Being part of the first mobilization since World War II doesn’t bode well for the men now arriving in the barracks, and those who may be about to receive their call-up notice. “Until now, the problems Russian conscripts faced mostly involved
dedovshchina (hazing), dying during exercises and poor, even if improving, service conditions,” Katarzyna Zysk, an expert on the Russian military at the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies, told me. “Now, on top of that, there’s a significant risk of becoming cannon fodder.”
Ordinarily, ex-conscripts who are part of the Russian military reserves would not be sent to fight in foreign countries. But because the referendums conducted in Russian-held Ukrainian territories immediately after Putin’s mobilization announcement mean those territories will soon count as Russia, the reservists can be sent there too. “The Russian armed forces are trying to salvage whatever they can and prevent another Kharkiv, where soldiers and civilian representatives appear to have just turned around and fled,” Persson explained.
Putin, Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu, and their advisers are painfully aware that few men want to serve in Russia’s armed forces. For decades, young Russian men have used highly innovative ways (including
PhD studies) to avoid being conscripted, and since the invasion of Ukraine the armed forces have faced such recruitment problems that many contract soldiers have simply seen their contracts extended involuntarily. “Since 2008, Russia has been trying to get away from its large mobilization armed forces, and instead create a professional force, mobile, with a lot of air power,” Persson said, “And now they do this. This is like World War I, and they’ve not practiced for this contingency involving hundreds of thousands – and possibly more – rudimentarily trained ex-conscripts being sent to the war.”
Shoigu has taken pains to emphasize that draftees will be placed in support roles rather than frontline combat, a logical message to send considering that at least 300,000 families would rebel if their sons were made immediate cannon fodder. But Russia’s military seemed unprepared to receive even support troops. “The Russian armed forces’ endemic corruption is becoming obvious once again,” Persson said. “Soldiers are arriving at their bases and there are no uniforms for them, nothing. It’s shocking.”
