Putin's decree expands Russian army beyond American forces

President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on Monday increasing the number of soldiers in the Russian army by 180,000. This means his army will soon be larger than the American one.

Putin's decree, which goes into effect on 1 December, sets the Russian army's total number of military personnel at 2.4 million, including 1.5 million soldiers, reports "The Moscow Times".

This is the third expansion of the armed forces since Putin began the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The first time he ordered an increase in army size was in August 2022—by 137,000 soldiers. He did it again in December of last year when he requested that the number of soldiers increase by 170,000.

The Onet portal points out that implementing Putin's decree will mean that Russia will surpass the American army in terms of the number of soldiers, which currently stands at 1.3 million.

In this way, Putin will become the world's second-largest power in terms of soldiers. Only China has a larger army, with 2 million soldiers.

Putin decided to expand the army shortly after he warned the West that allowing Ukraine to use long-range weapons to attack targets deep within his country "would put NATO at war" with Russia.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, when asked about Putin's decision, replied that "this is due to the number of threats that exist to our country along the perimeter of our borders" - "It is caused by the extremely hostile environment on our western borders and instability on our eastern borders," he said.