Russian President Vladimir Putin is creating "information conditions" for the resumption of forced partial conscription of reservists to replenish the army's losses in Ukraine, experts from the American Institute for the Study of War (ISW) write.
According to them, the preparation for a new "partial mobilization" is evidenced by the laws adopted at the end of last year, allowing the Ministry of Defense to engage a 2-million mobilization reserve, as well as the fact that the influx of contract soldiers has ceased to cover battlefield losses. According to Western intelligence estimates, in January, the recruitment conveyor brought the army 9,000 fewer personnel than the generals lost on the battlefield.
Although the authorities declared that reservists (those who served in the army and signed a contract to remain in reserve) would only be sent to "guard" critical facilities, the law stipulates the possibility of their use outside of Russia, ISW points out. Moreover, since November, military enlistment offices in Russia have been conducting year-round conscription, and in December, Putin signed a law on gatherings for reservists, experts from the institute remind.
The previous round of mobilization — in September 2022 — triggered a sharp wave of discontent and an exodus abroad of 700,000 to 900,000 people, writes ISW. Putin, as experts emphasize, fears a repeat of this, although the current pace of recruiting contract soldiers only allows for maintaining the army's numbers at a stable level, and of the 300,000 mobilized in 2022, only 78,000 remained on the front lines (as of May last year), the institute's report states.
"Putin has long been trying to balance between 'guns and butter' — the need to prevent public discontent regarding another large-scale partial mobilization, the need to maintain the pace of the offensive, and the necessity of preserving the workforce in both the civilian and defense-industrial sectors of an already strained Russian economy," writes ISW.
The Russian strategy of exhausting warfare relies on replenishing the army with contract soldiers, but the capabilities of this system are approaching exhaustion by 2026, the institute's report states. "The Kremlin's efforts to prepare Russian society for a new partial mobilization of reservists indicate that Putin is facing a difficult choice," writes ISW.
By the end of 2025, the recruitment campaign of the Ministry of Defense brought 422,700 people into the army, previously reported Dmitry Medvedev, Deputy Chairman of the Security Council. The year before, it was 450,000, and in 2023 — half a million. Thus, over three years, the influx into the army has decreased by about 10%.
The battlefield losses of the Russian army, according to CSIS estimates, amounted to 425,000 people last year, and the cumulative total since the beginning of the war is 1.2 million, among which 325,000 are dead. This is 17 times more than the losses of the Soviet army in Afghanistan, 11 times more than during both Chechen wars, and 5 times more than in all wars involving Russia and the USSR since 1945.
