Vladimir Putin (69) constantly talks about the “military special operation” in Ukraine. But now he may be forced to declare war, believes Britain’s defense minister. Why? Because he needs more soldiers.
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Ben Wallace states in an interview with the radio station LBC that he thinks Putin will come with the declaration of war when Russia will mark the victory over Nazi Germany on May 9.
Wallace is by no means alone in thinking the thought:
– The Russians must find out how to compensate their losses of killed soldiers, says military expert Ilmari Käihkö at the Swedish Defense College to VG.
– Putin could hold back last year’s conscripts, but the deadline for that expired on April 22. Therefore, it is worse to mobilize now – without declaring war, something he has so far not wanted to do.
Then there is the question of whether Putin should do it – and possibly when.
“Cannon fodder”
Secretary of Defense Ben Wallace says so, reproduced by among others Newsweek and Daily Mail:
– I would not be surprised … if he will probably declare on Victory Day May 9 that “we are now at war with the world Nazis, and we need to mobilize the Russian people.”
– I think he will move from the “special operation” … and he prepares the reason for being able to say that “see this is a war against the Nazis, and what I need are more people, I need more Russian cannon fodder”.
Wallace adds that “we must help the Ukrainians effectively and push them back.” He also accuses Moscow of making “pathetic attempts” to keep secret its losses in the war.
Unknown loss figures
Russia has not come up with concrete casualty figures for a long time, while Ukraine claims that 23,000 Russian soldiers have lost their lives in the war.
– We have no reliable figures, but I see that the British operate with 15,000, while the Russians have not acknowledged more than 1500. The number of dead Russians is clearly over 1500, and 15,000 can be reasonable, says Ilmari Käihkö at the Swedish National Defense College.
– It is estimated that Russia has lost around 3,000 vehicles. But there have not been as many soldiers per vehicle. They have not had such large crews. There may have been only four soldiers in vehicles where there really should have been six or eight. They have suffered from a shortage of crew throughout the war, and have not succeeded in resolving it.
At the same time, Käihkö compares with the Afghanistan war from 1979 to 1989.
At that time, the Soviet Union lost 14,500 soldiers in ten years. So there are bigger losses in these few months than they had in ten years back then.
Watch video – Putin claims this is “the world’s best missile”:
New rhetoric
The military expert believes that Putin is in a pinch, because it is not certain that it will be any easier if he declares war and mobilizes the Russian reserves:
– It will be more difficult to end the war then. It is also becoming more difficult to accept anything in the peace negotiations. Now that Putin has not declared war, he still has an opportunity to withdraw – although there are no signs that he has plans to do so. But if Putin declares war on May 9, it will have enormous consequences.
Ilmari Käihkö believes that Russia has changed its rhetoric sharply recently:
– It is no longer a war against Ukraine, but against NATO and the western world. In the worst case, it could lead to a war that is also being waged outside Ukraine.
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