On Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree that provides for the recruitment of 147,000 new soldiers by mid-July. They are conscripted soldiers, ie citizens aged between 18 and 27 who have already done their military service but who up to now had not enlisted voluntarily. It is the second major expansion of the Russian army after the one decided last September, when 137,000 were recruited. The Russian authorities have announced that the 147,000 conscripts will not be sent to fight in Ukraine, where an invasion by Russia has been underway for over a year. As pointed out l’Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a respected American research center, new conscripts need months of training before they can be used in war scenarios, and it is more likely that Russia will want to continue to exploit soldiers prepared for the invasion.
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