Ladimir Vladimirovich Putin is in a bit of a state. Faced with a whirlwind war in Ukraine that has claimed tens of thousands of Russian lives, and two or three more small wars in and around Russia’s borders, he has enough problems in the near abroad. At home he is under attack and urged by ultra-nationalists to go further, declare full-scale war and completely crush Ukraine – the demand of several former loyalists in the Duma, the Russian parliament, to defend the nation from dishonor and oblivion. Like the natural gambler that he is, Putin has doubled down – twist or fail – declaring that Russia will take over the entire Donbas, raise a new army of 300,000 and defy NATO’s challenge, even if it means going nuclear. The national call to arms is hardly a bum note—more than a bum note. In his taped televised address, Mr Putin ordered only a “partial mobilization” of veterans and ex-reservists. Enlisted, military arts students need not apply. It’s as if the Russian president sensed, in his somewhat nervous taped television appearance, that a full-scale national mobilization would be tempting fate. It was as if he felt that many would refuse this call to serve his colors. Similar reasoning is said to have shaped his thinking against the call for a national lockdown in Russia’s massive Covid pandemic. Too many would have defied the call of their modern tsar.

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By doubling down and calling for a new imaginary 300,000-strong army, Putin is flouting one of the oldest military principles: never reinforce failure. Events on the ground along the nearly thousand miles of battle lines from Kharkiv to Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia to Kherson and the mouth of the Dnieper, are grim. Ukrainian forces are pressing forward, but victory is not assured. Russia invaded in February with 120,000 out of a total combat army of 180,000. At least 60,000 were killed, wounded and missing. Putin sought to reinforce with a new 3rd Army Corps specially prepared and trained south of Moscow. This barely exists now, so it forms a new 4th House. The Parachute Brigade has been withdrawn from Syria. The elite 1st Guards Tank Army, the best armored unit in Ukraine, was destroyed outside Kharkiv a week ago. Robert Fox / Evening Standard Starting tomorrow, the Russian authorities will hold referendums in four regions, Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia and Kherson, to request full absorption into Russia. None of the four are entirely in Russian hands today, and centers such as Donetsk city and airport and Kherson will come under shell and rocket fire. No matter, Russian authorities say, most of the voting will be done “remotely” and “virtually” – which is likely to cover up a host of misdeeds.
The next 90 days are not an easy proposition for Ukrainian forces and their commanders. They must continue to fight street by street and field by field, with a strange hybrid brand of warfare that they pioneered, and from which they have much to teach the more advanced soldiers of NATO. They use the tools available in the first major digital war, cyber tactics, electronic surveillance and targeting and jamming. But they also fight the close combat of infantry and tanks. One of their greatest skills is their approach to removing abandoned Russian kit and putting it to work in the next battle. The biggest crisis now developing is probably less in Ukraine, with its ongoing chaos, but in Russia itself. Putin has called for a new force of 300,000 – but they will be older, less trained, less equipped and less motivated than even those who went into battle in Ukraine seven months ago. Russian forces have gone through more than forty percent of their old Soviet inventory of artillery shells, shells, tanks and rockets. They had to climb drones from Iran, weapons, shells and rockets from North Korea. There are no trainers available for Russian Dad’s new Army – because almost everyone is committed to Ukraine. The show calling on the nation to half-mobilize, wipe out Donbas and fear NATO was strange in itself. He was less than confident, leaning to one side and eyes glazed over in a twenty-yard stare. Had he been reluctantly shoved in front of the camera with their prepared script by his more bellicose nationalist critics? The timing itself was awful – again a strange departure for someone who once thought he was the master of diplomatic poker. It was broadcast in the morning, giving delegates to the UN General Assembly plenty of time to digest and think about it before their work. It gave them time to correct Vladimir Vladimirovich’s correction on their own terms.