More than 300,000 soldiers are said to have been mobilized in Russia for the war in Ukraine. According to experts, there are several signs that the mobilization will continue.
Independent experts consider a covert continuation of the mobilization for Russia's war in Ukraine to be likely. Decrees recently signed by President Vladimir Putin indicated that the partial mobilization had not achieved sufficient troop levels, contrary to Russian claims, according to a report by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) think tank. This is also supported by the fact that Putin has not yet signed a decree officially ending the mobilization announced at the end of September.
The Kremlin announced on Tuesday that the partial mobilization of 300,000 reservists for military service in Ukraine had been completed. According to Putin, as many as 318,000 men have been mobilized. This makes it unnecessary to end the mobilization by decree, said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
According to ISW information, the Russian information is not consistent with Putin's decree this Friday that Russian authorities also allow the entry of civilians who are not yet convicted of serious crimes. Furthermore, Putin is said to have signed decrees expanding the list of conscripts to include men who served in volunteer formations and making exceptions for the conscription of alternative conscripts.
The ISW experts interpreted the possibility of conscripting prisoners as an attempt to forestall further social tensions. There is great resistance among the Russian population to the movement of civilians. An estimated 400,000 men have now left the vast empire to avoid being drafted.
Despite Kremlin claims that the district military replacement offices are now no longer allowed to recruit reservists, Russian opposition figures and online media reported that authorities are preparing for a second wave of mobilization, for example by modernizing the recruitment centers and drawing up lists of possible recruits. According to the report, individual men would also have received draft notices for the coming year.
