Russia struggles to grow its army

 Strategy Page:

The Russian government increased the legal maximum number of its active-duty military personnel from 1,013,628 to 1,150,628 personnel. It is unlikely that this number will ever be reached. At the end of 2021 the Russian ground forces had about 400,000 men while the navy and air force each had about 150,000. About a third of air force personnel were paratroopers or air mobile infantry. The navy had about 12,000 marines, who guarded naval bases in peacetime. Right now that means the heavy Russian losses since the invasion began, and failure to mobilize many replacements, reduced the army to about 250,000 personnel. The airborne forces and marines also suffered heavy losses but more of them are still in service.

Heavy combat losses reduced the personnel strength so sharply because the Russian army has far fewer soldiers providing logistic and transportation services. These are provided by government or private contractors to assemble and move supplies close to the combat zone, where military trucks and drivers move the supplies to army maintained collection points or the combat units. This works inside Russia where the state-controlled railroads are equipped for operated by civilians who are trained for such support. For a major war against Russia, civilian trucks and drivers are mobilized for this. Such a mobilization disrupts the economy but that is seen as necessary t0 defend Russia.

This why the Ukrainian invasion was not called a war but an “internal operation” in what Russia declared was Russian territory controlled by rebels. Russia did not expect the Ukrainians’ massive resistance or their destruction of so many Russian trucks and supply collection points. This dramatically weakened Russian supply capabilities inside Ukraine, especially after Ukraine received guided GMLRS rockets that hit Russian supply depots because of information supplied by Ukrainians or NATO supplied aerial and satellite surveillance. Russian forces inside Ukraine are chronically short of ammunition, food, fuel and much else by these Ukrainian tactics. Resorting to looting civilian supplies in occupied areas only partially replaces the supplies destroyed in transit or stored inside Ukraine.

Russian armed forces were supposed to have over a million men but that goal has never been met and at the end of 2021 the total was about 750,000. That is now about 400,000, including the air force and navy. Mobilizations of new conscripts and men who had served the one year of conscript service failed to replace all the losses, in part because the mobilized men knew that the war in Ukraine was not going well and most men sent there had little training, equipment or leadership. Most of the junior officers were killed or disabled during the first months of the war and replacements take months to train. Peacetime officer training takes years and now there is a shortage of trainers for troops and officers because most of the existing ones were sent to Ukraine as replacements for the catastrophic losses the Ukrainians were inflicting. Ukraine had 250,000 active-duty troops in early 2022 and within months had half a million more in form of volunteers and conscripts. Normally Ukrainian troops receive a lot more training than their Russian counterparts but in the first months of the war planet of untrained Ukrainians were used to halt the invasion. Since then, Ukrainian troops get more training and are led by officers and NCOs in combat. Ukrainian troops don’t suffer from supply shortages and suffer relatively few casualties than the Russians.

Since the invasion began in February, Russia has suffered enormous losses in terms of combat personnel, military equipment and the reputation for quality/reliability/effectiveness of Russian weapons and personnel. Even the Ukrainians were surprised at how unprepared the invaders were for combat and dealing with Ukrainian superiority in weapons (often Western), leadership (all Ukrainian) and tactics. Russia’s leadership, especially supreme leader Vladimir Putin, was delusional about the continuing lack of military progress in Ukraine. Even Russians who thought restoring independent (since 1991) Ukraine to Russian control was a good thing and worth fighting for, began losing confidence in Putin’s ability to make that happen. Each time failure in Ukraine became obvious, Putin would come up with a new reason why Russia was winning, and each of these was soon shown to be false.
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Many Russians now openly oppose the war even though Putin quickly created laws to make such public dissent illegal. That law’s failure soon became obvious in many ways. First, there are a growing number of anti-war demonstrations and physical attacks on military facilities, especially recruiting stations. Refusing to report when conscripted became more common. Another form of defiance is veterans of the Ukraine fighting providing details, based on personal experience, of why Russian forces are failing.

Many of these veterans are no longer in the military because they refused to renew their contracts. Many more soldiers remained in the army but refused to return to Ukraine and got away with it. Putin ordered that these soldiers be officially described, in their military records and military ID, as unreliable and unwilling to fight. In any other country a soldier who refuses to fight during wartime is subject to severe punishment, often execution. That still happens to reluctant Russian soldiers inside Ukraine where officers have the authority to shoot reluctant troops. Initially, as Russian casualties grew and progress was nonexistent, some officers did shoot troops refusing to fight. That soon changed as the troops threatened to and sometimes did shoot back or, in at least one known case, ran over an officer with a tank. Not to mention them sometimes shooting undesirable officers first (“fragging”). Ukrainian forces have provided additional confirmation of this violence and collapsing morale within Russian units. Many Russian troops will surrender to the Ukrainians at the first opportunity and admit it to Ukrainian, Russian and foreign journalists. This prompted Ukraine to equip some of its quadcopters to notify and lead surrendering Russian troops safely to Ukrainian front-line forces.
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There is more.

The results of the Russian effort also support the belief that the Russians are struggling to fill their ranks.  Other series indicate that as many as 700,000 military-aged men have fled the country.   Some in the army are also refusing to fight. Combat losses have been significant and the Russians are also having difficulty getting troops to reenlist.  

See also:

Satellite images hint at scale of Russian mercenary group's losses in Ukraine

And:

 Putin Lackeys Lose Their Minds Over Ukraine Getting Battle Tanks

And:

Swarm of Tanks Is Just the Start of Putin’s New Nightmare

And:

US special operators borrowed a unique part of Army Green Beret training to prepare Ukrainians to fight Russia 
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The "Q course," officially called the US Army Special Forces Qualification Course, assesses and teaches Green Beret candidates the basics of their profession. Special Operations Command Europe — working through the US Army's 10th Special Forces Group, which is responsible for Europe — developed the course for their Ukrainian troops.

"The Q course puts unique pressure on teams and individuals. Aside from the world-class training, it truly helps to identify and select the best of the best," John Black, a retired Army Green Beret warrant officer, told Insider.

Lasting anywhere from 56 to 95 weeks, depending on the Green Beret's military occupational specialty, Q Course includes unconventional warfare, small unit tactics, and Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape training. It culminates with Robin Sage, a large-scale realistic exercise that puts all the skills into action.
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