Putin’s conscripts won’t win his war but may drag it out

Phased recruitment will be more about rebuilding capability and rotating exhausted combat troops than providing a fresh force capable of throwing Ukraine back on the defensive, analysts say

Fri, 23 Sep, 2022 - 21:00

Marc Champion

Russian president Vladimir Putin’s drafting of 300,000 reservists to reinforce his troops in Ukraine is likely to extend the war, but not influence its outcome.

Still, it could buy him time to execute a wider strategy — including exacerbating Europe’s energy crisis and threatening a nuclear strike on unspecified targets — to undermine foreign military and financial support for Kyiv’s war effort.

Putin’s ordering of a partial mobilisation is surrounded by questions, including the feasibility of the number itself. Other unknowns include the speed, quality, and goals of a mass training exercise.

But maths suggests the phased recruitment will be more about rebuilding capability and rotating exhausted combat troops than providing a fresh force capable of throwing Ukraine back on the defensive, say military analysts from Washington to Moscow.

Not only has Russia lost about 80,000 soldiers, dead or wounded, in Ukraine, according to Kyiv’s allies, but with insufficient manpower for rotation, many troops are in their eighth month in the field.

“I’m not sure this amounts to an escalation, but it does extend the time it will take for Ukraine to win,” said Igor Levchenko, head of strategic modelling at New Geopolitics, a Kyiv-based think tank. And that could be significant.

One of Russia’s few strategic successes has been to slow the supply of weapons from the US and other allies to Ukraine by threatening escalation, with delivery of each arms system — from Javelin anti-tank missiles to HIMARS multiple-launch rocket systems — delayed by fears its transfer might provoke a Russian response.

Armed with the long-range ATACMS rockets, the US has balked at supplying, along with aircraft and Abrams tanks, Ukraine could recover its lost territory in weeks, according to Levchenko.

Those weapons are being withheld as “a direct result of the strategic thinking of Russia’s politicians and military”, he said, adding Putin’s recent nuclear threat may make Washington hesitate.

“That is a very bad story for Ukraine.”

The US continues to focus on open talks with Ukraine and its other allies about its needs, including more medium- and long-term weapons requirements, says Pentagon spokesman Brigadier General Patrick Ryder. “I don’t see those conversations being impacted by this situation,” he said, referring to recent steps by Russia, including sham annexation votes that started on Friday in territory it holds in Ukraine.

The US will look “at a variety of capabilities in the days ahead”, he added, in response to a question on whether the US could yet send Abrams tanks.

For now, there’s been no shift in position among Ukraine’s allies or their support for Kyiv’s counteroffensive, according to a European official, who asked not to be identified, although they indicated that could change.

Before Putin’s speech, governments in Western Europe had seemed more concerned than those in the east about a nuclear threat. But many who thought he was bluffing also didn’t expect him to take the political risk of mobilising, and the result could be more concern across the board as to what the Russian leader is willing to do.

Military analysts outside Ukraine also expressed scepticism at the capacity of Russia’s partial mobilisation to transform the war’s trajectory on the ground.

“300,000 additional troops is not enough for Russia to make advances in Ukraine,” said Pavel Zolotarev, a retired Russian general who is now an analyst at the Institute for US and Canadian Studies in Moscow.

“This is just enough to stop the Ukrainian offensive and cement control over territories that Russian forces control now.”

The partial mobilisation “is unlikely to generate effective soldiers” or block Ukraine’s opportunities for retaking territory through the winter, the Institute for the Study of War, a US think tank that tracks the conflict in daily reports, concluded in its latest assessments.

Ukraine’s offensive continues to progress, but has slowed since the runaway successes earlier this month in northeastern Kharkiv.

Mark Hertling, a former commanding general of US Army Europe, pointed to limited Russian capacity and severe weaknesses in basic training he had seen on visits to the Russian military.

“It was awful,” Hertling wrote in a Twitter thread. “Familiarisation versus qualification on rifles, rudimentary first aid, very few simulations to conserve resources, and...most importantly...horrible leadership by ‘drill sergeants’.”

Michael Kofman, a specialist in Russia’s military at the CNA security think tank in Washington, said in a podcast that the 300,000 target was likely “notional”. Russian commanders would have mainly poor options deciding what to do with the new draftees, he said.

One would be to replenish existing Russian battle tactical groups in Ukraine, many of which are staffed at 40%-50% of their intended strength, according to Kofman. But most Russian training takes place within units, taking away scarce and exhausted officers to do the job.

Another route would be to build large, lightly armed, and motorised units to simply hold the line in defensive positions. A third would be to create capable units, able to rotate exhausted troops along the front, but that would require significant time and investment to bring them to the required level.

“The implications of this are that Russia can try to stem the deteriorating situation in their military and try to address the quantity aspect of the force,” Kofman said.

“But they can’t fix the quality, because they have already used up their best equipment, their best officers, their best munitions, and the issue of morale is going to be a perpetual one.”