The Russian Armed Forces recruit more than 117,000 soldiers since the beginning of the year

2023-05-19 20:34:59

Destroyed Russian tank in Ukraine – Europa Press/Contact/Lev Radin

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MADRID, 19 May. (EUROPA PRESS) –

The former Russian president and current vice president of the country’s Security Council, Dimitri Medvedev, reported this Friday that the country’s Armed Forces have managed to recruit more than 117,000 soldiers since the beginning of the year.

As detailed by Medvedev, these thousands of soldiers have enlisted in the Russian Armed Forces both as volunteers and as salaried employees, according to the Russian news agency TASS.

For Medvedev, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, this figure should be the “starting point” for future recruitment processes, all in a context marked by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which began at the end of February 2022.

President Putin ordered a partial mobilization of the population in mid-September in order to make up for the repeated setbacks suffered by the Russian Armed Forces during the first months of the war.

Months later, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu assured that more than 300,000 Army troops had been trained within the framework of said partial mobilization, and that 8,000 of them had been instructed in the use of combat vehicles.