Russian Officials ‘Rehearse’ for Mobilization as Kremlin Denies Need for Another Round

The government of Russia’s Voronezh region held a rehearsal for a new mobilization program having struggled to meet its targets during the 2022 conscription round as it did not have “an appropriate prepared base for this requirement.”

The event was reported by the regional government’s press service which quoted the Deputy Governor, Sergei Trukhachev, as saying it was attended by high-ranking officials, heads of districts and military commissars of municipalities, with the aim of increasing the “mobilization readiness of the Voronezh region” and conduct conscription training for its citizens.

The officials were divided into training groups and “trained” in the city of Ostrogozhsk at the warning training headquarters and conscript collection point which had been set up after 2022. Trukhachev said he and others had ridden in a tank and other military vehicles and officials fired Makarov and Yarygin pistols, as well as Kalashnikov assault rifles.

An official from the Voronezh regional government firing a pistol as part of his mobilization training in Ostrogozhsk on Tuesday, May 8. Photo: 7/7 Telegram

A week earlier Alexander Gusev, the Voronezh governor, had authorized a fourfold increase to payments for those signing a contract payment for the contract with the Ministry of Defense, stating that his region would spare no expense for volunteers for the war in Ukraine.

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The Moscow Times reported that the Kremlin’s press spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, denied once again that Russia was planning a new round of mobilization in response to reports in the Financial Times that mobilization was being planned for the end of 2024 or the beginning of next year. This was his second denial, the first being when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in April that it was being planned.

Peskov told RIA Novosti on May 25, “We are very active and continue to recruit volunteer contract soldiers, it happens on a daily basis.”

Peskov’s denials have strong echoes of a statement he made in September 2022, when asked about rumors of an impending mobilization, that “…there is absolutely no question of this,” only for President Vladimir Putin to announce a “partial mobilization” a week later.

Commentators feel mobilization draws ever nearer as Russian casualties in Ukraine mount. The UK Defence Journal said at the end of April this year, almost 500,000 Russian troops had been killed and wounded and thousands of soldiers and officers had deserted.