The Meaning of Putin's Mobilization for the Ukraine War?

In a new phase of his invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a plan to mobilize over 300,000 reservists on Wednesday. Putin claimed that the decision was made as a result of Western support for Ukraine, which required a Russian escalation. Putin also reiterated statements made earlier this week that captured Ukrainian regions would conduct votes on joining Russia. By doing so, he may be able to claim that military incursions into certain regions are direct assaults on Russian territory. Following Putin's speech, protest marches resulted in the detention of over a thousand Russians.

In a new phase of his invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a plan to mobilize over 300,000 reservists on Wednesday. Putin claimed that the decision was made as a result of Western support for Ukraine, which required a Russian escalation. Putin also reiterated statements made earlier this week that captured Ukrainian regions would conduct votes on joining Russia. By doing so, he may be able to claim that military incursions into certain regions are direct assaults on Russian territory. Following Putin's speech, protest marches resulted in the detention of over a thousand Russians.

I chatted over the phone with Sam Greene, a professor of Russian politics at King's College London and the director for democratic resilience at the Center for European Policy Analysis, on what the mobilization might signify. With Graeme B. Robertson, he co-authored the book Putin v. the People: The Perilous Politics of a Divided Russia. We talked about Putin's declaration regarding the war, how much Putin fears right-wing Russian nationalism, and how to assess the opinions of the Russian people throughout our chat, which has been edited for length and clarity.

Is Putin's statement in response to domestic politics in Russia or a military announcement ?

Both aspects are present. To claim that sending 300,000 troops to the front lines isn't intended to have an impact would be absurd. They obviously thought this was necessary. It serves as a sort of test run for whatever this war's next stage may entail. However, it's difficult to find military analysts who believe that this will have a significant impact on how this war is waged, at least in the near future.

It's difficult to determine exactly what Putin hopes to accomplish in internal politics. It is obvious that he has decided he wants to continue fighting this war, at least for the time being. He wants it to do more than just that. He doesn't think he's at a place where he can declare victory and walk away from the situation, so he will have to keep charging the Russian people for his actions.
He must be equally unsure about how the military will conduct the conflict as he must be about how this will be seen by the general population. Since the start of the conflict, polls have indicated that around three-quarters of the population support him, but we don't know, and he can't know, how strong that support is or how many risks people will be ready to accept. There have been protests in cities across the nation, so some of this is likely an effort to test the waters. He might not be entirely satisfied with what he has seen.

There are several things in this story that are illogical, including this one, which doesn't make sense. This war was conceived with the possibility of Russian public opinion becoming a factor. By opting for mobilization, he is not currently putting himself at risk. He had to contend with the possibility that the Russians would not be wholly prepared for this conflict. He had not discussed it. It wasn't covered by the media. Nobody was eager for a fight. Despite the fact that millions of Russians have friends or family in Ukraine, they weren't particularly outraged with Ukraine or Ukrainians. He was uncertain about their reaction to that
There was also a chance that this would have serious economic repercussions for Russia.

And we've seen other risks that perhaps he couldn't have predicted. As is typical in most nations, the burden of the war effort has fallen disproportionately on marginalized and poor communities. They frequently wind up joining the military and serving on the front lines. This has led to some very serious discontent in regions of the nation that believe they are shouldering an excessive amount of the weight.

Even still, after seven months, none of it has really presented a threat to his authority, leading him to believe that he can handle the situation. But only ten days ago or so, regional elections were held, and the results didn't show a strong support for Putin's policies.

You have claimed in the past that Putin has kept his support and influence by not demanding too much of the Russian people. To ask something so severe that may not even have a clear military value, unless it's only for testing the waters, does seem risky.

Where did we learn that?

We may infer this from the extremely low turnout rates and the degree of electoral fraud that the dictatorship had to commit in order to secure its desired outcomes.

He is simultaneously dealing with two difficulties. The effective Ukrainian counteroffensive over the past few weeks in the country's northeast hasn't sparked unrest among those who oppose the conflict in Russian public opinion. People who want Russia to fight more vehemently are behind it. Putin obviously believed that was the group to which he needed to reply. He must continue to support those individuals. But by addressing the issue of people who want him to fight more fiercely,

What do we know about the disenfranchised groups in Russia who you claimed were bearing the brunt of the war's effects?

We can recognize at least three different groups. We are referring to people, namely, in the Dagestan region of the North Caucasus, where there has been significant recruitment and where a large majority of the casualties have occurred. It is an area of the country that is dominated by Islam and has historically caused turmoil in Russia. Another example in Buryatia, a mostly Buddhist republic in eastern Siberia, which has a strong feeling of ethnic and local identity while not having a history of instability. People have turned to the military as a means of social mobility because of the actual, stifling poverty in your country.

Majority ethnic Russians from lower socioeconomic strata who experience hardship and a lack of educational and employment prospects have been another group that the Russian government has occasionally found it challenging to retain. These are industrial, Rust Belt-style towns where joining the military gives residents the freedom to travel around, acquire new skills, and earn some money. It is a community that frequently supports more nationalist parties and is acutely conscious of the economic imbalance in the nation, a problem that Putin's administration has never addressed.