A billboard encourages people to enlist in the Russian military in St. Petersburg, Russia, 23 February 2025. Photo: EPA-EFE / ANATOLY MALTSEV

Vladimir Putin told a meeting of the Council for Culture and Art at the Kremlin on Tuesday that the Russian Defence Ministry was considering a rotation of servicemen on the frontlines in Ukraine, some of whom have been serving there since the start of the war three years ago.

Asked by Russian writer and politician Zakhar Prilepin whether troops who were the first to go to the frontline could look forward to being rotated soon, Putin replied that the Defence Ministry was “thinking about it”, and while accepting that it was “an acute issue”, said that the ministry would “act based on the realities on the ground at the front”.

Putin announced a “partial” mobilisation of Russia’s military reserve on 21 September 2022, decreeing that army contracts would henceforth remain in force until the end of mobilisation was declared.

Although the Russian authorities announced the end of mobilisation on 31 October 2022, no decree officially ending it has ever been issued. As things stand, current contracts with the Defence Ministry are automatically extended upon expiry.

Amid reports of conscripts being forced into signing contracts with the Defence Ministry against their will, repeated protests by the wives and mothers of conscripts have so far failed to bring about the return of their husbands and sons from the war.