Moscow’s System of Raising Manpower without Mobilization "Unstable," Ivanov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 13 – Moscow is currently waging a major war in Ukraine “without a decree ordering a new draft and without criminal liability” for those who seek to avoid service, an approach “fundamentally different” from its own history and the experience of other powers, Konstantin Ivanov says.

            But the current system which involves “recruitment through cash compensation and the amnesty of criminals” is “unstable,” the Riddle commentator says.  To keep the influx of manpower going, the Kremlin has no option by to keep raising the payments, something that makes this system ever more expensive than mobilization (ridl.io/ru/institut-obmena-zhizni/).

            But the Russian government is pressing on with it because it is aware of the enormous political costs of declaring a mobilization, something it and the entire world saw when Putin declared one in 2022 and perhaps a million Russians fled to country to avoid service.

            “At the same time,” he continues, “any serious change in the configuration – the exhaustion of the subsidy pool, an economic downturn, or a decline in the willingness of the regions to compete on payments – would put the current arrangement for filling the ranks would call the current system into question.”

            Indeed, Ivanov argues, the current arrangement can function “only under specific conditions: an active war without general mobilization, the political impossibility of open conscription and the existence of financial reservs which allow human resources to be purchase don the market rather than extracted via political obligation.”

            “Should a new mobilization nonetheless occur,” the current arrangement “most likely would cease to be the dominant mechanism for replenishing the ranks of the Russian Armed Forces. Mobilization would close the current manpower gap against a shrinking pool of volunteers and growing losses.

            However, Ivanov suggests, the compensation approach likely “would remain as a means of dampening discontent among families. The contract option would probably also survive but only as a supplementary channel … With mobilization, “the one-time bonuses for signing up would likely be reduced as they place too high a burden on regional budgets.”