As expected, Vladimir Putin no regrets having invaded Ukraine. “My actions were timely and correct,” the Russian president said on Friday. Nor did he want to rectify the unpopular partial military mobilization which has caused the mass flight of hundreds of thousands of Russian citizens, protests in the streets and criticism within his own regime.
Apparently, “the 16,000 recruits already deployed on the battlefield have been essential” in slowing down the Ukrainian advance in the north-east and south of the country. However, releasing unprepared new soldiers in the middle of a war has its risks.
In the last three days alone, the Kremlin media have reported on at least seven deaths of recently recruited men. And they are mens because, as confirmed today by the Russian Ministry of Defense on its Telegram channel, “women are not being and will not be called up“.
Source: ISW, UK Ministry of Defense
Regarding these losses, Putin explained on Monday that, in some cases, the training that the soldiers were carrying out lasted just ten days. A very short period compared to a traditional military training programbut very tight considering the current situation of the Russian forces in Ukraine, which have lost control of numerous strategic enclaves in just one month.
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“The front line it is 1,100 kilometers long and it has not been possible to maintain it only with contracted soldiers,” Putin acknowledged. For this reason, he hopes to send more troops soon. In fact, according to the Russian leader, there are already 222,000 people recruited that they are receiving military equipment and training in various parts of the country and in some areas of the Ukrainian provinces illegally annexed to Russia.
In September, when Putin announced the “partial mobilization“, he assured that the soldiers called up would go through mandatory additional military training in which they would be taught to use weapons, among other things. However, a month after announcing the call-up of 300,000 people, the president of Russia has acknowledged that there were “mistakes” during the recruitment. Likewise, he has announced that, predictably, it will end next week and that no extension is planned.
Ukrainian calculations
The announcement of the dispatch of new Russian soldiers clashes with the calculations of the Ukrainian army, which did not expect the mobilized reservists to arrive on the battlefield “for another two or three months.” This was stated last week by the Minister of Defense of Ukraine, Oleksii Reznikov, in one of the government channels on Telegram.
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“The Russian Federation will send the first 150,000 Russians called up to replenish the units that suffered losses,” he explained in the statement. A figure that does not coincide with the 200,000 new recruits who, according to Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, have been training with the Armed Forces for at least three days. If the number dances, it is, in part, because the Ukrainian forces believe that Moscow does not have enough resources to equip all its soldiers.
“To send them to the front they must be armed, clothed and fed, and in Russia they have problems with this,” Reznikov said. And that, coupled with the inexperience of the recruits -“they are not prepared at all“- makes kyiv think that the military training phase will not end soon. And once it does, it will probably take a while for the Russian authorities to decide how to configure the new battalions.
