A senior U.S. defense official cast doubt on the feasibility of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent order to increase the size of his country’s military by more than 130,000 troops starting next year.
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The Russian leader signed the decree last Thursday that called for boosting Russia’s available combat personnel from 1.01 million to 1.15 million, and it is set to go into effect at the beginning of next year.
UKRAINIAN TROOPS HAVE BEGUN COUNTEROFFENSIVE IN THE SOUTH, OFFICIAL SAYS
A senior defense official told reporters on Monday that the Pentagon’s perspective is that “this effort is unlikely to succeed, as Russia has historically not met personnel end strength targets.” The Russian military “may have already been 150,000 personnel short of their million personnel goal” prior to invading Ukraine in February, the official continued, while 250,000 of them were conscripts and the remainder professional soldiers.
Russian military leaders have already begun trying to expand their recruitment pool by eliminating the upper age limit for new soldiers and by recruiting prisoners, though many in both groups “have been observed as older, unfit, and ill trained,” per the official.
Also on Monday, a Ukrainian military official affirmed that their forces had begun their counteroffensive attack in the strategic city of Kherson to liberate it, though a senior U.S. military official declined to go that far.
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Natalia Humeniuk, the spokeswoman for Ukraine’s Operational Command South, told Ukrainian media on Monday that troops “have started offensive actions in various directions,” while the U.S. official noted that Ukraine has “been making some small advances in and around the Kherson pocket for a while.”
Last week, the war reached its six-month mark.
