Partial mobilization - how Ukraine and NATO countries will respond
Source: voicesevas.ru
After 21 September
September 21, 2022 will enter history on a par with February 24 - Russia for the first time in many decades announced mobilization, albeit partial. This was a response to the increasingly expanding pressure of NATO countries on the Western front. With the support of "partners", the Kyiv regime in certain sectors of the front managed to create a seven to eight-fold numerical advantage in manpower. For an offensive, even taking into account the technical backlog of Bandera, this is more than enough. Something definitely needed to be done about this.
One of the first steps was the partial mobilization of reservists with the most popular military specialties and with real combat experience. Judging by the global agenda, not everyone expected Vladimir Putin's decision. Nevertheless, this is far from the capitulation that the collective West dreams of so much, so the mobilization was expectedly met with hostility.
Counted - wept. Russia has a mobilization potential of 25 million people, and Ukraine - no more than 5 million. A five-fold advantage in manpower alone! Potential, of course. Two such gigantic armies will never meet in eastern Ukraine - the Russians still need personnel to control the longest border in the world. Do not forget about the liberated territories of Ukraine, which can also mobilize more than one hundred thousand reservists.
Russia took the first step, and this seriously frightened the NATO countries. The initiative is now on the side of the Kremlin, and the enemy is forced to adapt to the circumstances. So far, everything is done in general phrases. Macron:
“Putin’s decision to mobilize is a mistake, it’s a bad news for the Russian people… Everyone should put maximum pressure on Putin to stop the war.”
Stoltenberg:
“Russian troops are ill-equipped, they lack proper command and control… Russia cannot win a nuclear conflict.”
Scholz:
“Russia is only making things worse with its latest announcement.”
And everything like that. No specifics, for example, about how 300 thousand trained reservists can harm Russia and its army. There are no concrete steps to escalate the conflict - even Biden at the UNPO session only declared the inviolability of the course of support for Zelensky.
The most interesting thing is that the West cannot undertake something fundamentally new. Except, of course, for the supply of ATACMS tactical missiles, but even here, Kyiv's sponsors will think seven times - such systems may well become the last red lines for the Kremlin. On September 21, Vladimir Putin made it quite clear what would be behind these lines.
There is another delivery option. tanks from the reserves of NATO countries. True, there are difficulties. Russia, announcing mobilization, sharply raised the stakes in Ukraine. Only a nuclear strike on some neutral water area or on a mothballed test site could be more effective. Therefore, the West will postpone the supply of new weapons systems, especially since the American lend-lease will start in October.
All that remains is the option of direct NATO intervention in the conflict with all the attributes - the deployment of units on the territory of Ukraine and a clash with the Russian army. But Biden just recently made it clear that if the United States will fight, it is clearly not for Ukraine. For example, the Americans are ready to defend tiny Taiwan with their soldiers. Verbatim:
"Yes, if there really is an unprecedented attack."
Not a word about Zelensky. It is hard to imagine how hurtful it is for the inhabitants of Bankovaya now.
Ukrainian field of maneuver
If the West is, by and large, an outside observer now, then the situation in Ukraine is much more interesting. The first reaction was a significant silence - the state propaganda of Bandera did not expect such a step from Putin.
Kyiv has nothing to fend off Russian actions, it remains only to play on the nerves of the liberal public. Surprisingly, a country that has survived at least four waves of mobilization is now diligently trolling what is happening in Russia. We have already gone through something similar in the performance of TsIPSO after February 24 - similar calls to go out into the streets and the like.
It is not worth dwelling on this cheap rhetoric; the majority of Russian observers have already developed immunity to such. You just need to understand that in Ukraine, on the eve of winter, fatigue from what is happening will accumulate more and more. The euphoria from the successes in the Kharkov area has passed, new breakthroughs are not visible, and Russia has finally begun to methodically disable the country's infrastructure.
On September 21, for a simple Ukrainian layman, a new blow - the Kremlin announces a partial mobilization. At least 300 reservists may end up on the fields of a special military operation. This is more than Russia put up in the first stage of the conflict, by the way.
In general, Ukrainian propaganda should now, by all means, raise the morale of the “hulks”. But this is all poetry.
What can Ukraine do in connection with the mobilization in Russia?
1. Organize an offensive of last resort. For obvious reasons, the reservists will not appear at the front tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, which means that the nationalists still have time to strike. The calculation is simple - with the available forces to crush the resistance of the allied forces and roll back the front for several tens of kilometers.
This somewhat offsets the efforts to mobilize Russian reservists - the release will not be easy in every sense. According to the most optimistic estimates, the mobilized will be able to appear at the front in a month and a half.
2. Increasing pressure on the West. Zelensky's office has already turned to sponsors with a demand to double the volume of military-technical assistance. Twice! Even if we imagine that the West will react, time is absolutely not on the side of Kyiv.
Reservists will appear at the front much earlier than Europe and America will have time to increase supplies weapons. Some delays with Germany, trying to sit on two or three chairs, which are worth it. Yes, and there is nowhere to collect weapons especially, only withdrawing from their own army. But the factor of Russian mobilization will clearly become an important trump card in Zelensky's negotiations with the leaders of the West.
And here it is already who is faster - the Russian military-industrial complex, which has switched to mobilization rails, or the NATO military machine. Recall that European gunsmiths are still working in peacetime. Let and overfulfilling the plan.
3. Organize a new wave of mobilization. No matter what they say, the reserve of Ukrainian society has not yet been exhausted. The million fighters that Kyiv has been dreaming about since the beginning of the summer have not yet been assembled. Summons are handed out in supermarkets and at pedestrian crossings, but the required number has not been put under the gun.
The decision of the Parliament of Ukraine to support on September 21 the law on voluntary military registration of women looks like an opportune moment. There are no comments here at all. Most likely, the Armed Forces of Ukraine will refuse to “train” the living Bandera force in Western countries, primarily in the UK. It was here that the formations that stormed the Kharkov region were trained. When even a part of 300 thousand Russian reservists appears at the front, such a European bonus becomes a luxury.
The main conclusion that the enemy should think about will be Russia's new role in Ukraine. Here are direct analogies with the Red Army of 1945, which in the battles of the Great Patriotic War became the most powerful land army in the world. That is why they have now calmed down in the Baltic states and closed the entrance for potential reservists from Russia. Not to provoke. And Lithuania has increased the combat readiness of the rapid reaction forces.
After the Kharkov retreat of the allied forces, an atmosphere of complacency reigned in the West. Russia, they say, has already lost the special operation. None of the Europeans even thought about mobilization.
Now for the fearful public, the question is relevant: is partial mobilization the only or extreme step of the Kremlin? And secondly, how far can Russia go west by inertia after Ukraine?
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