President Vladimir Putin has ordered the conscription of 135,000 men into Russia’s armed forces, marking the country’s biggest autumn draft since 2016.
The decree, signed on Monday, directs that citizens aged 18 to 30 be called up for compulsory military service between October 1 and December 31, 2025. Conscripts are required to serve for one year at military bases inside Russia and are not, in principle, meant to be deployed to the war in Ukraine.
However, multiple reports have suggested that some conscripts have been sent to the front lines despite official assurances.
Russia’s biannual draft—conducted each spring and autumn—is legally separate from wartime mobilisation, under which men are directly summoned to fight. Still, conscripts who complete basic training remain a ready pool of manpower for future deployments.
This year’s autumn intake, combined with the 160,000 men drafted in the spring, makes 2025 Russia’s largest conscription year since 2016. Traditionally, the spring draft recruits more men, coinciding with school and university graduations.
Since launching the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Putin has put Russia firmly on a war footing—massively increasing defence spending, expanding the size of the army, and steadily raising annual conscription targets by about five percent each year.
In September 2024, he went further, ordering the expansion of Russia’s standing forces to 1.5 million active soldiers, making it one of the largest militaries in the world.
About the Author
