Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on the planned spring conscription of the Russian armed forces, calling for up to 150,000 citizens to perform military service, according to a document posted on the Kremlin’s website today.

All males in Russia are required to perform a year’s military service from the age of 18.

In July, the lower house of the Russian parliament voted to raise the maximum conscription age to 30 from 27. The new legislation came into force on 1 January 2024.

Compulsory military service is a sensitive issue in Russia, where many go to great lengths to avoid receiving conscription papers during the two annual conscription periods.

Conscripts cannot legally be deployed to fight outside Russia and had been exempted from a limited conscription in 2022 under which at least 300,000 men with previous military training had been recruited to fight in Ukraine – although some draftees were sent to the front by mistake .

In September, Putin signed a decree calling up up to 130,000 conscripts into the armed forces. Last spring Russia planned to recruit 147,000.

The Russian Ministry of Defense simultaneously released the document on the demobilization of those who completed their basic training. These trained soldiers can volunteer to serve on the Ukrainian front and are under pressure to sign the relevant contract, the German Agency notes.

Britain estimates that Russia is recruiting around 30,000 men every month

Russia’s military is “probably” recruiting “roughly 30,000” men a month to sustain its war in Ukraine from 2022, according to an estimate by Britain’s military intelligence agency released yesterday.

“Russia maintains a large quantitative advantage in the war, outnumbering Ukraine in terms of ammunition and equipment,” the British Ministry of Defense acknowledged in a post on X.

Moscow is “probably recruiting approximately 30,000 new recruits per month and can likely continue to absorb casualties and continue attacks to wear down Ukrainian forces.”

According to the same source, Russian forces are continuing their attacks after the recent capture of the fortress city of Abdiivka and have registered a “gradual advance” westward. “At the end of March, it is almost certain that they took control of two villages, Tonenke and Orlivka, and they continue to claim others” in the area.

They are also constantly launching attacks on various other parts of the front but have made “little progress in recent weeks”, according to the British Ministry of Defence.

Western analysts attribute the Russian advance in part to shortages of ammunition and combat-experienced personnel that Kiev has been facing of late.