Vladimir Putin signed this Saturday a law that forgives debts for new recruits of the Russian Army to enlist to fight in Ukraine, according to a Kremlin website.
Agencies reported that the law provides for the forgiveness of up to 10 million rubles ($95,835) of overdue debts to those who sign contracts with the Ministry of Defense to fight in Ukraine for at least one year, starting December 1.
The law applies to all potential recruits against whom debt collection proceedings have been opened before December 1.
Russia has beefed up military recruitment by offering increasingly larger payments, in some cases several times the average salary, to those willing to fight in Ukraine.
The tactic has allowed the army increase troops in the conflict zone, while avoiding another round of general mobilization like the one that caused a mass exodus from Russia in September 2022.
Figures show Russians are taking on more and more consumer debt since the Kremlin ordered tens of thousands of troops to Ukraine in 2022, even though the Central Bank raised its official interest rate to 21% in October.
The United Kingdom Intelligence services indicated last Thursday that Russian ground troops They are “a totally different force” than the one that began the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and they have emphasized that the majority of the troops currently deployed “have minimal training.”
“Before the invasion of Ukraine, Russia attempted to build a modern, professional force capable of carrying out complex operations. After a thousand days of conflict, Russia’s ground troops are a radically different force from those that initially invaded Ukraine,” they said.
Thus, they have explained that the “more than 700,000” casualties suffered in combat, including dead and wounded“have drastically undermined the quality of Russian forces,” according to a statement published by the British Ministry of Defense through its account on the social network X.
“The majority of personnel currently serving in the Russian Army have received minimal training, while Russian commanders use basic tactics to achieve advances, despite the high casualty rates associated with them,” they stated.
Along these lines, they have assured that Russia has lost to date more than 3,500 battle tanks and 7,500 armored vehicles, while Moscow has had to resort to vehicles “from the legacy of the Soviet Union” to replace the losses in the clashes with the Ukrainian troops.
On the other hand, the head of the Pentagon, Lloyd Austin, declared this Saturday that he foresees that thousands of North Korean soldiers sent to Russia will “soon” enter combat against Ukraine.
US intelligence services estimate that there are about 10,000 North Korean troops in the Russian border region of Kurskthe Secretary of Defense explained to the press during a stop in Fiji, a small country in the Pacific. “Based on what they have been trained, the way they have integrated into Russian formations, I fully anticipate seeing them in combat soon,” he said.
Austin stated that he had seen “no significant reports” of North Korean soldiers “already actively in combat” to date.
Senior South Korean government officials and a research group said Thursday that Russia had supplied North Korea with oil, anti-aircraft missiles and economic aid in exchange for the sending of troops denounced by Washington and Seoul.
kyiv has warned that Russia, with North Korean soldiers, has concentrated a force of 50,000 men to recover parts of the Kursk region taken since August by Ukrainian forces.
In addition, the head of the Central Intelligence Department of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, Andri Kovalenko, noted this Saturday that Some North Korean soldiers were also transferred to the Russian Belgorod region, which borders the northeastern Ukrainian region of Kharkiv.
“Some servicemen of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea were transferred to the border of the Belgorod region,” Kovalenko wrote on Telegram, emphasizing that “are not found in the Kharkiv region”, as some American media had reported based on Ukrainian sources.
(With information from agencies)
