"Russian military leadership may be shifting to a new phase of mobilization in central Russia and have likely exhausted pools of potential recruits in more peripheral and disenfranchised regions," the ISW said in its latest analysis of the war in Ukraine.
It added that "volunteer battalions that comprise Russia’s 3rd Army Corps are likely being prepared to attempt offensive combined arms operations but will likely lack sufficient combat power to make a material difference on the battlefield."
Russian President Vladimir Putin last week signed a decree to increase the size of his country's armed forces to 2.04 million from 1.9 million as the war in Ukraine entered its seventh month, the Reuters news agency reported.
Around 46,750 Russian troops have been killed in Ukraine since Putin invaded the country in late February, according to Ukrainian military authorities.
Russia intensifies 'law enforcement efforts" in occupied areas of Ukraine: ISW
According to the Institute for the Study of War, Russian authorities were in recent days "continuing to intensify law enforcement efforts" in occupied areas of Ukraine "in the face of internal tensions and partisan threats."
In some of the latest developments in the war in Ukraine, Russian forces "conducted a limited ground attack north of Kharkiv City" on Saturday as well as "limited ground attacks southwest of Izyum, northeast of Siversk, northeast and south of Bakhmut, and west and southwest of Donetsk City," according to the ISW.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces "targeted Russian military command-and-control (C2) elements" in the northwestern Kherson region as part of efforts "to degrade Russian military capabilities on the right bank of the Dnipro River," it reported.
Sunday is day 186 of Russia's war on Ukraine.
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Source: IAR, PAP, Reuters, understandingwar.org