At the same time, a mass mobilization of some sort and scale is imperative if Ukraine is to avoid capitulation or at least negotiations of a few issues tertiary for Moscow probably destined for late this year or early next year. The issue of whether to talk with or capitulate to Moscow is even more explosive than mobilization, the latter being a stopgap measure before the former. In short, Ukraine has been driven into a corner by the West's insistence on war in order to secure the right to expand NATO wherever Washington and Brussels prefer.
As I noted previously, neither Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskiy nor his top commander of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Gen. Valeriy Zaluzhniy want to to take responsibility for the mass mobilization, though recently the latter nevertheless has been seen doing so and quite openly. It was Zelenskiy who in late November ordered Defense Minister Rustem Umerov and Gen. Zaluzhniy to draft the mass mobilization plan in the wake of Ukraine's defeated summer counteroffensive. But Zaluzhniy recently attempted to wash himself of responsibility for the unjust nature of Ukrainian mobilizations (see below) if not the now required mass mobilization under consideration. He did so in a way that addresses, even mitigates the risk of supporting such a mobilization, resorting to a kind of military populism. Speaking to the Rada's Defense and Security Committee, Zaluzhniy told his listeners that he needed 400,000 new troops for the Ukrainian army since the Russians had that many and might have 400,000 more by summer. However, he also addressed the Ukrainian public in stating in the same breath that if the Rada and by implication the entire Ukrainian leadership, including Zelenskiy, could not pass a mobilization law to accomplish this, then the Rada's deputies should go to the front themselves and fight the Russians.
Zaluzhniy is right that Russia is winning not just the arms race but the mobilization race, but it is another that Ukraine's survival requires. Ukraine has likely already suffered 500,000 casualties and is likely to suffer two-thirds of, if not match that catastrophic figure in 2024 alone. Leaked US documents last year estimated Ukrainian-to-Russian casualties at some seven-to-one. Recently, former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko estimated that Ukraine is currently losing 30,000 soldiers per month to death and severe injury. Proposals have called for 20,000 mobilized soldiers per month, but many of Ukraine's regions are failing to fulfill the present much smaller quota, producing small numbers of recruits.
At the same time, Russia is garnering 1,500 volunteers a day and has taken in some 450,000 in 2023, with an army already exceeding the size of Ukraine's unlike the case at the beginning of the war. Recent reports claim Russia is taking in 40,000 contract recruits per month, and most recently even 50,000. Thus, fueled by mass recruiting Russia is stepping up its 'active defense' or what Alexander Mercouris calls 'aggressive attrition' and could very well begin a larger offensive this winter, perhaps any day now. This, while weapons and financial support for Ukraine from the West is dying out instead of increasing as is needed. Defeat on the Russian-controlled bank of the Dnepr at Ukraine's slipping Krinki foothold opens the potential for a cascading collapse of the front from the south towards the east and southern Donetsk then turning north towards Avdiivka, Liman, and Kupyanks, folding up the entire front as Russian forces are made available by victory and redeployed to the adjacent front and so on - to reiterate, folding up the front from the southwest to the northeast. Without inputs, therefore, the troop deficit and collapsing or at least steadily receding front could mean the end of the Ukrainian army by year's end and its rout much earlier. Earlier this week Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitro Kuleba acknowledged "time is running out", and even if Ukrainians run out of weapons they "will fight with shovels".
Thus, Ukraine's government first proposed the figure of 500,000 as an immediate goal of the upcoming mobilization. But controversy over the broad sweep of the proposed draft contained in first drafts of the new law that the Rada should adopt, forced Zelenskiy to soften the public burden. First, this appears to have affected the reduction from 500,000 to 400,000. Then it produced the idea of staggering the draft in installments of, first 50,000, then another 30,000 in several months' time. The original bill was rumored to include females, people of 17-70 in age, and almost every category of disability, excluding deafness, dumbness, blindness, and a few others. Several severe health conditions, such as cancer, tuberculosis, and lung and heart diseases, did not suffice for ineligibility. In the present draft bill, the mobilization will touch only males of age 25-60 and exclude from eligibility those suffering some but far from all disabilities. The harshness of this mobilization bill adds to public consternation incited by the many absurdities and abuses of the present recruitment process, including: massive corruption; recruitment officers' beatings of suspected draft evaders under the ongoing forced mobilization; the seizure of draft eligible males on mostly eastern Ukraine's streets, cafes, bars, and sports centers; and the mobilization of middle-aged, old, and even mentally-challenged men. Many such incidents have been recorded and posted on the social net and Internet. The recent publication of a video showing a mentally challenged young man or boy being teased by Ukrainian soldiers at the front is particularly disturbing in this regard. All of this contrasts sharply to videos of elite sons partying in Europe to the detriment of the Ukraiianian elite, Maidan regime, state, and sociopolitical stability. Head of the Mikolaev Oblast Military Administration located in southern Ukraine recently declared from a television studio that there should be 40 million Ukrainians fighting not 500,000 and that anyone sitting the war at home essentially cannot expect any rights. The hypocrisy of making such a statement with a smile from a warm, clean television studio is unlikely to have been lost on Ukraine's citizens. Thus, there are now reports that the government is considering lifting the immunity from mobilization enjoyed by Rada deputies. However, unlikey to be adopted and if adopted unlikely to be enforced, this seems to be a nod to Zaluzhniy's methods as a point of leverage for the Zelenskiy government to shape the legislative outcome.
The mobilization scandals and refusal to provide frontline soldiers with proper rotation, rest and relaxation have already prompted a movement demanding legally mandated rotation and rest from the front, including small demonstrations in Kiev and elsewhere demanding the Rada include this in the mass mobilization bill. A similar movement has emerged in Russia, where there is no martial law regime yet imposed that bans demonstrations outright. Given the rising public pressure and the Zelenskiy government's declining clout at home and abroad, the Rada not surprisingly returned the draft bill recently to the government with criticisms and proposals for softening revisions, meaning the bill will not be considered until February. But time is not on Ukraine's side, and delay only raises the tensions and the stakes surrounding this most politically sensitive war issue.
The politically pivotal and delicate situation in Kiev was underscored by a statement of the chairman of the very committee to which Zaluzhniy made his plea for another 400,000 bodies for the front. Committee Chairman and SBU Colonel (so much for democratic civil-military relations) Roman Kostenko said that Zelenskiy was already a "political corpse" seemingly as a result of the mobilization crisis, if not the war failure. At the same time, Kostenko was careful to say that the draft bill was submitted by the "government" and that there was already being felt in the Rada an attempt to lay all responsibility for the at least the draft bill under discussion on the Rada. He made it clear that the executive branch, in particular "the president," was responsible ultimately for any draft and subsequent law, that the Rada shared some responsibility, and the the military's sole responsibility is to propose and then fight the war on the basis of civilian decisions. Thus, he seemed to be attempting to relieve the burden of responsibility from the military and to some extent from the Rada as well.
In sum, Zelenskiy, Zaluzhniy and the bulk of Ukraine's regime and pro-regime elite are caught between the two flames of a potentially revolt-inducing mass mobilization, on the one hand, and collapse of the front, Russian march to the Dnepr, or negotiations with the dreaded Putin, on the other hand. The off-ramp from this dilemma of negotiating with the Russians is itself enormously risky given the numerous nationalists, ultra-nationalists, neo-fascists, and everyday hardliners who would be inclined to attempt a putsch if such negotiations were broached.
Finally, the adoption of the draft law could affect any Russian decision-making regarding the timing of a concerted counteroffensive either in winter or early summer. The possibility that a Ukrainian mass mobilization could overly complicate any Russian offensive now likely under consideration in Moscow could be the straw that breaks the camel's back in favor of a decision by Putin to undertake a winter offensive. Ukraine pulls out all the stops and somehow adopts its new mobilization law in January, then new recruits could be at the front already in April, Kievans hope. This will help the spring muds or 'rasputitsya' to slow down any Russian progress on the ground. In addition, by spring the Ukrainians should have made considerable progress in constructing their own new defense line of reinforced trenches, mine fields, anti-tank 'dragon's teeth, firing points, etc. Also, by that time, some new Western weapons' supplies will have arrived, perhaps even those overly vaunted F-16s, though this now seems unlikely. Another reason to begin a counteroffensive in winter, if there is confidence in the Kremlin of early successes, might be to boost the margin of victory in Putin's inevitable March presidential reelection victory. But the Ukrainian mobilization, its lack of robustness, or Moscow's desire to preempt its effect could prompt Moscow to begin a winter offensive very soon. In other words, this mobilization squeeze is a watershed moment for Kiev's embattled Maidan regime and its accidental leader, Volodomyr Zelenskiy. If the nationalist system withstands the shock of an existential threat, as purveyed by the Maidan and its Western backers, as well as its attempt to introduce a draconian mobilization, then the Maidan project and Ukrainian state may still have some life in them. If not, then a failed mobilization will signal system failure, and Kiev will face the choice between capitulationist peace through peace talks with Moscow or risk existentialist defeat in war with Putin. Then the question becomes: What will NATO do? Likely answer is: enter Western Ukraine.
Reader Comments
I have noted before, the Ukraine's importance to the globalists is not fully recognized.
I would argue that NATO isn't concerned about Russia invading Ukraine or anywhere else. They're concerned about Russia convincing other nations to cooperate with them and strengthening BRICS.