Instead of major policy announcements, the Kremlin could use Victory Day to mobilize public support for the war - by playing up nostalgia for Soviet-style global status and pandering to the widespread sense that Russia has been victimized by the West - and to further Putin's draconian crackdown on dissent. "So far it is not clear whether they can gather the necessary quantity of people to replace their losses through help-wanted ads." "They need to find people who have recently served in the military and have the necessary military profiles," said Prague-based Russian military analyst Yury Fyodorov. "The first month, you'll be paid 300,000 rubles. "Come here, you'll get a week of training and a uniform," the recruiter said, adding that contracts can be as short as three months. A recruiter in Chechnya's capital, Grozny, told RFE/RL that his office would sign up volunteers from any region of Russia and guarantee them training and equipment. "The main thing is that you were in the army and carried a weapon," one recruiter in Petrozavodsk said. They advertise, including on the job-seeking portal, for men under age 50 with clean military records and no criminal convictions. RFE/RL correspondents confirmed that several recruitment offices in the northwest were actively seeking discharged soldiers for contract service in Ukraine. "They are already signing up everyone they can."īlasts, Bombs, And Drones: Amid Carnage In Ukraine, A Shadow War On The Russian Side Of The Border "Thousands of people in the regions are writing to ask how they can avoid being conscripted and sent to Ukraine," Milov told RFE/RL. There are signs that such a partial mobilization is already under way in Russia, says Vladimir Milov, a former deputy energy minister who is now a leading opposition figure. I think it wouldn't be hard to find those people with an elementary recruitment campaign." "It is a big country and in the repressed regions there are sufficient people who would go fight if you paid them enough. "You don't need mobilization to gather 100,000-200,000 troops in Russia," he said. If such a partial mobilization is undertaken, it would be realistic to add some 200,000 troops with their gear," he said. Leviyev said a more likely scenario would be a "partial mobilization in some border regions or involving some recently demobilized troops. "It is one thing to watch it like an amusing computer game, but it is another when it directly affects many Russians and their families." "The popularity of the war would fall sharply," he said. Sergei Zhavoronkov, a researcher with Moscow's Economic Policy Institute, says the effects of a declaration of war or a general mobilization could undermine support for the war. At the same time, he said, it is clear "that with current force levels it won't be possible even to surround Ukrainian forces," much less achieve the declared goal of establishing control over the Donbas. "There is a serious risk that his popularity would suffer," Leviyev said. Ruslan Leviyev, an analyst with the Conflict Intelligence Team (CIT), a Russian group now based in Georgia that monitors the military, says Putin likely views a step like mobilization through the lens of "political consequences." "There won't be a real declaration of war, which would entail serious consequences including possibly the declaration of martial law." Putin might make emotional declarations about war with Ukraine or mobilization, but de facto there won't be any changes," Samus said. "But in reality, they haven't achieved anything and there are no clear successes. "I think Putin has to do something," Ukrainian military analyst Mykhaylo Samus said, adding that Putin's generals had promised him some significant success before the May 9 holiday. The Week In Russia: Carnage And Celebration Speculation has been rife that Putin could use the highly charged commemoration of the Soviet contribution to victory over Nazi Germany in World War II to set a new direction for Russia's war in Ukraine, which is in its third month and has clearly not proceeded the way Kremlin planners anticipated ahead of the February 24 invasion.Īfter Russian forces failed to capture Kyiv and break Ukrainian resistance, the Kremlin refocused its effort on securing the entire territory claimed by Moscow-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine - the Donbas region - and establishing a land bridge between those territories and the Ukrainian Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, which Moscow annexed in 2014. When asked whether Putin would formally declare war on Ukraine, Peskov's answer was the same: "That's nonsense." "That's nonsense," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on May 4 when asked whether President Vladimir Putin planned to announce a military mobilization during Russia's May 9 Victory Day celebrations.
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