Finland’s respected President Alexander Stubb has warned that a massive defeat in the war would force Vladimir Putin to immediately order a massive mobilization in Russia.
He speculated that the Russians’ reaction against forced conscription could pose a “problem” for Putin. It comes amid criticism of the war effort by the Kremlin’s prominent supporters of the ongoing invasion of Ukraine. “For one percent of Ukrainian land (Putin) has lost 500,000 Russian troops,” Mr. Stubb said. “I think it puts things into perspective. And now when we’re in a situation where Ukrainians are killing over 30,000 Russians per month…
“The Russians are not able to recruit back, we are getting closer to the moment when a general (mobilization) call from the Russian part may have to be made. And I think that is a problem.”
As if on cue, Russian police reportedly raided more than 40 migrants in Moscow, sending them to a military recruitment office from where they could be sent to war.
Putin’s spokesman today tried to downplay Mr Stubb’s forecast, claiming mass mobilization was not currently on the agenda.
But Russia’s influential pro-war bloggers are angered by Ukraine’s recent attacks on oil ports and refineries and heavy losses in the war.
After five days of uninterrupted attacks by Russian air defense on Russia’s major oil exporting hub, state TV publicist and war pundit Alexander Sladkov fumed, “We’ve been thrown into trouble again.” “The port at Ust-Luga on the Gulf of Finland is burning again.”
He announced, “There is a lot being said behind the scenes about our potentially cunning plan.” “But some people have doubts: What kind of cunning plan is this, to swarm our businesses like flies with a flyswatter?”
The unprecedented response further incensed Putin when Maxim Kalashnikov, another war fanatic, bluntly said that the Russian elite had lost confidence in the top leadership.
“Now our ruling (class) sees the current top leadership as a toxic person – not even an asset, but a liability,” he said.
“They very much want this war to end, for a return to the old good times, when one could travel freely to the West, not be afraid of sanctions, sell hydrocarbons and recapture the European market.”
Symbolically, he spoke in front of a photo of Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, who was briefly removed from power in a 1991 coup before his country collapsed.
In a post on Telegram, Putin’s own ultra-nationalist ideologue Alexander Dugin said he met soldiers on the front lines and found them “in hysterical anger mixed with despair.”
“I didn’t expect everything to be so harsh and serious.” In a tone of despair over the war, another Russian publicist, Grigory Kubatyan, war correspondent for Putin’s favorite newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, acknowledged that Russia’s vast military was failing, and peace negotiations were now needed to end the conflict.
“The war must be won or ended to save lives,” he said. “In the last four years, we could not win or did not want to win. So we have to negotiate. It is impossible to wage war indefinitely.
“Our people on the front lines are heroic. But they’re human, and they need rest.”
