President Putin Orders Increased Number Of Personnel, Russia Will Have 1.5 Million Troops

Russian military illustration. (Wikimedia Commons/The Presidential Press and Information Office)

JAKARTA - President Vladimir Putin on Monday ordered an additional 180,000 Russian army personnel, bringing the country to 1.5 million active troops, a move that would make it the second largest in the world after China.

In a summary published on the Kremlin website, President Putin ordered the total number of armed forces to be increased to 2.38 million people, of which he said 1.5 million should be active personnel.

The move, which is Putin's third time expanding army ranks since sending his military to Ukraine in February 2022, comes as Russian troops move forward in eastern Ukraine in part of the 1.000 km (627 miles) frontline and try to expel Ukrainian troops from Russian Kursk territory.

Although the Russian population is three times larger than Ukraine and has succeeded in recruiting volunteers with lucrative contracts to fight in Ukraine, Russia - such as the Kyiv forces - has suffered heavy losses on the battlefield, and there is no sign of war coming to an end.

Both sides said the exact amount of their losses was a secret military.

Meanwhile, Andrei Kartapolov, chairman of the defense committee of Russia's lower house of parliament, said the increase in the number of active troops was part of a plan to overhaul the armed forces and gradually increase their numbers to match what he described as the current international situation and the behavior of "former our foreign partners."

"For example, we now need to establish a new military structure and unit to ensure security in the northwestern region (Russia) because Finland, which borders us, has joined the NATO bloc," Kartapolov told Parlamentskaya Gazeta, Russia's parliament's internal newspaper.

"And to carry out this process, we need to increase the number of troops," he added.

It is known that President Putin since 2022 had previously ordered two official increases in the number of combat troops, respectively at 137,000 and 170,000.

In addition, Russia mobilized more than 300,000 troops in September and October 2022, leaving tens of thousands of men in military service to leave the country.

The Kremlin has said no new mobilization is planned for now, and that the idea is to continue relying on volunteers who register to fight in Ukraine.

According to data from the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), a leading military think tank, the increase will see Russia surpass the United States and India in terms of the number of active combat soldiers it has and become the second after China in terms of the number of personnel.

IISS says the Bamboo Curtain Country has more than 2 million active service personnel.