The specter of a general mobilization after Christmas spreads in Russia

After 9 months of a special military operation which was only supposed to last a week, tens of thousands of dead and more than half of its front-line units destroyed, the Russian authorities are struggling to find solutions to try to reverse the catastrophic situation of its armies in Ukraine. Faced with Ukrainian troops buoyed by a succession of victories, steely morale and increasingly numerous and effective Western equipment, Moscow's armies deployed in what remains a special military operation in the Kremlin's speech, are no longer successful. to take the initiative, and struggles to contain the surges of flexible and agile Ukrainian forces, capable of striking as soon as a weakness is detected.

At the same time, the Russian defense industry, although one of Moscow's critical advantages ahead of the conflict, is finding it increasingly difficult to even produce at the same rate as before the war, handicapped that it is by the difficulties of supplying Western components, but also by the partial mobilization which deprives it of part of its workforce, to the point that today there are 400.000 people missing for allow it to regain its production capacities. Many clues, such as the decision to “modernize” 800 T-62 tanks, an armored vehicle designed at the end of the 50s and produced in the 60s, to compensate for the losses recorded in Ukraine, highlight the tensions which strike the Russian defense industry today, and which has led several analysts to say that Russia has now passed the threshold beyond which it is effectively no longer able to recover of this disastrous campaign from the point of view of its conventional armed forces.

Apart from nuclear weapons, which would undoubtedly mark the start of a major world conflict, there remains only one alternative for Moscow to try to reverse the dynamic in Ukraine, relying on its population of 140 million. residents who are also still under control, through a general mobilization. In any case, this is the hypothesis which today is spreading like wildfire across the entire country, through an increasingly precise rumor according to which the Kremlin will trigger a general mobilization at the beginning of the year 2023, beyond the Christmas holidays. For many Russians, including among its elites, this rumor is taken very seriously, to the point of considering leaving the country before this deadline.

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