Russia Plans Military Expansion as Putin Looks To Turn Tide on War—ISW

Vladimir Putin's decision to beef up his military to 1.5 million personnel, from 1.35 million, signals that he is preparing for the long haul in his invasion of Ukraine, according to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

Russia's three-year plan to expand its armed forces was unveiled by defense minister Sergei Shoigu on Tuesday. Twelve new regiments will be formed, military districts will be created in the Moscow and Leningrad regions and conscript numbers will be boosted.

A new army corps will also be created in the Russian republic of Karelia, bordering Finland—which has angered Moscow by announcing that it will join NATO.

The institute, a U.S. think tank, said on Tuesday that Moscow was "likely in preparation for a protracted war in Ukraine" and that the plan aimed "to build a significantly stronger Russian military quickly."

The reforms also showed Russia's intent "to conduct large-scale conventional warfighting in general and not just for the current war against Ukraine," although the ISW said it was "unclear" if Shoigu's projected growth of conventional forces could be achieved by the 2026 deadline.

Much depends on whether Putin can redirect large portions of the federal budget to realize his military ambitions.

The expansion announced on Tuesday "will not happen in time to affect the war in Ukraine materially for many months, but it could change the correlation of forces going into 2024," the ISW said.

This could establish conditions "for a much more formidable Russian military threat to its neighbors, including NATO, in the coming years."

Dionis Cenusa, a risk analyst at the Eastern Europe Studies Center, a Lithuanian think tank, said the move to increase Russian forces could have two main meanings.

"First, Russia is preparing for a protracted war against Ukraine and on Ukrainian soil. This also means that Russia is going to consolidate the defense around the occupied Ukrainian territories, including Crimea," he told Newsweek.

"Second, the renewal of Russian military power is an objective necessity, since its manpower was decimated by Ukrainian forces with the help of Western weapons in 2022 and will continue in 2023."

In the meantime, Ukraine is likely to have a window of opportunity into and through the summer if it gets the military support it has requested from the West, according to the ISW.

This will be discussed at a U.S-led meeting of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group, which coordinates arms supplies to Ukraine, at Ramstein Air Base in Germany on Friday.