Intel: Russia having ‘severe’ troop shortage

The United States has determined that Russia is suffering “severe manpower shortages” in its sixmonth-old war with Ukraine and has become more desperate in its efforts to find new troops to send to the front lines, according to a new American intelligence finding disclosed Wednesday.

Russia is looking to address the shortage of troops in part by compelling soldiers wounded earlier in the war to return to combat, recruiting personnel from private security companies and even recruiting from prisons, according to a U.S. official who spoke to the AP on the condition of anonymity to discuss the downgraded intelligence finding.

The official added that the intelligence community has determined that one step that Russia’s Defense Ministry is expected to take soon is recruiting convicted criminals to enlist “in exchange for pardons and financial compensation.”

The U.S. government highlighted its finding as Russian President Vladimir Putin last week ordered the Russian military to increase the number of troops by 137,000 to a total of 1.15 million.

Putin’s decree, which takes effect on Jan. 1, didn’t specify whether the military would beef up its ranks by drafting a bigger number of conscripts, increasing the number of volunteer soldiers or using a combination of both. But some Russian military analysts predicted it would rely heavily on volunteers, a cautious stand reflecting the Kremlin’s concerns about possible fallout from an attempt to increase the draft.

The presidential decree aims to boost the overall number of Russian military personnel to 2,039,758, including 1,150,628 troops. A previous order put the military’s numbers at 1,902,758 and 1,013,628, respectively, at the start of 2018.