President Vladimir Putin claimed Tuesday that the Russian Defense Ministry is recruiting nearly twice as many soldiers as Ukraine’s military each month.
Speaking at a Kremlin meeting on economic development, Putin claimed that up to 60,000 people “volunteer” to join the Russian Armed Forces every month, compared to what he described as 30,000 Ukrainians being forcibly conscripted.
“These [Russian volunteers] include people from your labor force,” Putin told business leaders.
The Moscow Times could not independently verify the recruitment claims.
Russian authorities have heavily promoted military recruitment since 2023, offering high salaries as a key incentive. In fall 2022, Putin ordered a partial mobilization of 300,000 reservists to offset battlefield losses in Ukraine.
The Defense Ministry has not updated its official casualty count since then, when it claimed just under 6,000 deaths in the first seven months of the full-scale invasion. Independent estimates place Russia’s war dead at more than 100,000.
Putin’s remarks came days after the republic of Bashkortostan became the first Russian region to publicly disclose its death toll in Ukraine. Authorities there said more than 5,000 soldiers from the region have been killed.
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