Russian strongman Vladimir Putin nixed full mobilization to end the growing stalemate against Ukraine but did sign a decree enlarging the combat forces in his military by 137,000 to 1.15 million.
While a 13.5% manpower increase is nothing to sneeze at, authorizing the increase and actually getting all those new soldiers, sailors, and airmen are two entirely different things.
Actually, in Russia’s case, they’re three different things, but I’ll get to that in a moment.
After six-plus months of heavy fighting, the Ukraine War frontlines are nearly frozen. Russia has barely advanced anywhere since capturing Lysychansk on July 3, nearly two months ago. And it hasn’t been for lack of trying. Russia’s heavy shelling has yet to let up, and the army has launched one repulsed probing attack after another.
Something has to change.
The Dupuy Institute’s Christopher A. Lawrence noted earlier this summer that, given Russian losses and Ukraine’s almost unending supplies from the West, “at some point, Russia will have to mobilize to continue this war.”
“The failure to mobilize is hard to explain from a military point of view,” Lawrence continued. “It is clearly a result of domestic political concerns.”
The trap — if that isn’t too strong a word — Putin finds himself in was obvious as early as May. By then, Russian forces had already made their humiliating retreats from Kyiv and Kharkiv and begun their ruinous (for both sides) World War I-style advance through the Donbas.
Many, including yours truly, believed Putin might use the May 9 Victory Day celebrations to announce at least a partial mobilization of the Russian economy for war. Instead, Putin whiffed. He used the occasion to give a lackluster speech, and that was about it.
Yesterday, various military accounts on Twitter lit up with news that the Kremlin might make a big political move today.
Instead, we got another dud, possibly two.
The Duma — the Russian parliament — set off a dud today. After all the hype, all it did was release a toothless statement condemning Ukraine for shelling the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (which Ukraine might or might not have done) and demanding that the West stop supplying the Ukraine Army (which ain’t gonna happen).
Some sound, a little fury, zero significance.
Now let’s get to what might prove to be the Great Second Russian Dud of August, Putin’s decree:
A copy of the order on a Russian government website says it comes into effect Jan. 1, 2023. It was published online and reported on by Russian state media, but no reason for the boost in troop numbers was immediately given.
It comes just a day after Putin’s defense chief acknowledged the Russian military campaign in Ukraine has stalled.
Translation: Starting next year, the Russian military will be authorized to find another 137,000 troops.
I mentioned before that authorizing them and getting them are two different things, but in Russia’s case actually three. That’s because Russia effectively has two militaries.
The first is much like our own: Well-paid volunteers who get the best training and the newest gear. Called contractors, volunteers make up a little less than two-thirds of the Russian Army. (I don’t have figures for the Navy or Air Force, but those don’t concern us much here.)
The second military consists of conscripts who serve for one year, get very little training, and have the oldest gear.
Putin’s decree did not say whether the new troops would be contractors (more expensive) or conscripts (less combat-effective).
There’s one other little catch: By Russian law, conscripts can’t be sent to fight in foreign wars like Ukraine without an official declaration of war. They can only defend the Motherland from invaders.
Expanding the draft would be unpopular, as intel specialist Mark Galeotti noted on Twitter. Those draftees also wouldn’t do anything for the war effort in Ukraine.
Adding more contractors isn’t just expensive — their training is time-consuming and wouldn’t even begin until something next year.
So Galeotti concludes that Russia “may be heading for a further Potemkinisation of the military, with Moscow issuing decrees and the MOD [Ministry of Defense] drawing up new orgs that increasingly don’t match the actual numbers in service.”
Absent the full mobilization that Putin has so far refused, it’s difficult to see where Russia will get the necessary troops to complete his conquest of Ukraine, even if he limits his goals to the eastern and southern quarters.
This was a stupid war Putin launched in February, and it keeps getting stupider all the time.
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