Docent of Military Sciences Ilmari Käihkö is convinced that, as the war continues, Russia will be faced with a new movement, sooner or later.
– It’s only a matter of time when it comes. There is a shortage of men, Käihkö describes the situation in the Russian army.
According to Käihko, Ukrainian experts have estimated that Russia is already able to recruit around 20,000 new soldiers per month. However, this is not enough, the eastern neighbor needs even more fresh troops for its army.
– Yes, it is a large amount. We are talking about hundreds of thousands of soldiers, Käihkö describes the need for mobilization.
Pressure on the eastern border again
According to Käihkö, the new business launch may cause similar phenomena in the eastern neighbor as last year’s fall, when Russia announced a partial business launch.
At that time, hundreds of thousands of Russian men tried to escape from Russia. A lot of Russian men also came across Finland’s eastern border.
Read more: The small hotels on the surface of the eastern border are now full of those who took a sudden departure from Russia: “I started to feel very uncomfortable”
This time, however, Russia is better prepared, and such an extensive phenomenon is unlikely to occur.
– Russia has introduced, for example, an electronic business launch order, Käihkö says.
In practice, this means that the personal account of Russians in the state administration system receives a business deposit order. If the person does not react to the order, his activities can be restricted, for example, by freezing the registration of his own car or preventing the purchase of train tickets.
Control of the border regions has also apparently been stepped up in Russia. Helsingin sanomat newspaper (behind the paywall) said in August that in the Republic of Karelia, for example, local hotels are looking for travelers who are possibly planning to cross the land border into Finland.
Russia’s stability may be shaken
The new, broader movement launched in Russia can sow discontent in the eastern neighbor, says a professor of Russian history who studied the breakup of the Soviet Union and the processes that followed it Jeremy Smith from the University of Eastern Finland.
– That would be a revolutionary change, says Smith.
Smith justifies his view by the fact that the Russian president Vladimir Putin has tried to minimize the effects of the war on the everyday life of Russians. This has maintained support for the war, or at least its passive acceptance, high in Russia.
A new broad movement could change the situation in one fell swoop. The war would then become part of the everyday life of more and more Russians, which could generate widespread discontent, especially if the losses and territorial losses in the war continue.
– The situation can then change very quickly, says Smith.
Russia already got a taste of the rapid changes in the situation in June, when the leader of the Wagner mercenary army Yevgeny Prigozhin rallied his forces in rebellion and marched towards Moscow. The situation was eventually negotiated, but the Wagner rebellion showed that Russia has the possibility of even civil war.
The issue was brought up in an interview with in July by the editor-in-chief of the Russian opposition media Ilya Kozygin.
Putin seeks to learn from history
Despite the crew shortage, Russian President Vladimir Putin has postponed decisions on the launch until the last minute. For example, last fall’s partial implementation of the movement came so late that it did little to stop Ukraine’s large-scale recapture of the Kharkiv and Kherson regions.
Part of the reason behind Putin’s reluctance may be his interest in history, which the Russian president often uses to justify his own actions. Russia has had very bad experiences with general business promotion for more than a hundred years.
At that time, during the First World War, severe defeats in the war, the mobilization of 15 million men, the decline of the economy and food shortages eventually led to revolution, civil war and the disintegration of Russia.