Link to article: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-orders-russian-army-grow-by-180000-soldiers-become-15-million-strong-2024-09-16/
For the third time since the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine in 2022, Putin has ordered for the Russian armed forces to be increased, this time by 180,000 troops to total 1.5 million active service troops. This would increase the size of their active combat force to a size greater than that of both the United States and India. This occurs as Russia pushes further into Ukraine with the goal of ejecting its forces from the Russian Kursk region. As there is no sign of the conflict coming to an end, Russia continues its goals of overhauling their military forces, as well as their military structures and resources in order to simultaneously increase their aggression in Ukraine as well as demonstrate military strength on an global scale. However, Dara Massicot, expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think tank, states that the Russian government will struggle to so substantially increase the defense budget, and that the continued efforts to increase the size of active forces will require the decision to either expand the size of the draft or change the law to allow women to work in the military.
The article is important as it highlights the choices of Putin and the Kremlin to ramp up Russian military efforts in the conflict with Ukraine while concurrently increasing the appearance of their military power on a global scale. However, the Russian death toll in Ukraine, which the Kremlin is keeping secret, is known to be extremely high, meaning that in order to keep up their intensity in Ukraine, Russia must keep feeding soldiers into the conflict. I think that this will have a lasting impact on the economy in Russia, weakening their power from the inside out. This will strain their defense budget beyond what it may be able to handle as the conflict has no sign of an end. On an international level, I think that this decision is more than just a simple increase of active service members: I think it is an international demonstration of military power. By increasing the number of service members over that of the US, Russia is attempting to show their potential for military power in the case of a larger conflict outside of Ukraine, if NATO is forced to get involved.
Russia is a major power in the global arena. As a permanent member of the UN Security Council, a specific committee of the IGO, Russia has an important role in determining the sovereignty and recognition of states. I also find it interesting that Russia and China are the two states with the largest active armed forces, as they are allies with similar goals in terms of their economies, IGO’s in their own right (economic alliances). The conflict between Russia and Ukraine also deals with concepts of sovereignty and recognition, as the Russian government sees Ukraine as their own, and as part of Russia.