Mobilize this: How Russia and Ukraine are addressing personnel shortages at the front

RU

Starting from the Levée en masse of the French Revolutionary Wars in the late 18th century, nearly every major international conflict has created the need for mass national conscription. Even during the American invasion of Iraq, which involved only career troops, the U.S. military was forced to mobilize part-time National Guard units for extended tours overseas and to impose a temporary restriction on retirement from active duty service.

And of course, for as long as mobilization has existed, some potential recruits have done their utmost to avoid being dragged into the army. In 1916, when the United Kingdom introduced conscription to replenish its ranks during World War I, 30% of those notified failed to show up at enlistment stations. During the Vietnam War, as many as 30,000 draft-eligible American men decamped to Canada.

The Soviet Union took preparation for a hypothetical mobilization very seriously, putting together “reduced-strength” peacetime units that would be ready to take in new recruits in the event of a war. The system involved storing weapons and equipment for these units at immense military warehouses and teaching mandatory military training courses at civilian colleges to build a pool of reserve officers. However, after the Soviet Union collapsed, the system gradually fell into disrepair: the equipment was poorly maintained and often ended up sold or decommissioned; “reduced-strength” units were made redundant, and military training at colleges was either purely formalistic or canceled. As a result, both sides approached the largest military conflict since World War II with flagrantly inadequate mass conscription capabilities.

Mobilization efforts of 2014

The first to experience the challenge of mass conscription in the Russian-Ukrainian war was Ukraine — in 2014-2015. Following Russia’s illegal annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula in March 2014, Russian-backed forces began seizing administrative buildings in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in eastern Ukraine. Resistance from Ukrainian volunteer battalions helped push back the separatists, giving the Ukrainian military time to organize its response. The issues faced by the Armed Forces of Ukraine during the “hottest” phase of the Donbas conflict — from the summer of 2014 up until February of 2015 — were not widely publicized, but it was then that the slur mogilizatsia emerged — a portmanteau combining the Russian word for “mobilization” with mogila — “the grave”.

Despite the ostensibly limited presence of its regular troops in Donbas, the Russian side was struggling with personnel shortages as well. Dorzhi Batomunkuev, a “Buryat tankman” interviewed by Novaya Gazeta after being wounded in action in January 2015, mentions that his battalion tactical group was comprised of fighters from two different brigades and that he himself did not sign his contract until the moment he arrived at Russia’s border with Ukraine.

In the years of the lower-scale conflict — from the winter of 2015 up until February 24, 2022, when Russian forces openly invaded en masse — the Ukrainian military command kept conscription high on its agenda, recreating “reduced-strength” units into the country’s Reserve Corps, which were quickly brought up to full strength at the outbreak of the current full-scale war. But while the numbers of this formation were sufficient for the objective of securing Donbas, they were not large enough to guarantee the security of all of Ukraine.

In an effort to fill this gap in the run-up to February 24, 2022, Ukraine quickly reformed and expanded its Territorial Defense Forces, many of whom were yet to receive combat weapons at the moment Russian troops began crossing the border. Nevertheless, these Ukrainian units played an important part in securing the country’s northern regions in the winter and spring of 2022. They subsequently joined the fighting on other fronts despite still being less well-equipped than regular army units.