On March 4, Putin signed a decree setting the number of personnel in the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation at over 2.3 million people. The document was published on the official website of Russian legal acts.
The decree sets the number of the army at 2,391,770 units, of which 1,502,640 are servicemen. The document comes into force from the date of signing.
For comparison, the decree of September 16, 2024 set the size of the army at 2,389,130 people, including 1,500,000 military personnel.
In December 2025, Putin signed a decree on continuous conscription into the ranks of the Russian army throughout 2026 – from January 1 to December 31, while previously the conscription was carried out twice a year at clearly defined times. That same month, he approved a decree on the mobilization of reservists to protect “critically important facilities” in the country.
On December 13, 2025, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Oleksandr Syrsky, stated that the number of Russian military personnel participating in the war against Ukraine has been about 710 thousand people for a long time.
