Pavel Luzin
On September 16, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that the number of personnel in the Russian Armed Forces should be increased to 1.5 million people—180,000 more troops than the number reported in December 2023 (Kremlin.ru, September 16). This personnel goal, however, was announced as early as December 2022 by then-Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. This time around, it is mainly related more to budgetary issues rather than to the actual number of soldiers and officers the Kremlin seeks to have in its armed forces (Kremlin.ru, December 21, 2022; see EDM, January 6, 2023). A larger military means Moscow can justify and ensure increased military spending for a longer period. As a result, the Russian national defense budget for 2025–26 will likely grow. Nevertheless, this raises the question of Russia’s capacity to actually increase the number of its armed forces, not only on paper. As the “long war” continues and Russia accumulates more casualties, the Kremlin will be forced to find other sources of manpower to fuel its war machine.
The most challenging obstacle in this endeavor is the lack of low- and mid-ranking military officers in the Russian military. The Russian High Command has been trying to increase recruitment in military colleges, institutes, universities, and academies since the second half of the 2010s. These tactics alone, however, will not solve the manpower issue for the foreseeable future (The Moscow Times, April 17, 2019). Thus, the Russian military leadership is trying to recruit more future officers from among the students at civil universities and among the existing contracted soldiers and non-commissioned officers (NCOs) (The Moscow Times, April 25, 2023). For a time, the Kremlin also increased the number of military schools for kids and teenagers (The Moscow Times, September 13). Currently, the number of officers in the Russian Armed Forces is growing primarily because of the “partial” mobilization regime still in place. The Kremlin, nonetheless, aims to build armed forces that can be quickly expanded, similar to the Soviet army of the 20th century.
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