Russia likely to mobilize 700,000 to 1 million soldiers in 6 months. Sergiy Zgurets column

Mobilization in Russian way

Mobilization continues in Russia, ignoring all previous statements that only those with military experience and expertise will be conscripted. In fact, Russian authorities conscript everyone to solve the problem with the lack of personnel in the Russian army. In view of both the losses and the attempts of the Russian army to maintain a sufficiently long front line, of course Russians have a catastrophic lack of personnel. The transition to defense and the creation of new lines of defense requires a much larger number of personnel.

According to our estimates, it was obvious that Russia would hold the mobilization in two stages. At the first stage, it is to complete the full staffing of the units that are already on the contact line, and we thought that this would take about a month or two, but we see that the Russians do not plan to conduct any training for personnel. And, as an example, we saw in Russian social networks, where the wife of a mob soldier complained that her husband was thrown into the reinforcement of a tank regiment for a day of being in a military unit. By the way, we are talking about a tank regiment that operated in the Kharkiv direction, where it was almost completely destroyed during Ukrainian offensive operation, and now, with these efforts, they try to somehow restore the losses of Russian potential. The same happens with such a category as drivers. They are primarily taken and thrown into the front line, ignoring all stages of preparation.

We talked about the quality of the mobilized "meat", that there had already been fights, and drunken states, and also about summer uniforms, when winter is coming soon. We have already seen all this and, by the way, we have already seen the prisoners from the first batch quickly mobilized to the Russian army. The dynamics are quite indicative.

The second stage of mobilization, according to our estimates, was related to the fact that they should form new military units, like the third army corps. According to the expectations, Russians should form one such additional corps in each district, but we take into account the fact that it took the Russians four months to prepare such a unit, when they tried to form this 3rd corps with 15 thousand military personnel, but they formed much less and threw them to the front in the same way.

Now regarding the quantitative indicators of mobilization. Initially the Russians would mobilize 300,000, but according to the estimates of the Western experts with whom we speak, Russia is likely to mobilize between 700,000 and one million over the next 6 month. It is interesting that the predicted losses of such a number of personnel have already been cited and experts believe that the losses of Russians may amount to 60-70% of this number, 15-20% of which are irreversible, and 40-50% - sanitary losses. These are the projected figures of losses in Russian manpower, because apart from human training, the problem of the Russian army with command, control, logistics and morale will not disappear anywhere. This is the picture of this mobilization.

I asked Konstantyn Mashovets, a military expert and coordinator of the "Information Resistance" group, about the assessment of mobilization in the Russian Federation in view of the situation on the fronts

Most likely, the mobilization in Russia will take place in several waves. The first wave and its main purpose will be in the additional staffing of already deployed parts of units that are fighting at the front or are located directly in the combat zone. The implementation of the first wave of mobilization in the Russian Federation will not require significant deployment efforts from the Russian command, i.e. they will only supplement the existing units. However, if the Russian command receives a task from the military-political leadership of Russia to change the situation at the front or to continue the war through active offensive actions, then it will be forced to equip or create operational strategic reserves.

I asked Mr. Kostantyn to give an assessment of what is happening around the Lyman and whether there are any prerequisites for another active maneuver of the Ukrainian forces to ensure a fire or operational encirclement of the Russian group near the Lyman

Russian command is now trying to build a line of defense in the northern part of the Luhansk region, but they are not quite succeeding.

As for the Lyman district, two battalions of the mobilization reserve of the Second Army Corps are trying to hold the district in accordance with the plan of the Russian command, that the holding of Lyman seems to deter the offensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Kreminna district. They hope that if they hold the Lyman-Yampil line, it will prevent Ukrainian Armed Forces from breaking through to Kreminna. After all, if the Ukrainian forces reach Kreminna, this entire scheme of defense of the northern Luhansk region will collapse and Russians will have to withdraw to the southern frontier.

What happened recently in the northeastern part of the Kharkiv region is brewing in the northern Luhansk region.

What are the prospects for the situation around Bakhmut?

Russians will continue their attempts to conduct active offensive assault actions in the Bakhmut direction. The reason for such stubbornness to ram the defense of the Ukrainian Armed Forces is to create certain convenient lines and positions before the appearance of new mobilized troops at the front, and then use this mass of infantry to achieve some operational goals.  It is obvious that the Bakhmut area is important for further actions towards Kostyantynivka or Kramatorsk. According to the classics of the genre, Russians try to bypass Bakhmut from the north and south. From the north they are stuck in the area of ​​Pokrovsky and Soledar, but from the south the situation is more alarming, because there they are trying to get to Opytne and Ozerne by leading a significant number of professional assault infantry.

Konstantyn Mashovets also noted the current emphasis on the Southern direction

I do not think that Ukrainian Armed Forces will knock out Russians from the Kherson bridgehead, they will rather cook the enemy there on low heat. In the situation in the South, the Melitopol direction is gaining more importance, where the enemy has formed two groups in the Novopavlovsk direction, and the other in the Zaporizhzhia direction.  And the question is, why did they form them?  Either for conducting an offensive in the future, or for some defensive operation in these directions.

It is obvious that the advance of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in this direction will significantly worsen the situation for the Russian enemy, and the Ukrainian army will also begin to control the supply routes for the enemy group, not only the bridge crossings on the Dnipro river, but also in the depth of the enemy's battle formations.