[Goose]

The "hawks" in the Russian social media sphere definitely do want Putin to declare war and full mobilization, but I disagree that they hold much power in Russia. They are people like Igor Girkin, former separatist fighters and veterans of 2014 offensive. But the people with power in Russia mostly have it because Putin has delegated it to them. The oligarchs are not hawks, the generals are not hawks. They know or do now that the whole war was a dumb waste that individually will mostly make them poorer in the case of oligarchs, or destroy most of their good equipment and troops from the standpoint of the generals. The generals probably are the ones who MOST want Putin to withdraw.

I agree that the "hawks" in the social media sphere really have no power on their own, but as in our country they do have a disproportionate impact on public opinion. They do have significant power there. I am interested to know why you believe the generals are the ones who most want Putin to withdraw. Certainly they are aware that the military has performed badly. However, I think it probable that at least most of them believe their physical survival is linked to a successful conclusion of this war. If Russia has to quit, there will likely be significant social upheaval followed by a search for scapegoats. That will be them. Defeated generals have a short lifespan in Russia. If they thought Putin would get all the blame for a defeat, you might be correct, but since they know that isn't what would happen, they too need to "go for broke". For them, defeat is not an option. There are also a significant (not majority) of the military hierarchy that believe (with some justification) that Putin's meddling and insistence on personal control of tactics is a big part of the problem. If he would mobilize the country and get out of the way they think they can still win this war.

Losing the war would certainly be destabilizing for any personalist authoritarian like Putin. But fortunately for Putin, many of the middle and upper class urban population whose support is probably most important to his rule have not been very directly affected by the war yet. A full mobilization changes that, and again would only mean more dead Russians without any change to the battlefield result.

The full mobilization will indeed affect all of Russian society and will eventually erode support for this crazy war. That is probably the main reason it hasn't been done already. However, the discontent and loss of support won't happen right away. Those advocating this action will point out that operational tempo will drop during the winter which will mitigate military losses. This will (in their rose-colored glasses) give Russia time to draft, equip, and train a large military that can overrun Ukraine. This isn't a totally crazy idea, if Russia could suddenly operate their military efficiently to train the troops.

The current Russian Army is not built to handle a rapid upscale in manpower from a draft, and even less so now that most training officers have deployed along with most of their less than 40 year old equipment.

This is the set of facts that make the mobilization option a very long shot. If the training apparatus was operating "normally" and if retired troops could be called back to increase training capacity, the mobilization would have a "reasonable" chance of success. Since neither of these conditions hold, it doesn't. However, if that is your only card, you play it.

Some possible 3rd Army reinforcements were seen deploying to Izyum area a couple days ago, and the next day were smoking wrecks. Hard to know for certain their provenance.

Hopefully we will get more information as time goes on.

[Goose]

The "hawks" in the Russian social media sphere definitely do want Putin to declare war and full mobilization, but I disagree that they hold much power in Russia. They are people like Igor Girkin, former separatist fighters and veterans of 2014 offensive. But the people with power in Russia mostly have it because Putin has delegated it to them. The oligarchs are not hawks, the generals are not hawks. They know or do now that the whole war was a dumb waste that individually will mostly make them poorer in the case of oligarchs, or destroy most of their good equipment and troops from the standpoint of the generals. The generals probably are the ones who MOST want Putin to withdraw.

I agree that the "hawks" in the social media sphere really have no power on their own, but as in our country they do have a disproportionate impact on public opinion. They do have significant power there. I am interested to know why you believe the generals are the ones who most want Putin to withdraw. Certainly they are aware that the military has performed badly. However, I think it probable that at least most of them believe their physical survival is linked to a successful conclusion of this war. If Russia has to quit, there will likely be significant social upheaval followed by a search for scapegoats. That will be them. Defeated generals have a short lifespan in Russia. If they thought Putin would get all the blame for a defeat, you might be correct, but since they know that isn't what would happen, they too need to "go for broke". For them, defeat is not an option. There are also a significant (not majority) of the military hierarchy that believe (with some justification) that Putin's meddling and insistence on personal control of tactics is a big part of the problem. If he would mobilize the country and get out of the way they think they can still win this war.

Losing the war would certainly be destabilizing for any personalist authoritarian like Putin. But fortunately for Putin, many of the middle and upper class urban population whose support is probably most important to his rule have not been very directly affected by the war yet. A full mobilization changes that, and again would only mean more dead Russians without any change to the battlefield result.

The full mobilization will indeed affect all of Russian society and will eventually erode support for this crazy war. That is probably the main reason it hasn't been done already. However, the discontent and loss of support won't happen right away. Those advocating this action will point out that operational tempo will drop during the winter which will mitigate military losses. This will (in their rose-colored glasses) give Russia time to draft, equip, and train a large military that can overrun Ukraine. This isn't a totally crazy idea, if Russia could suddenly operate their military efficiently to train the troops.

The current Russian Army is not built to handle a rapid upscale in manpower from a draft, and even less so now that most training officers have deployed along with most of their less than 40 year old equipment.

This is the set of facts that make the mobilization option a very long shot. If the training apparatus was operating "normally" and if retired troops could be called back to increase training capacity, the mobilization would have a "reasonable" chance of success. Since neither of these conditions hold, it doesn't. However, if that is your only card, you play it.

Some possible 3rd Army reinforcements were seen deploying to Izyum area a couple days ago, and the next day were smoking wrecks. Hard to know for certain their provenance.

Hopefully we will get more information as time goes on.