On Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin urged action to stop the smuggling of arms and ammunition into Russia, especially from Ukraine.
“We have to consider the ways that weapons and ammunition are illegally brought into the Russian Federation—including from the territory of Ukraine,” Russian President Vladimir Putin stated during a security council meeting.
“We need to look at all of these pathways, look at how departmental control procedures are organized, and see what has to be done additionally to enhance the regulatory framework.”
He invited the minister of interior and the head of the National Guard to brief the Council in-depth on the matter. There was no other information available at the moment.
Since Putin began the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022—a move that Moscow continues to refer to as a “special military operation”—Russian society has grown increasingly militarized.
The conflict, which has also witnessed cross-border incursions by pro-Ukrainian “saboteurs” and Ukrainian drone & missile strikes on targets inside Russia, including Moscow, shows no signs of abating.
Putin issued an order last fall to mobilize 300,000 reservists with prior military service—the largest such deployment since World War II.
As part of its long-standing twice-yearly conscription cycle, Russia also called up 147,000 men between the ages of 18 and 27 between April 1 and July 15 to fulfill their mandatory military service.
As Moscow devotes more and more resources to the conflict, defense spending will make up about one-third of Russia’s overall budget expenditure in 2024, according to government draft plans.