HUR: Russian generals requested an additional 800,000 troops from Putin
The Russian military leadership requested approximately 800,000 additional troops from Vladimir Putin to continue the war against Ukraine. However, the existing training and support system of the Russian army is able to accept a significantly smaller number of new personnel at once.
This was stated by the head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, Oleh Ivashchenko, in an interview with The Times. He referred to Ukrainian military intelligence data. There is currently no public confirmation from Russia about such a request or a Kremlin decision to recruit 800,000 people.
According to the intelligence report cited by Ivashchenko, the Russian army is able to accept no more than 300–500,000 recruits at once. This is not just about the call-up itself: they need to be equipped, supplied, housed, trained, formed into units, and then integrated into the active forces.
Thus, the stated requirement by the Russian generals significantly exceeds the capacity of the existing military infrastructure. The request for 800,000 people also does not mean that Russia has already decided on a simultaneous mobilization of that many people: Ivashchenko spoke precisely about the army's need for additional personnel.
Current recruitment no longer offsets losses
Ivashchenko named the ratio between Russian troop replacements and their losses as the reason for the growing need for people. According to him, Russia currently recruits about 1,000 people per day, and on some days about 1,200. Meanwhile, in the latest intelligence reports he provided to journalists, daily losses exceeded 1,400 people.
This trend is also confirmed by Western assessments. At the end of August, The Guardian, citing Western officials, reported that the Russian army has been losing about 6,000 more personnel per month in recent months than it manages to recruit. According to their assessment, even the influx of about a thousand new personnel daily is no longer sufficient to fully compensate for losses.
A similar picture was previously presented by the American Center for Strategic and International Studies. In a CSIS study published in July, it was estimated that in 2026 Russia was losing on average between 30,000 and 34,000 personnel per month while recruiting about 27,000 people. According to the center's assessment, total Russian losses in killed, wounded, and missing from February 2022 to June 2026 reached approximately 1.4 million people, including 400–450,000 killed.
These estimates differ from official Ukrainian statistics and cannot be established with absolute precision in wartime. Russia also does not publish complete current data on its losses.
Russia increasingly depends on constant army replenishment
After the "partial mobilization" announced by Vladimir Putin in September 2022, within which Russian authorities declared the call-up of 300,000 reservists, the Kremlin tried to avoid another nationwide mobilization campaign. The main emphasis was placed on contract soldiers, high one-time payments, regional recruitment programs, and the enlistment of prisoners and foreigners.
However, by mid-2026, the capacity of this model began to shrink. The Guardian wrote in August that Russian regions are finding it increasingly difficult to meet contract recruitment plans, despite significant payments. The publication estimated the total number of contract soldiers recruited after the 2022 mobilization at roughly 1.3 million people, but the majority of the new personnel are now needed to replenish losses already incurred, rather than to significantly increase the size of the force.
Against this background, the request for another 800,000 servicemen, as reported by Ivashchenko, more than two and a half times exceeds the scale of the officially announced 2022 mobilization. At the same time, the HUR's estimate of the ability to train 300–500,000 people shows that even if a political decision were made to quickly supply everything the Russian generals need, the army would probably be unable to absorb the reinforcements.
A separate problem remains the quality of new personnel and the time needed for their training. CIA Director John Ratcliffe stated in July that the sharp proliferation of drones and systems using artificial intelligence significantly increased casualties among recently deployed Russian servicemen. He linked this to the changing nature of combat and the growing effectiveness of cheap unmanned systems.
HUR believes Russia's current model of war is time-limited
Ivashchenko also told The Times that if the current level of military and economic losses is maintained, Russia's ability to continue the war in its current format will gradually decline. According to the head of the HUR, Moscow still has sufficient military and economic resources for the coming year, but by 2028 they may be substantially depleted.
This is an assessment by Ukrainian intelligence, not a forecast of a specific end date for the war. Russia's capacity will depend, among other things, on the scale of further military recruitment, the state of the economy, the ability to finance the war and weapons production, as well as on the volume of foreign supplies and the effectiveness of international sanctions.
Meanwhile, the data on the Russian generals' request for 800,000 additional troops exists so far only as intelligence information voiced by the head of the HUR. Russian authorities have not announced a mobilization of such scale and have not officially confirmed this information.
