Russia's partial mobilization of its military, which enlisted 300,000 reserves for the war in Ukraine, has officially ended, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Friday.
There were no additional measures for mobilization in place, meaning only volunteers would be joining the war effort from now on, Shoigu said at a meeting near Moscow with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Putin had announced in mid-October that the controversial mobilization of reserves was to be completed within two weeks. The city of Moscow had already stopped the widespread conscription at that point.
Putin once again admitted that there had been many problems with the policy, which began over a month ago.
Soldiers often lacked the right equipment or were not appropriately prepared for deployment in the war zone. Many reserve soldiers have already died in the war, only weeks after having been conscripted.
In light of these difficulties, the Russian leader demanded that the work of the draft boards be modernized. For example, Putin ordered large numbers of men mistakenly drafted despite not being eligible given illness or old age to be sent home again.
Shoigu said that 82,000 men are now deployed on the front lines. Their average age is 35. Their main priority, according to Shoigu, is to ensure that Russia does not lose the territories of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhya and Kherson, which were occupied by Ukrainian soldiers.
Putin previously stated that their objective was to secure a front line spanning 1,100 kilometers (683.51 miles).
Ukraine in turn, has repeatedly announced that it would liberate its territories, including the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, which was already annexed by Russia in 2014.
Large parts of once-occupied regions are now back under Ukrainian control.
