Putin is Running Out of Troops
As the war in Ukraine continues, Russian military recruitment is lagging.
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Vladimir Putin has a big problem: He needs more bodies to throw into the Russian war machine in Ukraine. Current estimates indicate that the Russian military is losing 30,000-35,000 fighters per month on the 2,000 km frontline. A July 2026 report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies calculated that the Russian military has taken over 1.4 million casualties (of which about 450,000-500,000 are thought to be deaths, with the remainder being soldiers so severely injured that they cannot return to duty). This unprecedented loss of blood and lives has evidently been mostly in vain—Russian forces have gained only about 5,000 square km since the autumn of 2023, and reportedly lost about 400 square km in April and May 2026 alone. Despite the high casualty rate of the Russian armed forces, the frontline has been in a virtual stalemate for most of the last three years.
Considering these grim statistics, it is unsurprising that Russian military recruitment efforts have started to lag. Western popular imagination still does not fully understand that Russia’s military is no longer the conscript forces of Soviet times. Beginning in 2008, the armed forces underwent a comprehensive military reform, transitioning from the Soviet legacy conscription system to a professional service supposed to be staffed by well-trained recruits who were paid a monthly salary to serve. As a result, Russia’s military was by 2022 better trained and better equipped than it had ever been. Yet most of the most elite forces were lost in the early months of the war in what was clearly an unexpectedly strong showing by the also reformed Ukrainian military and a very supportive society and government led by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. By the autumn of 2022, the Russian military was not only recruiting convicts from prisons (who were offered freedom and exoneration for their crimes if they could survive on the front line for a year) but also activating its reserve system under a “partial mobilization” order through which the military added 300,000 reservists to replenish its losses, eventually expanding its forces in Ukraine to over 700,000 personnel.
Even though the reserve force had been established in 2007 precisely to resolve crisis situations by having military trained personnel in waiting, the call up proved remarkably unpopular with the Russian public. In part this was because they were encouraged to think of the war in Ukraine as a temporary operation (in Russia the invasion of Ukraine is called the “Special Military Operation” or “SVO,” instead of a war), implying little to no disruption of regular life for those who were not full-time soldiers. The other reason why the 2022 partial mobilization of reservists proved so unpopular is that the system requires regional governments to manage the call up. There were reports of men in Russia’s far-flung regions being randomly plucked off the streets and sent directly to training camps, or even to the front itself, so that regional leaders could make their “target” mobilization numbers to please their masters in Moscow. Thousands of men fled Russia in the autumn of 2022 to avoid being swept up in what became a frantic and haphazard effort to produce bodies regardless of whether they were actually in the reserve forces to begin with. Even Putin admitted mistakes were made.
Nonetheless, support for Putin and the SVO dropped in opinion polls. Beginning in 2023, the Russian government opted instead to replace and build its forces by offering new recruits attractive signing bonuses for contract service of one year or more and monthly salaries that are higher than the national average. There are also relatively generous death benefits for the families of the fallen so that, whether living or dead, recruits and their families could benefit materially from their service. Sometimes colorfully described as the “death-onomics” behind Russian military recruitment, this program attracted a reported 420,000 new recruits, many (initially at least) from the poorer regions of the Russian south and far east. The prospect of fighting for their country for a high salary (not to mention the promised future glory) was appealing when the alternative was to remain unemployed in a remote backwater with few opportunities. In 2024, the growth in forces continued, with the Russian Defense Ministry announcing the planned recruitment of another 430,000 soldiers, and in 2025, another 400,000 were added—an average of 35,000 per month.
But by early this year, this pipeline of the poor has faltered in keeping pace with the high death rate on the battlefield. Putin needs more men to go to war. But given the body bags and bad news trickling from the front, it is understandable that few Russians want to serve these days. So far, the Kremlin has been able to avoid relying on conscription or too heavily on the reserve mobilization forces. Can this continue?
A New Mobilization?
On Russian social media, in the opposition press abroad, and on countless Telegram channels, rumors abound that a “full mobilization” with a goal of 700,000-1,000,000 new recruits is in the works. In July 2026, Zelenskyy cited Ukrainian intelligence services in claiming the number called up through mobilization would be 300,000-500,000. Those who think another mobilization call is in the works think it will be in October, following the Duma elections in late September. Naturally, elections in Russia are largely meaningless in terms of allowing citizens to decide who governs them, but they are symbolically important to the regime and provide at least a gloss of legitimacy to Putin and his preferred party, United Russia. Announcing a mobilization that could sweep up hundreds of thousands of Russians across the country would undermine a calm electoral cycle and overall social stability.
But can Russia’s president pull off any sort of call to service this autumn or in the future to staff his losing battle?
Vladimir Putin is the most powerful leader in Eurasia since Joseph Stalin, and after 26 years in office, he has ruled almost as long. One would think that by resorting to the tools of dictatorship—fear, the threat and reality of violent suppression, and aggressive propaganda through full control of the media—the Russian dictator could easily overcome any resistance in Russian society to bring up force numbers. He could, but there are risks in doing so.
The need for more—and better trained—recruits is clear if Russia intends to continue fighting the war as it has been since 2022. But a repeat of the mobilization drive four years ago endangers the social stability at home that Putin needs to continue his fight in Ukraine and remain the undisputed ruler of Russia. Mobilization will test the patriotism of Russians who have been exposed to anti-Ukrainian propaganda through state-controlled media. It could be that many Russians have concluded that joining the fight is the best way to end the war and recruitment through contract will increase, obviating the need for a wider mobilization. However, this would be a marked departure from the reaction to the partial mobilization in 2022, when there were open protests and defiance of mobilization efforts.
It remains illegal in Russia to call the war in Ukraine anything but the “Special Military Operation.” Yet it is increasingly difficult to maintain this polite fiction since clearly David, in the form of the Ukrainian military, is using the 21st century equivalent of a slingshot to fight off the Russian Goliath. And Putin is having an ever more difficult time keeping the war from interfering with the accustomed relative comforts of average Russians. In the past several months, Ukraine has brought the war deep into the Russian heartland for the first time in four and a half years. Ukrainian forces have used deep strike attacks with drones and missiles in unprecedented numbers to destroy and disable key Russian oil refineries and export terminals from St. Petersburg in the north to Rostov in the south, as well as Omsk in Western Siberia, about 1,550 miles from the Ukrainian border. Average Russians far beyond the line of military contact are feeling the war now in the form of high gas prices, rationing, and shortages.
Even more recently, Ukrainian drones have targeted almost a dozen huge warehouses belonging to the online retailer “Wildberries” (the Russian version of Amazon), destroying billions of dollars in merchandise. Much of the damage was to stock being stored for small mom-and-pop entrepreneurs selling their goods through the platform. Many of those small businesses are now financially ruined, while their customers are increasingly aware of the widening costs of the war. The question is whether they will blame the Ukrainian government or their own leader.
Putin’s long-time spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, has slipped into the practice of referring to the SVO as “a real war.” Given how close he is to Putin, and how carefully he is known to choose his words, Peskov could be foreshadowing something—wars are long and difficult and require citizen patriotism, sacrifice, and service to the motherland. Would Russians answer the call to serve the motherland, or would they defy their dictator despite the threat of more repression?
The answer to this question will determine the fate of future Russian military recruitment efforts—whether volunteer or through another mobilization of reservists—and therefore Russia’s ability to continue its war in Ukraine. With the economy sagging, endemic labor shortages, high prices for food and other consumer goods, and increased internet restrictions, there is every reason to believe that Russians want the conflict to end. Surveys indicate growing support for negotiations, although a third of Russian respondents to a recent poll indicated they support continuing military action. Are they, however, willing to sacrifice themselves and their children? Not even Putin knows for sure—and he does not seem to be willing to force the question just yet.
Kathryn Stoner is the Mosbacher Director of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, the Satre Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Professor of Political Science and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution (by Courtesy) at Stanford University.
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I WANT to believe this. But I don't know who to believe. Both sides are churning out news reports as propaganda.