Russia has not announced another mobilization, and there is no public evidence that Russia’s ruler Vladimir Putin has issued a final order for one.At the same time, Russia is testing the machinery required to conduct a new call-up, raising the cost of recruiting contract soldiers and attempting to capture the remaining Ukrainian-held areas of Donbas with an army suffering heavy losses for increasingly limited territorial returns.JOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official.All this comes while the US dispatches its top officials, including the head of the CIA, John Ratcliffe, to Moscow.Deny, deny, denyTalk of mobilization in Russia has been in the air for several months now.Russian military officers conducted a mobilization-readiness exercise in Kaliningrad in July, testing how the region would house, feed and arm a large number of new recruits, Western intelligence officials told The Wall Street Journal.The Kaliningrad exercise was reportedly one of several conducted across Russia. While the exercises do not establish that Putin has decided to order another call-up, they indicate that the administrative system is being prepared in case he does.President Volodymyr Zelensky said Kyiv believes Russia could mobilize another 300,000 troops after parliamentary elections scheduled for Sept. 18–20. He said the number could eventually reach 500,000 in 2027, with recruitment concentrated in Russia’s peripheral regions rather than Moscow and other major cities.
Russia Denies New Mobilization as Donbas Offensive Stalls and War Costs Mount
Moscow dismisses reports of another call-up as lies and “information canards.” But Russia is paying more to replace battlefield losses while its territorial gains shrink and the economic cost of continuing the war rises.
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