Vladimir Putin can call up all the troops he wants, but Russia has no way of getting these new troops the training and weapons they need to fight in Ukraine any time soon.   

  With his invasion of Ukraine faltering badly, the Russian President announced on Wednesday the immediate “partial mobilization” of Russian citizens.  Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Russian television that the country would call up 300,000 reservists.   

  If they end up facing Ukrainian weapons on the front line, they are likely to become the latest casualties in an invasion launched by Putin more than seven months ago that has seen the Russian military fail in almost every aspect of modern warfare.   

  “The Russian military is not currently equipped to quickly and effectively deploy 300,000 reservists,” said Alex Lord, Europe and Eurasia specialist at strategic analysis firm Sibylline in London.   

  “Russia is already struggling to effectively equip its professional forces in Ukraine, following significant losses of equipment during the war,” Lord said.   

  The recent Ukrainian offensive, in which Kyiv recaptured thousands of square meters of territory, had a significant impact.   

  The Institute for the Study of War earlier this week said analysis by Western experts and Ukrainian intelligence found that Russia had lost 50% to 90% of its strength in some units to that attack and huge amounts of armored vehicles.   

  And this comes on top of the staggering losses of equipment during the war.   

  The open-source intelligence website Oryx, using only photographic or video-confirmed casualties, found that Russian forces have lost more than 6,300 vehicles, including 1,168 tanks, since the fighting began.   

  “In practice, they don’t have enough modern equipment … for so many new troops,” said Jakub Janovsky, a military analyst who contributes to the Oryx blog.   

  JT Crump, CEO of Sibylline and a 20-year veteran of the British military, said Russia is beginning to suffer from ammunition shortages in certain calibers and is looking to source key components so it can repair or build replacements for weapons lost in the field. battle.   

  Not only tanks and armored personnel carriers were lost.   

  In many cases, Russian troops lacked the basics in Ukraine, including a clear definition of why they were risking their lives.   

  Despite Wednesday’s mobilization order, Putin still calls Ukraine a “special military operation,” not a war.   

  Ukrainian soldiers know they are fighting for their homeland.  Many Russian soldiers have no idea why they are in Ukraine.   

  Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis noted this on Wednesday, calling Putin’s partial mobilization announcement “a sign of desperation.”   

  “I think people definitely don’t want to go to a war they don’t understand.  … People would be sent to jail if they called Russia’s war in Ukraine a war, and now suddenly they have to go in and fight it unprepared, without weapons, without armor, without helmets,” he said.   

  But even if they had all the equipment, weapons and motivation they need, it would be impossible to quickly train 300,000 troops for combat, experts said.   

  “Neither the additional officers nor the necessary facilities for a massive mobilization exist in Russia now,” said Trent Telenko, a former quality control auditor for the US Defense Contract Management Agency who has studied Russian logistics.   

  Reforms in 2008, aimed at modernizing and professionalizing the Russian military, removed many of the administrative and command-and-control structures that once allowed the forces of the old Soviet Union to quickly train and equip vast numbers of troops.   

  Lord, in Sibylla, said it would take at least three months to assemble, train and deploy Russian reservists.   

  “Then we’ll be in the depths of a Ukrainian winter,” Lord said.  “It is therefore unlikely that we will see an influx of reservists make a serious impact on the battlefield until the spring of 2023 – and even then they are likely to be poorly trained and poorly equipped.”   

  Mark Hertling, a former US Army general and CNN analyst, said he had seen firsthand how bad Russian training could be during visits to the country.   

  “It was awful… rudimentary first aid, very few simulations to save resources and… most importantly… horrible leadership,” Hertling tweeted.   

  “Putting ‘rookies’ in a front line that has softened, has low morale and doesn’t want to be (there) portends more (Russian) disaster.”   

  “Jaw,” Hertling tweeted.   

  Telenko said the newly mobilized troops would likely be just the latest casualties in Putin’s war.   

  “Russia can draw bodies.  He cannot train them, equip them, and most importantly, lead them quickly.   

   “Untrained waves of 20 to 50 men with AK assault rifles and no radios will collapse at the first Ukrainian artillery or armor attack,” he said.

Hertling predicts “catastrophic” consequences of Putin’s latest move