Sunday Update. Russia (finally) mobilizes with the worst mobilization process in modern history. Plus why it wont matter that much unless they properly train and equip the forces and why people are being fooled by one vision of WWII and the Eastern Front.
https://twitter.com/MarkUrban01/status/1572993179678543872?s=20&t=c_jnvbKTu6uiZsAV722p9g
If Putin understood this war after the initial setback around Kyiv, he would have mobilized . It was then. As the Russian Army was going to soon run very short of well-trained and motivated troops. I put together this thread in March.
https://twitter.com/PhillipsPOBrien/status/1506521791786803206?s=20&t=jfw7ewngqd3V7JKb7HNdyg
In April, when there was talk about Putin mobilizing during his May 9 speech, I guessed it would have taken him about 9 months minimum to produce basically trained forces, and that was if they had started preparing.
https://twitter.com/PhillipsPOBrien/status/1519560504712253440?s=20&t=jfw7ewngqd3V7JKb7HNdyg
Just as a point of comparison, in WWII it took the US a year from starting the process to train and equip a division for action. And this was after the US had spent a long time planning the process, training the trainers, etc. Russia has done none of that
https://twitter.com/PhillipsPOBrien/status/1523660565725741057?s=20&t=jfw7ewngqd3V7JKb7HNdyg
If they really are going to give these poor conscripts two weeks of training and send them to Ukraine with old crappy weapons, it will probably make things worse, as logistically moving and maintaining them will hardly be worth their combat value.
https://twitter.com/christogrozev/status/1573650479799799809?s=20&t=c_jnvbKTu6uiZsAV722p9g
Actually, Putin seems to be desperately trying to recreate the Stalinist experience in WWII, but he is fooling himself about that (as I would argue he and many others have fooled themselves about just how important the Eastern Front was in defeating the Nazis).
So much of his and other people's view of WWII has been dominated by the argument that the was was decided on the Eastern Front with the engagement of the Red and German armies, that they have focussed on the wrong variables--numbers of soldiers.
When people say the war was decided on the eastern front, they invariably turn to numerical Army size. And yes, most German infantry was engaged on the Eastern front from June 1941 until the summer of 1944.
However, numbers of soldiers has ceased being the key metric since the industrial revolution. Since then the key thing is the army with the best trained and motivated forces provided with the best equipment.
During WWII, the Germans actually sent a remarkably small % of their military production to the Eastern Front. Basically they always prioritized aircraft production and the land war was secondary. ie, in an industrial/technological assessment, the Eastern Front was secondary. 
Ive written a 600+ page book on this so wont describe it all here. Basically if you look at WWII from the point of the creation, deployment and destruction of material, you will get a very different view than is normally the case. Here is a short summary. cepr.org/voxeu/columns/…
Long story short, the numbers of troops in and of itself is a poor indicator of success and failure in modern technological, industrial warfare. As said above its about the number of well-trained, motivated, equipped and supported forces.
The Russian mobilization process seems deliberately operated to create the opposite of this, poorly trained, disaffected soldiers with crappy equipment and poor logistics.
The big story this week was not Russian mobilization, but that Ukraine continues grinding on. The Russian front around Lyman looks decidedly ropey, and should fall in the coming days.
https://twitter.com/War_Mapper/status/1573829407822708743?s=20&t=c_jnvbKTu6uiZsAV722p9g
Russian forces on the west bank of the Dnipro are still getting methodically chewed up and are difficult to supply.
https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1573799345434120192?s=20&t=c_jnvbKTu6uiZsAV722p9g
The Ukrainians have become the better armed, trained and motivated force. Russia will have to compete in this area, not just raw numbers of bad soldiers, if they are going to be able to hold on.
The Ukrainians being absolutely brutal about their expectations of Russia sending poorly trained conscripts to war.
https://twitter.com/defenceu/status/1573997205723222018
@GeneralStaffUA in their evening update says the Russians are already sending some of the just forcibly raised conscripts into fighting units after no training whatsoever. If true, this is desperate stuff.
https://twitter.com/GeneralStaffUA/status/1574067810992590852?s=20&t=YbdGG_WuD3Wo5O_pnxwo1g
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