RUSSIAN MANPOWER

The new total manpower for the Russian military has added by decree, 180,000 men to the armed forces.
This isn’t going to happen overnight and it’s not a mobilisation figure. This number is actually an increase in the permitted total. In some ways it’s worse than it sounds.
Russian losses are around 1,000 men per day. So roughly 365,000 per year this year alone by Dec 31st- representing almost 55% of all the losses in the war so far.
These losses have been possible because of previous call ups and this latest round is to try and backfill the losses made this year.
However simply declaring the number of men under arms can increase is entirely notional. They’re merely trying to stabilise numbers against losses, quite a different thing.
What they want to do is get more men into the field because they know the only advantage they have is numerical superiority, but they waste it using bad tactics, and fail to provide adequate training or basic military equipment, though things are better than they were.
The problem with these magic 180,000 men is they have to be volunteers. The state has to recruit them actively. It is paying the equivalent of $20,000 in a signing bonus - which in purchasing terms is equal to about $80,000 in the US. In Russia it’s a small fortune most people can’t even imagine.
Add to that advertised salaries of $2,200 per month and it’s a lot of money.
It has to be. Because by now word has gotten out: Ukraine is dangerous. Recruitment is down, 30,000 a month has been the target and they’re allegedly as low as 4,000 in actuality.
Employers pay people to stay in their jobs and even if the pay is lower it doesn’t come with the risk of almost certain death.
Actually achieving these recruitment figures is going to be extremely difficult.
The cost of adding to the army is also huge. 180k x 20k is $3.6 billion in incentives alone. The salaries have to be paid by the state - although much of that is compensated by the fact the dead don’t get paid and rarely do relatives receive compensation they are due.
Then there’s the inevitable fact the economy is stressed by lack of manpower in industry as it is, finding another 180,000 men out of an already indisputably strained manufacturing sector is going to be tough. Even if successfully managed it still means industrial production will be strained if not in abject decline.
The Russians know this. This is why they think they have to win by mid-2026 because beyond that they don’t think they can sustain the economic pressures.
This isn’t their only crisis. There is a looming banking crisis across the country as many Russians kept their savings inside Russia in foreign currency and are now trying to get that money out. Many of Russia’s primary retail banks like Sbsrbank and V-Bank can’t cover the withdrawals because they don’t have the cash.
Russian businesses that were borrowing and trading in Chinese Yuan have had that route blocked as China blocks payments into Russia - afraid of secondary sanctions being placed on them by the US Treasury Department.
Russias central bank doesn’t have the foreign currency to even lend it to the retail banks.
The end result is that withdrawal limits would be inevitable and that will cause a run on the banks as people try and get their daily limits every day.
Somehow the state is supposed to finance another vast expansion in military expense without gaining any income and forcing industrial decline by taking men out of key arms manufacturers.
And things where the sanctions regime is failing to stop every last transaction. It’s getting there but throttling the financial markets and transfer systems needs to be more exacting. More has to be done.
Dragging in 180,000 more men is a huge failure of the system that’s it been forced to do it. It’s a failure because doing it only makes sustaining it even harder.
Have no doubt this a sign of extreme weakness. It’s a testament to the bankruptcy in ideas and tactics of the military and the incompetence of government.

‘The Analyst’ MilStratOnX
Slava Ukraini 🇺🇦!