Sergey Shoigu, the Minister of Defence of Russia, has claimed that the Russian army must be extended to 1.5 million soldiers. He is also planning to increase the draft age limit in Russia.

Source: Shoigu at the session of the Ministry of Defence of Russia on 21 December

Details: The minister stated that the troop strength of the Russian Army must be increased to 1.5 million. He specified that 670,000 out of 1.5 million must be contract servicemen.

He added that the lower draft age for military service will be gradually increased from 18 to 21 years and the upper draft age limit will be increased to 30 years.

Updated: Shoigu instructed the Ministry to increase the number of contract servicemen to 521,000, taking into account the replacements made in the groupings of mobilised servicemen, as well as recruitment of new formations. Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed he endorsed Shoigu’s suggestions about "further structure changes in Russian Armed Forces".

At the same time, the dictator stated he would not be "militarising the country and the economy".

Previously: In August this year, Putin set the staff number of Russia’s Armed Forces at the level of 2,039,758 people, out of which 1,150,628 are the military.

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