If there is one thing that now seems clear in the war in Ukraine, it is that, despite the propaganda announcements, the time factor no longer plays in Russia’s favour.
A possible new mobilisation – an option that is being talked about more and more insistently – entails very high and potentially imponderable dangers for the very survival of the regime, given also the tragic inevitability of the numbers.

The prolonged bogging down of troops at the front, the ever-widening technological gap compared to the armaments developed by Kyiv, and the dramatic deterioration of the economic situation are cause for concern in the Kremlin.

But none of these worries theestablishment as much as the ‘demographic storm’ looming on the horizon, which threatens not only to permanently jam the Russian war machine, but also to jeopardise the country’s growth prospects, already reduced to the lowest possible level due to its international isolation.

The CSIS(Center for Strategic and International Studies), the British broadcaster BBC Russian Service and the independent Russian portal Mediazona recently conducted a series of investigations, prompted by the stubborn opacity with which Russia treats information related to losses at the front, and made some interesting discoveries.
By cross-referencing obituary data, inheritance registry data and pictures of prisoners of war captured by the Ukrainians, they were able to verify that, compared to the 352,000 ‘bureaucratically’ confirmed hereditary or documentary deaths (to which must be added almost a million uncounted, missing and seriously wounded), the battlefield casualties are now mainly men in the 36-40 age bracket: a surprising novelty, given that at the beginning of the war the victims were mainly young men between 18 and 22 years of age.

There are more than one reason for this forward slide.
The main one is the result of the demographic ‘hole’ of the 1990s, i.e., the collapse in birth rates that began with the dissolution of the USSR, the direct consequence of which is that Russia now has very few young people in the 20-35 age bracket.

Protecting this narrow generation is vital for the country’s economic future, also in view of the fact that it is the only real engine of innovation available to Moscow, which is why the Kremlin has so far avoided a new mass mobilisation.

Then there is the question of volunteers: today, enlistment takes place ‘spontaneously’, because it is encouraged by stratospheric ‘entry bonuses’.
But those answering the call are mainly middle-aged people, with families to support and mortgages to pay that have become too expensive due to rising interest rates and inflation. Certainly not the very young, who are studying, do not yet have children and therefore have fewer financial needs.

The third element is the raising of the legal limits to 30 years for conscription and even to 55 and 65 for the recall of reservists and officers.

The point is that, despite being larger and more populous than Ukraine, Russia has far from infinite reserves of ‘cannon fodder’.
From the 36 million adult males (18-60 years of age), minus the young men in the big cities, the employees of strategic or security companies, exempted by law, and the incapacitated or chronic alcoholics, the real ‘reservoir’ is reduced to 2.2 million young men in the provinces aged 20-34, 2.8 million between 35-45 and 1.8 million between 46-55.

Losses on the ground (including deaths and serious injuries that cannot be recovered) today amount to 35,000 every month, or 420,000 per year .

Already today, as the aforementioned surveys have revealed, they are replaced by drawing almost two-thirds from the intermediate bracket (35-45): a segment that, given the internal emigration and the outflow to local industries that are left without workers, even if the rate of losses does not worsen, risks entering a structural crisis within a few years.
At that point, tapping into the upper bracket would represent an act of desperation, given that it would involve soldiers with a much lower physical performance on average, with an inevitable increase in the mortality rate.

Assuming that the Kremlin holds firm to preserving at least some of the young men, it will thus become impossible for Russia to maintain an army within a few years, due to the depletion of the enlisted population.

An awareness that is well present in the discussions taking place in Moscow and that in itself makes it more likely to resort to a mobilisation similar to that of 2022, with the aim of imparting some kind of turnaround to the military offensive by pouring hundreds of thousands of fresh (but inexperienced) troops into the field.

This is why many people believe that the draconian measures taken in recent months (the closure of social networks, the controlled suspension of internet connections, the obligation to install messaging and surveillance apps managed by the FSB, the further reduction of freedom of the press, opinion and association) are in fact deliberate solutions to prevent and stifle outbreaks of discontent resulting from mobilisation, which would be made easier by the new methods of summons by means of digital draft letters notified on Gosuslugi and the blocking of all activities (current accounts, driving licences, prohibition to sell or buy property, apply for loans and travel abroad) for those who do not turn up to the call. In practice, 21st century technology at the service of 19th century-style raids.

Should this eventuality materialise, it would, moreover, represent a breach of the unwritten social pact whereby the youth of the big cities are currently excluded from enlistment, in exchange for giving up all political freedom.

It is no coincidence that, for different reasons, pieces of the establishment in recent weeks are increasingly evoking the risk of a repetition of the conditions that led to the revolution and civil war of 1917, which arose precisely from the battalions of reservists in Petrograd who refused to go to the front.

The choice between a rapid depletion of troops and the risk of the country’s destabilisation therefore makes the military option literally a dead end for Putin, who has no choice but to rely on help from the (White) House to guarantee himself a not too dishonourable way out.

That in itself would in any case be an admission of the failure of the project to humiliate the hated West: a project that by now, with all the evidence, cannot succeed without the help of the West itself.