Russia's 'hidden mobilization': The 'expendable' lives fueling Putin's war on Ukraine

There were low expectations for the first direct peace talks on ending the war in Ukraine in nine months. But negotiators present in Abu Dhabi have suggested that those ongoing discussions there have been relatively productive. While the Ukrainian negotiator described good momentum, U.S. envoy Jared Kushner suggested that there could be more concrete progress to come when U.S. envoys meet with both the Russian and Ukrainian presidents later this week. He also hailed an agreement on one of the biggest prisoner exchanges since the start of the war. Take a listen. This was a good first step. One of the positives is we agreed that we're going to have the biggest humanitarian release of prisoners, which we're going to finalize the numbers tomorrow. Steve and I are going to travel to Moscow tomorrow to meet with President Putin to go over what was discussed today and try to make more progress on some of the issues that we discussed. After that, we're going to fly to Dublin, and we're going to be with President Zelensky to debrief with him. Well, claims of progress come even though Russia's maximalist demands do not appear to have changed at all. The Kremlin has indeed largely maintained a defiant tone on the war in Ukraine, rarely communicating about the consequences that this war has had on its own population or economy. But a Belarusian opposition-linked hacker group this week leaked data from Russia's state statistics agency demonstrating just how devastating the war has been. The information, which was shared with the British newspaper The Guardian and and a handful of other publications include It includes the death certificates of over 400,000 people explicitly linked to the war through either official cause of death codes or written references to military operations. Now, for more on this, John Luff joins us on the program. He is an associate fellow at the Chatham House's Russia and Eurasia program. John, thank you very much for joining us today. So can you perhaps start by telling us more about this data leak? How significant are these revelations? These revelations are certainly significant because these are the first reliable figures that we've seen about Russian casualties in this war. And the death toll is roughly in line with, I think, what some of the most pessimistic forecasts had said, namely around 400,000. And we know that probably in addition to that, there are a million or so people who've been seriously injured as a result of this war. So these are absolutely huge losses on paper. But the point is that politically in Russia, they haven't had an impact, at least not so far, largely because the soldiers who died in Ukraine have been drawn from some of the poorer reaches of society in Russia, who don't have the capacity to I suppose, generate much noise about how they've been treated, what's happened to them. Thank It's that segment of society. But now Russia faces, I think, a considerable challenge in trying to mobilize more people to go and fight in Ukraine. This is not happening through open mobilization. It's happening through its closed mobilization, if you like, hidden mobilization. Well, in many cases, they're taking people off you. the streets, they're stopping buses to see who's got their tickets, and if there are young men who haven't, then they get rounded up and in some cases are being forced to sign contracts to go and fight in Ukraine. So it's a difficult situation for the Russian authorities. Now, given what you said there, I mean, the scale of the losses, do you think that it's fair to say then that the effects of the war are being felt across all communities of Russia? Or do you think that certain communities are disproportionately represented amongst the casualty numbers? Well, we know that from the initial recruitment in this war, that some of the non-Russian populations were targeted for recruitment from places like Bashkortostan, for example, one non-Russian republic, and other places across the Russian Federation. So the ethnic Russian contingent here within this group, we don't have the exact data. But I would expect that even though there will be a healthy proportion of Russians among those numbers, they are, again, from the poorer part of society, people in some cases who have been released from prison, suffering from alcohol problems, other social problems. So one wouldn't describe them necessarily as Russia's best and brightest. But they've been recruited for a deliberate reason, Because they were seeing... Ultimately, as lives that were expendable, in other words, as cannon fodder. Now, given what you say there, John, you touched upon this earlier, but I do still want to ask you, I mean, there was some coverage of small scale mobilizations by family members of fallen soldiers in Russia early on in the war. We haven't really heard much from them since then. I imagine, obviously, the political context, the domestic political context explains that in part. But do you also think the fact that the casualties perhaps don't include very large numbers of what you describe as Russia's best and brightest also explain why there's been relatively little domestic reaction to the scale of the losses. Yeah, I think that definitely explains it. And if the soldiers had been recruited, for example, from major cities, and particularly Moscow and St. Petersburg, there would be, I think, a very different reaction. There are some, or at least there were some, soldiers' mothers' associations in Russia that certainly some years ago had a strong voice, and we haven't heard, I think, anything from them in recent times. And that suggests that the soldiers have died, they come from families that... have either benefited greatly from this war through the financial payments, the so-called coffin payments, and haven't felt the need, therefore, to complain, or equally, they just haven't been resourced in such a way as to get their message across. So I think it's a combination of the two. Now, you know, no matter the composition of these, the demographic composition of these casualties, if these numbers are to be confirmed, it would mean that Russia is grappling with war losses that are essentially unprecedented in the country's modern history, especially because I've read a lot about analysts saying that internal stats are also likely to underestimate the true toll, death toll that this war has had. So at this stage, I mean, can Russia really afford more losses if this war is? to long, continue to go on. Well, I think the first point is this data reflected the situation up until August this year, as far as I understand. And over the last three months or so, Russia has incurred very great losses in Ukraine on the front line. So you can probably add another 50,000 to that figure. So you start to approach half a million killed in the war so far. The unfortunate fact is Russia cannot can carry on doing this at least for a while because they are still able to recruit people to go and fight in Ukraine even if they're having to coerce. People in some cases, but I think not in all cases, there are still volunteers because the Thank wages paid to soldiers fighting on the front are by Russian standards and certainly by the standards of the poorer regions of the country, they are exceedingly generous. But they just come with the fact that there's an enormous risk to the lives of those who do sign those contracts. But we don't see any signs you. so far that the supply of soldiers is drying up. I think if the casualty levels continue at this level, the authorities will reach the point where they have to recruit more people from probably bigger cities, and that could become problematic. But we're not, I think, close to that point yet. There is certainly a need for, I would say, better educated soldiers because they need drone operators and advertisements for people of this sort of profile who will be able to Thank you. Join the armed forces in that role. But in that case, they're probably soldiers who are going to be further away from the front and less vulnerable. I'm not not having to go into the so-called kill zone in order to try and advance. But it has to be said at the same time, the Ukrainians have fought very effectively over the last three months. And it's thanks to their innovation and their ability to maneuver their forces that Russia has really made very limited progress across the front this summer campaign. And that explains why the Russian authorities now are putting the emphasis on really attacking Ukraine from the rear and destroying its economy. Speaking to that shift in strategy, earlier in the war, Russia was obviously seen as having the upper hand, both in terms of troop numbers and weaponry. So do you think these numbers force Russian authorities to confront the possibility that that balance in power is maybe not as obvious as it appeared to be at the very beginning stages of the war? Well, let's remember the beginning of the war, the operation was very poorly planned And, you know, whole Russian... Columns of tanks got bogged down and couldn't move and then were attacked by the Ukrainians. Later in 2022, the Ukrainians had the Russian army on the run across certain parts of the front. And it was only really after that that Russia was able to dig in and start fighting more effectively to rediscover tactics and doctrine and all those sort of things. And meanwhile, the war on the front line has developed more into a stalemate, although it has to be said Russia has advanced in Thank they developed their much. mid-range strike campaign which has gone after using drones and missiles to attack Russian logistics. And it really does seem as the Ukrainians can continue this level of resistance that it simply won't be possible for the Russian army to break through in probably, you know, 18 months, two years, even three years. So it's really a question, does Russia have the stomach to carry on fighting like this? Equally, does Ukraine have the resources? Are its European partners going to support it to the degree where it can? But it really feels to me as though both Presidents Putin and Zelensky are not at the point where they feel that they have to negotiate a settlement of this war. That brings us to another obvious question in my view, John, which is that if you had to give an estimate, how do you think the numbers that we saw in this data leak compare to potential Ukrainian losses? And given that Ukraine is obviously a much smaller country, can it afford to continue going on at this pace of loss in the same way that you suggested earlier that Russia can? I think the Ukrainians face a very severe problem here. Manpower has been a challenge from them, really almost from the outset of this war. And it's one of the reasons why they've had to develop tactics that minimise the human losses on the front. And it's estimated that Ukraine has lost well in excess of 100,000 soldiers killed and probably several hundred thousand injured. So they're not. the same level of losses as the Russians, but proportionally, they have lost very large numbers. And I think there has to be a question about just how long this can carry on. They have resisted the temptation to drop the age limit for soldiers in order to, so if for young men under 25, they're not going to be drafted. I don't have to, we'll not be fighting in this war. And questions have been raised by some of Ukraine's allies about whether this is actually a prudent policy because they need more manpower. But Ukraine's concern is simply about the sustainability of the demographic trends long-term. And they feel that it's a priority to protect that segment of the male population. So they're sticking to that. At the moment, I think their hope is that because they're sustaining far fewer losses than the Russians, that they can carry on for a while. I tend to think the problem is in fact much more now economic for Ukraine, because the Russians are systematically destroying Ukraine's economic assets. They're going after transportation links. They're trying to destroy the bridges over the Dnieper River in Kiev, separating, if you like, the two parts of Ukraine. And I think we're going to see these trends become more pronounced. Putin's hope is that over this winter, he can effectively bombard Ukraine into submission. As a final question for you, John, I have, of course, to ask about these latest peace talks, direct peace negotiations in Abu Dhabi. We've heard relatively optimistic takes from all parties, from the Ukrainian delegation, as well as from Jared Kushner, even a little bit from the Kremlin as well. Do you expect these peace negotiations and the meetings tomorrow and Friday with Volodymyr Zelensky and Vladimir Putin, who will be meeting with the U.S. envoys, do you expect These peace talks to bring any major. change in the future of this war? No, I don't. I think the result of these negotiations will be a large-scale prisoner exchange, which of course is important, and that's a certain level of progress. But it feels very much as though we are where we have been over recent years, even when these contacts have been initiated. There are discussions about some of the bigger issues, but there are only discussions in this case about what sort of security arrangements will be in place or could be in place when the war ends. And these are such difficult issues to grapple with. They obviously require the participation of European countries to discuss, first of all, the mechanics of a ceasefire in Ukraine and how that will affect the surrounding environment. And then there's a broader issue of how Russia's security requirements can be satisfied, Ukraine's security requirements, and also those of Europe. And typically, these sort of negotiations take years. So I think we're still a very long way away from seeing this war settled by diplomatic means John Luff, Head of Foreign Policy at the New Eurasian Strategies Center in London. My apologies for my error in your title earlier. Thank you very much for joining us today. My pleasure.