Loading ...Russia Explains It’s Boosting Army Numbers In Reaction To West’s Proxy War
Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu presented a plan to take the roughly one million strong armed forces to a level of 1.5 million personnel in the near-term, or at least the coming years. He indicated he expects that this bolstering in forces would include some 695,000 volunteer contract soldiers.
On Tuesday, the Kremlin gave confirmation to the plan unveiled in that December 21 meeting, and explained the rationale for the ramping up in personnel numbers, describing that the “proxy war” nature of the Ukraine conflict has made the move necessary.
“The West lied about peace while preparing for aggression,” he had said in a New Years message. “They are cynically using Ukraine and its people to weaken and divide Russia.”