Russian Ministry of Defense announces plans to expand military
Mike Brest
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Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced his country’s intention to expand the size of its military over the next couple of years amid deepening tension globally over the war in Ukraine.
Between now and 2026, Russia’s Ministry of Defense is looking to expand the size of its manpower to roughly 1.5 million, and while the current numbers are not clear, it previously announced its intent to increase the military’s size to more than 1.1 million members by Jan. 1 of this year.
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“The President of the Russian Federation decided to increase the number of the Armed Forces to one and a half million military personnel. It is guaranteed to ensure the military security of the state, to protect new subjects and critically important facilities of the Russian Federation, only by strengthening the key structural components of the Armed Forces,” Shoigu said in a statement.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters later that the desire to expand the armed forces “stems from the war that the countries of the collective west are waging [against Russia],” according to Russian-state media Tass.
He called it a proxy war, a proxy war “which includes indirect involvement in military activities and elements of an economic war, a financial war, legal warfare, steps that go beyond the legal field and so on.”
Russia’s military, which world leaders considered to be a vaunted force, has not had the success Russian President Vladimir Putin or many Western officials suspected they would in Ukraine. Russian leaders have repeatedly shifted both goals and leaders during the 11 months of what it terms a “special military operation,” in which its forces initially seized large areas of southern and eastern Ukraine but have since suffered a series of deflating defeats and retreats.
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Last week, Putin chose Chief of General Staff General of the Army Valery Gerasimov to replace Sergei Surovikin as the commander of the Joint Group of Forces. Surovikin, who was appointed to lead the armed forces in October, now serves as one of Gerasimov’s three deputies, along with Army Gen. Oleg Salyukov and Col. Gen. Alexey Kim.
Russian officials have claimed in recent days to have captured the eastern Ukrainian town of Soledar. The fighting in the small city was described by U.S. defense officials as “intense,” though the city itself does not pose significant value. Instead, its proximity to the bigger and nearby city of Bakhmut, where fighting has been ongoing for months, could be significant.