- Hubert Walas
The fight for life.
Mobilization. After more than two hundred days of a "Special Military Operation" conducted against Ukraine's independence, Vladimir Putin is reaching for a card he had vowed not to use just a few months ago.
The reaction of observers and experts is almost unanimous - this way Putin says - "we are losing". At the same time, he is taking a big risk both politically - inside the immediate circle of power, which has been calling for the move for a long time, and socially - directly involving ordinary citizens in the Russian Federation's offensive war. Nevertheless, the decision shows that he is more afraid of the former. Although for the time being the protests in Russia are rather modest, it should be noted that Putin has destroyed Russia's main social contract of the past 30 years, that is "you let us get rich, and we stay out of your private life." We can say that apart from the very decision to launch the war, this is one of Vladimir Putin's most important and risky political decisions.
Mobilization is partial only in theory. Shoigu says 300,000 will be called up, but in practice the decree does not accurately indicate how many men will be forcibly conscripted. Putin reassures that this is only 1% of Russia's pool of reservists, which stands at 25 million. According to a Novaya Gazeta source in Putin's administration, the secret seventh paragraph of the mobilization decree allows the Defense Ministry to mobilize not 300,000 but 1 million people into the army.
Objectively, it should be assessed that this move is aimed at overcoming one of the Russians' biggest problems during this war - that is, the problem of manpower. Some estimates put the Russian losses since the beginning of this war as high as 150,000, i.e. killed, captured and wounded. 300,000 is a formidable mass, but in practice much worse prepared than the original strike force it is now supposed to replace. But the most important question is - what impact will this move by the Kremlin have on the course of the war? Moscow is in practice using its penultimate bargaining chip in this war, besides the nuclear option. In practice, however, it is the last one that can have any positive effect for Russia. The Russian Federation is reverting to the only strategy that worked and, in effect, brought victory to the Soviet Union - throwing human mass on the enemy. But the Russian Federation of the 21st century is not the Soviet Union of the 1940s.
Mobilization will certainly seal the filling of the front lines with recruits, but beyond that, the move entails a host of problems - primarily in the logistical sphere. Russia already had problems with logistics during the first phase of the war, which, after all, was started mainly by contract troops. Now, after 8 months of war, during which the Ukrainians are constantly destroying Russian facilities, 300,000 people will be dropped on patched-up Russian logistics. These people must be transported, housed, fed, trained and equipped, and then led by competent officers. Is Russia capable of doing this? The answer seems obvious.
Going forward, the Russians might be able to equip every soldier with a rifle, but the Kremlin does not have bulletproof vests, Kevlar helmets, optics for weapons, encrypted radios, night vision, boots, etc. including enough combat vehicles to create new formations with significant combat potential, so this decision will not affect the overall capability of the Russian army. The Kharkiv counteroffensive showed how much of a problem the Russians have in maintaining their fleet of armored vehicles. Mobilization will not change that.
This is compounded by perhaps the most important aspect of the whole enterprise - morale. Previously, for ordinary Russians, this war was indifferent, even taking into account the gruesome achievements at Bucha, or at Izyum. Now people who did not sign up for it voluntarily will come to sit in trenches on foreign soil, in the cold, with inadequate logistical support, at constant risk to their lives, fighting a war they do not understand. This is not the position they wanted to be in, and it will not be isolated cases. Especially in winter, the impact of which on morale is crucial.
Moreover, all this is not happening in a vacuum. Western countries, having recently fallen back into passiveness, are again beginning to discuss crossing more "red lines." The Germans, the French, or the Americans are discussing the transfer of Western-made tanks to the Ukrainians. Russian mobilization, only strengthens Western sentiment to help Ukraine. Perhaps we will see American Abrams, French Lecrercs, or German Leopards in Ukraine later this winter. Kyiv itself may also respond with its own next round of mobilization, which, unlike Russia's, will know what it is fighting for in this war.
All the more so after recent reports of a Kyiv-Moscow prisoner of war exchange, mediated by Ankara. More than 200 Ukrainian prisoners of war, including commanders of the Azov regiment heroically defending Azovstal in Mariupol, were exchanged for, among others, former pro-Russian politician Viktor Medvedchuk. The move was met with fury by Russian nationalists on Telegram, who were promised death penalties for Azov members. It was, after all, the allegedly Nazi Azov that embodied the threat, which was one of the main reasons for launching the Special Military Operation - the denazification of Ukraine.
Ahead of the mobilization decision, the Kremlin has decided to fast-track the subject of annexation of the occupied territories, which is to precede the holding of sham referendums. At issue are 4 districts - Luhansk, which Moscow controls 99%, Kherson, occupied in 90%, Zaporizhia, 70% under occupation, and Donetsk, occupied in 55%. With this move, Putin wants to raise the stakes of attacks on these territories, threatening that they will be considered an attack on the territory of the Russian Federation. By the way, even Russian commentators, are not waiting for the results of the vote to present just this narrative. Of course, nuclear threats are part of the picture here. "I'm not bluffing!" - warns Vladimir Putin. Is the strong one really the one who needs to remind at all times how strong he is? Ukrainians are reconciled to such a risk, and reiterate that it will not extinguish their spirit of resistance, but will actually reignite it.
For the Kremlin, on the other hand, this would be the nail in the coffin, not necessarily because of the West's response, which would certainly be final, but more because of the fury of its allies and collaborators. China, India, Iran, Brazil, or large parts of Africa, where the Russian Federation enjoys relatively greater esteem, would quite change the approach to the Kremlin, which would use weapons of ultimate destruction in an offensive war. The use of nuclear weapons in an offensive war over the conquest of another country would set a precedent that would result in the mass proliferation of nuclear weapons. All countries bordering nuclear powers would be willing to acquire them, since this is the only form of defense against an aggressor that possesses nuclear arsenal. Beijing or Delhi are certainly not interested in such a turn of events.
In the meantime, the European Union is preparing another, the 8th package of sanctions. However, there is one more aspect of the economic war that has the potential to hit Moscow significantly, but is still untapped. What's more, it depends on an actor we mention quite rarely in this game, namely Greece. Why is Greece's influence so important? As is well known, Russia continues to get the lion's share of its budget from oil sales. The G7 wants to put a cap on the price of Russian oil, but Insititute of International Finance chief economist Robin Brooks has been pointing out another fact for quite some time. Before Russia can find buyers for its oil, it must find carriers. This is where the Greeks come in, transporting a whopping 60% of all Russian oil transported by sea. The share of Greece, recall a NATO member, in this segment has doubled since the invasion. Greek international shipping magnates, defend that if they don't do it, someone else will. Brooks takes the opposite view and says it will be a massive blow to the Russians.
Chaos - that's how, in one word, we can sum up the Kremlin's communications and actions in recent times. First, a whole single operational direction collapses in a few days, then suddenly there is a decision to hold sham plebiscites as soon as possible, then we have a decision to mobilize up to a million men. Something that was supposed to be a 3-day operation, a mere formality and a dramatic increase in Russia's importance on the international stage, turns into a fight for life. Not just for Vladimir Putin, but for the entire Russian project as it stands today. Putin is throwing on the table his last practically "usable" resource - human mass - whose life he, like every ruler in the history of the Russian empire, does not count with.
