War to the end. Why is Putin increasing the army?

The Kremlin has likely decided to conduct a hybrid front mobilization, according to Western and Ukrainian experts.

Six months after the massive invasion of Ukraine, Russian leader Vladimir Putin ordered an increase in the size of Russia’s armed forces. In 2023, the size of the Russian army should be 2.04 million people. This will be done only by increasing the number of military personnel – the number of civilian personnel in the army will remain unchanged. Experts attribute Putin’s decision to multiple defeats in the war against Ukraine. Correspondent.net tells if it changes anything in the front.

How Putin conducts hybrid mobilization

The President of the aggressor country, Vladimir Putin, signed an order to increase the personnel of the Russian army. The number of military personnel alone, including those under contract, will increase by 137,000 people, or ten percent, and there will be a total of 1.15 million soldiers.

The remaining two million employees are civil servants, including administrative workers. The order will take effect on January 1, 2023.

Official reasons for the increase in the size of the Russian army were not given. How exactly the number of servicemen will increase – through additional conscription or by increasing the number of contract servicemen – is not specified in the decree.

The last time the regular strength of the armed forces was established was in 2017. Compared to those numbers, the number of military personnel was increased by 137,000 people (13.5 percent more) by Putin’s new order. The number of civilian personnel in the armed forces of the Russian Federation remained unchanged.

There is no doubt about success. The results of six months of war

In Russia, the spring conscription ended on July 15. The fall call begins on October 1 and lasts until December 31. The Russian authorities have officially declared that they are not sending conscripts to the front, and this will also apply to new recruits. However, judging by the captured Russian soldiers, sending conscripts to the war against Ukraine is systematic.

The US State Department reacted to Putin’s decision to increase the army by saying that Russia has failed in Ukraine and will not win. This was said in a briefing by the First Deputy Speaker of the State Department Bureau for International Public Relations Vedant Patel.

He was asked how the United States views the Russian leader’s order in terms of the Kremlin’s intentions in the region and the implications for Ukraine. Patel replied that the United States has supported the independent Ukrainian people for 31 years and will continue to do so. Ukraine’s support will not waver, the official assured.

“Putin decided to conquer another country. And he failed in achieving this goal. Ukraine is not and cannot be conquered. It will remain sovereign and independent,” said Patel.

Putin will fight to the end

Analysts at the Institute for the Study of War believe that Putin’s order to increase the army suggests that he is more determined to avoid full mobilization and is unlikely to issue an order in the near future.

“The Russian army is probably looking to replace the losses from the invasion of Ukraine and build a force to support its operation in Ukraine. avoid full mobilization,” the ISW report, published on the evening of August 26 , said.

Washington experts added that it is unlikely that the Kremlin will be able to build enough forces to meet the 1.15 million troops allocated by the decree.

“The Russian army has historically fallen short of its target strength. For example, in 2022, before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, it had only about 850,000 active duty troops, short of its nominal target strength of more than a million,” the analysts wrote.

According to them, Russia is likely to face serious obstacles in attracting a large number of new soldiers as soon as possible.

“In addition to the problems facing Russian recruiters, Russia’s training capacity has likely declined since February 24 as the Kremlin brought training elements to fight in Ukraine and reportedly suffered casualties,” said the statement.

The Institute for the Study of War also believes that Russia could use the autumn draft of October 2022, which will bring about 130,000 people, to make up for the losses in the army, which are reported to be in the tens of thousands dead and serious . injured. According to the American newspaper New York Times, the losses of the invaders reached 80 thousand people.

In addition, the Kremlin could formally integrate the forces of LDNR groups or new Russian volunteer units that are not formally part of the Russian army into the Russian army, ISW said. At the same time, according to American experts, the net increase in Russia’s combat power in any such case would be very small.

Analysts cited by the NYT also speak of the increase in the Russian army as a sign that after six months of war, Putin will not back down, despite the losses and lack of progress on the front.

“This is not the kind of move you make when you expect your war to end soon. This is what you make when you’re making some kind of long-term conflict plan,” said Dara Massicot, senior policy researcher at RAND. Corporation.

According to the military-political observer of the Information Resistance group, Alexander Kovalenko, Putin’s order revealed the true losses of the Russian army. On July 30, the total losses of the Russian army reached 122 thousand people, the expert said.

“The reliability of the information sent to us to form the general picture and our general data has been repeatedly noted thanks to reports from high-ranking representatives of the Pentagon,” said Kovalenko.

Igor Tyshkevich, an analyst at the Ukrainian Institute for the Future, also believes that Putin’s decision is a hybrid mobilization, creating a picture for the Russian population that this is just a “planned” increase in the army. According to him, the losses of the Russian army reached 135 thousand people.

Russian military analyst Pavel Luzin agrees that it is not possible to gather enough conscripts and recruits to achieve the goal outlined in Putin’s order. “The Russian army in the current conditions can never be a million-strong army. Especially with massive losses and mass dispatches (at the front – ed.) in war conditions,” Luzin believes.

Or trying to put pressure on the West

Alexei Kopytko, a freelance adviser to the Minister of Defense, has a slightly different view of the situation. In his opinion, after Putin’s order, Ukraine’s Western allies can “fear or neutralize the threat through active actions.”

He believes that due to the expected worsening of the socio-economic situation in the Russian Federation, paid military service “may be a good option” for the citizens of the occupying country, and it may also be an attempt to put pressure on the West – “let’s negotiate, otherwise it will be worse.”

Therefore, the main task is to convince [союзников] the need to allocate large volumes of weapons [Украине]. To turn the maximum number of Russian troops into rags in the winter … You can scare or neutralize the threat through active actions. I hope this time they will not choose the previous option,” he said.

Advisor to the Minister of Internal Affairs, Executive Director of the Ukrainian Institute for the Future Vadim Denisenko believes that Putin has several goals in his decision:

• 1. Not by skill, but by number. This was the main motto of the Russian army in the last centuries. Otherwise, they don’t know how to fight.

• 2. Putin cannot conduct an open mobilization. Hidden fail. Therefore, it is a hybrid mobilization. And here everything will be difficult: people are definitely afraid of it.

• 3. The West needs to be intimidated. Now many would consider this a step towards further expansion to the West. In fact, it covers the holes that are already visible after six months of war.

• 4. In reality, this 137 thousand will appear no earlier than the middle of 2023 (optimistic scenario). And they need to be educated, clothed and armed.

• 5. Choosing between modernizing equipment and investing money in it, Putin’s generals went with a proven method: not too many corpses.

• 6. Putin decided to fight to the end. For the next six months, ordinary Russians will feel the destruction of life. In the future, the Russian Federation feels a little bad.

• 7. Our main task is to endure. In fact, they do not have the strength to break the situation at the front. But we need more weapons.

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