Russian Defense Minister Sergei K. Shoigu said on Friday that a draft target of 300,000 reservists to supplement Moscow’s forces in Ukraine had been met, announcing the end of a recent draft that had been abandoned. ruined by protests, chaotic bureaucracy and inadequacy. training.
Speaking at meeting with President Vladimir V. Putin, Mr. Shoigu said that the Ministry of Defense had stopped sending enlistment notices and had no plans for further drafts.
The Kremlin’s announcement that the draft was over seemed to underline its eagerness to show normalcy to the Russians, which was a key strategy for maintaining passive support for the war. . The summoned reserves brought the fight closer to ordinary Russians, and the initial announcement of partial mobilization in September sent shockwaves across Russia and caused unrest. copper across the country.
Shoigu said that 82,000 troops have been sent to Ukraine, with about half of them taking part in combat. The rest are now in training, he added, according to a report on the meeting provided by the Kremlin. The department will continue to accept volunteers, he said.
The statements of the Secretary of Defense are not verifiable. The Kremlin is known for spreading misinformation about the war.
However, Ukrainian military officials said they have seen new recruits appear on the battlefield in the south and east. On Friday, Ukrainian officials said Moscow was continuing to add troops to defend the strategic southern city of Kherson, noting that about 1,000 new troops had recently been mobilized. Despite Mr Shoigu’s comments, the maneuver will not officially end until Mr. Putin signs a decree declaring that, which has not happened yet.
The two spoke Friday at Putin’s residence outside Moscow. At the meeting, Putin also acknowledged rarely that the war in Ukraine had shown the need to improve the Russian military. He told Shoigu that “corrections” were needed in the design of the Russian military and asked the defense minister to quickly prepare “necessary decisions”.
Announced by Mr. Putin in September, the draft provoked an exodus of Russian men. Thousands panicked and tried to flee the country, clogging the border crossings with neighboring countries, and forcing many people to leave their jobs and families.
Despite Mr. Putin’s pledge that the draft would be primarily aimed at those with prior combat experience and would receive appropriate training before deploying to Ukraine, reality at least some of the enlisted men had never served in the army and were sent to combat just weeks after being called up. Russian news websites reported that several recruits died on the battlefield shortly after the announcement of the mobilization.
On Friday, Mr Shoigu acknowledged that there had been problems with “various sources of supplies and allowances” at the early stages of the draft. Putin said that “necessary conclusions need to be drawn” and that the work of the enlistment offices “needs to be modernized”.
“Today, the most important thing is to equip, train, coordinate and everything related to make people feel confident if they need to directly participate in combat operations,” Putin said.
While many regions of Russia, including Moscow, have announced that they have completed their draft quotas, there has not been a rush of Russian men returning from abroad. That may be due to fears that the Kremlin could announce a new wave of maneuvers: Military experts have pointed out that 300,000 people – many of them untrained and ill-equipped – may not enough to tilt the military balance in Russia’s favor in Ukraine.
