Throughout the three-year war, the Kremlin has been very careful to avoid conscripting men from the country’s most politically influential parts.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered 160,000 Russians to arms as part of a broad mobilization scheme.
The Russian forces have been taking heavy losses in Ukraine, and the Kremlin seeks to replenish its casualties.
A New Mobilization of Russian Troops on the Horizon
According to Russian state news agencies, the Kremlin has ordered the mobilization of 160,000 Russian citizens to join the Russian military.
Russia already has a military draft in place for men between the ages of 18 to 30, with draftees typically serving one year before entering the reserves. The latest normal draft mobilization began on April 1 and is set to be completed by July 15.
Notably, the Russian military has stated that conscripts are not deployed into Ukraine in support of the ongoing “special military operation” there. However, in practice that is not always the case.
“Although the Russian authorities claim that conscripts are not sent to the combat zone, once in service, they are forced to sign contracts ‘voluntarily’ and end up on the front line,” the Ukrainian State Center for Countering Disinformation stated. “Thus, conscription has become one of the Kremlin’s tools to compensate for heavy losses at the front.”
Moreover, the Ukrainian government has argued that the new Russian military mobilization scheme hints at further Russian offensives in eastern and southern parts of Ukraine.
“They are dragging out negotiations and trying to drag the U.S. into endless, meaningless discussions about fake conditions to buy time and then try to seize even more land,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated last week.
“Putin wants to negotiate territory from a stronger position. He only thinks about war. So, our job — all of us — is defense in the broadest sense of the word,” Zelensky added.
In the ongoing negotiations between the two combatants and the United States, the Kremlin has requested that Ukraine not receive any military aid abroad for the duration of a potential ceasefire.
Russia’s Past Troop Mobilizations Haven’t Always Ended Well
The first time the Kremlin indicated during the Ukrainian conflict that a mobilization was coming, as many as one million Russian men fled the country to avoid conscription. And for a good reason: The Russian military has been taking heavy casualties in the fighting.
According to the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence, whose data are often corroborated by Western intelligence services and militaries, the Russian military, paramilitary units, and pro-Russian separatist forces have taken approximately 920,000 casualties killed and wounded in 1,133 days of fighting. This amounts to an average of around 812 casualties per day—roughly the equivalent of one U.S. Army battalion. Of course, this number is merely the total average, and some days and weeks are far worse: in the heat of the fighting in the Donbass, when Russia fought to capture the cities of Avdiivka and Bakhmut, it regularly sustained casualties upwards of 1,500 men per day, for weeks on end. Ultimately, the Russian military captured both towns, seemingly vindicating its strategy of attrition warfare.
Throughout the three-year war, the Kremlin has been very careful to avoid conscripting men from the country’s most politically influential parts. According to a recent intelligence assessment by the British Ministry of Defence, Russian military recruitment initiatives around Moscow and St. Petersburg, some of the country’s main urban centers, are conspicuously less energetic than recruitment initiatives in rural parts of Russia. Although Russia’s democratic credentials are far from satisfactory, Putin appears to be concerned about the impact of unpopular conscription initiatives among young people in Moscow and Saint Petersburg who might then be inclined to protest.
About the Author: Stavros Atlamazoglou
Stavros Atlamazoglou is a seasoned defense journalist specializing in special operations and a Hellenic Army veteran (national service with the 575th Marine Battalion and Army HQ). He holds a BA from the Johns Hopkins University and an MA from the Johns Hopkins’ School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). His work has been featured in Business Insider, Sandboxx, and SOFREP.
Image: Shutterstock / miss.cabul.
