Moscow is recruiting residents from impoverished and rural regions of Russia for the war against Ukraine, with Kremlin propaganda inflating the numbers, according to the UK Ministry of Defense. According to the report, on January 11, Russian Deputy Chair of Security Council, Dmitriy Medvedev, stated that 500,000 people had joined the Russian armed forces in 2023. It is highly likely that this figure has been substantially inflated. British intelligence reveals that to meet recruitment targets, Russian military authorities allowed high school graduates to sign contracts with the Russian army fr…