Russian President Vladimir Putin has announced a “partial mobilization” of reservists as his country faces setbacks in its invasion of Ukraine. The move, announced in an address to the nation on Wednesday, is Russia’s first military mobilization since World War II.
Putin’s order was quickly condemned by US and European officials. It coincides with a significant shortage of Russian troops in Ukraine and follows major setbacks to the Kremlin’s “special military operation” amid a successful Ukrainian counter-offensive around Kharkiv. Here’s what to know about Putin’s order and what it means for Russia and the war in Ukraine.
What does partial mobilization mean?
Partial mobilization is a term for when specific groups of people will be called up to serve in Russia’s armed forces. It’s different from a general mobilization, which involves gathering the general population, reorienting the entire economy, and essentially putting the entire country on a warpath, taking a break from normalcy.
Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a partial military mobilization on September 21 as Moscow’s troops fight a Ukrainian counteroffensive. (Video: Reuters)
How many Russian reservists will be called up by Putin?
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Wednesday after Putin’s speech that Russia would call up up to 300,000 reservists into military service. Russians have reportedly already started receiving notices asking them to report for duty.
Shoigu said the country’s “mobilization resource amounts to 25 million people, and a little more than 1 percent of this number is in partial mobilization,” as ordered by Putin.
If true, this is a significant increase: Russia is believed to have invaded Ukraine with around 150,000 troops at the end of February, so 300,000 more is more than double that. While it is unclear exactly how the reservists would be deployed, Putin’s move follows reports of heavy troop losses in Ukraine. It would be the first military mobilization in the history of modern Russia.
External estimates of the number of reservists available to Russian military leaders vary. The Institute for the Study of War, a US-based think tank that closely follows the war in Ukraine, previously said Russia has more than 2 million reservists, including former conscripts and contract soldiers. However, “few are actively trained or prepared for war,” the ISW said. Only about 10 percent of them receive continuing education after completing their basic military service, he added.
Under Putin’s “partial mobilization,” several groups of people have the right to avoid being called up: students, parents with four or more young children, people essential to crucial industry operations and caregivers, among others.
How important is Putin’s partial mobilization?
Rob Lee, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s Eurasia program, characterized Wednesday’s announcement as “one of the most significant/high-risk policy decisions Putin has ever made.”
In the short term, Lee wrote on Twitter, the partial mobilization of reservists and new measures to forcibly extend the contracts of volunteers currently serving in Ukraine “may be enough to prevent a collapse of Russian forces. Otherwise, Russia’s labor problems could have become catastrophic this winter, when many short-term volunteers would probably not sign another contract.”
“But the war will now increasingly be fought on the Russian side by people who don’t want to be there,” Lee added, likely fueling the lack of morale and cohesion among Russian forces.
Reserves are essential components of many countries’ war efforts. For example, nearly half of the U.S. service members deployed to both Afghanistan and Iraq over the past 20 years came from the National Guard and reserves, with those groups receiving about 18 percent of casualties
Russia’s reservists are not as well organized as the US National Guard and reserve troops, according to Dara Massicot, a senior policy researcher at the RAND Corporation. “They’re basically calling them out of cold storage,” he said.
Why would Russia need partial mobilization?
Moscow is facing a major troop shortage, despite recent recruitment efforts that have included conscripting prisoners and sending volunteers to the front lines with little training, analysts said. “Putin likely hopes to improve Russian force generation capabilities by asking the Russian people to volunteer for a war to ‘defend’ newly claimed Russian territory,” the Institute for the Study of War said of the annexation plans.
Shoigu said on Wednesday that Moscow has lost 5,937 soldiers in the war, the first official casualty figure Russia has given since late March, when its defense ministry said 1,351 soldiers had died. Shoigu’s speech, following Putin’s partial mobilization, highlights an apparent contradiction between the relatively low casualty count claimed by the Kremlin and its decision to call up reservists.
Western intelligence agencies estimate the death toll in Russia to be much higher. “There is no perfect number,” CIA Director William J. Burns told the Aspen Security Forum in July. “I think the latest estimates from the U.S. intelligence community would be … something around 15,000 killed and maybe three times that wounded, so quite a large loss pool.”
Colin Kahl, the US undersecretary of defense for policy, said last month that “the Russians have probably taken [70,000] or 80,000 casualties in less than six months,” a figure that includes soldiers who were killed and wounded in combat. “That number might be a little lower, a little higher, but I think it’s a little bit in the ballpark, which is pretty remarkable considering that the Russians haven’t achieved any of Vladimir Putin’s goals in the start of the war,” Kahl said.
Who within Russia will be called to serve?
According to Putin and Shoigu, the mobilization will affect Russians who served in the military and are now listed as reservists, as well as those with military occupations, which could include medical workers and various technical specialists. “Only citizens who are currently in the reserve and, above all, those who served in the armed forces, have certain military specialties and relevant experience will be subject to mandatory military service,” Putin said on Wednesday, adding that they will receive ” more military training”.
Russian legal experts point out that the 300,000-person limit announced by Shoigu can be revised upwards if necessary, as the decree issued by the Kremlin is broad, probably on purpose, to allow for reinterpretation.
Putin calls up up to 300,000 reservists and backs annexation amid war losses
In a move that may increase tensions in Russian society, the head of the Russian parliament’s defense committee, Andrei Kartapolov, said the geographic distribution of reservists would be based on population size, meaning that regions most towns in the country, including the capital, Moscow, should send the largest number of soldiers. “Each [region] of the Russian Federation receives a deployment order based on its capabilities,” Kartapolov said Wednesday.
How long will soldiers have to serve on partial mobilization?
The Kremlin did not specify on Wednesday how long reservists called up under the partial mobilization would have to serve, and the presidential decree is sparse on details. “The decree does not give any details of the mobilization and is formulated in the broadest possible way, so the president leaves it to the discretion of the defense minister,” Pavel Chikov, a lawyer who heads the Group, wrote on Telegram International Human Rights Agora.
Putin’s decree also automatically extends the contracts of existing soldiers “until the end of the mobilization period,” preventing them from leaving the front lines indefinitely. This could affect thousands of men who have already signed short-term contracts as part of a nationwide recruitment drive widely seen as a “shadow mobilisation” aimed at making up for losses over the summer without officially recognize that the operation requires a wider effort.
The letters left by demoralized Russian soldiers as they fled
How will partial mobilization work?
Chikov, the human rights lawyer, said the process will begin with reservists receiving their mobilization orders. That has already begun to happen: Four people in different Russian cities told The Washington Post that they either received subpoenas or saw agents hand them out to colleagues or family members. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak freely.
“These are men who have served in the army and signed a contract to remain in the reserve,” Chikov said, adding that the next wave of orders will affect reservists who are divided into three categories based on their age and range
The rapid loss of territory in Ukraine reveals the spent Russian army
According to Chikov, the Ministry of Defense will form mobilization quotas for each of Russia’s 85 regions, and officials there will be responsible for implementing the quotas. Last week, several regions supported a proposal by the head of the Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, to “self-mobilize” by pledging to send volunteer units with 1,000 soldiers to the war.
How did the Russians react to the announcement of partial mobilization?
Small anti-war protests erupted in Russia, including Moscow, after Putin’s announcement. Hundreds of protesters were arrested, according to the independent Russian protest monitoring group OVD-Info.
Rumors of a military mobilization first spread in Russia in February and March — in the early stages of what the Kremlin continues to call its “special military operation” in Ukraine — and led to a mass exodus of Russians, that they fled to near…