Can Russia Withstand Another Mobilization?
The Kremlin seems keen to avoid one. But will its recruiting shell game last?
Russian leader Vladimir Putin said on June 13 that he doesn't need another round of mobilization, noting that his Ministry of Defense thinks "there is certainly no need whatsoever." However, this may be another part of a public relations campaign to reassure Russians that everything is fine as his war in Ukraine continues with no end in sight. Last September, Putin announced a "partial" mobilization, sending some 300,000 men to the front. This mobilization, which officially ended in October, brought Russian society to a breaking point, causing mass emigration and labor shortages, but allowed Russia to continue prosecuting its war in Ukraine after embarrassing losses in Eastern Ukraine that were caused, at least in part, by a shortage of manpower. (Russia has mandatory conscription for men 18-27 with many exceptions; bribes to avoid it are common. The September mobilization included a significantly older cohort with many men who had already fulfilled their service terms.)
As Kyiv is in the early stages of another offensive to try to retake territory, independent experts have argued that sooner or later, Russia will need more troops. “First, they need to replace casualties. Second, they need to be able to rotate units otherwise the units on the frontlines eventually get exhausted," Russian military expert Michael Kofman said on the War on the Rocks podcast in late May. The hawkish Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin also said recently that Russia should undertake another round of mobilization to avoid "chaos" at the front.
The current ad-hoc recruiting approach includes using prisoners, switching summons from easy-to-ignore paper to online, barring those with online summons from leaving the country, and redeploying troops from other regions. Two approaches are central to the campaign: masculinity and money. (Interestingly, ideology isn't a major part of this drive.)
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Since the "partial" mobilization, Russia has tried to recruit more men into its military with appeals to masculinity. In a video released earlier this year by the Ministry of Defense, a security guard and a taxi driver became soldiers and the slogan appeared, "You are a real man! Be one." The message was clear: men could ditch a low-status job and become respected by serving in the army.
Russia is using the promise of high salaries to lure men to the front: but it's a shell game where some end up dying for free. Giving men the opportunity to fulfill their traditional role as providers, the stated salaries for contract soldiers are much higher than the average Russian wage of about 57,000 rubles ($696) a month: signing bonuses are 195,000 rubles ($2236) and monthly salaries start at 204,000 rubles ($2444). (For every kilometer gained, soldiers were supposed to get another 50,000 rubles, or $599.) However, soldiers' wives report that many of these salaries are either late, partly paid, or unpaid.
In mid-May, Kremlin official Dmitry Medvedev claimed that Russia this year had recruited 117,000 contract soldiers and volunteers -- a number that is impossible to verify and possibly inflated. Even taken at face value, the pace is still well short of the 400,000 new troops that Bloomberg reported that the Kremlin thinks it will need in 2023. And after over a year of war, Russians know, on some level, that the chances of being killed or seriously injured are high: the BBC reports that tallying open sources alone indicates over 25,000 Russian soldiers dead.
While many Western businesses complained of a shortage of workers after the COVID pandemic, the Russian problem is much deeper, consisting of demographic trends coupled with war and emigration. Low birth rates, high death rates (especially for men), and an aging population have plagued Russia for decades. The mobilization of some 300,000 men coupled with emigration of over a million people (though some have returned) has made human capital vanish. A recent study revealed that over a third of industrial enterprises reported they lacked workers, and even before the first mobilization, the number of students who passed technical exams in mathematics and engineering was fewer than the number of seats open by 11,000. Sending more men to the front would seriously harm Russia's economy and future.
Politically, the effects are unclear. Another mobilization would satisfy Putin's militaristic critics like Prigozhin. But it would further bring home the human and economic costs of a war that was supposed to be a quick "special military operation." The Kremlin appears to fear very much what mobilization round two might bring, as at least 17 military recruitment offices were attacked during the last mobilization. Instead, authorities have moved to reassure people that everything is fine, even as Moscow was recently hit by drones and Russian regions close to Ukraine were shelled. However, reality will soon come knocking: Putin's plan to simply wait out Ukraine's offensive, hoping that the West loses interest in Ukraine or U.S. voters elect Donald Trump in 2024, can only last so long. Eventually, he will need more troops -- and it's not clear how he can do it without mobilization, a step that would throw much more instability into his regime.