‘It’s a 100% mobilisation’: day one of Russia’s drive to build its army | Hacker News Reader

‘It’s a 100% mobilisation’: day one of Russia’s drive to build its army

theguardian.com

13 pointstrasz10 comments

>In Buryatia, activists said they didn’t understand why local officials were recruiting so aggressively, with students at local universities receiving draft notices while they were sitting in class.

not only received notices, they were taken in the middle of classes and loaded onto Z busses https://twitter.com/mediazzzona/status/1572907342496251904

I wonder how they're going to rebalance their economy from the inevitable dislocation, especially considering their apparent need to ramp up industrial production to replace their massive equipment losses.Then again a full war economy enables a suspension of fiscal/monetary norms and they don't need to do very much in the short term.

Putin can just assemble divisions and then move them around in on Russia's western frontiers to provoke anxiety and disruptions in European countries. Nobody is going to violate Russian territory which gives him the whole winter to flex at relatively low cost and risk while stabilizing his position in Ukraine.

This worries me. They recruit over 300k but only 150k were used for the invasion. If they are recruiting much more than 300k, as the article suggests may be a possibility, they may have some plans beyond Ukraine indeed - despite their shitty equipment and lack of organization.

I wonder what is going to happen in the winter with Europe and energy prices. When you can not say no to your enemy they are the ones that actually hold the power.

Consumer prices are already being capped, so people won’t be affected much. Gas-dependent parts of industry might have a problem, but we’ve been through this with COVID. (By gas I mean literal gaseous gas, not gasoline.)

>Putin can just assemble divisions

He could - half a year ago. Now he’s missing officers, equipment, and even uniforms. Zerg rush won’t work, not against proper weapons. Just yesterday another train full of T-62s mysteriously exploded moments after arriving somewhere at Donetsk.

>Nobody is going to violate Russian territory

Ukraine is already violating Russian territory in Belgorod and Russians can’t do anything about it.

Fully agree that he can't assemble combat divisions, or anything close. But given that he has lots of bodies and fuel, I think he has the capacity to move units around on the map all winter, while keeping planners, analysts and pundits busy.

This will be miserable for the conscripts (who are allegedly being issued with decades-old equipment and might not even have proper winter uniforms & boots) but even if it's pure stagecraft that would help to rebuild logistic expertise and confidence.

Still, I think Russia is capable of arming and training several hundred thousand of its troops in less than half a year. Russia still has a very large potential.

Russia isn't even capable of equipping all their current real troops in Ukraine with tanks build after the 60's, what are the conscripts going to ride on ? T55's?.

Russian defense industry - and pretty much every other Russian industry - is wholly dependent on western parts, tools, software, and know-how. Notice how Russia is forced to buy drones from Iran - even China refuses to provide them with technology at this point.

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