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a decree to add 180,000 soldiers to the Russian army, raising the country’s total number of active servicemen from 1.32 million to 1.5 million. This mirrors similar orders from 2022 and 2023, which increased the number of servicemen on budget payrolls by 12.5 percent and 14.7 percent, respectively. The 2024 plan calls for a 13.6 percent increase.

All three decrees aren’t directly linked to recruiting contract soldiers or mobilization. Instead, they primarily aim to regulate how much should be spent from the treasury to provide full-time positions for the military. However, there are no reliable estimates of how many of these positions are currently filled, leaving the total number of people serving in the Russian Armed Forces unclear.

Meanwhile, the Russian military continues to expand by recruiting new contract soldiers, the majority of whom join the Ground Forces and Airborne Forces to fight in Ukraine. The Kremlin dispatches recruitment plans to the regions, and the timing of any new mobilization wave, should one be implemented, will depend on how well regional authorities meet these targets.

The Russian authorities tend to exaggerate their recruitment successes. For instance, in 2023, the most “fruitful” year for new “volunteers,” budget execution data shows that only 345,400 people joined the army — significantly fewer than the 540,000 claimed by the government. Recruitment rates have sharply declined in 2024. In the first quarter, budget reports indicate that 73,400 federal sign-on bonuses were paid, translating to roughly 295,000 new recruits by the end of the year.

In response to the slowing recruitment pace, the Kremlin has more than doubled the federal incentive for signing an army contract — from 195,000 to 400,000 rubles ($2,121 to $4,350). Many regions have also raised their sign-on bonuses to address challenges in meeting recruitment goals.

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As a result of these efforts, contract hiring has indeed accelerated. This trend began even before the increase in federal incentives, likely driven by rising regional sign-on bonuses since the start of the year. In the second quarter, the number of recruits joining the military rose by 25 percent compared to the first quarter. Overall, in just six months, the army has added over 166,000 personnel, not far behind the same period in 2023.

However, the Russian army is still grappling with a personnel shortage, particularly in infantry for the war in Ukraine. This problem stems from the expansion of the front due to operations in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region and Russia’s Kursk region, along with a casualty rate that nearly doubled in the first half of 2024 compared to the same period last year.

Currently, the Russian Armed Forces appear to be managing to replace their losses fairly well. If the casualty rate over the past few months has remained consistent with the first half of the year, estimates suggest that from the start of the full-scale war until mid-September, the Russian Armed Forces may have lost between 135,000 and 140,000 personnel, including 52,000 to 65,000 in just the first nine months of 2024. Taking into account severely wounded soldiers who’ve been discharged — about whom there’s less information than the deceased — irrecoverable losses in the Russian army could range from 270,000 to 420,000 since the start of the full-scale invasion, with 104,000 to 195,000 in 2024 alone. While the recruitment of contract soldiers is helping to offset these losses, it’s not enough to significantly expand the army.

The Kremlin’s efforts to boost troop numbers are also hindered by equipment shortages. Most of the tanks, armored vehicles, and artillery now being supplied are refurbished equipment taken from Soviet-era stockpiles, which are finite. Even if the Russian authorities announce another wave of mobilization, it won’t yield immediate benefits, as the army still needs sufficient equipment to outfit new recruits.