Russia is Running Out of Manpower

Russia has new offers for contract soldiers, and professional soldiers. It is indeed a rich offering even for those at the core of the empire who are poor.

250,000 rubble signing bonus, 220,000 pay a month, plus 8,000 hazard pay and a 12,000,000 death benefit, assuming they recognize you died. They have done a few other things that match a country at war, even if we are still being told it’s a three-day special operation.

They have removed age limits to join up. So theoretically a seventy-year-old could find himself on the front lines. Kamil Gaanev on Twitter pointed this out, in stark terms.

Since the start of the war, the Russian authorities tried to expend provincials, most importantly South Siberians (Buryatia, Tuva) and Dagestanis, but saving the people from Moscow and St Petersburg. That explains a heavy imbalance in the casualties in Ukraine by region

I recommend the tread in full.

The casualties are coming from the colonies since Russia is indeed the last colonial state. They have spared the wealthy, white, closest to the physical center of power. This is White Russians.

While Russia likes to pretend it is still doing well, bringing T62 tanks out of storage, and looking for soldiers with these rich contracts, is indeed telling.

As the Institute for the Study of War put it:

When the Battle of Severodonetsk ends, regardless of which side holds the city, the Russian offensive at the operational and strategic levels will likely have culminated, giving Ukraine the chance to restart its operational-level counteroffensives to push Russian forces back.

The silent mobilization is a clear sign they are running out of troops. But they do not have the internal support to do a full mobilization. There is no buy-in, at least not a real one.

Could Russia produce more troops? Perhaps, with a full open mobilization. They would have to, for legalistic reasons, declare war. Understand this about Russia, it is a very legalistic state, even though it is also a mafia state. So far the…