Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday signed a decree which allows the country’s military authorities to recruit additional 137,000 servicemembers amid Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine, increasing the number of  the armed forces to 2,039,758 from the current 1,902,000.

Putin’s brief decree, released on the Kremlin’s website, did not read the motive behind the move. 

So far, the Kremlin has avoided a mass mobilization or even an official declaration of war, seeking to limit the domestic fallout from the campaign.

In response to the decision, the American Institute for the Study of War (ISW) wrote that it was unlikely that the decree signed by Putin would significantly increase the capabilities of the Russian army in the near future, and also indicated that it was unlikely that Putin would announce full mobilization.