Putin Orders Fourth Military Expansion of the Year, Adding 15,500 Troops as Ukraine Advances Stall

Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree authorizing the addition of 15,500 military personnel to the country's armed forces, marking the fourth such expansion this year as Moscow's battlefield momentum in Ukraine continues to stall after more than four and a half years of fighting, according to Al Jazeera.

The decree, signed on Sunday, sets the authorized personnel strength of the Russian armed forces at 2,441,630 units, including 1,550,500 military personnel. It did not explain why the additional troops were needed or how they would be recruited. Combined with earlier orders issued in March, June, and July, Putin has now added 47,860 military personnel to the authorized strength of the armed forces since the spring.

The move comes as both Russia and Ukraine have increasingly relied on drones and long-range strikes against each other, with the widespread use of unmanned systems making large concentrations and rapid movements of troops increasingly dangerous on the front lines.

Andrei Kortunov, director general of the Russian International Affairs Council, characterized the expansion as largely administrative rather than a fundamental shift in strategy. He told Al Jazeera that another 15,000 troops would not alter the dynamics of the conflict, adding that a diplomatic resolution remains distant. His assessment suggests the decree is more about managing the force's authorized size than about injecting a decisive new capability into the war effort.

The Kremlin has not publicly explained its reasoning, but the order lands as Russia faces mounting human and material losses alongside only limited territorial gains. Ukraine's military said earlier this month that Russian losses in 2026 had surpassed 300,000, and estimated that Moscow suffered more than 20,000 casualties in the first half of September alone. Al Jazeera noted it could not independently verify those figures.

Ukraine expert Olena Halushka said Russia's war effort is not going according to plan. She pointed to last year's Anchorage summit in the US state of Alaska, where Putin continued to demand that Ukraine withdraw from the remainder of the Donetsk region that Russia had failed to capture, apparently calculating that Kyiv would soon lose those lands regardless. A year later, she said, the situation on the battlefield shows the opposite. Halushka, a board member at the Anti-Corruption Action Centre in Kyiv, described the latest decree as likely not the last and said it should be viewed within the context of Russia's continuing efforts to expand manpower available for a protracted war.

Russia's advances have slowed sharply this year. The proliferation of drones across the battlefield has made it difficult for either side to mass forces or move quickly without being detected and targeted, blunting Moscow's ability to convert numerical superiority into territorial gains.

The decrees also arrive as Ukraine repeatedly claims Moscow is looking beyond its own borders to bolster its forces and is preparing another mobilization—a claim Russia denies. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Monday that more than 8,000 North Korean soldiers were currently in Russia and that preparations were under way to deploy another 10,000. North Korea has already sent an estimated 14,000 to 15,000 soldiers to support Russia since 2024, according to Ukrainian and South Korean estimates.

Putin last ordered a mobilization of reservists in September 2022, after Russia suffered a series of battlefield setbacks. He has since dismissed talk of a new nationwide mobilization as Ukrainian "disinformation," opting instead for incremental increases in the authorized strength of the armed forces and recruitment of volunteers under contract.

Not all analysts see the expansion as connected to Ukraine. Russia expert Alexey D Muraviev argued that putting such an increase into place would require considerable time for planning, recruitment, and the formation of new units, meaning it would not address Russia's immediate operational needs at the theater of war. In his view, the decision is driven more by longer-term strategic considerations, including Moscow's tensions with NATO and what he described as the increased possibility of a major open conflict between Russia and the alliance in the foreseeable future.

Muraviev, a professor and senior research fellow in Defence and Strategic Studies at Edith Cowan University, told Al Jazeera that these concerns also drive Russia's continuous reorganization of its military, the expansion of its standing force, and the formation of new units, including army divisions and marine divisions. He added that Moscow is also mindful of the buildup of Japan's military power and US military power in the Pacific, and the subsequent need to respond to those security concerns.

Meanwhile, the war's human toll continues to mount. At least 10 people were killed and more than 80 wounded in Russian attacks across Ukraine on Monday, according to the report. Russian drones struck the National Academy of Sciences in central Kyiv, setting the building ablaze, while attacks were also reported in Dnipro, Kharkiv, and other areas.

The expansion decree, taken together with the earlier orders this year, points to a Russian leadership preparing for a conflict with no quick end, even as its ground forces struggle to translate manpower and firepower into meaningful gains. Whether the additional personnel materialize as combat-ready units—and how quickly—remains an open question that neither the Kremlin nor its critics have resolved.