In the ninth month of a full-scale war against Ukraine, there are no signs that Moscow, gradually weakening in all respects, intends to abandon its suicidal course. For several months she has been trying to achieve a respite in the war, but not an end to it. And uses escalation as the only tool.
Ongoing mobilization, the declared annexation of the occupied territories, terror tactics against Ukrainian cities, the beginning of the introduction of martial law in Russia, coupled with rhetoric addressed to urbi et orbi, designed to discredit Ukraine and its leadership and includes a wide range of theses from radiological weapons (the notorious "dirty bomb") to Satanism, ⸺ all of this is part of the same scenario.
The Kremlin is trying in every possible way to prolong its own agony on the battlefield in the hope that it will be able to “turn the game” or that the international situation will change radically as a result of either domestic political and economic problems in the West, or the radical actions of other players, or a combination of these factors. However, the current escalation has already become a way to maintain the stability of the power structure within Russia itself.
The Narrative of Genocide and "People's War"
It is important that the Kremlin has not yet abandoned the original strategic goal of its aggression – the destruction of Ukraine as a state and the destruction of Ukrainian culture and Ukrainian society. Moreover, the Russian government continues to publicly and at all levels question the independence of Ukraine, and rhetorically equates its armed forces with irregular terrorist groups. And through the mythology of the war with NATO, it is trying to consolidate within itself and justify the final subjugation of Russian society, on which the ideologeme of a “ people's war ” or even a religious war is being imposed. Among other things, this also serves as a justification for a further decline in living standards and the inevitable economic mobilization, which means a transition to a command economic system .
The Kremlin is interested in breaking up the established international order, in which it has no future, as well as in its own survival inside the country at any cost against the backdrop of rapidly dwindling resources available for redistribution and buying loyalty. The circle of beneficiaries of the Russian political and economic system is also shrinking, and the cognitive dissonance from what is happening in all strata of Russian society is getting worse.
Under such conditions, violence against Ukraine inevitably turns into a spiral of coercion and violence inside Russia. There are practically no painless prospects here: either further self-isolation from the world for an indefinitely long time, if the Kremlin manages to keep the situation under control, or a cycle of domestic political turbulence, after which the prospect of positive transformations and appeasement or further political, economic and cultural degradation may open up.
Violence towards Ukraine is converted into a spiral of violence inside Russia
Problems of mobilization and false concessions
The mobilization of citizens for war is in its second month and tends to turn into a regular process that comes in waves. At first, the Kremlin could really assume that it would be able to stabilize the situation and achieve the desired respite. To do this, after mobilization, he left in the army those who were supposed to or were going to leave this fall, and also recruited into it those who could reach the military registration and enlistment offices, and tried to combine this with terror tactics against Ukraine and blackmailing the international community. However, neither Ukraine nor the world succumbed to such pressure, the hostilities continued, and it is impossible to prepare a full-fledged army from the mobilized ⸺ these people are already being consumed in batches. All this again raises for the Russian authorities the question of new reinforcements of manpower to plug holes at the front.
In general, from the declared, but not documented plan for 300 thousand mobilized, the Kremlin was officially able to recruit 222 thousand by October 14, by October 21 ⸺ 260 thousand people. At the same time, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin reported on October 25 that the regions were able to equip 60,000 places to accommodate the mobilized. Such discrepancies in numbers can only be explained by the fact that the bulk of those formally mobilized are active military personnel ⸺ just those who were to leave in the fall upon completion or termination of the contract and whose contracts have now become indefinite, as well as a significant part of the 127.5 thousand people from last autumn call.
Thus, from civilians proper, according to my estimate , 100-120 thousand people turned out to be mobilized, a number comparable to the number of conscripts every six months. The Russian military machine is now trying to “digest” them. Moreover, earlier she herself actually abandoned the concept of mobilization deployment of the army due to the loss of meaning in such a deployment ⸺ hence the problems with the supply of these people and the lack of commanders for them (there are commanders only on the battlefield). In addition, if everything went more or less smoothly with mobilization, then it would not be necessary to continue recruiting prisoners for the war and hastily pull out a forgotten bill from under the cloth in order to allow the mobilization of citizens previously convicted under serious articles.
However, despite the need to "digest" the mobilized and focus on the autumn conscription campaign, the mobilization will continue exactly as long as the relevant decree is in effect and as long as the war continues. This means that new mobilization "additional recruitments" to the army are almost inevitable. Perhaps they will not exceed 30-40 thousand people every few months in order to plug up newly emerging holes at the front and compensate for the probable shortage of recruits.
Here we should also not forget that this autumn the number of conscripts wishing to sign an indefinite contract will inevitably and significantly decrease. This will raise the question of returning to full-fledged sending of conscripts to the war, especially since there are no legal obstacles, except for the need to undergo a 4-month training, for this. By and large, today the Russian authorities can already send recruits for the spring of 2022 to the front.
Difficulties of transition to a war economy
At the same time, attempts are being made to carry out economic mobilization in order to make up for the large Russian losses in weapons and military equipment. However, there is no plan yet. The government coordinating council created for these purposes has not yet shown serious activity and so far resembles the Kremlin's desire to distribute responsibility for the criminal war among the widest possible circle of the Russian elite and bureaucracy.
As for the Russian regions, in which the authorities have introduced different levels of readiness for martial law following its introduction in the territories of Ukraine occupied and annexed by Russia, and in which the corresponding headquarters have been established, there is no significant activity either. True, all this does not cancel the prospects for tougher actions by the authorities as the situation worsens.
Nevertheless, the Kremlin has been trying to take certain actions in this direction since at least the summer. Regular inspections by members of the government and the Security Council at military enterprises, as well as demands and even threats against management and workers at these enterprises, indicate that the Russian authorities are aware of the gravity of the situation in which they find themselves. However, despite the demonstrated confidence and the distribution of planned and unscheduled contracts for the production of weapons, the situation in military production is not at all rosy. Simply put, Moscow does not yet have an understanding of how to put the Russian economy on a war footing at all.
Moscow has no understanding of how to transfer the Russian economy to a military footing
For example, regardless of whether the Iranian drones created for the terrorist and insurgent war run out before, or Ukraine learns to shoot down 100% of them, Russia practically cannot replace them with its own and advanced attack drones due to the fact that its industry is so easy to not ready. It will also not be possible to quickly replace lost or failing tanks, otherwise the idea would not have arisen to return to the long-decommissioned T-62 tanks , developed in the late 1950s. True, the capacity of the corresponding plant and the quality of human capital on it are unlikely to allow this idea to be fully implemented, not to mention the quality of these tanks themselves. It turns out that in any case it will take years to replenish the used and lost weapons, and it will not be possible to seriously increase their production due to their complexity, shortage of personnel, equipment and components.
The idea of voluntary-compulsory recruitment of students to work in order to partially compensate for at least the exacerbated personnel problem so far looks like a palliative measure, if not like a bureaucratic imitation of violent activity. At the same time, although the mechanism for forcing business to serve military needs has been created, its application is unlikely to be effective. In the end, any economic activity in the absence of motivation leads to a strong increase in costs and losses with an equally strong decrease in the quality of products. Ultimately, this inevitably leads to increased intervention of officials in the economy, to attempts at bureaucratic management of production processes, as well as to the redistribution of assets and resources in favor of the same officials. All this will require an increase in the direct and indirect economic burden of the war, which will be shifted onto the shoulders of citizens in the form of taxes and voluntary-compulsory contributions to various funds to help the front and, possibly, in the form of war loans.
One way or another, not intending to end the war, the Kremlin is inevitably moving towards strengthening the military-bureaucratic "emergency". And even if this “emergency” cannot be fully implemented due to objective factors and the hidden resistance of society and the very bureaucratic apparatus of the Russian state, it increases the final price of the unleashed war. The more painful will be the post-war political and economic transformation of Russia.