The Kremlin boss hesitated for a long time. Only after dramatic losses on the Ukraine front did he announce partial mobilization, calling hundreds of thousands of Russians into the war. Because the resistance is enormous, Putin is now at the forefront of the critics.
A week after the start of partial mobilization for his war against Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin criticized mistakes in the call-up of reservists. “All mistakes must be corrected,” Putin said at a meeting of the National Security Council. For days, reservists have been complaining that they were being drafted into military service despite fatal chronic illnesses, old age or other exclusion criteria.
There are many questions, mistakes should not be allowed, said Putin. Anyone who was mistakenly sent to the front must return home. This also applies to fathers of large families. The Kremlin chief called on the Prosecutor General’s Office to pursue violators of the mobilization.
The Russian Ministry of Defense is officially drafting in 300,000 reservists who are supposed to hold the occupied areas of Ukraine after numerous defeats by the army. Many complain that they are sent to the front completely unprepared – without the right equipment and without military training. Putin again stressed that the conscripts had to go through military training. Reservists with special military knowledge and experience should be drafted. But everyone would have to be prepared for the mission, said the President.
For days there have been reports that the district military replacement offices act ruthlessly when conscripted and also recruit reservists who officially do not fall under the partial mobilization. “It is necessary to look at each individual case,” Putin said. The mobilization, which was rejected by large parts of the population, triggered the largest anti-war protests in months. There were also arson attacks on conscription offices. In addition, the recruitment of reservists for Putin’s war of aggression against Ukraine triggered the largest mass exodus in the history of his more than 20 years in power. Hundreds of thousands of Russians have left the country.
According to British intelligence services, the newly recruited Russian fighters are going to war in Ukraine without any sound training or experience. Moscow faces the enormous challenge of training troops, according to a short report by the British Ministry of Defense earlier this week. In the Russian army, in contrast to many western armies, it is customary to undergo initial training within operational units rather than in special training institutions.
A certain number of instructors are normally allocated within each brigade to train new recruits. However, many of these so-called third battalions are currently deployed to Ukraine. The lack of instructors and the rushed nature of the partial mobilization indicated that many soldiers were being sent to the front without adequate preparation. This makes high losses likely, it said in London.
