President Vladimir Putin has ordered the recruitment of an additional 133,000 individuals as part of a recruitment campaign that will run from October 1 until the end of the year. The Kremlin’s decree was published in the government newspaper “Rossiyskaya Gazeta” and stipulates the recruitment of citizens aged between 18 and 30 who are not in reserve forces and meet the mandatory recruitment criteria according to federal law.

Russia continues its conflict in Ukraine, which began with a full-scale invasion in February 2022. Kyiv and its allies view the war as an unjustified colonial attempt to seize territory. Russia annexed areas in southeastern Ukraine in late 2022, a move condemned by most Western nations.

In September, Putin announced plans to increase the number of soldiers in the Russian army by approximately 180,000, bringing the total to 1.5 million. He cited escalating threats on Russia’s western border, which could make the Russian army the second largest in the world after the Chinese army.