On The Possibility Of A New Mobilization In Russia

The Ukrainian advance inside Russia's Kursk oblast, which started on August 6, 2024, and was first described by Russian President Vladimir Putin as "another provocation" (presumably like those organized by the Russian "legionnaires" fighting on Ukraine's side in 2023),[1] cannot be seen as such two weeks later, as Ukrainian troops continue to advance.

Since the early days of the incursion, which in Russia was widely called the first of its kind since the Nazi aggression of 1941, the advancing Ukrainian forces had secured full control over more than 1,250 square kilometers of Russian territory, captured up to 2,000 prisoners of war (mostly young conscripts who served in the Kursk region and were unaware that the war could reach Russia), almost encircled a significant Russian military group in the Glushkovsky district close to the Seym river, and forced more than 120,000 civilians to evacuate their homes.[2]

While during the first days of the attack, Russian commanders reported to the Kremlin that the enemy would be pushed out in a couple of days,[3] recently the tone has changed as several new headquarters named "Kursk," "Belgorod," and "Bryansk" were established. Deputy Minister of Defense Yunus-Bek Yevkurov was also made responsible for defending Russia's "border regions" and appointed deputy head of a "special council" formally headed by Dr. Belousov, an economist whom the Kremlin suddenly appointed as defense minister in May 2024.[4]

(Source: X)

The Price For A New Mobilization Would Be Too High

Most experts do not believe that the Ukrainian incursion will change the course of war: There is little chance that the advancing troops will capture the Kursk nuclear power plant or take the city of Kursk itself. The fate of the locals does not bother President Putin, who is preparing for a mighty response: The authorities already warned the residents not to return to their homes, which means the Russians may destroy their own towns and settlements as they destroyed the Ukrainian ones, just to push the invaders back.[5]

Nowadays, the Russian command has assembled around 10,000 troops in the region that counter roughly the same number of Ukrainians,[6] and it seems they will sooner or later beef up their force. The attacks in Donbass also continue, though there is evidence that troops have been dispatched to the Kursk and nearby regions.[7] But the major question, which was raised immediately after the Ukrainian attack and still has no answer, is whether the Kremlin is reflecting on the possibility of a new mobilization. Almost immediately after the start of fighting in Kursk region, media reported that the top officials in the Russian government were starting to plan a new mobilization for November.

When President Putin ordered a "partial mobilization" in September 2022, it produced a shocking effect in Russia. As around 300,000  servicemen joined the army,[8] not less than 1,000,000 Russians had fled the country,[9] causing a tremendous workforce shortage affecting almost every industry. Elvira Nabiullina, chairperson of the Bank of Russia, continuously calls this shortage "the most acute problem facing the Russian economy."[10]

Over the last two years – or to be precise, 23 months – dozens of Russian and Western experts have been speculating about the prospects of a new mobilization, calling it inevitable. For all this time, I have argued – most recently this spring when a new mobilization was widely expected – that Putin will not call for it again, since the price will be too high.[11] To my mind, the Russian authorities opted for another model for the new Russian army, trying to attract prospective soldiers with massive payments both on signing the contract and for the service itself.[12]

What should be mentioned here is that on the one hand, monthly salaries have not grown much since late 2022. Initially fixed at 180,000 rubles per month, they were indexed in line with official inflation.[13] On the other hand, signing bonuses have skyrocketed: starting with around 165,000 rubles with some additions paid by the regional authorities, it is now at 400,000, while the regional premiums stay at 1,900,000  rubles in Moscow and above 2,000,000  in St. Petersburg, and are set at more than 1,000,000 in dozens of regions in Russia.[14] This trend reflects an obvious obstacle: The Russian army faces huge casualties, and few may be seduced by the payments associated with service; people want to be paid "here and now." The death gratuities are also enormous, turning death into the most profitable use of life, as I put it.[15]

Until the start of the Ukrainian attack, the situation looked stable, though the number of casualties rose constantly and the shortage of the new soldiers had become acute. Many experts argued that official numbers of new contracts signed were grossly exaggerated.[16] The growing premiums suggested that the Kremlin still was opposing a new mobilization, but after the Kursk offensive a lot has changed.

Even while the enemy broke into the Russian territory, the Kremlin refrained from calling the new reality a war or aggression. It just labeled it "an emergency of a federal significance" or a "counter-terrorist operation,"[17] but both definitions posed a difficult challenge: Without declaring a war or announcing a martial law in at least part of Russian territory, one cannot use conscripts in everyday fighting.[18]

This dilemma was caused by Mr. Putin's promise not to put the conscripts into action during the "special military operation," as he calls his Ukrainian adventure. The conscripts were either forced to sign contracts and sent to the frontline or evacuated to the rear, but everybody knew that this could not be a final solution.

The Kremlin Will Survive Without Recourse To Mobilization

The draft, conducted twice a year, brings around 300,000  young soldiers to the army annually, and it seems the Russian military is unable to function without them.[19] Nevertheless, a simple declaration of war is a bad move since, on the one hand, it will energize the parents and the relatives of the conscripts and derail the next draft that would be considered a mobilization; and, on the other hand, it would undermine the overall feeling that Russia is not at war, with everyday life continuing normally. I would mention that the people from the Kursk borderlands, relocated to the city of Kursk, said when talking to journalists that they had been there "since the start of the war," meaning they had been relocated several days ago, since they did not consider two and a half years of Russian aggression against Ukraine to be a war.[20] Mobilization also looks like a bad move since it will force another exodus from Russia and, frankly, may be successful only if the Kremlin seals the borders, which may cause a universal outcry across the country.[21]

So how probable is a new mobilization right now? I might be mistaken but I would once again bet that the Kremlin will survive without recourse to it. The stakes look too high. Of course, a mobilization might be presented as a measure aimed at "rotating" the servicemen, who spend months if not years at the frontline, and this may even be welcomed by many Russians who have not seen their relatives for a long time.[22] But the announcement of such a plan may turn into a disaster for the authorities since there is a chance that the mobilization would fail to deliver the 300,000 to 400,000 soldiers presumably needed for another year of the war – but the promise of demobilization of at least some of those already in Ukraine, if it is broken, may cause a lot of discontent in Russian society. Therefore, the only option is to conduct a new mobilization without any "excuses," and as it is accomplished, to consider rotating out the existing troops.

The Kursk Incursion Does Not Resonate With Most Russians

The "patriotic" effect that many Russian militarists suggested using in the first days in the invasion is now lost as the official media has been trying to silence reporting on the fighting on Russian soil, and attention to it is now fading fast.[23] Russian society is trying not to talk about war and continues to pretend it does not exist; therefore, the Kursk incursion does not resonate with most people. Here I would add that the authorities did not opt for the most obvious option: They never considered creating self-defense forces formed of local men. In Ukraine, the so-called "teroborona [territorial defense]," was set up several weeks before the Russian invasion and played important role, for example, in the battle for Kyiv.

The alternative strategies, which look much more feasible, will, to my mind, include several measures. First, the authorities will do their best to find all the existing reservists and send them to the frontline. In recent days we saw many attempts of this sort when the deserters, many of whom were wounded and ineligible for further service, were put on planes and trucks and sent to the Kursk region to fight.[24]

Second, the pressure will mount on the conscripts, whom the commanders will force to sign contracts for extended service, seducing them with high renumeration or intimidating them with criminal cases that supposedly could been brought against them if they decline to fight. Such cases have also been recorded en masse in recent weeks.[25]

Third, government officials will press big business to recruit some of their employees (first of all those who are enlisted into vast private security services) and pay them additional fees and salaries during their time of service. This latter option also is nothing new as it has been used since at least early 2023.[26]

Fourth, it seems the Kremlin has authorized employment centers all over Russia to persuade the unemployed to enlist in the army as many signals suggest that people have been informed that if they reject such a "job offer" twice they will be deprived of their unemployment benefits.[27]

Fifth, the Kremlin might try to put into real action "ethnic" battalions, like the Chechen regiments, which are known as "TikTok troops" and which avoided facing the advancing Ukrainian forces in Kursk while their commanders argued that they had simply "missed" the invading regiments as the frontline was too long.[28] I would even guess this issue was one of those that Putin recently brought to Grozny for the first time in more than ten years.[29]

Sixth, last week it was announced that not only can convicted criminals be pardoned if they sign a military contract but also those accused whose cases still await court sessions may enlist in the army and have charges against them dropped. This initiative will hardly result in thousands of recruits, but it just shows how desperately the Kremlin wants to avoid a new mobilization.[30] And, of course, after all there is little doubt that in the coming months the premiums and salaries of Russian soldiers will rise once again – even the numbers show that this move is not resulting in a proportional increase in new recruits.[31]

Conclusion

Of course, a lot will depend on further Ukrainian action, but Ukraine's high command has already acknowledged that in recent days the offensive has lost much of its earlier allure,[32] and it looks like Russian forces will be able to completely stop it in the coming weeks. If Kyiv refrains from further attacks in the Belgorod or Bryansk regions, the Kremlin might decide that a full-scale emergency is over and pull back to its earlier tactics of "buying" new servicemen no matter how high the price. Analysts from the website Re-Russia estimated not long ago that last year the Russian budget paid no less than 2.75 trillion rubles, or $32 billion, as contract premiums and death gratuities, a sum that does not seem too large for this practice not to be tolerated for the coming years.[33]

What is at stake now for the Kremlin is not only "another" mobilization – it is the entire redesign of its actions vis-à-vis Ukraine. The mobilization now means a change from the "special military operation" to a real war, with the introduction of martial law and subsequent transformation of a "still peaceful" country into a real military stronghold. Even though Russians have been living for more than two years experiencing different effects of the fighting in Ukraine, neither the public nor the Kremlin are ready to say goodbye to existing illusions. Therefore, I would say that once again, the "red line" will be redrawn, the "decisive response" will appear not too decisive, and if Russia faces another mobilization, it will be caused not by the Kursk incursion, but by something even more critical.

*Dr. Vladislav Inozemtsev is the MEMRI Russian Media Studies Project Special Advisor, and Founder and Director of the Moscow-based Center for Post-Industrial Studies.