November 24, 2024: Because of its heavy personnel and material losses in Ukraine, Russia plans to slowly rebuild its depleted armed forces by 2030. This process begins now even though Russian forces are still fighting in Ukraine. There are still problems replacing the troops and tanks lost during the first months of the fighting in Ukraine, let alone those suffered in the past two years. The Russian military was devastated by heavy personnel losses. Most of their modern tanks were destroyed. These losses were replaced by older model tanks and hastily mobilized troops who did not want to be in the army, and were particularly reluctant to be sent to Ukraine. By 2023 Russian forces in Ukraine were outnumbered by better armed, trained and motivated Ukrainian forces that were able to carry out some offensive operations that regained some territory.

Russian replacement troops sent to Ukraine were given little training and were poorly equipped. Some were seen wearing World War II style steel helmets that Russia had kept in storage just in case of another military disaster. That was what Ukraine turned out to be for Russia, who had to send some 1950s era T-55 tanks into Ukraine to face German Leopard 2 tanks and American M-1s used by Ukraine.

The Russian situation in Ukraine is desperate and Russian plans to rebuild its military are equally desperate. First, they have to stall the Ukrainians and massive amounts of NATO weapons and munitions. That was done with anti-tank mines and lots of trenches and other tank obstacles. Russian combat engineers are first rate and use specialized equipment to quickly dig trenches and build fortifications. The front line is a thousand kilometers long and not all of it is fortified. The areas covered by only a few troops and artillery are now patrolled 24/7 by drones. If a surprise attack was attempted, both sides have large supplies of drones that could quickly intervene.

The unexpected invasion of Ukraine reminded NATO nations that Russia was still a threat. This led to NATO nations upgrading and expanding their forces. Poland, a NATO member that shares border with Ukraine and Russia is acquiring a thousand South Korean K2 tanks. These are comparable to the latest Leopard 2 and M1 tanks. Most of the K2s will be built in Poland under license. By the end of the decade, Poland will have the largest tank force in Europe.

Russia plans to rebuild and expand its army, despite discovering that wartime losses and emigration had greatly reduced the number of men able to serve in the military. Another problem is the cost of this rebuilding. Not only does Russia lack the money to replace all the lost equipment, but it does not have the money needed to pay for recruiting, equipping and training 600,000 new troops. The plan calls for a force containing volunteer soldiers who signed contracts that paid them well to serve several years. In addition there were several hundred thousand conscripts who were supposed to serve only one year but because Russia had suffered such heavy losses in Ukraine, the rules were quickly changed to keep the young, poorly trained conscripts in the army for several years.

This latest and greatest new plan ignores past experience with contract soldiers. These men were willing to serve in a peacetime force that would defend the motherland. Invading a neighbor and running into very hostile and lethal locals was unexpected and unacceptable. Many of the contract soldiers did not survive the initial weeks of the invasion. After that contract soldiers began to leave the military, with many justifying this on the grounds that their contracts had been violated. This departure was technically illegal but there were so many departing contract soldiers that the government just let them go. The government planners seem to have forgotten this but many of the military-age men they plan to recruit remember past mismanagement and are not interested. The government response to this is chiefly more attempts to deceive potential recruits into signing up.

Russian rebuilding efforts are disrupted by the harsh and aggressively enforced economic sanctions Western nations imposed. Sanctions reduced Russia’s ability to build new armored vehicles, military aircraft, as well as missiles and much else. Russia was eventually able to obtain some sanctioned electronic components from the black market and Chinese equivalents. Despite the improvisations, new tanks and other weapons were slow to arrive. It’s just as well because obtaining new soldiers was not working either.

The current Russian strategy appears to consist of trying to maintain control over as much Ukrainian territory as possible for a few years in the hope that the NATO nations supplying Ukraine with weapons will tire of the expense and reduce that aid. While NATO nations are feeling the strain, they have not reduced their support and have recently been increasing it.

Despite all these problems, Russia has been able to assemble a large force of half a million soldiers, including 12,000 North Korean mercenaries. Russia continues to buy a lot of North Korean artillery ammunition as well as rockets and missiles. Russia pays for this with food and technical assistance for their nuclear weapons program. North Korea has already developed nuclear weapons, but they are crude and difficult to use effectively.

These rebuilding plans depend on fewer or no sanctions and a reduction in combat losses. At the moment the Ukrainians their NATO supporters insist they will continue the war until the Russian invaders are out of Ukraine, including Crimea and two nearby provinces seized in 2014.