Page 8 - bne IntelliNews Russia OUTLOOK 2025

with multiple regions reporting they were failing to meet their quotas. That has led to a dramatic inflation in the sign-up bonuses paid to soldiers, which have reached the extraordinary level of RUB3mn ($30,000) in some regions – enough to buy a nice car. Russian President Vladimir Putin said in December Russia recruited just over 430,000 soldiers in 2024, up from 300,000 in 2023.
But Russia is not going to run out of men anytime soon, as it has a population that is three times larger than Ukraine’s, and Putin has in reserve the option of a general mobilisation, a card he remains very reluctant to play.
Conversely, the AFU is facing a severe manpower shortage and is losing men even faster than Russia. First, some 7.5mn people have fled, with an estimated 2mn military aged males sheltering in Poland alone. Secondly, a significant proportion of potential recruits refuse to fight and have escaped conscription by buying exemptions from corrupt recruiters and doctors. And thirdly, morale in the AFU is collapsing, with the number of deserters rising steadily in the last months of the year. And while the AFU is taking less casualties than the AFR, the attrition from death and injury is continuous.
Most of those serving on the Ukrainian front line also complain they are so understaffed that there has been few rotations home for a rest and mothers of soldiers are actively campaigning for service limits and rotations out of the front line, but to little effect. At the same time, public opinion towards the government is souring thanks to the increasingly aggressive press gangs that are snatching military-aged men from the streets throughout Ukraine.
Russia also has the advantage in materiel. Putin put the Russian economy on a war footing early on and the country has dramatically increased the production of arms and ammo. In the manufacturing of drones, Russia has boosted its output from 1.7mn a year to around 3mn. This is the one area where Ukraine is holding its own, but in the manufacture of artillery shells or long-range missiles, Russia retains a clear advantage.
Nevertheless, Russia’s stocks of arms are reportedly starting to run low, so the Kremlin is turning to allies such as North Korea and Iran for supplies. China remains wary of secondary sanctions and has refrained from supplying Russia with arms, but has delivered dual-use equipment.
One of Russia’s biggest advantages is its massive stocks of FAB glide bombs, a Soviet-era gravity bomb to which wings are strapped and a crude GPS guidance system added. These heavy bombs can carry
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