Ukraine, Putin’s step towards mobilization: from “special operation” to “real war”

In the first three months of 2026, only 71,200 people received the bonus paid at the time of recruitment, 20 percent less than recorded in the same period of 2025, the Russian balance sheet revealed, as the independent news site Vazhne Istorii found out when it studied it in depth. Already in 2025, 363,900 people had signed on a voluntary basis, 10 percent less than in 2024. For a few months, also thanks to legislative measures passed last autumn, elements of the active reserve have been recalled. But the recruitment rate seems not to be sufficient to support Moscow’s war effort put in difficulty by medium and long-range Ukrainian drone attacks. In the first six months of the year, 27 thousand people were recruited every month against 30-34 thousand losses.

“Moscow. October. 1.2 million people”, wrote Vladimir Romanov in recent days, without indicating the source of this news which anticipates a mobilization the month after the legislative elections in September. The “ghost of Novorossiya” channel specifies that mobilization “is not a question of if, but when”, due to the “unfavorable dynamics of military operations”. “Leveraging incentives to recruit volunteers does not objectively satisfy the needs of the front for a series of reasons, from the ratio between losses and soldiers to the need to maintain a higher number of personnel than is currently available”, we read on the blog.

“The enemy is compensating for the numerical gap with long-range asymmetric attack tactics, using drones with technologies that Russia is still only just beginning to achieve. This has repercussions on logistics and critical infrastructure not only in the Russian territory control zone and adjacent territories, but also deep inside the country. As a result, it is necessary to significantly increase human resources to organize a radically new air defense system“, scrive Prizrak Novorossiya.

The Dnevnik Razvedki (Intelligence Diary) channel reported that the Kremlin would have had contacts with the leaders of neighboring countries, including Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, to avoid the mass exodus of young peopleas happened during the partial mobilization in September 2022. The borders will remain officially open, but leaving Russia will be effectively impossible due to “technical problems”, “tighter controls” and other unofficial measures adopted by neighboring states, the blog claims, citing an anonymous “source”. “Unfortunate surprises” on the logistical level, he says, could begin as early as September or October. Moscow has passed a decree for the temporary closure, starting from July 1st, of the railway crossings with Finland, Estonia and Latvia. The decree blocks “the movement of people, vehicles, goods and cargo”. Of all the crossings listed in the decree, only those at Pechory, with Estonia, and Pytalovo, with Latvia, have been operational for a couple of years. The border with Finland has been closed by the Finnish authorities. It is not clear whether the measure was taken to avoid the flow of young people fleeing from the mobilization, since only freight trains pass through the border points, not passengers. This measure may have been introduced only to block what remains of fuel exports.

Ruslan Leviev, of the Conflict Intelligence Team, doubts that Vladimir Putin will announce a large-scale mobilization. It would be too costly to form new units, equip them and train them. And the effort would have no immediate results at the front. “This year the war has changed significantly.” For the second month in a row, Ukraine carried out more long-range attacks than Russia. “It is difficult to say whether or not Ukraine has the initiative on the battlefield. But the time factor works in its favor. Russia is facing more and more problems – economic, political and military that are accumulating,” Leviev said in an interview with the Washington Post.

The Peskov’s wordswho had already sporadically used the term war to talk about the military operations underway in Ukraine since February 2022, they can also be read in the wake of rhetorical escalation against the Westsince, again according to Peskov, the transition from special operation to war can be traced back to the support of Western countries in Kiev, however considered an alternative path, that of actions against European countries rather than mobilization, which Russia could take to resolve the stalemate in which it finds itself.

“There’s a war going on, it’s a real war. And do you know why it’s a war? It started as a special military operation and continues as a war because behind Kiev there are Berlin, Paris, The Hague, Oslo and, unfortunately, Washington“, said Peskov, in an interview with the Vhtrk journalist favored in the Kremlin, Pavel Zarubin. “No one should doubt that the Russian forces still manage to advance. We see the concrete results of this progress,” Peskov added, reiterating the fall of Kostyantinyvka, disputed by Ukrainians.

To aggravate the problem of the insufficiency of soldiers to send to the front, there is now the need to protect the rear, under attack by Russian drones. Gazprom has signed a contract with the Defense Ministry to create mobile fire groups to protect gas infrastructure, the German-based Russian opposition news site Echo reported. The soldiers operating in these groups will receive a salary from Gazprom of 200 thousand rubles per month (equal to 2,598 dollars) during the two-month training which is added to various contributions from the Ministry of Defense. During training, personnel will be able to maintain civilian status. They will later be deployed in the region where they sign the contract, just to protect the infrastructure. The contract requires volunteers to serve for three years in the active reserve. The Volunteer Brigade for the Nevsky Reconnaissance and Assault, one of the many paramilitary groups born in Russia in recent years, also began recruiting for these groups.. And elements of the 810th Infantry Brigade of the Black Sea Fleet were involved in these groups, for the Crimea.