Some 490,000 people opted to join the army in 2024, including volunteers for the Ukraine conflict, the Security Council has said
Russia recruited almost half a million people for military service in 2024, according to statistics reported by Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev on Friday. Some 450,000 people signed contracts with the Defense Ministry, while an additional 40,000 enrolled as volunteers for deployment in the Ukraine conflict, he said.
The pace of enlistment – averaging over 1,000 people daily – has allowed Russia to meet its military staffing targets for the year, Medvedev stated at a meeting of the Security Council’s commission on recruitment. He emphasized the need to sustain the drive in 2025.
The former Russian president expressed gratitude to recruits, praising their “steadfastness, courage, and true brotherhood in the face of trials.” He described these qualities as “the foundation of our national character” and a source of “certainty in our victory.”
Medvedev also ordered federal and regional officials to ensure that troops receive the support they require both on the battlefield and after retirement from military ranks.
The Russian government has contrasted its voluntary recruitment success with Ukraine’s reliance on forced conscription, which is hindered by public resistance. Ukrainian leaders are “draining the country white” through mobilizations as if its citizens were not their people, Russian President Vladimir Putin asserted last September.
”It’s understandable. The relatives of the ruling elites mostly reside abroad. They can take a flight and be done with it” at short notice, Putin added. Ukrainian officials are “using nationalist slogans as a smoke screen to deceive the people,” he claimed.
Earlier this week, the Ukrainian border guard service reported intercepting a man who had presented falsified paperwork certifying him as having three young children, apparently in an effort to flee the country illegally. Fathers of three or more minors are among those offered an exemption from conscription and the ban on fighting-age men from leaving Ukraine.
Kiev reformed its military service last year, introducing harsher punishments for draft avoidance in an attempt to bolster conscription numbers.
