With Russia’s Depleted Forces Stalled, Putin Expands Armyhttps://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/08/25/world/ukraine-russia-war-news
Here’s what we know:• The Russian president signed a decree to add 137,000 service members to the military starting next year.
• Ukraine is hitting Russian forces behind the front lines, but has a long way to go, a top official cautions.
• The U.S. State Department and Yale identify 21 detention sites in Russian-controlled territory.
• The Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant was briefly cut off from Ukraine’s grid, leading to outages, officials say.
• Cluster munitions have killed nearly 700 in Ukraine, a study reports.
• Biden and Zelensky reaffirm their alliance as the war enters its seventh month.
• Russia’s plans for ‘sham’ referendums in occupied territories brings back bad memories in Ukraine.
The Russian president signed a decree to add 137,000 service members to the military starting next year.President Vladimir V. Putin on Thursday ordered a sharp increase in the size of his armed forces, a reversal of years of efforts by the Kremlin to slim down a bloated military and the latest sign that the Russian president, despite heavy battlefield losses, is bracing for a long war in Ukraine.
The decree, released by Mr. Putin’s office and posted on the Kremlin website, raised the target number of active-duty service members by about 137,000, to 1.15 million, as of January of next year, and ordered the government to set aside money to pay for the increase. Military analysts puzzled over how such a sharp increase could be managed.
It was the first time in five years that Mr. Putin had issued an order changing the overall head count of the Russian armed forces. Officials offered no explanation for the move, and there was little mention of it on state television. U.S. military officials estimate that Russia has suffered up to 80,000 casualties — including both deaths and injuries — during Mr. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.