"I can say that russia is preparing a mobilization on June 1st of an additional 300,000 military personnel," said President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyi, during a joint press conference with his counterpart from Finland, President Alexander Stubb, held on April 3rd in Kyiv after the meeting of the two top-level officials.
This is all for details on the matter. In fact, the announcement was made in response to a journalist's question about mobilization activities in Ukraine. Still, the statement of the Ukrainian president gives a gist of the two most important factors regarding the russian attempt to replenish its army, the figures and time frames. The thing is, the duration of the mobilization overlaps with the conscription period in russia that began on March 1st and will continue till July 15th, with the plan to gather 150,000 conscripts.
Read more: New Infantry Battalion Every 27 Days: Ukraine's Intelligence on russian Mobilization Resource and Training Quality
Note that in 2022, during the so-called "partial mobilization," russian armed forces were planning to recruit 300,000 men into the army, but for this purpose, they postponed the start of conscription for one month. The "partial mobilization" lasted from September 21st to October 31st, and the draft of conscripts began the next day, on November 1st.
This time around, the decision to overlap these campaigns is possibly related to the fact that the spring conscription was extended to a whole 4 months. Moreover, according to earlier information from Ukraine's Defense Intelligence, the enemy has significantly increased and accelerated the training of new recruits, at the current rate, preparing an infantry battalion takes only 27 days. The quality of training is poor, but more importantly, the figures tell about the russian capacity to mobilize fresh forces.
It is also necessary to understand that even at such a pace, military commissariats and training camps will hardly be able to process 300,000 in a short-term perspective, so most likely, the campaign will stretch for several months.
Based of the latest data from the Ukrainian Defense Intelligence, we can also assess the expected contingent of russian invasion forces in Ukraine after the Kremlin has carried out all the mobilization activities. At the beginning of 2024, the number of russian troops in Ukraine was 450,000 to 460,000, and as of April 2024 it is estimated at about 474,000. At the same time, the number keeps growing despite constant losses due to deployment of additional "contractors."
Taking into account all these figures, after the Kremlin has wrapped up the mobilization and the recruits have completed their training, the total number of the russian invasion group can grow up to 0.7 million personnel.
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