Russia can declare a new mobilization: Putin needs half a million people - Bloomberg

According to sources close to the Kremlin and the Ministry of Defense of Russia, the military does not receive enough new soldiers to compensate for losses on the front, which are the highest since the beginning of the invasion in February 2022. Regional officials do not perform more than a third of their quotas for calling, which can force Russia to consider new mobilization.

According to one of the interlocutors of the publication, mobilization can be represented as a rotation to give a rest to the military on the front line. The call may be issued by the end of the year. Bloomberg notes that the stunning military invasion of Ukraine in the Kursk region, which has met almost no resistance, emphasized the challenges that the Kremlin faces in the war, which has been going on for the third year.

The Armed Forces control 1000 square kilometers of Russian territory and continue offensive. Russia has hundreds of thousands of soldiers on the front lines in the east and south of Ukraine, but suffered significant losses, which prevents further promotion. The inability to reflect the Ukrainian attack and restore control over the border has found a lack of defense reserves.

Putin needs "about 500,000 men in the next 12 months to compensate for the exhaustion and rotation of their troops stationed in Ukraine," said Russian economist Bloomberg Economics Alex Isakov. The Kremlin does not report how many Russian servicemen were killed or injured in the war. Western estimates, the total losses of Russia reach half a million people.

The UK Ministry of Defense has stated that the last three months have been the most expensive for Russia in terms of losses since the beginning of the war - in May, their average reached 1 262 a day. We will remind, on August 13, a spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Georgy Tykhy stated that the operation in the Kursk region does not allow the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation to transfer additional units to Donetsk region.