On July 27, 2026, Russian President Putin signed an order to establish several military construction engineering units and increase the total number of Russian armed forces to over 2.42 million. This new order will come into effect on August 1, 2026.  

According to reports from the Russian presidential website and legal information website, Putin signed a presidential decree on the same day to modify the presidential decree of June 12, 2026, in order to establish several military construction engineering units and increase the total number of personnel in the Russian armed forces to over 2.42 million, including 1.535 million active duty military personnel.

This means that the total number of personnel in the Russian armed forces will increase by 27000, including an increase of 25000 active duty soldiers. According to multiple media outlets such as TASS and Russia Today News Agency, the presidential decree on June 12, 2026 set the total number of personnel in the Russian armed forces at over 2.39 million, including 1.51 million active duty soldiers.Editor/Min Jing