Will Putin be forced to announce another mobilisation?

Like many people trying to follow the Russo-Ukraine War I spend a lot of time staring at maps of the front line. These are often extremely complex, with red and blue areas shaded according to the degree of Russian or Ukrainian control of particular areas, red and blue arrows indicating lines of advance or retreat, and a lot of cross hatching to show where both sides have presence but neither are truly in control.

Because they are often zooming in on a small section of the front, sometimes no more than a town centre, it can at times be difficult to get a true sense of scale. Minor movements can appear more important than they actually are.

But then Zoom out and it all looks very different. Put the contested areas of Donetsk, for example, on a full map of Ukraine and it does not look to be such a big deal.

This perhaps helps explain why Vladimir Putin is prepared to squander so many lives to reach an administrative boundary that would allow him to say he has achieved a vital objective. Imagine him looking at the map from Moscow, presiding over his own vast country, and you can understand why he expects his forces to traverse the relatively tiny distances yet to be covered to the Donetsk boundary. As he continues to be fed encouraging news from his general staff about the steady progress of Russian forces, no wonder he keeps on claiming that victory is round the corner.

The Ukrainians are also asked why they bother trying to hold on to this marginal piece of land when the fighting could end if they just handed it over to the aggressor. They answer that it is not marginal but sovereign territory where people still live. Russia will struggle to take the two remaining big cities of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, but if they were handed over then the land beyond Donetsk would be much harder for Ukraine to defend. Future Russian offensives would be comparatively straightforward. And another offensive would be likely even if there is a ceasefire. One big concession will only whet Putin’s appetite. He is still talking in expansive terms about how much of Ukraine should properly belong to Russia which is why he still demands in negotiations what he has failed to take in battle.

Yet Russia’s offensive is stalling. Despite all the effort, and huge losses, progress this year has been minimal. If he can’t get Kyiv to capitulate then battle is the only way forward. But if there are not sufficient forces to sustain the current offensive, then more will be needed. And this is why the issue of mobilisation has been raised, including by President Zelenskyy, who regularly warns that Moscow is preparing to call up hundreds of thousands of extra troops.

In the rest of this post I’ll discuss the reasons why Russia has a manpower problem and how it is struggling to overcome it without mobilisation. I will then consider whether Russia is better prepared now for a partial mobilisation than the last time one was ordered, in September 2022, before explaining why Putin might still hesitate before he gives the next order, and how the prospect of mobilisation is contributing to a broader sense of crisis.