Vladimir Putin has signed a decree increasing Russia’s total military personnel to 2,441,630, including 1.55 million active-duty troops, as the war in Ukraine continues to impose heavy losses on Moscow’s forces.
The order raises the number of active servicemen by 15,500, following a similar increase announced in August. It comes amid claims from Western intelligence services that Russia is losing about 6,000 more soldiers each month than it can recruit.
Ukrainian figures, which have not been independently verified, estimate that Russia has suffered more than 1.5 million troop losses since the invasion began in 2022, including as many as 450,000 deaths.
Russia’s battlefield advances have slowed this year, with widespread drone use making rapid, large-scale movements of troops increasingly difficult.
Ukraine has repeatedly accused Moscow of preparing another mobilisation. Mr Putin has dismissed the suggestion as Ukrainian “disinformation”.
In August, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said his intelligence services believed the Kremlin planned to call up a further 300,000 soldiers after elections.
“We believe it will not happen in the central cities. But I don’t think they will be able to hide it very well,” he said.
Ukraine’s spy chief, Lieutenant General Oleh Ivashchenko, said earlier this month that mounting casualties, declining morale and economic difficulties could affect Russia’s ability to continue the war by 2028.
He said Russia recruited roughly 1,000 people a day, sometimes 1,200, but claimed its daily losses were considerably higher. “Yesterday it was 1,410, the day before it was 1,511. Of those, around 60 per cent are killed in action,” he said.
Statistics cited by Ukrainian officials suggest that another 18 months of fighting could produce a further 765,800 Russian casualties, including 459,480 deaths and 306,320 wounded.
The decree was signed days after Mr Putin’s United Russia party secured a record supermajority in the Duma following a tightly controlled three-day election. Preliminary results gave the party 355 of the parliament’s 450 seats, exceeding its previous record of 343.
The Kremlin said the election, the first parliamentary vote since Russian troops were sent into Ukraine in 2022, demonstrated public unity around Mr Putin. United Russia said 49 veterans of the war were expected to enter parliament as its representatives.
Fighting continued alongside the announcement, with Russian strikes reported across Ukraine. In Kyiv, a drone hit the National Academy of Sciences in the historic centre, while President Zelensky said a separate strike damaged a medical facility.
Authorities said four people were killed and at least 19 wounded at a business centre in Dnipro. An unspecified number of people were also reported dead in a strike on a residential area in Kharkiv, while damage was reported in several other regions.
In Zaporizhzhia, 30 civilians were wounded, three seriously, according to the regional military administration. A jet-powered drone also struck a village near the Polish border, damaging a border checkpoint.
Mr Zelensky has renewed calls for Western allies to increase military support, including the supply of US-made Patriot interceptors. Ukraine has also warned of the impact of Russian attacks on energy infrastructure as winter approaches.
