Why has Putin added 15,000 new soldiers to Russia’s army?

Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered another military expansion, adding 15,500 military personnel as Moscow’s battlefield advances in Ukraine have stalled after more than four and a half years of fighting.

Putin signed the decree on Sunday, marking the fourth time this year the president has increased the authorised size of the Russian military. Together, the orders have added 47,860 military personnel since March.

This comes as both sides have increasingly been relying on drones and long-range strikes against each other.

Ukraine, meanwhile, has repeatedly accused Moscow of preparing another mobilisation – something Putin has dismissed as Ukrainian “disinformation”.

So why has Putin issued this decree, and where is the conflict headed?

What does the decree say?

“The authorised personnel strength of the Russian armed forces is to be set at 2,441,630 units, including 1,550,500 military personnel,” the decree said.

It did not elaborate on why the additional troops were needed or how they would be recruited. Putin had already issued orders expanding the military in March, June and July.

Andrei Kortunov, director general of the Russian International Affairs Council, dubbed the expansion technical.

“This is mostly a technical decision rather than a strategic shift. It is technical in the sense that another 15,000 will not change the conflict dynamics,” he told Al Jazeera.

“As for a diplomatic solution, we are still far away from it.”

Why has Putin decided to increase the size of the army?

The Kremlin has not publicly given a reason, but the order comes as Russia faces mounting human and material losses together with limited territorial gains.

Ukraine expert Olena Halushka says Russia’s war effort is not going according to plan.

“Last year, at the Anchorage summit [in the US state of Alaska], Putin continued to demand that Ukraine withdraw from the rest of the Donetsk region that Russia had failed to capture, likely claiming that Ukraine would soon lose those lands anyway. Yet a year afterwards, the situation on the battlefield today shows absolutely the opposite,” Halushka, a board member at the Anti-Corruption Action Centre in Kyiv, told Al Jazeera.

“Putin’s latest decree is … likely not the last, and should be viewed in the context of Russia’s continuing efforts to expand the manpower available for a protracted war,” she added.

Russia’s advances have slowed sharply this year, with the widespread use of drones making large concentrations and rapid movements of troops increasingly dangerous.

Ukraine’s military said earlier this month that Russian losses in 2026 had surpassed 300,000, and estimated that Moscow suffered more than 20,000 casualties in the first half of September alone. Al Jazeera could not independently verify those figures.

The latest decrees also come as Ukraine repeatedly claims Moscow is looking outside Russia to bolster its forces and is preparing another mobilisation, a claim Russia denies.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Monday said that more than 8,000 North Korean soldiers were currently in Russia and preparations were under way to deploy another 10,000. North Korea has already sent an estimated 14,000 to 15,000 soldiers to support Russia since 2024, according to Ukrainian and South Korean estimates.

Putin last ordered a mobilisation of reservists in September 2022 after Russia suffered a series of battlefield setbacks.

Nevertheless, Russia expert Alexey D Muraviev said this latest increase was unlikely to be linked to Ukraine.

“Putting things into place would require some time in terms of planning, in terms of recruitment, in terms of formation of new units, and that’s not going to address Russia’s immediate operational needs at the theatre of war,” Muraviev, professor and senior research fellow in Defence and Strategic Studies at Edith Cowan University, told Al Jazeera.

In his view, Putin’s decision to increase the military has more to do with “longer-term strategic considerations” such as Moscow’s tensions with NATO, and the “increased possibility of a major open conflict between Russia and NATO in the foreseeable future”.

“This also drives Russia’s continuous reorganisation of its military, the expansion of its standing force, and the formation of new units, including army divisions and marine divisions.

“We should also be mindful that the Russians are concerned about the buildup of Japan’s military power, as well as US military power in the Pacific, and subsequently the need to respond to those security concerns.”

What is the latest in the war?

Russia and Ukraine continue to exchange major aerial attacks even as the ground war moves slowly.

At least 10 people were killed and more than 80 wounded in Russian attacks across the country on Monday.

Russian drones struck the National Academy of Sciences in central Kyiv, while attacks were also reported in Dnipro, Kharkiv, Zaporizhia and other parts of Ukraine.

Russian forces have also increased their attacks on the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, forcing a top university – Taras Shevchenko National University –  to switch to remote classes.

Shevchenko University said it would “switch to a remote format of work” until at least October 16, “due to the deteriorating security situation in Kyiv”.

Meanwhile, Ukraine, on the eastern front, has reportedly been making gains in northern Donetsk. According to the Reuters news agency, a senior Ukrainian commander said Kyiv’s forces had recaptured 51 square kilometres (19.7sq miles) in a recent operation, taking the total recovered during that operation to 176sq km (68sq miles).

Donetsk remains one of the central battlegrounds – and a major sticking point in negotiations – with Ukraine still controlling about 20 percent of the region.

Russia annexed four occupied Ukrainian regions, including Donetsk and Luhansk, in 2022. The move has not been recognised by the international community, including the UN.

What is the latest on the diplomatic front?

While diplomatic efforts have resumed, there has been no breakthrough.

Russia wants Ukraine to cede the eastern region annexed by it and wants Kyiv to renounce its NATO ambitions. But Ukraine has ruled out territorial concessions, and has urged its European allies to provide a security guarantee in case of a deal.

Earlier this month, US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner travelled to Moscow and Kyiv, meeting Putin and Zelenskyy as Washington sought to restart negotiations. Zelenskyy later said the envoys had presented “decent ideas”, although fundamental disagreements remained, particularly over territory.

According to Zelenskyy, Washington is now seeking technical-level trilateral talks involving Russia, Ukraine and the US, with the United Arab Emirates floated as a possible venue.

Putin said last week that proposals to resume negotiations remained “on the table”, while saying his country still needed to assess what was in its best interest.

Ukraine expert Halushka said a diplomatic solution was not possible as long as Moscow concludes that “continuing the war will cost it less than ending it”.

“Russia’s actions suggest that the Kremlin still believes it can improve its position through military force, terrorism against Ukrainian civilians and breaking Western support for Ukraine,” she noted.

“At the same time, Russia is escalating its hybrid activities in Europe, which shows that the security challenge it poses extends well beyond the battlefield in Ukraine.”

Where is the conflict headed?

According to academic Muraviev, the war in Ukraine has entered “a new escalation phase” as Moscow intensifies its aerial campaign and achieves “air dominance” through drone and missile attacks.

He believes the escalation is a response to the “so-called 40-day special operation which Zelenskyy announced back in June,” aimed at undermining Russia’s war effort and public morale before parliamentary elections.

In turn, Muraviev argues, the Kremlin decided “to demonstrate its capacity to bring Ukraine down to its knees”, systematically destroying key sectors of Ukraine’s economy, from the steel industry to agricultural exports, and imposing a de facto naval blockade without using its Black Sea Fleet.

Muraviev says Russia is now striking data and communication centres, refineries, bridges and locomotives to make the war “simply unaffordable to its Western allies”.

A proposal by US President Donald Trump for an energy truce between the two sides has failed to stop the tit-for-tat attacks.