Is Russia Gearing Up for a Massive Mobilization?

by SIMPLICIUS THE THINKER

Today, I wanted to discuss rumors that Russia may be gearing up for a large new mobilization of troops. I think this is a possibility, but I’ll go through each point for and against the idea.

Firstly, the rumors stem from a couple random posts like this one:

 
There is a large web of corroborating information that we’ll try to sort through and make sense out of.

Firstly, let’s state that many observers have been calling for Russia to do a new mobilization for a very long time, but with quite contradictory approaches. People like Strelkov, in the same breath, derided Russia for not being able to ‘adequately provide’ arms, armor, ammo, equipment, etc., to the current batch of troops, yet at the same time called for “one million men” to be immediately mobilized. How do you accoutre one million men when you’re struggling to do so for 300k+?

Let’s also state the reminder that the current conflict represents the largest mobilization of manpower Russia has ever experienced since WW2. In every previous conflict going back to Afghanistan, Russia has utilized at most around 110k simultaneous troops at any given time, and in most of them far less—around 70-80k for the Chechen wars, Georgia 2008, etc.

So when they called up 300k reservists last year, this represented a historic challenge to the Russian state’s administrative mechanisms. There were many problems, but just as many on-the-fly solutions which were constantly remedying issues. Russia adapted with incredible agility to these unprecedented demands, such that the current army one year later barely resembles that of last year.

This is all to say that most people who don’t understand logistics can’t even fathom the gargantuan task of outfitting an army of that size from scratch. Over time, it became evident that one of the main reasons that the mobilization itself was the size that it was, and why no further mobilization was carried out, was due to Russia’s inability to properly equip anything larger. Sure, there were tons of legacy Soviet stockpiles of equipment, but it takes a large amount of time to get it out of mothballs.

However, as Putin and Shoigu diligently launched the productive industries into over-drive and a semi-war-footing, Russian supplies began to catch up to the demand, albeit in uneven fashion, as can be expected. This brings us to the present where whispers have begun to form that Russia is now producing so much that expanding operations could soon be viable.

I first reported the above in one of the recent reports, a comment made by Andrei Gurulev, state Duma deputy and a respected ex-general of the Russian armed forces. He said, basically, that should production continue increasing at the current pace, it will be able to equip another mobilized army. I’ll quote him again here to have everything in one concise place:

A new partial mobilization is possible with an increase in industrial turnover in Russia. This condition was called by a member of the State Duma Committee on Defense, Lieutenant General Andrey Gurulev
:”Partial mobilization comes from completely different parameters. From the ability of our industry to provide the group that is currently performing combat tasks. Today, our industry is able to provide the grouping that is on its own. If something is more than that, then it will be considered, ” he said.

There are several sudden initiatives that appear to underline his statements and give weight to the growing argument that Russia may soon be ready. The most notable have been the statements issued by another two key Russian figures, the first of which is Andrey Kartapolov. He’s a high ranking member of the defense sector, now serving as chairman of the defense committee in the state Duma and is also an ex-general himself, who had previously commanded the Western Military District amongst other formations.

In this new video, he’s arguing for the Duma to pass a new bill which raises the conscription age from 18-27 to 18-30:

 
A few things to note about this.

Firstly, what he’s saying is, there were efforts by other legislators to include provisions in the bill for giving various exemptions for people to get out of conscription. For instance, people who have a dependent child with a disability, as well as for fathers with three or more minor children.

What concerned everyone was his urgent statement that this bill was written for a much larger war which is already ‘on the air’, so to speak. There are many interpretations of this, with some assuming he’s referring to a wider Ukrainian escalation. But it’s clear he’s referring to the more long term potential for a war with NATO which inches closer each day, as evidenced by the recent Polish developments, etc.

The issue is confusing at first glance, because he’s referring to conscription not ‘mobilization’ in terms of what happened in September 2022. How it works in Russia is that anyone aged 18-27 has to serve their compulsory one year of service, but you get deferments for being in school, grad school, etc. So if you finish grad school at age 25, you still have to serve because you’re under 27. This new bill is changing the limit to 30.

But the compulsory conscript service has nothing to do with mobilization for Ukraine, directly speaking. The way it’s connected is that in Russia, anyone who’s served as a conscript automatically gets put on the ‘reserves’ list. The mobilization pool is taken from the reserves. However, the 300k mobilized last year during the official ‘partial mobilization’ specifically chose people from the pool who already had previous combat experience or were ex-contract soldiers (who served under contract and retired or simply left after the contract expiration, etc.).

The reason for this is because, since almost every male in Russia ends up on the reserves list, there is a giant pool of 25 million reservists. And to mobilize 300k from that, they don’t need to tap into all the ones who merely served the 1 year compulsory conscription but had no further experience beyond that. There were plenty other reservists who had much more experience and willingness, and those were the ones called up.

So at first glance, Kartapolov’s bill doesn’t appear related to mobilization but rather annual conscription. However, the way it’s related is that it creates a larger conscription pool which further creates a larger trained reserves in general, from which future members can be mobilized.

Little known is the fact that Kartapolov addressed and clarified his comments in an interview days later:

Quesion: – Andrey Valerievich, the Internet is actively discussing your words about yesterday’s amendments — when you said that they were “written for a big war, and this war already smells like“. Please explain what was meant?

Answer: – What was meant was that we now have to provide for, let’s say, an unfavorable scenario for the development of the situation. We see how the collective West is actively rearming, starting to deploy the military industry. These are some of the factors that indicate their preparation for a big war. And even if this is not the case, we still have to respond to these potential threats. That is, we are talking about preventive measures. Because if we ignore all these alarm signals — we may end up with a new year in 1941.

He’s then asked directly whether a new Russian mobilization will take place. He says that currently, there is no need. Note that he specifically says “I emphasize TODAY…” which basically means “at the moment there’s no need” and leaves obvious room for a mobilization in the future:

– No, today — I emphasize, today-in this, if we proceed from the needs of the SVO, there is no need. But we must, as I said above, be prepared for any possible scenario. And also-let’s not forget that the Law “On Mobilization and mobilization training” was not written for a special military operation or for any operation or military campaign in principle. It was generally accepted in 1997! And we adjust it to improve the system of military registration and conscription in principle, and not with an eye to any events, past or future. This is exactly what yesterday’s amendments were aimed at.

Recall that prior to last year’s September ‘partial mobilization’ there were likely similar statements from officials that no mobilization was needed, etc. So such statements should be taken with a grain of salt. The general rule in politics is you never announce a major controversial initiative until the necessary last moment.

Another state Duma rep and ex-general Victor Sobolev has stated the following as well regarding the new changes:

 
You get the sense that a lot of the top military statesmen are tightening the ship for what they expect to be a future mobilization. Adjacently, Sobolev has also stated the following:

 
This tightening includes a travel ban on future mobilized troops who are given an official summons notice so that people can’t ‘draft dodge’ and skip out to Georgia and such:

“️Travel ban: what you need to know

The State Duma Committee approved a travel ban for everyone whose name is in the register of summonses.

– The ban begins to take effect from the moment your name appears in the unified register of summonses. They promise to launch the registry by October.

– The appearance of the agenda on public services is not the agenda itself. This is a notification that your name has appeared in the registry.

– Earlier there was a clause in the law: the ban on departure came into force only 7 days after the name appeared in the register. Now the ban will be in effect immediately: you don’t have seven days.

– The unified register of summonses is not only about conscripts. There, the summons are placed for everyone – both those who are called for mobilization, and for urgent.

– All laws and amendments are being edited with the amendment “In case of mobilization”. So we are thinking about what kind of occasion they are preparing for.

– The list of prohibitions also mentioned a ban on driving. There are no changes in this paragraph yet (but they may be made).

Recall that when Putin held his roundtable with frontline correspondents, he made a comment about mobilization as well as retaking Kiev and appeared to dismiss it for the time being with the same panache that seemed to indicate a potential future need.

Now, let’s look at some other clues. Firstly, Wagner has potentially been removed from the conflict, which would theoretically be a big blow for Russia. These were reportedly upwards of 50k of some of the best trained and motivated troops. There are still disputes about how many of them actually ended up signing a contract with the MOD, but some claim the number is fairly low compared to the overall.

If my calculations of Russia’s troop totals are right, then losing another 50k men would be a pretty consequential outcome. Sure, for now their replacements in Bakhmut appear to be holding—just barely, in the view of some. But two problems:

1. Those troops now holding Bakhmut and its peripheries could have been strengthening the lines elsewhere, preventing retreats in Zaporozhye for instance, or helping offensives in Kharkov
2. Wagner was meant to have continued pushing on toward Chasov Yar and Kramatorsk, which now is a vector completely off the table as the thin replacement troops can only barely hold on defensively

Keep in mind, we still don’t know for certain if Wagner is gone for good from Ukrainian territory, but as of now it seems so. This represents a large loss that needs to be made up somehow, which further supports the mobilization theory.

The second big factor is that, as Gurulev had stated, Russia is now increasing its production to a level that could potentially support much more troops. This is undersigned by Shoigu’s timely and significant visit to North Korea this week, which marks the first foreign state visit to NK at all since the pandemic began. For this, North Korea pulled out all the stops:

 
[metaslider id=174601]
 
There are now more and more indications that this visit in fact revolves around signing major new arms deals, as North Korea is a big manufacturer of most of the needed common shell types, like 122mm, 152mm, etc.

Listen below to another retired Russian colonel and military journalist Mikhail Khodaryonok explaining what Shoigu is likely making deals for in North Korea:

So, could this timely visit happen to coincide with a planned force buildup? Why else would Russia recruit the arms manufacturing powerhouse of North Korea at this particular time?

The other big thing to look at is the potential timeline. You see, Russia holds two large annual conscription call-ups in spring and fall. These are for the regular compulsory conscripts to serve their one year mandatory training. The spring call-up runs from April 1 to July 15, and the fall from October 1 to December 31. These typically call up about 140,000 troops each and take up a large amount of Russia’s armed forces’ administrative capability.

 
This logically means that a new mobilization would not happen anywhere around these dates because it would present too big of an administrative strain to call up and process 120,000 conscripts at the same time as separately processing another 300-500k mobilized reservists.

Last year, they mostly avoided the timeline by announcing the partial mobilization in late September, which ran to the end of October. For this, the fall conscript call-up actually had to be moved to begin at November 1. Ideally, they wouldn’t have done this, but if you’ll recall, last year’s mobilization was partly an emergency measure which resulted from the ongoing Kherson/Kharkov front collapses. Kherson happened a bit later in November, but Russian military leaders clearly knew well in advance about the decision to withdraw from the region, which was planned and even telegraphed by Surovikin months ahead of time when he made statements about “difficult decisions in the future” in regard to Kherson.

What I’m saying is that, ideally, they probably would have mobilized at a period even further removed from the conscript call-up, but they sort of had no choice last year. This time, there’s no urgency per se—not in the same sense of an emergency development and a dire lack of troops which faced being overrun. This time, a new mobilization is not about patching up emergency holes, but rather would theoretically revolve around the decision to put the final authoritative stamp on the conflict by finishing it quickly.

Thus, this time they likely have more leeway as to when. The ideal time would presumably be at the exact equidistant period between the two annual conscript call-ups. Like I said, one runs from April-July, the other from October-December. Logically, somewhere in August appears to be the midway point, give or take.

 
But there’s a catch, which some readers have aptly pointed out. The Russian presidential elections are coming up in March of 2024. That’s fairly soon, and it’s arguable that Putin does not want an ongoing mass mobilization happening right on the eve of campaign season, for the reason that a potentially not-so-popular mobilization call could give ammo to opponents to actively use against Putin during the campaign. “Why would you elect the guy who’s calling up hundreds of thousands of you to the slaughter”—or something to that extent.

On the other hand, to carry out a mobilization after Putin has already cinched the presidency for the next six years seems to make most logical sense. What further supports this possibility is the fact that even the new bill being discussed in the earlier Kartapolov video does not take effect until January 1, 2024. So all those new conscription changes are really for the future, from 2024 onward. Does this mean that Russia is slowly preparing the groundwork for a potential mid-2024 mobilization?

Recall that the annual spring conscription will begin in April 2024, so they can’t do a mobilization at that time. Nor would they do it prior, as the presidential election is in March, so that’s definitely out. Thus, summer of 2024 would be the only other logical choice.

Keep in mind though, mobilized troops take a hefty amount of time to train. Those called up in summer of 2024 may not be ready until late 2024 or even the spring campaigns of 2025. If Russia does not want to prolong things that long, then a mobilization this year would make more sense. That way, they can prepare the newly mobilized for the spring campaigns of 2024 and could potentially cinch the war by the end of next year.

 
Allow me to cover a few last pertinent points. One other angle to view this from, when judging the plausibility of a new mobilization, is from the events that occurred last month. It’s clear that the Wagner rebellion led to a lot of internal changes in the Russian MOD, in the way of their approach to the war and the seriousness with which they treat developments. It can be said that perhaps the rebellion ‘spooked’ them to the extent that it made them see that prolonging the conflict could give more and more chance for instability and dissatisfaction to grow amongst the troops, which could lead to even bigger rebellions and perhaps entire coups down the line.

As we all know, many troops shared some of Prigozhin’s concerns and complaints, particularly in regard to various lacks in the army—particularly ammo droughts, etc. It’s possible that the MOD has decided to not risk further dissatisfaction around constant shortages, which obviously include personnel shortages in key areas where troops require reinforcements as well as rotation, and thus may decide to end the issues ‘once and for all’ by mobilizing a large new contingent which will allow for solving a lot of the personnel issues, particularly in regard to rotation, which has become a new problem cropping up recently on the Zaporozhye line, according to complaints from soldiers on the front who are forced to withstand repeated Ukrainian meat assaults.

The Kremlin/MOD may have seen things come a little too close to ‘unraveling’ for their comfort, and decided to go all out in finishing the war. This is likely wishful thinking to the extent that statements from officials continue to mostly tote the line that everything is plentiful and troop numbers are as they should be. And this may very well be true, because remember—there is an ongoing stealth mobilization which is reportedly gathering an enormous 40k sign-ups per month.

The problem with that is, no one knows the composition of those signups. There are generally two types of people that can walk into a recruitment office and sign up: ex-military who now want to ‘volunteer’ their services or brand new enlistments. An enlistment is a person walking off the street who may have no experience whatsoever. This type of person would require the maximum amount of training, which means this segment of the sign-ups would not be ready for a very long time. That said, theoretically in Russia there should be very few males who’ve had no training since there’s a compulsory conscription which gives them a mandatory 1 year. And those who are so averse to service that they utilized various tricks and exemptions to get out of serving would likely not be the types now ‘signing up’ off the street, anyway. In the end, though, we know the vast majority of the stealth mobilized thus far have been put into Shoigu’s new ‘reserve armies’ and will therefore not be available for the frontline, at least for now. I believe the specific figure given last month was something like: out of the ~160k, 40k of them will be sent to the front while the remainder is for the reserve armies.

Let me just say that I don’t want to characterize the previous idea in too negative a light: i.e. the Kremlin is only considering a new mobilization because it’s scared of being overthrown, or something like that—there is more to it. For instance, Putin has clearly shown an increasing initiative in recent months of truly getting a full picture of the front’s needs, including a concern for complaints of any deficiencies from the troops themselves. He’s done this not only by visiting the zone but also through the aforementioned correspondents’ roundtable, where not only did he receive specific requests from individual troops themselves, but Putin even instructed the correspondents to keep in touch and update him on particular issues from the front.

Thus, if a new mobilization were to be called, we can assume that this initiative was one of the chief spurs, as it allowed Putin to truly understand the troops’ needs and perhaps helped open his eyes to what needs to be done.

The other biggest issue of course surrounds the large developments of a wider war, as demonstrated by the recent press conference between Putin and Lukashenko I recently covered. The fact that Putin made such a high level and candid acknowledgement for the first time of the possibility of Polish incursion and the potential for the conflict to spiral out of control with NATO’s involvement, means that Putin may very well be considering escalating in order to speed up the conflict’s resolution so as to give NATO less of a chance of developing it into something much larger.

Read more