SUNDAY, MAY 8 , 2022. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ RE A23
BY ROBYN DIXON AND LIZ SLYriga, latvia — Ahead of Russia’s
most patriotic and somber holi-
day, Victory Day on Monday, there
is no victory in the war against
Ukraine but plenty of rumors that
President Vladimir Putin will or-
der a general mobilization of sol-
diers to secure one.
Analysts see mobilization as
Russia’s best hope to turn the tide
and defeat Ukraine, by reinforcing
demoralized forces and plowing
them back into the war. But the
risks — admitting that the military
campaign so far has been a failure
and igniting domestic opposition
— may be too great.
Several top Russian officials
have sought to quash the rumors.
“No, no. I can tell you this on and
off air,” said Vyacheslav Volodin,
speaker of the Russian parlia-
ment, in comments Thursday to
Russian radio.
A day earlier, two shadowy fig-
ures in the Siberian oil city Nizh-
nevartovsk made clear what they
thought of conscription. One,
wearing a gray hoodie and camou-
flage pants, hurled seven Molotov
cocktails into a local military re-
cruiting center while the other
recorded the incident — one of six
recent arson attacks on Russian
recruiting offices. Several of the
attacks led to the arrests of young
Russian men.
Russia’s 10-week-old military
campaign was not supposed to
come to this.
On the day of the invasion, a
jubilant Margarita Simonyan, edi-
tor in chief of state-owned RT,
wisecracked that the Russian
campaign was just “a standard
parade rehearsal” for Victory Day.
“It’s just that this year they decid-
ed to hold the parade in Kiev,” she
tweeted, using the Russian spell-
ing of Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv.
But Russia’s efforts to fuse Vic-
tory Day — its celebration of the
Soviet victory over the Nazis in
World War II — with a victory in its
war against what Moscow calls
“Nazis” in Ukraine fell flat with
the failure to capture Kyiv. The
occupation of the strategic Ukrai-
nian port of Mariupol marks a rare
Russian success, but the city’s
bombed-out ruins make for a un-
palatable backdrop for a parade.
Sergei Kiriyenko, head of the Rus-
sian presidential administration,
ruled out an official Victory Day
parade there Thursday.
Over the years, Putin has used
the holiday to legitimize his in-
creasingly authoritarian rule, ex-
ploiting the myth of Russia as a
nation that never invaded anyone,
fights only in self-defense and
s ingle-handedly saved the world
from Nazis in World War II, at a
staggering cost of 27 million Rus-
sian war dead.
“Putin is going to use this day to
justify his war against Ukraine
and to underline, as he believes,
the historical mission of Russia to
fight fascism. He has to legitimize
his war, and he’s trying to present
it to the world and to Russians as
some kind of fight for historical
justice,” said Tatiana Stanovaya,
Paris-based head of R.Politik polit-
ical consultancy, in an interview.
“The strategic problem that
Russia is facing today is that Rus-
sian society has not been prepared
for protracted and costly war. It
wanted a fast, decisive victory, and
Putin can’t give it to Russians,” she
said.
If Putin were to declare all-out
war and mobilize recruits, it
would take at least six months to
train them, Stanovaya said. That
would also be a recognition that
the “special military operation,” as
Moscow calls the invasion, has
been a failure, and “Putin can’t
admit that,” she said. “There are
no signs that the Kremlin is ready
to shift from a special military
operation to a war.”
So far, Russia has relied primar-
ily on soldiers who have voluntari-
ly signed contracts to serve in the
military. Russian officials have
previously pledged that con-
scripts would not be sent into
battle, although some have.
Speaking to U.S.-funded Cur-
rent Time TV, Russian military
analyst Ruslan Leviev, of the inde-
pendent open-source analytical
group CIT, said that partial mobi-
lization could help Russia take
control of eastern Ukraine, where
much of the fighting is now con-
centrated.
Igor Girkin, a former Russian
intelligence officer who led a sepa-On V ictory Day without
a victory, Putin faces
choice over all-out war
ratist militia in the Donetsk area
of eastern Ukraine in the 2014
uprising, has repeatedly warned
that without a general mobiliza-
tion, Russia faces a drawn-out war
with high casualties and possible
defeat.
“In our case mobilization is nec-
essary in order to win in the war
that we got into up to our ears,” he
said in comments last month on
Russian social media VKontakte,
adding that Russia’s future de-
pended on it.
But Dmitri Alperovitch, head of
Washington-based Silverado Pol-
icy Accelerator, a think tank, said
in an interview that a mobiliza-
tion would be unpopular and
risky. “If you have a general mobi-
lization, everyone in Russia is go-
ing to know someone or have a
husband, son, nephew or a rela-
tive going into the fight,” he said.
If Putin calls a general mobili-
zation, “Russia will have a very
long war,” said Phillips O’Brien,
professor of strategic studies at
Scotland’s University of St. An-
drews, in an interview. “First the
Russians will have to train train-ers to train all those people.”
This year, Putin faces a more
delicate and difficult task than on
previous Victory Days. While Rus-
sian media have largely ignored
Russia’s battlefield losses, they
have been substantial. Russia has
lost significant numbers of tanks,
armored vehicles, aircraft and
warships, most notably the Mosk-
va, the flagship of its Black Sea
fleet destroyed with the help of
U.S. intelligence. Between 7,000 to
15,000 Russian servicemen have
been killed, according to a NATO
estimate.
Russia’s reputation as a leading
military power has been badly tar-
nished, and the country faces de-
bilitating economic isolation that
will likely last for years.
This year’s Victory Day parade
will be smaller and humbler than
in years past, with less equipment
on parade and no friendly heads of
states invited, not even Belarus
President Alexander Lukashenko,
who criticized Thursday the way
the war has dragged on.
But for many Russians, like a
79-year-old Muscovite named Val-entina, the sacrifices and success-
es still loom large — and underpin
support for the war in Ukraine.
“Victory Day is our sacred holi-
day. I always cry on that day,”
Valentina said, sitting on a Mos-
cow park bench with two friends
Friday. She declined to give her
surname. “I was little. My uncle
was killed. It was terrible. So many
people died, and so many cities
were destroyed, but our country,
the U.S.S.R., won that war, and we
celebrate the heroes on May 9th.”
She then repeated the anti-
Ukraine propaganda that Putin
and the Russian media have been
promoting, alleging that Ukraini-
ans had been harassing and kill-
ing Russian speakers for many
years. “Our president did the right
thing when he sent troops there.
We are peaceful people, but some-
thing had to be done,” she said.
Analyst Stanislav Belkovsky,
speaking to online outlet We Can
Explain associated with exiled ty-
coon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, pre-
dicted that Putin would use the
holiday to vow never to leave east-
ern Ukraine and would give thename “Novorossiya,” or New Rus-
sia, to a slice of Ukrainian territory
along the Sea of Azov.
Stanovaya said she expected
Putin to emphasize his grievances
over Western support for Ukraine
and could ramp up efforts to in-
timidate the West, for instance,
with more test launches of nucle-
ar-capable missiles.
As the war effort has faltered,
commentators on Russian televi-
sion have complained that Russia
is fighting with a hand tied behind
its back to avoid civilian casualties
— contrary to the evidence — and
have claimed that Western assis-
tance, including arms and intelli-
gence, is drawing out the fight.
They’re focused on “ the idea the
that Russia is a victim of unjust
and hostile actions of the West,”
Stanovaya said. “It means that Pu-
tin doesn’t really need to present
Russians with some gains. It’s suf-
ficient for him just to continue
talking about Russia’s historical
mission to fight fascism.”Mary Ilyushina contributed to this
report.DMITRI LOVETSKY/ASSOCIATED PRESS
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