Moscow Mayor Serhiy Sobyanin said on Wednesday that nearly 45,000 Muscovites are now fighting in Ukraine, giving a rare assessment of some of the forces Russia has deployed in Ukraine, AFP and Agerpres reported.

According to a Russian official, “45,000 Moscow residents are currently fighting in the area of ​​the special operation.” “We are talking about an important part of those who are there,” he said, quoted by the Interfax agency.

Of them, “at least 5,000 are professional soldiers,” he added.

Neither Russia nor Ukraine have released the size of their troops currently engaged in the conflict, nor their military casualties since the conflict began in February 2022.

At the beginning of August, the former president of Russia, Dmitry Medvedev, said that since January 2023, more than 231,000 people have been drafted into the Russian army.

In September 2022, due to losses at the front, the Russian authorities had to resort to a partial mobilization of reservists, which made it possible to call up at least 300,000 people, but also caused tens of thousands of Russians to flee abroad.

The recruitment campaign is carried out through social networks and numerous street posters, which popularize the army and promise especially attractive conditions for future fighters.

At the end of December 2022, the Minister of Defense of Russia, Sergei Shoigu, found it “necessary” to increase the size of the Russian army to 1.5 million soldiers, of which 695,000 are contract soldiers.

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