Expert explains why Russia will fail to mobilize 500,000 more men
A group of Russian soldiers against the background of the temple of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation (Photo:REUTERS/Yulia Morozova)
Ukraine should not expect to face a massive assault by 500,000 Russian troops mobilized in fall, Austrian military analyst Tom Cooper has explained in his column for NV news.
Russia will be able to prepare 150,00 of conscripts at maximum for battle, the expert believes.
"At the start of the mobilisation we saw the Keystone Cops (so Tom Cooper calls the Russian Ministry of Defence) announcing the mobilisation of 300,000, 500,000, 1,000,000 reservists. However, and as usually: these are nominal — and very much theoretical — figures," Cooper writes.
The military analyst noted that before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia "had barely enough (resources) to monitor, equip, and train an intake of about 280,000 new recruits a year."
"Therefore, all those panicking in expectation of ‘Putin now deploying 500,000 mobiks’ to Ukraine: please, keep it cool. Five months since the September-mobilisation, the Keystone Cops might have managed to accept an intake of about 150,000 reservists," Cooper assured his readers.
He said that thousands of mobilized Russians were rushed into combat at the end of September and the beginning of October without any training at all.
"They merely received their uniforms, were organised into platoons and companies, perhaps received few hours of training on their fire-arms, and were then rushed into combat," the analyst wrote.
Although, the two following "waves" were luckier, as they did get some training before being sent to the frontlines, the mobilisation has helped Russia to increase in numbers its Armed Forces "in Ukraine back to around 250,000 — so that the force become capable of running limited offensives once again."
"That’s exactly what it is doing these days. Major difference to the times of April-June 2022: the mass of these troops are older — and thus less fit — than the youngsters they’re replacing, and nowadays they have to make do with obsolete equipment drawn from the mothballs, and on which they have received the absolute minimum of training.
Ukraine's Minister of Defence, Oleksii Reznikov, said earlier that Russia may focus its efforts in particular directions instead of trying to seize the entire territory of Ukraine, during a possible new offensive in February.
According to Bloomberg, the Russian dictator Vladimir Putin expects to regain the initiative in Ukraine via a new offensive in February or March.
At the same time, he is preparing for a long standoff in Ukraine, Bloomberg said.
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