Zelenskyy says Putin may mobilize ‘hundreds of thousands’ after Russia’s elections (tvpworld.com)

submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by TwinkleToes@lemmy.ca to c/ukraine@sopuli.xyz

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Something doesn't smell right about this alleged post-election mobilitzation in Russia.

It's Russia. The election's "results' have as much impact to Putin's crime syndicate as shooting rubber bands at the stars. Why would they bother to wait for a false mandate in an election that doesn't matter?
They need the troops now. Mobilization that doesn't start until October means those currently-civilian conscripts will not even start reaching the front lines for somewhere between 8 weeks and 6 months.
The Russian war strategy has 3 aspects:

Small infiltration teams pushed into soft areas to probe defenses and hope Ukraine leaves. This uses men as worthless meat.
Standoff missile and glide bomb terror attacks to soften Ukrainian defenses and destroy society. This uses high cost, high input and hard to replace assets.
Keep doing both until they give you something to make it stop. Then prepare for the next invasion before Ukraine can recover strength.

A mobilization of say 500k civilians won't have a lick of difference to the tech heavy terror bombing campaign. It will only help perpetuate the meat grinder, but with civlians less capable than the current grunts being blasted into pulp in muddy rainwater puddles today.

All this to say - The Mobilization feels like a bit of a bluff. Something to scare Ukraine into concessions.

And even if it's not, it just gives enough meat to keep the currently failing strategy and death machine griding for a few more months.

Annnnd - It presents new and clear danger to the home front.

Doesn't mean the Kremlin isn't going to do it. They are way beyond the point of madness and hubris. But it won't work and it would serve other purposes than simply "winning" the war.

What do you think?

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[-] Comrade_bigK@anarchist.nexus 3 points 1 week ago

Here what i think - "Hybrid" action under pretext of something dumb, for example "official war declaration", that includes - some mobilization effort - without any announcements, but through already existing systems like digital conscripts registers, but numbers will be far less than 100 of thousands. Some here, some there - just sending those letters to unfortunate ones all over the country. Probably dragging Belarus into conflict with open military actions against Ukraine (if war is declared officially - allies are obliged to help according to Russo-Belarus agreements), not too active but enough to hold some of Ukraine forces engaged in a fight on the north. And the main thing - far more repressive and tough regime inside Russia itself. Repressions, no internet for weeks and months at all, probably there will be some kind of obligatory labor for some segments of the population. Food stamps, maybe some other "military" measures for products distributions. And of course much more repressions and arrests. Tougher regime inside Russia itself is the main thing in my opinion.

[-] TwinkleToes@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 week ago

Even if they did recruit the full half million - that's about a year's worth of casualties and based on line movement the last couple of years, means maybe 1-2 more mid-sized towns captured. Is it worth killing the entire population of Regina to occupy a destroyed Estevan? (Prarie canadian reference there). But you're right - the real men in boots that they can generate from this is probably way way less than they want with their fairly arbitrary 500k target. The guys smart enough to avoid being drawn into the army since 2022 aren't going to suddenly become effective assault forces in the next 2-6 months.

Belarus is in my view totally irrelevant and always has been. Their army is tiny, and fourth rate compared even to the Russian army. It's mission is intenral repression, not foreign intervention. If they sent an expeditionary force, they'd be wiped out in a month and nothing would guarantee Lukashenko getting the Gaddhafi Bayonet Enema treatment faster.

No doubt you're right, the one thing you can count on is that life inside Russia will get shittier and shittier. It's really hard to grasp on a near term basis what a complete disastrous self-own this entire war has been for them. A historic self-own on a par maybe only with the Persian Empire being completely destoyed by misadventure into Macedon and trying to show upstart Alexander who the real Big Dog of the age was.