Thread by @CrisLeeMaza

The current fighting in Eastern Ukraine is likely Russia’s last offensive before it exhausts its available manpower

This article is locked, so here's a quick 🧵 with some of the takeaways:

nationaljournal.com/s/717490/russi…

Russia called up at least 100,000 reservists during the first phase of its war in Ukraine, but experts assess there are not many still waiting to fight.

The Russian military announced a spring recruitment effort last month that will last into June.

Even if Russia succeeds in recruiting 130,000 more soldiers as it said it would, it won’t be able to increase its ability to fight on the ground in Ukraine anytime soon.

It would take months to train new recruits and integrate them into existing units.

Training will also likely be a problem. Russia’s military is a hybrid entity that consists partly of professional volunteer soldiers, known as contract soldiers, and partly of conscripts.

The conscripts serve one-year terms that aren’t long enough to receive adequate training.

They also don’t receive additional training after returning home. That means many are not much more skilled than regular civilians.

These conscripts make up around one-third of the Russian military.

Many of the individuals responsible for training new soldiers have already been sent to the front line, raising questions about who would be available to train recruits.

Ukrainian sources tell me that in intercepted phone calls, Russians say they have signed contracts to fight for only 90 days.

Many Russians will expect to be sent home from the front line sometime in May. That could raise significant problems for Russia’s war effort.

Those contract fighters will probably be obliged to stay past their 90-day contracts. But that will dampen morale.

Putin has not formally declared war on Ukraine. Unless he does, it will be difficult to justify a further mass mobilization.

Conscripts cannot be legally sent to fight in combat, although many were forced to sign contracts so the military could lawfully send them into Ukraine.

All in all, as one Russian military expert told me, “there is no large body of Russian manpower coming....There’s no large Russian reserve available."