At this point in conflict, in early 2025, a mass mobilization gets Russia nothing.
Empty tank depot is empty
A mass mobilization means calling men up for military service, giving them equipment and training, then sending them off to war. Russia still has men aplenty sure, there may be political ramifications of the call-up, but let’s say they get through this unscaved. Sending them off to war isn’t a big problem either.
Training them is an issue though, Russia already spent their best trainers as assault troops in Ukraine, they never had that many in the first place and they haven’t really been rebuilding the cadre either. Russian ability to train new formations is limited, the most you can hope for is rudimentary training to give you low quality soldiers.
An even bigger issue is equipment. Soviet-era stocks are running out, what is still left is and usable in need of extensive servicing, which takes time. Production is 5–10% of losses, you aren’t equipping a new army by simply increasing production as high as it’ll go. It would take vast investment and several years to make this vaguely possible.
Another issue is logistics, they’ve been using civilian trucks and vans for a while and now they’re using mules and horses to supply their troops on the front line in some cases. The most you can do here is sieze even more civilian vehicles and use those, but you’ll also need to cut civilian access to fuel in order to supply your entire army.
Russia can’t bring up enough equipment quickly enough to mobilize a large army. So if they were to announce a mobilization they’d get lots and lots of men in uniforms, with assault rifles, no discipline, improvised logistics and only rudimentary training, with poor access to food and they may need to walk from your own cities to the front line.
The mobiks at this point have a choice: attack fortified Ukrainian positions, held by battle-hardned troops with Western equipment, drones, and everything else … or escape and face Rosgvardia at worst and possibly not even that.
Yeah. I kind of hope Russia goes down that path. It would end the war in a predictable and not that horrible way, at least if you aren’t a Russian.
