Russia-Ukraine conflict: Vladimir Putin struggling to find recruits to deploy to Ukraine

Russian dictator Vladimir Putin is seeing high numbers of casualties amongst his own troops as they are met by fierce resistance from Ukrainian civilians and soldiers. With the high number of Russian casualties, Putin is reportedly having trouble finding people to fight for Russia to send into Ukraine.

A report by Shannon Vavra of The Daily Beast reveals that Putin’s attempted invasion of Ukraine is not going the way he is hoping it would. Vavra notes that Putin is struggling to recruit fighters outside of Russia to help his invasion. This comes as Russian defense minister Sergei Shoigu said Friday last week that Russia is recruiting 16,000 people from the Middle East to help Russia in its invasion.

However, according to US military officials, there has not been a surge in foreign fighters entering or heading to Ukraine. A senior Pentagon official said that they are aware of the plan to recruit outside help, but have not seen signs that Moscow has succeeded in getting foreign assistance to invade Ukraine. The official added that it remains to be seen whether the 16,000 that Shoigu mentioned is the actual target number or a talking point.

The report goes on to add that Russia has signaled that they plan to send in reinforcements from within the country. The Pentagon has also doubted the claim.

“Nothing to speak to in terms of Russian reinforcements of themselves. We haven’t seen any indications, at least not tangible indications, that they are trying to plus up their manpower from elsewhere,” the Pentagon official added.

Meanwhile, Russia has launched multiple air raids on a Ukrainian military facility outside Lviv over the weekend, in what officials see as the westernmost attack since the start of the military invasion. Over 30 Russian cruise missiles targeted the facility, according to Lviv Governor Maxim Kozitsky on Sunday.

35 people were killed and 134 others were wounded from the air raids caused by Russia. Russia’s defense ministry claimed that the air raid destroyed weapons supplied by other countries that were being stored at the facility. The ministry went on to claim that the raid killed up to 180 “mercenaries.”