Russia: Putin declares partial mobilisation, Sep 2022
In a morning TV address to the nation, delayed from the night before, on September 21st Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, announced the onset of partial military mobilisation. It would affect, he stressed, only those who had previous military experience. New rules also appear to extend indefinitely the contracts of these new and currently serving troops.
The measures were needed, Mr Putin said, to protect Russia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, as, he claimed, Russia was now engaged in a war, not against Ukraine, but the collective West. The aim of the West, he said, was to destroy Russia, including through the use of unspecified “nuclear blackmail”. He again took the opportunity to draw attention to Russia’s own large nuclear arsenal, which he said he was ready to use.
The previous day, a law greatly strengthening sanctions against Russian soldiers who desert or surrender was passed quickly through the Duma, the lower house the Russian parliament. This, in turn, followed the announcement by Russian-backed and Russian-installed local administrative officials in Ukraine that snap “referendums” on joining Russia are to be held in the four regions in the east and south-east (Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson) that the Russian army still controls, at least in part. Having recently said that this measure would be postponed because of the proximity of fighting, it is now to be brought forward to September 23rd-27th. Assertions in the Russian press that levels of local support for joining Russia in these areas are around 80-90% are likely to prefigure the kinds of results that will be announced afterwards.
In all, these latest actions appear as a somewhat ad hoc, or even panicked response by the Russian leadership to the unexpectedly rapid success of Ukraine’s counteroffensive in Kharkiv region in north-east Ukraine earlier in September, when Russian forces were driven to retreat from towns such as Kupyansk and Izyum, which had been important rail supply routes from Russia for the Donbas campaign, and which had taken Russian several weeks to capture earlier on, with heavy losses. Ukrainian forces have since advanced on key settlements in Luhansk region, which Russia had previously fully controlled.
The partial mobilisation and the development of harsher military sanctions point for the first time to an admission by the Russian leadership to problems with both manpower and morale in their attempt to subdue Ukraine. However, the way they have chosen to address these problems, administratively and by applying still more coercion, comes with significant domestic political risks. First, this is because the practical military effectiveness of these measures is uncertain, at least in the short term. Second, although Russian opinion polls suggest a high degree of popular support for the Kremlin’s “special military operation” in Ukraine, support for general mobilisation is much lower. Consequently, in Russia, fears that that recent events could signal general mobilisation have already triggered another wave of population flight abroad, especially of young men of conscription age.
Alongside a clear declaration of intent to absorb formally into Russia more regions under the guise of “referendums”—using the annexation of Crimea more than eight years ago as a blueprint—Putin’s threat to use nuclear weapons to defend Russian’s territorial integrity, including these soon-to-be absorbed regions, seems aimed at deterring Ukrainian forces from advancing further by raising the stakes considerably. They are also likely to be aimed at convincing Ukraine’s Western backers to pressurise the Ukrainian government to enter meaningful peace negotiations, thereby freezing the conflict with most of Russia’s new territorial gains intact, while staving off the prospect of outright military defeat for Russia, which would likely spell the end of Putin’s rule.
The measures were needed, Mr Putin said, to protect Russia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, as, he claimed, Russia was now engaged in a war, not against Ukraine, but the collective West. The aim of the West, he said, was to destroy Russia, including through the use of unspecified “nuclear blackmail”. He again took the opportunity to draw attention to Russia’s own large nuclear arsenal, which he said he was ready to use.
The previous day, a law greatly strengthening sanctions against Russian soldiers who desert or surrender was passed quickly through the Duma, the lower house the Russian parliament. This, in turn, followed the announcement by Russian-backed and Russian-installed local administrative officials in Ukraine that snap “referendums” on joining Russia are to be held in the four regions in the east and south-east (Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson) that the Russian army still controls, at least in part. Having recently said that this measure would be postponed because of the proximity of fighting, it is now to be brought forward to September 23rd-27th. Assertions in the Russian press that levels of local support for joining Russia in these areas are around 80-90% are likely to prefigure the kinds of results that will be announced afterwards.
In all, these latest actions appear as a somewhat ad hoc, or even panicked response by the Russian leadership to the unexpectedly rapid success of Ukraine’s counteroffensive in Kharkiv region in north-east Ukraine earlier in September, when Russian forces were driven to retreat from towns such as Kupyansk and Izyum, which had been important rail supply routes from Russia for the Donbas campaign, and which had taken Russian several weeks to capture earlier on, with heavy losses. Ukrainian forces have since advanced on key settlements in Luhansk region, which Russia had previously fully controlled.
The partial mobilisation and the development of harsher military sanctions point for the first time to an admission by the Russian leadership to problems with both manpower and morale in their attempt to subdue Ukraine. However, the way they have chosen to address these problems, administratively and by applying still more coercion, comes with significant domestic political risks. First, this is because the practical military effectiveness of these measures is uncertain, at least in the short term. Second, although Russian opinion polls suggest a high degree of popular support for the Kremlin’s “special military operation” in Ukraine, support for general mobilisation is much lower. Consequently, in Russia, fears that that recent events could signal general mobilisation have already triggered another wave of population flight abroad, especially of young men of conscription age.
Alongside a clear declaration of intent to absorb formally into Russia more regions under the guise of “referendums”—using the annexation of Crimea more than eight years ago as a blueprint—Putin’s threat to use nuclear weapons to defend Russian’s territorial integrity, including these soon-to-be absorbed regions, seems aimed at deterring Ukrainian forces from advancing further by raising the stakes considerably. They are also likely to be aimed at convincing Ukraine’s Western backers to pressurise the Ukrainian government to enter meaningful peace negotiations, thereby freezing the conflict with most of Russia’s new territorial gains intact, while staving off the prospect of outright military defeat for Russia, which would likely spell the end of Putin’s rule.
In short, the Russian leadership has decided to double down on the conflict, despite military reversals in the Kyiv and Kharkiv regions, suggesting that the long-running Russo-Ukrainian war may now have entered its most dangerous phase.
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