Robin Horsfall(Sir, Mister, First Name) • FollowingFormer SAS Soldier. Writer, Veterans Campaigner and Public Speaker. Operations Nimrod and Mikado
12m • 12 minutes ago
'Russia to mobilise 500,000 in days'. (MSN)
This piece of propaganda has been posted on media outlets everywhere in the past few days. The intention of course is to convince Ukraine and the democracies that there is no end in sight, and Russia can raise the game. Russia's hope is that the western alliance will balk at the potential cost.
True, there is no end in sight yet and true, they can raise the game but they cannot mobilise half a million conscripts in days.
It isn't that they don't have the people, they do. 145 million of them but that population is spread over a vast land. It is only the population of France and the UK combined. To press gang this number of men and women, Putin needs to create a whole new military infrastructure.
The people have to be rounded up and policed before they all run for the border.
Locally they have to be housed, transported and fed.
Regionally they have to be received, housed, transported and fed.
They have to be received at training depots that must provide the same plus uniforms, equipment and arms.
They have to be taught Russian as many rural communities don't.
A cadre of training staff has to be provided at each depot.
They have to be managed and led. Where will the officers come from?
And of course the costs are enormous.
The continuing forced mobilisation of Russian manpower will adversely affect the the economy, removing even more working and skilled people from the system. More families will lose their breadwinners and more chaos will descend on Putin's Russia.
Thousand of these people will die for Putin's failure and there is nothing the Russian people seem to be able, or willing to do. My own sad assessment is that Putin is not only committing war crimes in Ukraine, he is committing a genocide in Russia too.
Slava Ukraini!
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Robin Horsfall
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