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However, there have been reports of conscripts being killed in fighting in Russia's border regions and they were sent to fight in Ukraine in the early months of the full-scale war. He current draft, takes place between April and July, comes despite US attempts to forge a ceasefire. There was no let-up in the violence on Tuesday, with Ukraine saying that a Russian attack on a power facility in the southern city of Kherson had left 45,000 people without electricity. Russia also claimed to have captured another Ukrainian village, at Rozlyiv in the Donetsk region.

Russia calls up conscripts in the spring and autumn but the latest draft of 160,000 young men is 10,000 higher than the same period in 2024.
Since the start of last year, the pool of young men available for the draft has been increased by raising the maximum age from 27 to 30.
As well as call-up notices delivered by post, young men will receive notifications on the state services website Gosuslugi. Quite apart from its twice-yearly draft, Russia has also called up large numbers of men as contract soldiers and recruited thousands of soldiers from North Korea.

Moscow has had to respond to extensive losses in Ukraine, with more than 100,000 verified by the BBC and Mediazona as soldiers killed in Ukraine.
The true number could be more than double.
Invisible losses fighting for Russia in Ukraine
Why did Putin's Russia invade Ukraine?
Putin has scaled up the size of the military three times since he ordered troops to capture Ukraine in February 2022. Russia's defence ministry linked the December 2023 increase in the size of the military to "growing threats" from both the war in Ukraine and the "ongoing expansion of Nato".

Nato has expanded to include Finland and Sweden, as a direct result of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.