Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday approved Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu’s proposal to increase the number of Russian Armed Forces by 350,000 new soldiers, Meduza reports.

In a televised address he made immediately after Putin during a meeting at the Defense Ministry in Moscow on Wednesday, Shoigu said the size of Russia’s armed forces should be increased to 1.5 million, including 695,000 contract soldiers.

Shoigu said that this is necessary “to guarantee the provision of military security of the Russian Federation”, according to the minister.

Currently, the total number of types of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation is determined by the decree of the President of the Kremlin dated October 25 – 1 million 150 thousand 628 servicemen, that is, Russia must mobilize another 350 thousand people.

Shoigu also talked about other transformations of the Russian military, announcing plans to create “two cross-species strategic territorial formations of the Armed Forces – the Moscow and Leningrad military districts” and to strengthen the grouping of troops in the northwest, “taking into account the desire of NATO to strengthen its military potential near the Russian borders.”

“I agree with your proposals for other structural changes in the Armed Forces. After the discussions, report to the council, and we will talk about it again in detail,” Putin replied.

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Is paragraph 7 of the decree on mobilization signed by Putin returned?

It will be recalled that immediately after the head of the Kremlin announced a decree on partial mobilization in Russia on September 21, journalists noted that in the document signed by Putin and published on the Kremlin’s website, one of the paragraphs was classified, in particular, it refers to the number of recruits that will be included.

The existence of this secret paragraph immediately raised concerns that Russia’s military leadership may actually be mobilizing far more than the 300,000 “reservists” Sergei Shoigu claimed in a speech Putin also gave at the time.

Asked about this on the same day that the partial mobilization decree was issued, Kremlin spokesman Dmytro Peskov declined to provide further information.

“Indeed, it (the seventh paragraph of the decree) is for official use, so I cannot disclose it,” he said during a daily press conference.

“The only thing I can say is what Serhiy Shoigu said in his interview – 300,000 people. We are talking about up to 300,000 people there,” Peskov commented.

Has a new wave of mobilization already begun in Russia?

Novaya Gazeta, Russia’s last independent newspaper before its website was also blocked by Moscow authorities in November, wrote a day after the mobilization decree, citing an anonymous source in the Putin administration, that paragraph 7 referred to actual mobilization million recruits.

Defense Minister Serhiy Shoigu announced on October 28 that the partial mobilization had ended and that the goal of 300,000 recruits had been achieved.

However, a few days later, Dmytro Peskov clarified that Putin would not sign a decree on the official end of mobilization, stating that this was not necessary.

“There is no decree,” Peskov said on November 1, adding that “the legal department of the Presidential Administration has come to the conclusion… that the partial mobilization has been completed.” The Ministry of Defense has sent relevant telegrams to the military commissariats regarding the termination of sending draft documents.”

Despite Shoigu’s statement about the end of mobilization, recently, since November, there have been more and more signs that the Russian military leadership is already preparing a new wave of accession.

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