The Russian army is seeking new recruits to replace battle losses from its invasion of Ukraine and are using mobile phones to contact potential soldiers while also requiring each region in Russia to muster and train one volunteer battalion.
The requirement of assembling the battalions comes from a report by Defense Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine as well as Russian media.
Newsweek reported that the Russian language Telegram social media account Mozhem Obyasnit, or "We Can Explain," said that young men are being contacted via their phone since postal requests were being ignored.
Russia has 85 regions, including the annexed Crimea. Sizes of battalions vary but usually don’t exceed 1,000 men.
A lower estimate of 400 soldiers per battalion would provide an additional 34,000 for the war, which should be near the reported estimate of 36,000 soldiers Russia reportedly has lost since the invasion began Feb. 24.
Ukrainian Intelligence also has reported that some metropolitan regions are unlikely to muster volunteers from the local population. Instead, it believes recruits will either come from poorer regions or central Asian countries like Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan that Russia exerts influence over.
As an incentive, Moscow recruiters will offer an easier path to citizenship for the citizens of the three countries.
The U.S. think tank, the Institute for the Study of War, reports that the new recruits are under 50 and are being asked to sign a six-month contract that would pay anywhere from $3,750 to $6,000 depending on experience.
In the long term, Russia intends to expand access to military training, especially for children.
Ukrainian Intelligence reports that in the city of Belgorod and the surrounding regions, Russia has begun 500 cadet courses as well as a 1,000 junior army classes. The junior army classes accept eight-year-old children, while the cadet classes are accepting teenagers.
The graduates of the military training are being encouraged to sign contracts with the Russian military as early as possible.
The new approaches suggest Russia's wariness to declare a full-scale mobilization, which could cause civic unrest. However, some military experts believe that a full-scale conscription is still possible.
The deputy director of the non-governmental Ukrainian Center for Army Conversion and Disarmament Studies, Mykhailo Samus, thinks that Russia most likely will conduct a mobilization in late August and early September under the guise of military training.
"These 'military training' exercises are conducted in Russia every year," Samus said. "I'm certain that this year they will conduct a mobilization in secret during the annual training."
The training is scheduled for Aug. 30-Sept. 5.
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