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Putin Orders Military to Boost Troops 09/17 06:10
MOSCOW (AP) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday ordered the
country's military to increase its number of troops by 180,000 to a total of
1.5 million, as Moscow's military action in Ukraine drags on for more than 2
years.
Putin's decree, published on the official government website, will take
effect Dec. 1. It sets the overall number of Russian military personnel at
nearly 2.4 million, including 1.5 million troops, and orders the government to
provide the necessary funding.
The previous increase in Russian troop numbers came last December, when a
decree by Putin set the total number of Russian military personnel at about 2.2
million, including 1.32 million troops.
The most capable Russian troops have been pressing an offensive in eastern
Ukraine, where they have made incremental but steady gains in the past few
months.
In June, Putin put the number of troops involved in what the Kremlin calls
the "special military operation" in Ukraine at nearly 700,000.
After calling up 300,000 reservists in the face of Ukraine's
counteroffensive in the fall of 2022, Russian authorities have switched to
filling the ranks of troops fighting in Ukraine with volunteer soldiers, who
have been attracted by relatively high wages.
Many commentators have noted that the Kremlin has been reluctant to call
more reservists, fearing domestic destabilization like what happened in 2022
when hundreds of thousands fled Russia to avoid being sent to combat.
The shortage of military personnel has been widely cited as a key reason
behind the success of Ukraine's incursion into Russia's Kursk region launched
Aug. 6.
The Kremlin has sought to avoid the redeployment of troops from eastern
Ukraine and relied on reinforcements from other areas to stem the Ukrainian
incursion. The Russian Defense Ministry on Monday reported reclaiming control
of two more villages in the Kursk region from Ukrainian forces.
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