August 28, 2022
It is not yet clear whether Russia intends to implement its plan by hiring new personnel or through forced conscription
The British Ministry of Defense has suggested that Russia’s plan to expand the recruitment of more personnel in its armed forces will not have an impact on the war in Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree to increase the number of soldiers in the armed forces to 1.15 million, a possible increase of 137,000 personnel in the army.
But the UK Ministry of Defense said this plan may not increase the combat capabilities of Russian forces due to the continuing losses from the conflict in Ukraine.
Putin’s decree came amid opening the door for new recruits to join the ranks of the Russian armed forces.
Reports indicated that those in charge of serious recruiting operations made visits to prisons, and promised the prisoners to release them and give them sums of money if they joined the Russian army.
The number of soldiers in the Russian armed forces exceeds one million, with a small number, in addition to 900,000 civil servants in the armed forces.
And the British Ministry of Defense indicated, in a regular update published on the war, that it is not yet clear whether Russia aims to implement the plan to increase the number of soldiers in the armed forces by adding new personnel to the army or through conscription.
But she suggested that any increase in the ranks of Russian forces may not change the reality on the ground in the ongoing war in Ukraine.
It should be noted that Russia lost tens of thousands of its soldiers in this conflict, amid a scarcity of people willing to contract with the army (who are not subject to conscription). Nor is there anything in the rules governing the Russian army that obligates conscripts to serve abroad, according to the British Ministry of Defense.
Officials in the West have said that between 70,000 and 80,000 Russian troops have been killed or wounded since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Russia was aiming to launch a decisive military campaign that would last a short period of time on Ukraine, but the Ukrainian resistance has hampered the Russian advance in the country with the Russian front lines facing the battlefront in Ukraine very difficult to advance over the past few weeks.
photo released, Archyde.com
Russia has been trying to modernize its military in recent years, including by increasing the number of contract soldiers
Men from 18 to 27 years old in Russia are subject to conscription. Nevertheless, they can obtain an exemption from military service or reduce its duration – in most cases to one year – which are exemptions granted to them due to health problems or due to their enrollment in higher education.
Meanwhile, Ukraine accused Russian forces of bombing the Zaporizhia nuclear plant in the past 24 hours. But Moscow said that it was Ukraine that was bombing the nuclear plant.
And the Ukrainian operating director of the station, Petro Kotin Innerhotom, warned that the region might be exposed to a radioactive leak if the missiles hit spent nuclear fuel tanks located near the reactors.
Innerhotom said: As a result of the repeated bombing, the plant’s infrastructure was damaged. There is also a potential leakage of hydrogen and radioactive materials with an increased potential for a fire hazard.”
Last Saturday, the Russian Defense Ministry claimed to have destroyed an munitions depot in the southeastern city of Dnipropetrovsk, which contained US-made Hemars missile systems and M777 howitzers.
The Russian Ministry also said that Russian forces shot down a MiG-29 warplane in the eastern Donetsk region, and destroyed six missiles and launcher depots in the cities of Donetsk, Mykolaiv and Kherson, according to the statement carried by Archyde.com news agency.
The BBC was not able to verify this information from a source independent of either party to the conflict.
