Russia Recruits Volunteers As Troop Deaths Remain High in Ukraine: Even after making slow and incremental gains in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region and taking control of virtually all of Luhansk Oblast, Russian troop morale is reportedly struggling and deaths remain high.
The situation has become such a big problem for the Kremlin that the Russian military is reportedly recruiting thousands of volunteers to replace lost soldiers.
Analysts suggest that at least 30,000 volunteers could be deployed in Ukraine to assist the Russian military after almost half a year of fighting and losses. That’s somewhere between a quarter and a third of the number of troops deployed in Ukraine’s eastern region.
Russia also scrapped its age limit for soldiers in May in an effort to increase the number of troops available. Before Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a new law this year, the Russian military required that every soldier be between 18 and 40. The move was positioned as an effort to recruit more technical specialists – which requires years of experience and training. The legislation claims that military professionals become experts between the ages of 40 and 45. Under the new law, however, people over 40 could be recruited as engineers, medics, and communications specialists.
In March, Russia laid the groundwork for recruiting foreign volunteers, announcing that the country welcomed volunteers from the Middle East to assist in the so-called “special military operation” in Ukraine.
Russia Losing Hundreds Of Troops Per Day
On Friday, a senior United States defense official also said that Russia appears to be losing hundreds of soldiers per day in Ukraine, and that thousands of officers have also been lost in the conflict in Ukraine.
The United States believes that five months into the war, Russia has lost some 15,000 troops and that as many as 45,000 soldiers have also been wounded. On top of the mid-level officers who have been killed so far, the defense official also noted that “many” Russian generals have been lost as well.
Speaking to CNN this week, Rep. Elissa Slotkin, a Democratic legislator representing Michigan’s 8th congressional district, said that the number of Russian deaths and casualties was recently revealed in a classified briefing – and that the number is much higher than many of the figures shared in the press.
“We were briefed that over 75,000 Russians have either been killed or wounded, which is huge,” Slotkin said. “Over 80% of their land forces are bogged down and they’re tired.”
CIA Director William Burns also said on July 20 that roughly 15,000 troops had been killed and that “maybe three times” that figure was wounded.
Jack Buckby is a British author, counter-extremism researcher, and journalist based in New York. Reporting on the U.K., Europe, and the U.S., he works to analyze and understand left-wing and right-wing radicalization, and reports on Western governments’ approaches to the pressing issues of today. His books and research papers explore these themes and propose pragmatic solutions to our increasingly polarized society.
