Growing Shortage of Military Equipment One Reason Why Kremlin Reducing Military Recruitment Effort in Moscow, ‘Meduza’ Says

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Dec. 16 – In recent weeks, the city of Moscow has reduced the number of billboards calling on men to joint the military, a development that flies in the face of reports that the number of Russians volunteering to fight in Ukraine has been falling despite the need for more troops to replace losses there.
    But there are at least two compelling reasons this is happening, officials tell Meduza correspondents Svetlana Reiter and Andrey Pertsev. On the one hand, the billboards had become so widespread that Muscovites were ignoring them but visitors from elsewhere in Russia were taking notice and signing up in Moscow (meduza.io/feature/2024/12/16/v-moskve-stalo-menshe-reklamy-sluzhby-po-kontraktu-vmesto-otpravki-na-voynu-lyudyam-predlagayut-shodit-v-novye-rybnye-restorany).
    As a result, Moscow was easily meeting its recruitment quotas but primarily as the result of decisions by men from other federal subjects who signed up there to get the larger bonuses that the capital is offering. That has meant that regions and republics have fallen short in their efforts, an embarrassment to both their own officials and to the Kremlin as well.
    And on the other, Russian officials say – and this is likely to be the more important reason – the Russian military finds itself in a situation where it has lost so much equipment in the fighting that commanders are no longer able to supply new men with the weapons they need to be effective fighters.
    “It’s not just about recruiting people,” one official told Reiter and Pertsev; “you have to be able to arm them.” That apparently is becoming a problem for the Russian invasion force, although for obvious reasons, it isn’t one that Moscow has wanted to talk about – or for less obvious reasons, one that most coverage of the conflict has focused on.