​Ukraine’s military said on Monday it expects Russia to soon launch a major mobilization campaign to try to draw hundreds of thousands of soldiers from Russia and occupied Ukraine, Reuters reported.

The Ukrainian General Staff did not provide any evidence to support its statement. Russian officials have said there are currently no plans for a new wave of mobilization and that Moscow is focused on recruiting a professional military.

“Soon in the Russian Federation and in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine due to the catastrophic losses of the occupiers, forced mass mobilization of the population is expected,” the General Staff reported.

How many troops could Russia involve in a new mobilization campaign

According to the General Staff, with reference to various estimates, the mobilization campaign can reach from 400,000 to 700,000 recruits.

According to him, the number of Russians recruited in Moscow and St. Petersburg will remain “minimal”, while Russians will mostly be recruited from regions outside the two major Russian cities.

The General Staff released its statement a few days after a Ukrainian military intelligence general said that 420,000 Russian troops are currently in Ukraine.

Both Russia and Ukraine consider casualties on the battlefield a state secret.

Last month, the New York Times quoted US officials on condition of anonymity as saying that nearly 500,000 Ukrainian and Russian soldiers had been killed or wounded in the war since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

In fact, the UK Ministry of Defense said back in March this year that Russia was preparing a new recruitment drive to attract 400,000 soldiers as “volunteers”, but regional authorities would likely resort to coercion to meet conscription quotas set by Moscow.

In July, the Russian parliament increased the maximum age from which men can be mobilized for army service by at least five years – for officers of the highest rank – to 70 years.

Russia is raising the age limit for male conscription from 27 to 30 and has made it harder for young men to evade the draft by sending conscription orders by mail.

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Read also:

• Russians trying to avoid partial mobilization on the orders of Vladimir Putin are crossing the border with Georgia on foot.
• Protests in Russia have gradually subsided after detained protesters were reportedly handed orders to join.
• Russia is preparing a new set of 400,000 / Why the “volunteer model” is unlikely to be respected by the regional authorities.