Occupy-and-defend: could Russian reservists end up in occupied Ukrainian oblasts?

ISW experts recalled that the Russian mobilization reserve is an active, heightened-readiness reserve that includes Russian citizens who “voluntarily” sign contracts with the Russian Defense Ministry to serve in the reserve while remaining civilians — except in cases when a call-up for military service is announced.

The bill approved by the State Duma states that reservists will take part in “special assemblies” to protect critically important facilities; the procedures for these assemblies are to be approved by the Russian government, and are to be announced by the dictator personally.

Vladimir Tsymlyansky, deputy head of the Main Organizational and Mobilization Directorate of the Russian General Staff, previously explained that reservists will be sent “to defend life-support facilities: energy, transport, refineries and other infrastructure” and to counter “primarily drones.” At the same time, Tsymlyansky clarified that the new law supposedly does not require reservists to participate in military operations or missions outside Russia.

ISW added that the law passed on Oct. 28 differs from the draft presented by the Russian Defense Ministry on Oct. 13, which would have allowed Russian military forces to use members of the mobilization reserve for deployments outside Russia without an official Kremlin announcement of mobilization or martial law.

Analysts at ISW emphasized that it remains unclear whether the Kremlin will use the law adopted on Oct. 28 to deploy reservists to rear areas of occupied Ukrainian territory, since Russian officials continue to claim — without basis — that occupied Ukrainian lands are “also part of Russia.” The Institute for the Study of War suggests that the Kremlin could use the Oct. 28 law as a “step” toward permanently mobilizing the reserve for combat against Ukraine, as ISW had previously forecast.

ISW analysts predicted that Russian officials appear to be creating the conditions to justify further militarization and a full-scale mobilization of Russian society.

Secretary of the Russian Security Council Sergey Shoigu said at a meeting in Nizhny Novgorod Oblast that foreign intelligence services allegedly try to infiltrate critical Russian infrastructure facilities — including defense industry enterprises, transport facilities and energy companies — supposedly to carry out sabotage and steal strategic information from Russia. In this way, Russian authorities are likely broadening the rationale for involving reservists to protect critical sites from Ukrainian strikes — using the argument of defending against “Western spies.”

Moscow will likely exploit this threat inflation to justify tougher social repression and to gain additional support for mobilizing reservists, ISW concluded.