Russian Defense Ministry pressures Putin to announce new mobilization

The Wall Street Journal writes about this, citing its sources.

The meeting took place at the beginning of the year, and Defense Ministry officials told Putin that he should use his “inauguration” and the associated increase in support among the population to explain the need for a new mobilization, the source told the WSJ. In this way, the military department hoped to compensate for Russia's losses at the front.

Putin then rejected the proposal, the source said. The Russian leader told Defense Ministry officials that he wanted to have only those who voluntarily signed a contract go to war.

However, six months later, the problem of the military shortage is getting worse, forcing Russia's military leadership to insist on mobilization again, three WSJ sources say. More than a month after the start of the Ukrainian army's operation in the Kursk region, Moscow has not yet organized a major counteroffensive to push Ukrainian troops out of the country, the outlet writes.

The WSJ source noted that the current forces are insufficient to achieve the initial goals of the war, such as knocking Ukraine out of the conflict, undermining its military potential, or protecting the border regions of Russian territory. They mentioned that an increasing number of people are predicting that mobilization is inevitable.

• Russian leader Vladimir Putin has signed a decree to increase the number of Russian military personnel by 180,000 to 2,389,000.