Prepare for a long Ukraine War, as Russian strongman Vladimir Putin announced the mobilization of 300,000 more men — and darkly reminded Western nations that he has “lots of weapons to replyR.
Prepare for a long Ukraine War, as Russian strongman Vladimir Putin announced the mobilization of 300,000 more men — and darkly reminded Western nations that he has “lots of weapons to reply” to what he called NATO’s “nuclear blackmail.”
“It’s not a bluff,” he warned before announcing his country’s plan to annex Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine — and even parts Russia has never occupied or no longer occupies.
Putin gave the address on Russian state television Wednesday morning after an overnight delay.
There is both more and less to Putin’s mobilization plans than meets the eye.
It won’t be easy or fast to call up that many reservists, according to military experts, because Russia basically doesn’t have a reserve.
A 2019 RAND study noted that “Russia has paid little attention to developing an effective and sizable active reserve system that might be immediately required in the event of a major war.” RAND estimates that Russia has an effective reserve of only 4,000-5,000 men.
The country’s former army reserve units had been disbanded from 2008-2010 as part of the military’s modernization program, with their equipment — all of it older — going into storage or scrapped.
That doesn’t mean that Russia can’t conscript, train, organize, and arm 300,000 new soldiers, but it won’t be quick or easy.
One problem, as Foreign Affairs analyst Oliver Alexander put it, is “effectively readying and equipping these reservists.
