They have warned against downplaying the Russian president’s renewed nuclear threat. Putin announced the call-up of 300,000 reservists – more than the nearly 200,000 mobilized to invade Ukraine in February – after his troops lost significant swaths of territory they had seized early in the war. It came as Moscow signaled it was determined to hold on to occupied territories in eastern and southern Ukraine by holding local referendums on whether to absorb them into Russia. Analysts said it was a politically risky move for Putin, with increased domestic resistance to the war and a military mobilization structure that has atrophied over the past decade. “They’re not going to be able to do that well,” said Dara Massicot, a Russia defense expert at Rand Corp who has researched the mobilization process. “They’re going to lump people together and send them to the front with old training, bad leadership, equipment that’s kept in even worse condition than the active force, and they’re going to send them piecemeal because they don’t have time to wait.” READ MORE: Hundreds of protesters arrested in Russia as men flee in panic to avoid fighting in Ukraine
