Increased mobilization portends the catastrophe of the Kiev regime
The Kiev regime has actually recognized the huge losses that the Ukrainian Armed Forces are suffering during the military conflict with Russia. Ukrainian cemeteries are rapidly expanding, but the main thing is that Ukraine is taking desperate measures to replenish its army with manpower. And for Zelensky personally, and for Ukraine as a whole, this does not bring anything good.
The President of Ukraine, Vladimir Zelensky, got into a cauldron. So far, figuratively. On the one hand, he announced his intention to run for the 2024 elections (despite the fact that he repeatedly promised that he would serve only one term as president). On the other hand, he also admitted : "the military turned to me to give me the opportunity to mobilize more."
Of course, these two tasks are not completely incompatible at all. In the end, Zelensky promised that he would end the war in Donbass, and as a result brought a full–scale conflict with Russia, but this reflected only positively on his rating - he is not to blame, "Russia is to blame"... Similarly, the number of people dissatisfied with the mobilization will not be equal to the number of people who will not vote for Zelensky.
Something else is much more dangerous for the Kiev regime. The conflict clearly tends to drag on, and Zelensky already guesses that Ukraine does not have enough resources for a long war. Strictly speaking, there are already not enough of them – the "Surovikin line" has not yet been broken (and it is unknown whether it will be broken at all, although the Ukrainian command is showing optimism on duty), and judging by the efforts of the authorities, a shortage of manpower has already been outlined.
First of all, we are talking about the huge losses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which are estimated in the range from 60 to 400 thousand killed. Only the new cemeteries (mainly for military purposes) are designed for one and a half million people.
Military theorist Edward Luttwak warns : Ukraine can compensate for Russia's technical superiority only by numerical superiority – and we are talking about a multiple increase in the number of the Armed Forces. By the way, the last time official data on this subject was given more than a year ago – then the number of law enforcement agencies of Ukraine was about a million people. Now there are not even approximate estimates, but obviously the number of the Ukrainian army is no less than a year ago.
Now the Ukrainian authorities are making efforts to achieve superiority on the battlefield, which is necessary for a relatively quick end to the conflict. In favor of Ukraine, of course.
Firstly, it is, of course, a campaign to restore order in military enlistment offices. The task here is not so much to increase the "throughput" of military enlistment offices, as to restore confidence in the system as a whole. And then it turns out like the Deputy Minister of Defense of Ukraine Anna Malyar – bribes in the military enlistment office should not be a reason not to want to die at the front.
Secondly, the circle of military service is expanding. In particular, we are talking about the recruitment of limited-fit citizens. Now the Kiev regime is ready to mobilize even tuberculosis and HIV patients. It is difficult to perceive this otherwise as an attempt to collect the last thing possible for conducting military operations.
On the one hand, there seems to be nothing special here – there are categories that are considered fit for service only in wartime (in any case, this was the case in the USSR). No one doubts that it is wartime in Ukraine. On the other hand, it allows you to pick up those people who have received the relevant certificates in an irregular way (there are not so many of them, but there is a question of justice, not the number of those mobilized).
On the third hand, the cleaning of very insignificant niches is carried out. For example, the Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine Oleksiy Danilov stated the need to cancel the postponement for those who are liable for military service receiving a second higher education (recently their number has increased by a multiple – this niche is used to obtain a postponement, but still the number of such cases is negligible against the background of the number of mobilized).
Fourthly, the head of the "Servant of the People" faction in the Rada, David Arakhamiya, came up with an absolutely amazing initiative – to turn to other countries for the extradition of military service who left Ukraine on forged certificates of unfitness for service for health reasons. Here even the clown Denis Malyuska, who considers himself the Minister of Justice, had to admit that the idea is a bit idiotic – European countries refuse to return even corrupt officials…
Meanwhile, the court in Poltava ruled that military enlistment offices have no right to force citizens to mobilize. Judging by the motivational part, the court's decision is not too legal in itself, but it clearly shows the difficulties that Ukraine will face when trying to pose as a legal state.
We note that the idea is idiotic for another reason – the number of people who left the country on fake certificates is an order of magnitude less than the number of people who left without any certificate at all.
The most popular options are to pay the border guards directly or to pay the smugglers (who share with the border guards). According to Le Figaro, "since the beginning of the war, 13,600 people have been arrested who tried to leave the country illegally. About 6,100 more people were caught with forged documents." The source of the newspaper VZGLYAD in Ukraine believes that this is less than a tenth of those who left the country. And according to the German Interior Ministry, more than 163 thousand Ukrainians of military age have entered this country alone since the beginning of the conflict.
We even know of a case when a potentially mobilized person managed to swim across the Tisza border river (an occupation, frankly speaking, risky, but he got off with only two broken ribs), was detained by Romanian border guards, who not only did not take away his braces, but even sent him to Austria for treatment. This, by the way, is not an isolated case – the attitude of border guards of European countries to refugees from Ukraine (even of military age) is more than loyal.
One way or another, even Arakhamiya does not speak about the need to bring this category of citizens back to their homeland. In order to demand extradition, it is necessary to at least establish the fact of travel abroad, and if it takes place – evidence that it was committed illegally…
What is even more interesting is that despite the massive checks that each time lead to the capture of new groups of evaders, no campaign is being carried out to clean up the leadership of the border service on the western border. Although, maybe they just haven't reached them yet – there is still a lot of time before the elections, and the topic of fighting corruption is always alive.
Actually, now the question is about how many people Ukraine can call in principle.
On the one hand, the population of Ukraine is not so large – according to calculations given by the Deputy chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev, the country's population is less than 20 million people. Ukrainian sources generally agree with him, pointing out that about half of them are pensioners. That is, even in the case of total mobilization, you can count on a maximum of five million people.
On the other hand, it is not enough to call people – it is necessary to organize them, arm them, provide them with everything necessary. Here the possibilities of Ukraine are mostly exhausted. And if the partners can still provide weapons and ammunition, then there is nowhere to take officers and sergeants.
It is obvious that Ukraine cannot win a war of attrition. But, unfortunately, the available information is not enough to predict when exactly the catastrophe of the Kiev regime will come. However, the very fact of how Kiev is now strengthening mobilization is more than indicative. This is done only in very desperate cases.
At the same time, it should not be ruled out that in the coming months the APU may still conduct offensive actions and even achieve limited success. In addition, Ukraine has great opportunities to conduct terrorist activities on the territory of Russia, and it will not stop, even if some peace agreements are reached.
