WSJ: Putin Is Under Pressure

What is stopping the head of the Kremlin from carrying out mobilization?

Several months before the "inauguration" of President Vladimir Putin in May 2024, representatives of the Russian MoD insisted on a new stage of mobilization, but the Russian dictator rejected this idea, writes The Wall Street Journal.

According to the publication, the head of the Kremlin said that he wants to use only contract soldiers to replenish troops and compensate for losses at the front. Still, now he is under strong pressure, since in almost 3 years of war, the Russian Armed Forces have lost about 1 million people killed and wounded.

Mobilization for Putin can have serious political consequences, the media notes. But at the same time, Russia is losing more soldiers on the battlefield than it can recruit to replace them, the article reads.

"The forces are currently insufficient to achieve the original goals of the war: to remove Ukraine from the conflict, undermine its military potential, or protect the border areas of Russian territory. More and more people are saying that mobilization is inevitable," says a media source.

Journalists report that during the first wave of mobilization in the Russian Federation, during which the occupiers planned to add 300,000 people to the army, the Russian authorities faced protests and the need to close the border in some regions. According to their data, although Russia has an advantage in population compared to Ukraine, the lack of personnel remains a serious problem for them.

"Russia did not agree to send key front-line forces to Kursk, but due to its limitations, it was forced to transfer troops from Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, where they were less needed," said Rob Lee, a senior fellow at the Institute for Foreign Policy Studies of the American think tank.

According to some estimates, the Russian Federation is recruiting about 1,000 people a day, while, according to the UK, the occupiers are losing about 1,100 soldiers at the front every day. As the article states, Russian leaders are not announcing a new wave of mobilization due to concerns that this process will upset the “fragile balance” of how society perceives the war — this could have dangerous political consequences for Putin.

The Levada Center independent sociological service in Russia published survey data in which 46% of the population of the aggressor country admitted to fearing mobilization (this is 12% more than in February 2024).

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