Vladimir Putin has signed a decree increasing the total strength of the Russian armed forces from 1 August. The figure is specific and worth reading slowly: 2,426,000 people in total, of whom 1,535,000 are professional soldiers - an increase of 25,000 military positions.

The total includes civilian employees of the defence ministry and other military structures. The decree comes into force in a matter of days. No document explains where those people will go, or which units will receive them.

A number that is neither large nor small - it is a signal

Twenty-five thousand new soldier positions change nothing at the front tomorrow. That is roughly one percent of total strength. But the increase is not what counts - the direction is what counts.

Moscow has been doing the same thing for years: it does not announce a mobilisation, it signs a decree. The system does not change, the number inside the system changes. Each time it is explained by „changed security conditions” and „expanded operational needs” - phrases wide enough to hold anything at all.

If the war really were heading towards an end, the army would not be expanding. That is not analysis - that is arithmetic.

What 2.4 million means on a European map

For scale, it is worth holding on to the comparison: this is a force larger than the entire population of Macedonia, in uniform, in one country, on the European continent. That is not a number you disband over one season.

Every new soldier is a budget line with a horizon of several years, not several months. States do not recruit soldiers with short-term intentions - that would be the most expensive possible way to send a message if the message were not serious.

The question nobody in Moscow answered remains: what exactly are those additional 25,000 people for, if the ongoing war is going well according to the official version?