By Guy Faulconbridge
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia has no plans for an additional mobilisation of men to fight in Ukraine as more than 335,000 have signed up so far this year to fight in the armed forces or voluntary units, Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Tuesday.
Russia has been bolstering its armed forces and ramping up weapons production in the expectation of a long war in Ukraine, where front lines have barely shifted for a year.
“There are no plans for an additional mobilisation,” Shoigu was shown telling top generals on state television. “The armed forces have the necessary number of military personnel to conduct the special military operation.”
Shoigu, an ally of President Vladimir Putin, hailed the patriotism of those who had signed up.
“Since the start of the year, more than 335,000 people have entered military service under contract and in volunteer formations,” Shoigu said. “In September alone, more than 50,000 citizens signed contracts.”
Those figures indicate that Russia has made significant progress both in signing recruits and in absorbing many fighters from the Wagner mercenary force into “voluntary formations”.
Putin ordered a “partial mobilisation” of 300,000 reservists in September last year, prompting hundreds of thousands of young men to flee Russia to avoid being sent to fight.
Putin has repeatedly said there is no need to repeat the mobilisation, which some Russian officials say was a mistake as it prompted so many to leave.
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 unleashed a war that has devastated swathes of eastern and southern Ukraine, killed or injured hundreds of thousands of men and triggered the biggest rupture in Russia’s ties with the West for six decades.
Putin says he is fighting a Western alliance waging a proxy war to diminish Russia politically and militarily, while Western leaders say their economic sanctions and their military backing for Ukraine are a direct response to Moscow’s aggression.
(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Mark Trevelyan and Kevin Liffey)
