The Kremlin wants to increase its army strength.
The military is set to grow by 2026.
According to military experts, it's about "doing conventional warfare on a large scale."
Moscow – On New Year's Day, the Russian military grew by 137,000 soldiers.
On January 1, a decree issued by Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin in the summer came into force.
The Russian army thus comprises around two million people.
Around 1.15 million of them are contract soldiers and conscripts, the rest work in administration.
Now the strength of the army is apparently set to increase further – to 1.5 million soldiers.
Shoigu plans "large-scale changes": Russian military is to grow
Putin announced these plans at the end of December, but fears of a corresponding major offensive did not initially harden.
Now the Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu met with the top leadership of the Russian armed forces to talk about the implementation of the decision.
This was reported by the Russian Defense Ministry.
The army enlargement is to be implemented in the years 2023 to 2026.
There are "large-scale changes".
The statements could be a harbinger of a Putin speech announced for Wednesday evening.
Shoigu announced that Russia would restore the Moscow and St. Petersburg military districts, create a new army corps in Karelia (on the Finnish border), create new self-sufficient formations in occupied Ukraine, and create 12 new maneuver divisions.
The combat power of the fleet, the air force and the missile forces should also be strengthened.
Meanwhile, the war in Ukraine continues.
Also this week the Russian military bombed civilian infrastructure in Ukraine.
Assessment of new Kremlin plans: "It is unclear whether the military can grow like this"
According to the US think tank
Institute for the Study of War
, the plans have two goals: "Probably in preparation for a protracted war in Ukraine, and also to create the conditions for the rapid development of a much stronger Russian military," says the current ISW status report from January 17th.
Due to the three-year period until 2026, the new military strategy must also be viewed independently of Ukraine, the military experts write: "These reforms show Russia's intention to reform the Russian military in such a way that it is able to carry out conventional warfare on a large scale and not just for the current war against Ukraine.” Whether this will succeed is not yet foreseeable: “It is unclear whether the Russian military will be able to grow within three years as Shoigu described Shoigu had already announced major reforms in the past that were never actually implemented.
Peskov justifies Shoigu plans with “proxy war against Moscow”
According to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, the expansion of the army is “the result of a proxy war by the West against Moscow,” as
quoted by the Russian news agency
Tass on Tuesday.
"It is the war that the countries of the collective West are waging [against Russia]," he said when asked about the reason for the decision to increase Russia's armed forces to 1.5 million soldiers.
Peskov specified that this is a proxy war, "which includes indirect involvement in military activities and elements of an economic war, a financial war, a judicial war, moves beyond the judicial sphere, and so on."
A narrative that the new Federal Defense Minister Boris Pistorius could support with his first statements of an "indirect" participation in the war.
In an interview with our editorial team, an expert attested that the Lambrecht successor was a "highly dangerous faux pas".
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