Mobilization: Putin’s last game before defeat or the bomb

war in Ukraine
Mobilization – Putin’s last game before defeat or the bomb

Young men old assault rifles – called up reservists

© Russian Defense Ministry/ / Picture Alliance

Russia’s troops in Ukraine are exhausted. That is why Putin called the mobilization. If the reservists cannot change the situation of the Russian armed forces, Putin has few options.

Gone are the days when Putin the Terrible was feared. At least in the Western media, the Kremlin ruler is now branded as a loser. The shine of his army has more than faded – after the recent successes, a victory for Ukraine and thus a defeat for Russia seems almost inevitable.

mockery and jokes

Even Putin’s most recent measures can hardly spoil the picture of victory. The mobilization? Young Russians are leaving the country in droves, and those drafted either stagger about hopelessly drunk in front of the camera or are handed a completely rusted World War II rifle. These pictures circulate and are commented on mockingly. At the same time, well-known experts assure that it will take at least six months before these sad figures will appear at the front. And when that happens, they will be out of equipment, since all of Russia’s magazines will be consumed by casualties by then.

That’s not wrong, but only part of the picture. It starts with the fact that there are by no means only videos with rusted Mosin-Nagant rifles. On others, the recruits are equipped quite normally for the first day, the new soldiers from Chechnya even carry around equipment that many Bundeswehr soldiers could become jealous of.

Expect reinforcements soon

With the mobilization, Putin has solved the urgent personnel problem of the armed forces – at the price that the war has now reached the families. It will take six months for completely new large units to be set up from the recruits. But that will only happen with part of the staff. The majority of the soldiers will be used to replace the losses of the units deployed in Ukraine and to further reinforce them.

Powering up the troops, a worn-out brigade with half the target strength can now become a reinforced brigade well above the target. Ideally, something like this happens with reservists who served in these or comparable units a few years ago. This reinforcement should happen in the next few weeks.

In addition, the Kremlin can detach other existing units of the regular army from the east of the country and send them towards Ukraine. Their previous tasks can then be taken over by reserve units that still have to form up. It is doubtful whether the number of Russian soldiers in Ukraine will triple within four weeks, as some experts fear. However, it can be assumed that tens of thousands of soldiers will reinforce the invading troops within a short period of time.

The free choice of the military

In the west, the main reports are bad luck and mishaps during mobilization. What is forgotten is that Kyiv has been calling up reservists for months. The willingness to serve is probably greater in Ukraine than in Russia, but there are also videos from Ukraine showing reservists fleeing conscription, hiding in the forest or being recruited on the tram. It is also known that by no means all Ukrainians currently in Western Europe willingly follow the call to arms.

Russia is currently moving in the first wave of mobilization. Political considerations play a role here, for example if demonstrators are drafted straight away at the police station or if the “princelings” of Putin’s friends are spared, but in principle this means that the state still has free choice in the first wave as to who to draft want.

These will be younger men in the crowd who only left the military a few years ago. And urgently needed specialists. It shouldn’t be a problem to recruit mechanics or computer scientists in a targeted manner. Are you missing truck drivers or people who can operate and maintain heavy clearing equipment? You will be able to find them among a total of 30 million reservists.

From Putin’s point of view, the deployment of the reserve must be done quickly. Because the Kremlin chief himself hesitated for so long, the soldiers will not have time for training and instruction. Losses will be high, but that will hardly deter Putin. The troops currently deployed in Ukraine cannot stop Kiev’s soldiers. Most of the invaders are stuck in the Donbass. Troops cannot be withdrawn from there without jeopardizing the arduous conquests of recent months.

Other front sections suffer from a blatant shortage of personnel. East of Kharkiv the Russians are attempting to stabilize their line. In doing so, however, they do not get beyond individual points of resistance, which Kiev’s soldiers bypassed sooner or later.

Does Putin accept defeat?

Should the deployment of reservists remain ineffective or should they arrive too late, Russia could lose the war on the ground in the next few months. Or: All conquests since the invasion can be lost. Should resistance in the Kherson region collapse under the Ukrainian army’s continued attacks as it did east of Kharkiv, there will be no stopping the defeated Russian troops. Then the Ukrainian troops will be able to advance to the Crimea in the south and cut off the Russian troops from their lines of communication with Russia in the north.

Using the mobilized reservists is Putin’s last conventional card in this war. Should that not sting, there are hardly any alternatives for the Kremlin ruler. Politically, Putin could not survive a complete defeat of his troops. He and his followers would then only have one choice: resignation or the nuclear option. Putin or Kyiv, that would be the question.

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