His most recent speech on TV stated that NATO was prepared to use any means to destroy Russia, including nuclear weapons. According to the translator, I do not speak Russian but it seemed legit.
Yes, I think this might be Putin’s new narrative. He’s always said that NATO was trying to set Ukraine up as a forward base for attacking Russia and claimed that his invasion was just a pre-emptive defensive action.
All he has to do now is extend that story. Claim that his only regret is that he showed diplomatic restraint and waited too long before acting. Tell the Russian people that they could have beaten Ukraine alone but were forced into a war with all of NATO. And now that NATO has revealed its hostile intentions towards Russia, the Russian people need to rally behind their government (ie Putin) as they prepare to defend Russia from the inevitable follow-up NATO attack. Now is not the time for recriminations and division.
It’s bullshit of course. But it’s close enough to the bullshit that Putin has already been flinging out at his people that it will sound credible. Putin can sell the idea “Sure, mistakes have been made. But now that Russia is threatened the country needs a strong leader like me.”
I think he is preparing to defend his current holdings, and trying to mitigate further losses. Beyond that, it is all in his head. He likes to mention nuclear weapons because it scares people. Or, maybe he is a lunatic that will launch one.
There’s a long Russian tradition of sending soldiers into battle unequipped, and telling them to equip themselves from the fallen.
Which does not, of course, imply that there’s a long tradition of this working.
Historically, Russia has had a surplus of cannon fodder. Not so true nowadays
Russia has a one year period of in-country conscription. The in-country rule has meant that draftees aren’t fed into the Ukraine meat grinder. What with the new policy of having a dubious referandum and then declaring internationally recognized Ukrainian territory to be part of Russia, I suppose that will change. But this is not part of the reserve call-up. The reserve call-up will likely be for recently released volunteer soldiers.
My impression is that Russia could roughly fill the 300,000 quota with soldiers released in the last year, but they will take some who were in the military longer ago and have the most relevant combat training.
I hope that Ukraine prevails, but, as a military move, the reserve callup may well help Russia.
Maybe the draftees are expected to become settlers/militia in the newly annexed Donbas. Instant Russian majority.
That matches my understanding of the situation. Edit: Ukraine still has an advantage in terms of actual fighting ability. Due in large part to the massive backing it has recieved from the US, and allies. And my personal opinion is that this war needs to end asap, but there is no easy solution.
You’ve got this completely backwards; Russia has a shit ton of military hardware in storage. They are in no danger of running out of tanks and artillery to draw from deep storage, even if it isn’t the most up to date. In tanks, for example, they were credited in the 2021 edition of the International Institute of Strategic Studies The Military Balance with 2,840 tanks in active service and 10,200 in store. Thier problem up to now has been that they lack sufficient numbers of infantry, particularly trained, competent and motivated infantry. There was already massive conscription in the self-proclaimed People’s Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk during the ‘shadow mobilization’ in the past seven months. This current partial mobilization is something that they should have done from the outset, or at least it when it quickly became clear that the “72 hours to Kiev” wasn’t going to be happening. This mobilization will help make up for the lack of infantry, but it’s almost certainly not going to make up for the lack of trained, competent, and motivated infantry.
If you’ve got 50 minutes or so to kill, this video from 3 months ago does an excellent job of explaining this problem, why there were paradoxically tanks and infantry fighting vehicles lacking dismounted infantry to protect them getting bushwhacked left and right in the early days of the war and later cannon fodder of infantry (the conscripts from Luhansk and Donetsk) being thrown into the fighting once it shifted to the Donbas and why Russia shifted to using their massive advantages in artillery to slowly blast their way forwards in bite and hold operations due to their lack of sufficient infantry.
You don’t even need to watch it; you can just listen. The video portion is just a power-point slideshow.
No, it would not. A mob of ill-equipped new soldiers would fall apart under the sort of withering fire they’d receive.
“Artillery” means a lot of different sizes of shell. 50 metres is a hell of a big shell to kill someone at that range.
You wouldn’t need to kill everyone in some huge blob on troops. They’d all be running away in various directions soon enough. Armies that are destroyed in the field aren’t all killed; what happens is they take a lot of casualties and then fall apart.
I don’t disagree and this is total conjecture. However, I have been wondering since the large scale corruption in the Russian military has come to light, how much of this stuff is actually intact and ready to use. Or their nuclear arsenal for that matter.
There are many methods of filtering new personnel into a war.
You are least likely to just toss whole new units of any size onto the front line. During the conflict, personnel have been rotated from front lines to the rear for R&R. As new personnel come in, you can mix more of them into personnel returning to the front. Allowing more front line personnel to rotate. So new ones are going to the front with experienced personnel.
But the material for these added personnel is an issue. Not just initial kit but ongoing supply. I suspect initial kit is there. But ongoing supply may be limited in time. Not all these additional forces will be on the front, consuming at high rate. But a higher percentage will be required. It seems that Russia has seen this conflict as a high possibility for a long time. Did they stock up for it for a long time?
Just to clarify, substantially every US servicemember who separates from active duty service is then placed in some form of “inactive reserve” for years or decades. In that status they have no responsibilities, no duties, and no benefits. They are 100% civilians who are also veterans. But they know that in a severe-enough manpower crisis, they are legally subject to involuntary recall. Which IIRC hasn’t happened since Korea.
This is a totally different program from the active reserves, the so-called “weekend warriors” of the Army, Navy & Air Force reserves, plus the Army and Air Force National Guards. Those folks do have responsibilities, duties, and benefits every month while they train to do the same tasks as the actives. Or indeed do the same tasks for real in battle while they’re deployed.
ISTM that Putin is planning to call up some hefty fraction of their equivalent of our “inactive reserves.” Who will be, just like our folks would be, none too happy to be called, and real rusty at their former military jobs. If they’re even put back into those jobs versus other, simpler ones. Such as bullet sumping.
I’m not entirely sure that a rusted out T-55 or two (thousand) are of much utility when faced with enemies armed with raftloads of ATGMs.
A possible Ukrainain response might be “Welcome! Join the human wave on the train heading west to the European Union, where they are welcoming refugees/immigrants.” There’s already been reports of Russian prisoners of war being sent west by the Ukrainians. Encouraging a whole bunce of new, disgruntled reservists to defect would be in keeping with their tactics so far.
At least, the official inventories say it’s there in storage. Whether it’s actually there, and as many as the official counts say, is another question.
There have already been a lot of reports of ‘missing’ equipment in Russian forces. Corruption is so rife in the Russian military that it seems pretty common to find that the local officers have sold off some of the equipment in storage on the black market. (Heck, the US Military is much more tightly run & audited, and ‘disappearing’ equipment is still a recurring problem.)
Having worked in government bureaucracies, I’ll believe those inventory numbers when I see them in reality.
Exhausted frontline troops can be rotated to the rear, with fresh troops coming forward.
Who, due to their inexperience, will lose the war for Russia faster.
Efficiency.
/s
I haven’t read all of the replies, but one of the main tactics would be to use them as “spotters.” You send the unmounted infantry forward until they are engaged by the enemy infantry, which they have to do because you cannot just allow enemy infantry to go by. By engaging, the enemy infantry have to expose themselves. They cannot simply wait in a hardened space to protect themselves from artillery. This allows you to target and destroy their positions
Maybe @Bear_Nenno can clarify since he served during that time, but wasn’t this “inactive cohort” called up during Iraq 2.
Everyone who enlists in the military incurs an 8 year service obligation. So, if one signs up for a “four year enlistment”, they will spend an additional 4 years in the Individual Ready Reservice (IRR) when they get out. Like LSLGuy mentions, they will not get paid or be required to do anything… unless and until they are recalled to active service. For about a decade starting in 2003, the US recalled tens of thousands of IRR Soldiers to fight in Afghanistan and Iraq.