Thanks to information about the number of men of draft age who were single before the announcement of “partial mobilization”, the opposition Russian media calculated the number of those mobilized in the RF Armed Forces from September to October. The established number does not match the figure previously announced by the RF Ministry of Defense.
The number of people mobilized in the Russian Federation in September-October 2022 is not 300,000, but half a million. This is stated in the study of the oppositional Russian edition of “Mediazona”. All thanks to the number of urgent marriages of men who received subpoenas.
In October 2022, thanks to a certain scheme, journalists began to estimate the number of mobilized by the number of urgent weddings, which allowed mobilized citizens of the Russian Federation to get married for one day, without mandatory monthly expectations.
In the first weeks of mobilization, the Russian registry offices not only made no secret of the sudden influx of men with subpoenas, but even boasted about it. There were stories about group weddings in the media, and when Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced at the end of October that mobilization had been completed, the flow of press releases about the wedding stopped.
“The data for the last 2022 show that after the official end of the mobilization of weddings, there were fewer weddings, but some men with subpoenas still come to the registry offices. This is not evidence of a new wave of mobilization — men marry at their place of service or return home on leave. New information from the registry offices has allowed clarify our estimate of the number of those called up throughout Russia during the active period of mobilization in September and October: more than 527 thousand people, ”the publication explains.
The reason for the rush to officially formalize relations is that the families of Russian mobilized people can receive payments in the event of his death at the front in Ukraine.
Based on data from 50 regions of the Russian Federation, where 25,000 mobilized men got married, the publication calculated the likely number of those who received the summons.
“It turns out that 1.42% of the mobilized men got married there. And from the point of view of the entire male population of these regions aged 18-49, it turns out that during the active passage of mobilization (until the beginning of November), more than 239 thousand people were mobilized there” . These 50 regions account for only 56% of the men mobilized. If we add information about urgent weddings at the end of October in the remaining 35 regions, then the total share of mobilization in the country will increase to 1.79%. This share of mobilization suggests that more than 525 thousand people) were mobilized into the army in September-October, ”the study says.
The autumn counteroffensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine “shocked” Putin and became the reason for the announcement of “partial mobilization” at the end of last year. This is stated in the construction of the Institute for the Study of War on February 26. Putin announced a partial mobilization some time after Ukraine’s September 21 counteroffensive.
Also, on February 26, analysts at the Institute for the Study of War reported that Putin would face the dilemma of conscription this year: he would need to recruit more people, but there is simply no such resource in the Russian Federation.
