Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered the country’s military to increase the maximum number of troops by nearly 170,000 people, as Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine continues into its 22nd month.

Putin’s decree was released by the Kremlin on Friday and took force immediately. It brings the strength of the armed forces to 1.32 million service personnel and increases the overall number of Russian military personnel to about 2.2 million.

“The increase in the full-time strength of the armed forces is due to the growing threats to our country associated with the special military operation and the ongoing expansion of NATO,” the Russian Ministry of Defence said in a statement.

It said the order does not imply any “significant expansion of conscription”, and that the increase would happen gradually by recruiting more volunteers.

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, now deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, said on Friday that more than 452,000 people were recruited to the military under contract from January 1 to December 1, 2023.

NATO’s “joint armed forces are being built up near Russia’s borders and additional air defence systems and strike weapons are being deployed. The potential of NATO’s tactical nuclear forces is being increased,” the ministry statement read.

Boosting Russian troops was an appropriate response to “the aggressive activities of the NATO bloc”, the ministry added.

This is the second such expansion of the army since 2018. The previous boost of 137,000 troops, ordered by Putin in August 2022, put the military’s numbers at about two million personnel and about 1.15 million troops.

Source - Al Jazeera

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