Russia Mulls Mass Mobilization. It Won’t Save Its Army In Ukraine.

With devastating losses and rapid Ukrainian gains more than 200 days into its wider war on Ukraine, the Kremlin indicated it could take a step that would be a profound shift in its posture.

If it goes into effect, it is almost certain that it will not reverse Russia's fortunes in Ukraine. Russia's defeat could be accelerated by a well-organized Mobilization.

Mike Martin is a fellow at the Department of War Studies at King's College.

There was a draft bill that appeared in the parliament on Tuesday. The legislation hasn't been signed by Putin. The speech was supposed to be made Tuesday.

Mobilization could make it compulsory for millions of Russians to serve in the military. The Russian army could be swelled by millions.

The new troops would not have instructors to teach them, units to absorb them, commanders to lead them, noncommissioned officers to mentor them, and equipment to give them useful combat power.

The main effects of Mobilization would be to overload the army's fragile home garrisons, undermine the legitimacy of Putin and his regime, and deplete the federal treasury.

It would be too late to make a difference. It takes a long time to turn civilians into soldiers. Russia doesn't need soldiers in 6 months.

The Russian army doesn't train new recruits to a good standard before they are sent to the front. As the Kremlin tried to form new units in order to replace some of the 50,000 casualties that Russia had suffered in Ukraine, they only had 30 days of training before deployment.

The army is in dire need of new troops. The number of dead and wounded could reach 80,000. Volunteers from Russian prisons were given only a few days of training by The Wagner Group, a mercenary firm that represents the last effective fighting force on the Russian side of the Ukrainian border.

The untrained ex-convicts gave up to the Ukrainians. Imagine a young Russian who never wanted to fight, showing up at the front with very little training. Mark Hertling described the recruit as having cannon meat.

The lack of training isn't solely a decision. A few front-line battalions were formed after the Russian army raided its training base. The battalions are busy trying to hold back the counteroffensives by the Ukrainians.

The Russian army couldn't train millions of new recruits because they couldn't afford it. It didn't have the ability to equip or lead them. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union built mass-mobilization infrastructure.

In case of a war, you need to maintain huge capacities in peacetime. The soviet union did. One of the reasons why the Soviet army was so excessive was that it maintained enormous excessive capacities in the event of an emergency.

The army sold off all of its excess capacity after the soviet union fell. There are no excessive schools for training new recruits. Quarter them with no excessive lodgings. There are no police officers who are too strict.

In the first seven months of the war, the army lost 2,000 tanks and thousands of other armored vehicles. The T-62 tanks that the Russians pulled out of storage were just a preview of technological regression.

"That doesn't mean Putin won't say he's going to mobilize." It would be foolish for him to do that. It almost certainly would inspire fierce resistance in a populace that, so far, the Kremlin has been able to insulate against the worst effects of a losing war.

The Ukrainians would like to see Putin start drafting millions. The end of the war and the end of Putin's rule could be hastened by a mobilizer.