Putin raises Russia’s authorized military ceiling to 2.44 million

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree raising the authorized strength of the country’s armed forces to 2,441,630 personnel, including 1,550,500 military personnel, according to the document published on Russia’s official legal information portal. The order directs the government to provide the Defense Ministry with the federal budget funds needed to implement it. The decree increases the authorized ceiling by 15,500 military personnel from the previous figure. It is the fourth such increase this year, according to reports describing earlier decrees issued in March, June and July. The new total is an authorized staffing limit, however, and does not establish how many people are currently serving or how the additional posts will be filled. The reports give conflicting calculations for the cumulative increase since March: one puts it at 49,860, while another gives 47,860. The decree’s stated total is consistent across the reports, but they do not resolve the difference in the historical calculations. The order does not announce a new mobilization or explain the reason for raising the ceiling.