Adoption by the russian federation of a new version of the criminal code with penalties of up to 10 years of imprisonment for evasion of conscription, refusal to "participate in hostilities" and even surrender is the biggest scam that the Kremlin has been involved in since it decided to attack Ukraine.
This, combined with the attempt to squeeze everything possible from the country’s industry and the introduction of the same punishments for the military industry if a company violates or even refuses to accept a contract – all these were obvious steps to the mobilization which was announced only today.
Read more: Government of russia De-Facto Enforces the "War Communism" Regime Within Defense Industry and Army With a Penalty of up to 10 Years in Jail
The fact is, russia didn’t even need to announce the mobilization – just start one of the regular training for conscripts and once they gather, send them to frontlines. In such a situation, they don’t have a right to refuse because of the amendments to the Criminal Code introducing the broad notion of "during wartime or in conditions of an armed conflict".
Anyway, the mobilization has started, and the most important question is, who falls under the category of "reserve conscripts". First of all, it includes those who have undergone military service and are under the age of 50 for the enlisted troops and under 60 for officers. Also, though to a much lesser extent, those who have graduated military schools.
According to the open data, the number of conscripts in the russian federation from 1994 to 2021 looks like this:
The total number of people who served in the army of the russian federation since 1994 is 9.6 million people. If we suggest a conscript was 18 years old when he got conscripted into the army, then most of the reserve should consist of people aged 30–31 and those who served in the early 90s but haven’t reached the age limit of 50 just yet.
We should also take into account that a certain number of people from this "reserve" believed the promises of astronomical payments and already signed up for numerous "volunteer units" or simply signed a contract with the armed forces. In other words, the motivated "asset", so to speak, is already involved in the war. At the same time, the lack of manpower is still significant, otherwise there would be no need to adopt such laws and announce mobilization in the first place.
In summary, what is left are those who supported the actions of the russian army, complained that authorities must be "tougher" against Ukrainians and rejoiced at the terrorist missile attacks on Ukraine, but did all of that while sitting on the sofa in front of the TV.
That is, a whole army of "couch potato warriors" who quickly turned into candidates to become "cargo 200" (russian code name for killed in combat) and they won’t even get any incentive payments but the fear of getting put into prison for 10 years. What will happen with their motivation and their attitude towards the war, to the Kremlin and to putin personally – it is perhaps quite easy to imagine.
As for what to expect next, we can already tell on the example of the 3rd army corps of the russian army, which was thrown into Ukraine without proper training, personal equipment and combat machinery; and some of its units were staffed with personnel by approximately 40% of the intended quantity – after four months of trying to make it combat-capable.
Regarding the readiness of russian defense industry to provide necessary equipment for mobilized units, we have already covered that in one of the previous articles.
Read more: What For and How Many russians Will be Mobilized by putin and shoigu (Analysis)
