The UK Ministry of Defence reports, citing Russian media, that authorities are preparing to launch a major recruitment campaign aimed at signing up 400,000 new troops to fight in Ukraine.
Russian media is reporting that authorities are preparing to start a major military recruitment campaign with the aim of signing up “an additional 400,000 troops”.
The UK MoD said Russia is presenting the campaign as a drive for volunteer, professional personnel rather than a new, mandatory mobilisation.
It added that Russian authorities have likely selected a supposedly “volunteer model” to meet their personnel shortfall in order to minimise domestic dissent.
But the MoD notes that rebuilding Russia’s combat power will require more than just personnel – as it needs more munitions and military equipment than it currently has available.
The ratio of Russian to Ukrainian deaths on the eastern front has reached as high as 10 to one, according to Ukraine’s deputy minister of defence.
Hanna Malyar stressed this was not the case every day, but said Russian losses are “many times greater” than Ukrainian, in a Telegram post.
Of course, you would expect these kind of claims from the Ukrainian side – but her comments come after Britain’s defence secretary, Ben Wallace, told Sky News more than 220,000 Russian troops and mercenaries had been killed or injured in Ukraine.
“The Russian forces have some really significant and deep systemic problems at the moment in their efforts,” Mr Wallace said.
In Other Developments
* Russian forces have had some success in the eastern frontline city of Bakhmut, Ukrainian military officials said on Wednesday evening, adding that their fighters were still holding on in a battle that has lasted several months.
DIPLOMACY, NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND MILITARY AID
* The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog visited Ukraine’s embattled Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant and said there had been a significant increase in the number of troops in the region of the plant and it could no longer be protected.
* Ukraine’s authorities suggested the International Olympic Committee (IOC) was retreating from its principles by recommending Russian and Belarusian athletes take part in international competitions as neutrals amid a war in Ukraine.
* Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev said Moscow was committed to preventing nuclear war and military confrontation between nuclear-armed states, TASS news agency reported.
* Spain will send six German-made 2A4 Leopard tanks to Ukraine after the April 9 Easter holiday to support Kyiv’s efforts to fend off Russia’s invasion, Defence Minister Margarita Robles said.
ON THE BATTLEFIELD
* Ukraine struck a railway depot and knocked out power in the Russian-occupied city of Melitopol deep behind front lines on Wednesday amid growing talk from Kyiv of a counterassault against Russian forces worn out by a failed winter offensive.
* The head of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group acknowledged that fighting for the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut had inflicted severe damage on his own forces as well as the Ukrainian side.
