When the war in Ukraine has been going on for 10 months, Russian President Vladimir Putin has promised the Russian army all the resources it needs, “without budget limits”, to successfully complete the offensive that it launched in February. In a meeting with the senior staff of the country’s Defense Ministry, Putin has assured that Russia will continue to develop its military potential, including the “combat readiness” of its nuclear forces. The country aims to increase the size of its army, traditionally considered the second in the world, by 30%.
“There is no type of limitation on the financing of the needs of the Russian army,” the president assured at the beginning of the meeting. Direct combat is currently concentrated in the south and east, without major territorial advances and with intense bombardments launched from a distance against the Ukrainian energy infrastructure. The authorities of the invaded country fear that the Kremlin is preparing to launch a new offensive from Belarus, directed again at the capital, kyiv, or to destabilize the area near the border with Poland, through which Western donations of weapons and humanitarian aid enter.
“On the battlefield there can be no minor details”, Putin continued: “For this reason it is necessary to devote special attention, and I want to underline it even though I know that the ministry deals with this, to medical kits, campaign food, the uniforms, the footwear, the helmets, the bulletproof vests, everything must be the most modern and of the best quality”, the president insisted. It has been common, in the months that the war has been going on, for the old material and uniforms of the Russian troops to be compared on social networks with more modern donated equipment from the Ukraine.
In this process of constantly improving his combat capacity, Putin has highlighted the nuclear forces. “We will continue to maintain and improve the combat readiness of our nuclear triad,” he added. These are missiles launched from land silos, submarines in navigation and airplanes in flight.
The Russian president also emphasized the new Zircon hypersonic cruise missile, which the Navy will be able to start using in early 2023, he has announced. “In early January, the Admiral Gorshkov frigate will be equipped with the new Zircon missile, which has no equivalent in the world,” Putin declared. The announcement coincides with the day that Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelenski left for the first time since the country’s war began to travel to Washington, where he is expected to receive the promise of delivery of a long-range Patriot missile battery scope, a weapon the United States had been reluctant to donate.
The president has urged the creation of a joint intelligence network between all the commanders on the ground with real-time information provided by drones. “The experience of the special military operation shows that the use of drones has become practically generalized. Such an arsenal must be present in every unit, platoon, company and battalion,” Putin said. “Shortly, each soldier must have the possibility of receiving the information emitted by the drones. That is what we must aspire to ”, he stressed.
Russia, according to Ukraine, has bought several thousand Iranian drones to bomb Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure, but the president wants his own industry to make them. “We have experience in the manufacture of unmanned submersibles. And I know that the national industry has all the potential to launch a wide line of aerial and ground drones with the best technical-tactical characteristics, including artificial intelligence elements, ”he highlighted.
An army 30% larger
After the criticism and chaos generated by the partial mobilization of 300,000 reservists to increase the number of soldiers on the Ukrainian battlefields, the Defense Minister, Sergei Shoigu, has considered it “necessary” to further increase the strength of his army, from 1.15 million to 1.5 million military and raise the age limit for military service to cover a range of 21 to 30 years, instead of the current range of 18 to 27 years. The Minister of Defense has explained that 695,000 should be professional soldiers.
The defense minister has also announced that Moscow plans to establish naval bases to support its fleet in the occupied cities of Mariupol and Berdiansk, on the shores of the Azov Sea, and the creation of motorized divisions in the Kherson and Zaporizhia regions. “The Azov Sea has again become an inland sea of Russia, as it was for 300 years of our country’s history,” he boasted. “Land communication with Crimea by rail and highway has been resumed. Rail traffic with Donbas is being restored, ”he added.
Putin has described the conflict as a “shared tragedy”, but has denied any type of responsibility. “What happens is, of course, a tragedy. A shared tragedy. But it is not the result of our policy, it is the result of the policy of third countries”, stated the leader of the aggressor country. Shoigu, in the same vein, declared that in Ukraine his troops are fighting against the “joint forces of the West.”