The Kremlin said Tuesday that an order by President Vladimir Putin to transform Russia’s army into the second largest in the world was needed to address growing threats on Russia’s western borders and instability to the east. Putin on Monday ordered the regular size of the Russian army to be increased by 180,000 troops to 1.5 million active servicemen in a move that would make it the second largest in the world after China’s. “This is due to the number of threats that exist to our country along the perimeter of our borders,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call. Putin since 2022 had previously ordered two official increases in the number of combat troops — by 137,000 and 170,000 respectively. Dara Massicot, an expert in the Russian military at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think tank, questioned whether Moscow was ready to foot the bill for the increase in active servicemen.

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Persons: Vladimir Putin, Putin, Dmitry Peskov, Andrei Kartapolov, —, Dara Massicot, ” Massicot, Massicot, ” Organizations: Monday, International Institute for Strategic Studies, NATO, Carnegie Endowment, International Peace Locations: ”, Russia, United States, India, China, Ukraine, Russia’s Kursk, Finland, Japan, U.S, Moscow