After the successful offensives of the Ukrainian troops in the Kherson and Kharkov regions, in Russia they have begun to talk about mobilization.
Official representatives deny that it will happen, but in fact Russia has been frantically seeking cannon fodder for the war in Ukraine for some months now, and one wonders how the reinforcements will influence its plans elsewhere along its extensive borders (which total 60,932 km). .
Russia's global ambitions are out of step with its economy, geography and demographics.
Before Putin, the dilemma arises of admitting defeat or ordering a risky general mobilization, since the weapons in the hands of the people can easily be turned in the direction of the Kremlin, as has already happened in Russian history.
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On August 26, the Russian president signed a decree increasing the number of Armed Forces by 137,000 people.
The army staff will thus be 1,150,000 uniformed.
The Kremlin has also forced state corporations and oligarchs to form private military companies on their own to add them to the thousands of mercenaries already fighting in Ukraine.
The Russian regions have formed about 40 battalions of so-called volunteers, whose equipment and salary they finance.
For volunteers, the maximum age is increased (in some provinces up to 60 years) and the requirements for health reasons are lowered.
Since volunteers are not enough, private paramilitary companies recruit prisoners from prisons.
The head of the Caucasian republic of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov,
has called on all regions for full mobilization.
So a covert mobilization is already taking place.
Why is there a lack of soldiers in Russia?
On the eve of the war, the official workforce of the Russian army was four times that of the Ukrainian army, although the actual number of Russian forces may have been considerably lower.
To invade Ukraine, Russia massed units from its four military districts with a total strength of up to 250,000 people, but units from the western district bore the brunt of the fighting and paid a heavy price for it.
In its daily report for September 13, the British Ministry of Defense notes that the First Tank Army suffered heavy losses early in the invasion and was withdrawn from the Kharkov region following the Ukrainian offensive.
“The war”, says the report, “weakened this army, as well as other formations in the western military district, and thus lowered Russia's ability to confront NATO in the event of a conflict.
It will take years to restore military potential."
As a result of Finland's entry into NATO,
the border of this organization with Russia increases by 1,272 kilometers.
According to the Russian Defense Minister, Sergey Shoigu, the entry of Sweden and Finland requires the formation of 12 new military units and formations.
Although many units from Russia's eastern district, the most powerful of the four existing districts, were sent to the front, the Kremlin cannot move troops from the east to the west of the country, as happened with the Siberian divisions in World War II.
Russia has not yet signed a peace treaty with Japan, with whom it has a territorial dispute over the Kuril Islands.
Tokyo has increased its military budget and Moscow will be forced to take it into account.
In addition, Russia will have to cover the 4,209-kilometre-long border with China with its troops.
Moscow and Beijing maintained a cold war that in 1969 turned into a war over Damanski Island on the Usuri river border.
Between 1991 and 2008, the territorial conflicts between China and Russia were resolved,
but the Chinese have not forgotten that the Russian Empire annexed territories in the Far East, which they consider their own.
On the other hand, the emigration from Siberia to the center of Russia produces the depopulation of enormous extensions, where the Russians are replaced by the Chinese.
At the moment it is a peaceful expansion.
Under these conditions, only the Russian military presence can guarantee its sovereignty in Siberia and the Far East.
Russia and China are partners today, but not allies.
China's military budget in 2019 was $177 billion, while Russia's was $46 billion (similar amounts in euros).
where the Russians are replaced by the Chinese.
At the moment it is a peaceful expansion.
Under these conditions, only the Russian military presence can guarantee its sovereignty in Siberia and the Far East.
Russia and China are partners today, but not allies.
China's military budget in 2019 was $177 billion, while Russia's was $46 billion (similar amounts in euros).
where the Russians are replaced by the Chinese.
At the moment it is a peaceful expansion.
Under these conditions, only the Russian military presence can guarantee its sovereignty in Siberia and the Far East.
Russia and China are partners today, but not allies.
China's military budget in 2019 was $177 billion, while Russia's was $46 billion (similar amounts in euros).
With these data, the transfer of a significant military contingent from the eastern district to the Ukraine would weaken the defense of the Far East and Siberia, so that the Chinese might be tempted to recover what they lost.
The central military district borders Kazakhstan (7,548 kilometers of border).
The coming to power of the Taliban in Afghanistan and border problems between Central Asian states force Russia to keep enough troops here to contain threats.
The Taliban's incursion into Central Asia threatens not only the countries of the region, but also the Russian Muslim republics of Tatarstan and Bashkortostan.
In Georgia and Moldova there is talk of recovering their secessionist territories.
The southern Russian military district sent to Ukraine its most capable units, the 58th Army, with combat experience in Chechnya and Georgia.
As a result, the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), of which Russia and Armenia are members, could not fulfill its obligation to respond to the request for help from Yerevan.
In Azerbaijan they decided that the time to act has come.
On the night of September 13, the Baku troops opened fire on the territory of Armenia.
Russia is the guarantor of security in the region, but now it is too busy with the war in Ukraine.
Officially, the Russian Armed Forces must be capable of simultaneously solving tasks in two armed conflicts without resorting to new mobilizations.
Behind Azerbaijan is Turkey, which is beginning to assert its will to politically and militarily dominate the southern Caucasus, and which has an ambivalent relationship with Russia.
The Turkish military power already exceeds the Russian in the region.
Thus, Russia cannot send all of its forces to Ukraine, which is slowly matching its technical capabilities with Russia thanks to Western arms supplies.
The very fact that Ukraine resists in the cruelest war that has taken place in Europe since 1945 is already a (unaccepted) defeat for Putin.
Apart from mobilization or recognition of defeat, the Russian president has a third option, which is to use the nuclear weapon.
But this suicidal solution would go beyond the Russian-Ukrainian war and become a global catastrophe.
Vladimir Dolin
is a political analyst and historian.
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