Russia’s Plans Expansion of Army to Reach 1.5 Million Active Duty Troops
by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent
(Worthy News) – In the third year of Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, and having sustained heavy losses, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday ordered the size of his army to be increased by 180,000 troops to 1.5 million active servicemen, Reuters reports.
The move would give Russia a larger army than those of India and the United States, making it the second largest in the world after China’s, Reuters reports. According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) military think tank, China has just over 2 million active duty servicemen.
The latest expansion would be the third time Putin has increased the Russian army since invading Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Reuters notes. In what has been described as a “stunning cost,” Russia suffered the reported killing or wounding of 100,000 troops between December and April this year alone, NBC News said on May 2.
Andrei Kartapolov, chairman of Russia’s lower house of parliament’s defence committee, said in statement that the increase in troops was part of a plan for Russia’s army to match that of its “former foreign partners,” Reuters reports.
“For example, we now need to form new structures and military units to ensure security in the north-west (of Russia) since Finland, with which we border, has joined the NATO bloc,” Kartapolov told Parlamentskaya Gazeta, the Russian parliament’s in-house newspaper. “And in order to carry out this process, we need to increase the number of troops.”