Media: Russia plans to hire 400,000 professional soldiers

Russia's Defense Ministry will start a new recruitment campaign on April 1, aiming to conclude contracts with 400,000 professional soldiers, the Russian service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported, citing several regional media outlets.

The ministry has sent orders to Russia's regions indicating the number of people with whom the military contracts must be signed, RFE/RL wrote on March 14.

According to the publication, residents of Russia's Voronezh Oblast started to receive summonses to military enlistment offices as it was in September last year following the so-called partial mobilization announced by Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. This may indicate that a second wave of conscription for the war against Ukraine could begin.

Local authorities claim the residents are only being called to enlistment offices to update their military registration data.

In late October 2022, Putin and Russia's Defense Minister Shoigu claimed that the mobilization for the war against Ukraine had finished, but the decree on "partial mobilization" remained in force.

According to reports by Ukraine's General Staff and the Institute for the Study of War, the Kremlin had continued mobilization covertly. Estonia's intelligence chief Margo Grosberg said that mobilization in Russia had never actually stopped.

Verstka, an independent Russian news outlet, reported on March 14, cited by RFE/RL, that the country's military enlistment offices were trying to compensate for Russia's losses in scarce military specialties, namely armored vehicle drivers and artillerymen. The Kremlin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied Moscow's plans for a second wave of mobilization.

Ukraine's National Resistance Center reported on March 14 that Russian occupying forces were intensifying their mobilization efforts throughout the Crimean peninsula.

ISW: Russia forced to choose between skilled defense workers and military personnel

The Kyiv Independent