A few months before his “inauguration” for the fifth presidential term, Vladimir Putin met with officials of the Russian Defense Ministry, and they tried to convince him to hold a new mobilization.
The Wall Street Journal writes about this, citing sources, Babel reports.
It is known that the meeting took place earlier this year. The Defense Ministry officials told Putin that he should use his “inauguration” and the associated growth in support among the population to explain the need for a new mobilization, the source told the WSJ. In this way, he said, the military department hoped to compensate for Russia’s losses at the front.
According to the source, Putin rejected the proposal at the time. He told Defense Ministry officials that he wanted only those who had voluntarily signed a contract to go to war.
However, six months later, the problem of military shortages is getting worse, forcing Russia’s military leadership to push for mobilization again, three WSJ sources said. More than a month after the start of the Ukrainian army’s operation in Kursk region, Moscow has yet to organize a major counteroffensive to push Ukrainian troops back abroad, the WSJ noted.
The forces are currently insufficient to achieve the original goals of the war, to knock Ukraine out of the war, to undermine its military potential, or to defend the border regions of Russian territory. More and more people are saying that mobilization is inevitable, – the WSJ source said.
It is worth noting that the only official mobilization of 300,000 people was conducted by the Russian Federation in the fall of 2022.
