Always more soldiers mobilized. Russia will launch its spring military conscription campaign which will concern 160,000 young people aged 18 to 30, according to a decree signed this Monday, March 31 by President Vladimir Putin, a figure increasing compared to the previous two years.
This campaign is organized twice a year, in spring and fall. She started this Tuesday, according to a decree signed by Vladimir Putin and published on Monday. According to this text, “160,000” Russian citizens aged 18 to 30 are called to serve between April 1 and July 15 this year. The spring campaign concerned 150,000 people in 2024, and 147,000 in 2023, according to the state agency TASS.
“The next conscription campaign has no connection with the special military operation in Ukraine,” said the Russian Defense Ministry in a press release, using the imposed euphemism to designate the assault against this country. A senior staff official, vice-admiral Vladimir Tsimlianski, said that the calls will not be sent to the Ukrainian regions where the Russian army fights. They will not participate either “in the tasks of the special operation,” he said, according to the ministry’s press release.
“Compensate the heavy losses suffered on the forehead”
But these details convince very little on the Ukrainian side. Last week, President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Russia “is preparing new offensives in the Soumy, Kharkiv and Zaporijia” regions. “They drag the negotiations and try to train the United States in endless and meaningful discussions on false conditions in order to save time and then try to seize even more territory. Putin wants to negotiate territories from a stronger position. He only thinks of war. This is why our work is the defense in the broadest sense,” he added.
In this sense, it is difficult not to see this new great wave of recruitment as the preparation of new operations in the medium term. But also as a way of seeking to consolidate the Russian ranks in the various offensives always taking place on the Ukrainian soil, and causing heavy human losses for meager territorial advances. “Although the Russian authorities claim that the conscripts are not sent to the combat zone, once in service, they are forced to sign contracts of ‘volunteers’ and find themselves on the front line. Thus, conscription has become one of the Kremlin tools to compensate for the heavy losses suffered on the front,” said the Ukrainian state center for the fight against disinformation. “This conscription campaign could also indicate that, despite the official statements on peace, Russia in fact seeks to prolong the war,” completes the institution.
Fights that continue
In 2023, Russia adopted a law pushing the age limit of conscription from 27 to 30 years. The assault in Ukraine had led the Russian authorities to decree a mobilization of more than 300,000 people in the fall of 2022. Many Russians had then left the country for fear of being mobilized.
In recent weeks, US President Donald Trump has offered a ceasefire, which kyiv has accepted under pressure from Washington. But Vladimir Putin closed the door to an unconditional and immediate truce, accepting only a very limited and without real effect on the fighting.
Russia, which has the advantage in the battlefield despite very important human losses, is accused of wanting to play the watch to take advantage of its position and conquer more territory. This Wednesday, Volodymyr Zelensky denounced a new night of “deliberate” Russian strikes on Ukraine. And this Tuesday, April 1, Russia claimed the capture of a new village in the Donetsk region, located in eastern Ukraine, always approaching the border with the Dnipropetrovsk region, in the center of Ukraine, in which the forces of Moscow have never penetrated.
However, with 240 km2 taken in March 2025, the increase in Russian forces in Ukraine slowed down for the 4th consecutive month, according to AFP analysis of the data provided by the American Institute for the Study of War (ISW).