The board of Russia’s Ministry of Defense meets in Moscow, Sept. 21.
Photo:
russian defence ministry press s/Shutterstock
Throughout Russia last week, tens of thousands of men were called up for military training and service in the Kremlin’s war on Ukraine. They are part of a mobilization that could see as many as one million fighters thrown into the fray. This is
surge.
Based on assessments of many military experts, the new fighters will receive rudimentary training, will be armed with Soviet-era equipment, and will be sorely lacking in morale. In months or weeks, they will be prime candidates for cannon fodder, a role primarily played so far by fighters mobilized from Russia’s poorest and most remote regions.
Most frontline casualties on Russia’s side thus far have been fighters dragooned into service from Russian-occupied Donbas, or volunteers recruited from among Russia’s poor and marginal. Many are from Asian and Siberian minorities or mercenaries from Russia’s private armies or criminals recruited from Russian prisons. They will now be replaced in part by a broad cross-section of fighters from European Russia and its more prosperous metropolitan areas, such as Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg and Rostov-on-Don.
Already Russian protestors have taken to the streets of Moscow and other cities. Several military recruitment stations have been torched and one attacked by a gunman. Anger and anxiety will grow once men are killed or return permanently maimed due to Mr. Putin’s folly. The call-up means the war will enter the homes of most Russians in a way that Mr. Putin has heretofore avoided.
In this context, the best answer to Mr. Putin’s surge is a Western surge in lethal military assistance to Ukraine, including tanks, fighter aircraft and long-range missiles. That assistance should have two aims. First, help Ukraine swiftly recapture territories in Kherson and Donbas before the…
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