Putin risks public fury with army call-up

 Vladimir Putin is said to be planning a new wave of mobilisation as the flow of soldiers to Ukraine dries up.

The move could take place after State Duma elections in September, sources told Russian media, with new deputies tasked with selling the mobilisation to the population, Russian Telegram channels reported.

The Kremlin is under growing pressure to replenish its army, which is seeing negligible progress at the front and record-high fatalities of more than 30,000 per month.

The flow of new recruits enlisting to fight in Ukraine is down by more than a third this spring compared with a year earlier, according to data obtained by Verstka.

Eight sources inside the presidential administration and military enlistment apparatus told Verstka and Vazhnyye Istorii, both independent Russian outlets, that the idea of mobilisation was on the table for the first time since the disastrous call-up in 2022.

Russia’s only previous mobilisation, in September 2022, triggered an exodus of some 700,000 Russians, a figure roughly equivalent to the size of Moscow’s entire fighting force in Ukraine.

These were disproportionately drawn from the country’s young, educated and affluent strata: 85 per cent under 35 and 80 per cent possessing some form of higher education. Nearly 11.5 per cent of Russians’ bank savings, some 4tn rubles (£40.5bn), left the country in 2022.

Putin is believed to have been reluctant to return to mobilisation, relying instead on lucrative pay and signing bonuses for volunteers and recruiting from the margins, including prisoners, migrant workers and debtors.

Other sources speaking to the outlets said that owing to the political risks, they thought it was more likely that the Kremlin would resort to alternative measures, such as calling up reservists.

Ukrainian military officials believe the Kremlin is also looking to recruit 18,500 foreigners.

At least 27,000 foreign nationals from more than 130 countries have signed up for service in the Russian army so far, according to a new report prepared jointly by Truth Hounds, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), and regional partners.

Amid faltering numbers of new recruits domestically, average monthly regional payouts for recruiters have more than doubled this year, while bonuses for recruits have also surged and “promotions” have promised increased compensation for signing a contract before a deadline.

Applicants have increasingly been offered “rear” roles as drivers, guards and construction workers or even “peacekeepers”, a role that does not appear to exist, before being dispatched to the line of contact.

Troop shortages have led to viral videos from the city of Penza showing balaclava-clad draft officers seizing people off the streets and hauling them to enlistment offices.

Searches for terms related to “mobilisation” on Yandex, the Russian Google, have more than quadrupled between January and April.

“Things are not unfolding entirely as planned, and those involved in the process have started to get creative,” a source close to the Kremlin told Verstka. “It is unclear what mobilisation would fundamentally change, other than mobilising protest and triggering an economic collapse.”

“In the spring, there was no real political preparation, but there are plenty of reasons for this decision now: the failed offensive, loss of initiative, the ineffectiveness of air defence,” another source close to the Kremlin said.

Russian soldiers deployed to the front line told Verstka that the quality of incoming recruits has declined dramatically as conditions worsen on the ground. One mobilised soldier said that many troops were “incapable of fighting”.

“Some are pulled out of prison, others off the street… criminals, as well, often already of such an age and with such poor health that they can barely stand… People who were literally lying on the streets until recently,” he said. “They’re disposable.”

Another, serving on the Kharkiv front, said: “We’ve been fighting for about 300sq metres since January – constant artillery ping-pong, lots of killed and wounded… We’re short of everything: manpower, shells, drones. We’re eating livestock feed.”

“New contract soldiers don’t survive more than a month if they don’t have connections,” another military source said, adding that of those who did survive, around half deserted.

Almost 500,000 Russian soldiers have been killed since the start of the full-scale invasion, according to Anne Keast-Butler, the GCHQ director.

Moscow’s forces have celebrated only negligible territorial gains in Ukraine this year. In May, they saw their smallest monthly gains since October 2023, despite intensifying assaults by 37.5 per cent.

Ukraine’s mid-range logistics campaign and long-range strikes against refineries and military infrastructure have also posed a growing military and political threat.

On Wednesday, Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, said Russia had been forced to relocate air defences to Moscow and the Kerch Bridge, a supply route connecting Crimea to the Russian mainland, to protect against Kyiv’s drones.