Russian Armed Forces

In December 2022, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced its ambitious plan for increasing the size of the Russian Armed Forces to 1.5 million personnel ...

And the number of those employed decreased from 71.5 million in 2010 to 69.5 million in 2020 ( As a result, the Russian Ministry of Defense may believe that it can close the gap by recruiting young migrants from Central Asia in exchange for Russian citizenship, which adds another dimension to Russia’s growing desperation in the face of declining demographics at home and manpower shortages in Ukraine. However, in 2008, when the term for military service was reduced from two years to one, the Russian Ministry of Defense tried to increase the number of drafted soldiers. The threshold of 695,000 contracted soldiers by 2027 means that one in ten Russian men between the ages of 21 and 30 could be called up to active service at any moment. [RBC](https://www.rbc.ru/society/01/04/2011/5703e5949a79473c0df1c4e0), April 1, 2011; [Rg.ru](https://rg.ru/2021/12/31/osennij-prizyv-v-armiiu-zavershilsia-v-rossii.html), December 31, 2021). According to the Russian population census of 2020–2021, the number of men 18–26 years old in Russia was around 7.21 million in 2021. Considering the planned increase of the conscription age, less than 7.16 million men ages 21 to 29 will be present in Russia in 2030 ( That means the total number of soldiers, both drafted and contracted, decreased from almost 700,000 in 2010 to between 560,000 and 600,000 at the beginning of the 2020s. To this, the number of contracted soldiers within the Russian Armed Forces has to be increased significantly as well: to 521,000 by the end of 2023 and 695,000 by the end of 2026, adjusted from the previous plan of increasing this number from 405,000 in 2020 to 500,000 by 2027. However, a more serious issue looks to restrain the planned increase in the Russian Armed Forces faces—namely, Russia’s mounting demographic challenges (see [EDM](https://jamestown.org/program/5-million-fewer-than-in-2010-ethnic-russians-make-up-only-72-percent-of-russias-population/), January 10). In previous decades, the Russian military leadership tried to take into consideration the long-term consequences of this process. In December 2022, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced its ambitious plan for increasing the size of the Russian Armed Forces to 1.5 million personnel by the end of 2026.