Russia seeks a military age limit increase as casualties mount

New Russian legislation has proposed upping the age limit of military contract personnel for both officers and soldiers according to an intelligence update from the UK Ministry of Defence. Here’s what we know about the situation. 

Draft legislation in Russia would see the age limit of contract military personnel raised to 65 for regular soldiers and 70 for officers, which is a significant increase from the current age limit of 51 currently imposed on all non-officers.  

The new legislation would affect all future soldiers and officers as well as any contracted military personnel recruited before June 2023 according to the defence ministry’s report, which means many may see their service extended. 

More importantly, the defence ministry report added that the age limit extensions for the military put both officer and non-officer limits beyond the average lifespan of most men in Russia based on figures from WorldData.info. 

According to WorldData.info, the average life expectancy for men in Russia in 2021 was 62.4 years. Such an age limit increase will undoubtedly harm Moscow on the battlefield, which is an opinion that the defense ministry holds. 

“Although this measure will likely alleviate the need for additional mobilisation, increasing the number of military personnel aged over 51 is highly unlikely to increase Russia's combat effectiveness, particularly in kinetic assaults,” the ministry explained. 

The UK Defense Ministry also noted that the increased age limits conferred onto contract military personnel were effectively a “lifetime contract” for Russian soldiers. However, it isn’t the first time Russia has upped the age limit of its troops. 

In July 2023, the Russian Duma passed a law that allowed soldiers who had completed their compulsory military service to the state to be mobilized by Moscow up to the ages of 40, 50, and 55 depending on their category according to Reuters. 

The law raised the age limit in all cases by five years and led to a situation that allowed Moscow to call those in the highest ranks back into service at the age 70 rather than 65, as well as junior officers at the age of 60, and soldiers at the age of 55 rather than 45. 

Russia’s latest age limit increase may be an attempt to combat the country’s rising dead and wounded as its war against Ukraine devolves into one of the bloodiest periods of fighting since Moscow’s military forces began their invasion in February 2022. 

On February 16th, 2024, the Ukrainian General staff reported that Russia had lost at least 400,000 soldiers since the conflict began, a grim milestone for two years of war, but one that should be taken with a grain of salt since it is Kyiv reporting the figures. 

“Russia does not publish a tally of its own losses, and does not typically respond to Ukraine's figures,” Newsweek’s Yevgeny Kuklychev reported, adding that Western experts and governments generally agree the figure was more than 300,000 at the end of 2023. 

In December 2023, a declassified intelligence report from the Pentagon revealed that the U.S. estimated that roughly 315,000 Russian soldiers had been killed or wounded since the conflict, a source told the New York Times. 

“The war in Ukraine has sharply set back 15 years of Russian effort to modernize its ground force,” the declassified assessment read. Several media outlets noted that the number of Russian casualties equaled 87% of the country’s pre-invasion personnel.

U.S. figures were also supported by casualty estimates from the UK in January 2024 that were revealed by the country’s lawmakers by Minister of State for the Armed Forces James Heappey according to Newsweek. 

"We estimate that approximately 350,000 Russian military personnel have been killed or wounded since the start of the conflict," Heappey said, which may be one of the many reasons why Moscow is looking to up the age limit for its military personnel.