According to him, since the beginning of the year, the Russian Ministry of Defense has recruited 221,000 contract soldiers, but this has proven insufficient: losses during the same period reached 225,500 people, of which 131,000 were killed. "Putin is preparing the conditions for expanding mobilization... he is simply getting ready to draft new Russians into the war. He is masking this with other words, signals, but he is preparing," Zelensky noted and urged partners to pressure Russia to push it towards ending the war. Zelensky also stated that Putin expects to receive another 30,000 North Korean military personnel from North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. According to him, preparations for their deployment have been ongoing in the Voronezh region since June. Furthermore, as claimed by the Ukrainian president, North Korea intends to transfer new launchers for ballistic missiles to Russia. Earlier, the American Institute for the Study of War (ISW) reported that the Kremlin is creating a legal framework for a new call-up to the front. Analysts noted the update of the Russian National Guard's civil defense rules considering the period of mobilization and martial law, as well as the amendments adopted by the State Duma that expand the category of individuals with criminal records allowed to sign contracts with the Ministry of Defense. The military department has already begun preparing training grounds for the new recruits. Z-channels suggest that the possible timeframe for the new mobilization is October and estimate its scale at 1.2 million people, reports The Moscow Times.