After months of pressure due to the apparent lack of personnel to carry out his invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on Thursday (25) to increase the strength of his Armed Forces.
The war in the neighboring country completed six months on Wednesday (24), and there are no signs that it will end on the visible horizon. Analysts speak of at least six more months of fighting, with varying intensity, but there are those who bet on years of an endemic war.
The increase proposed by Putin is about 10% of the combat force, raising it from 1.01 million to 1.15 million. Altogether, including personnel not involved in military operations, the Ministry of Defense would increase from 1.9 million to 2.04 million servers. Until the war, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies (London), there were 900,000 active Russian soldiers.
No one knows exactly how many people were involved in the invasion of Ukraine, but the current estimate is that there were at least 200,000 men on three main fronts. As is well known, lack of coordination and manpower proved fatal to the Kremlin in the early stages of the war.
Despite quickly reaching Kiev’s suburbs, Russian forces never actually threatened to conquer the capital, as appeared apparent in their initial plan. Thus, they retreated and regrouped for a more consistent offensive in the east of the country, the Russian-speaking Donbass, which is at the origin of the conflict.
In addition, the Russians have taken over a large portion of southern Ukraine, linking the east to the Crimea annexed in 2014. As a result, they dominate something like 20% of their neighbor’s territory. But its offensive in Donbass is sluggish, with the last substantial gains recorded in June and an increase in Western military aid to Kiev.
Russian military observers, who speak on condition of anonymity, attribute this to tactical errors, as well as a lack of personnel. To keep political expectations low, as if that were possible, Putin never declared war on Ukraine. He calls the invasion a “special military operation”, including criminalizing speech that uses other terms.
The problem for him is that it is not possible to speed up the call for people to participate in the conflict.
Over the course of the conflict, pressures arose from not only those who wanted the war, and the harsh sanctions applied by the West that followed, to be stopped. Many commentators in the military, including showing their face on the internet, demanded more effective action on the part of Moscow.
Putin resisted, bringing mercenaries from the infamous Wagner Group and soldiers based outside Russia, such as in Syria or Armenia, into the conflict. Afterwards, he encouraged volunteers for the Armed Forces with money. It didn’t seem to have been enough, and now the enlargement has come.
The account also includes the dead in the conflict. Russia stopped releasing data in March, when it admitted 1,350 deceased. Western intelligence services say 15,000, and Ukraine, exaggerating for obvious reasons, guesses 80,000.
Whatever the coffins, the fact is that the Russians are preparing for the long haul. From a nominal point of view, they maintain the fourth position among armies around the world: China has 2.03 million combatants, the USA and India, about 1.4 million.
Of course, simple numbers don’t tell the whole story. The US has the most formidable military force in the world not only because it has many soldiers, but because it has the best weapons technology and means of employment: fifth generation fighter jets, incomparable 11 aircraft carrier groups, nuclear missiles.
In Ukraine, fighting continues, with lessened intensity. This Thursday there were two interruptions due to bombings on transmission lines at the Zaporijia nuclear power plant, raising fears of a radioactive accident.
The complex was taken over by the Russians right on the front line with the Ukrainians in the homonymous province. Both sides accuse each other of increasing bombing in the region, raising obvious concern not only of a reactor being hit, but of atomic waste dumps around the plant catching fire.
According to the British newspaper The Guardian, Ukrainian state-owned Energoatom said there are Russian plans to disconnect the plant from the country’s grid – before the war, it supplied a fifth of the country’s energy. Russia denies. “Ukrainians press the button, but the weapons and satellite images used in the region are American. It’s nuclear terrorism,” said Russian senator Andrei Klimov during a conversation with Brazilian journalists.
The UN is suggesting a demilitarized zone around the plant, something Russia does not accept, and the head of the UN’s nuclear agency, Rafael Grossi, said on Thursday that he expected an inspection visit to the site soon.
