There Is Probably Going to Be a Second Wave of Mobilization

The infamously clueless and hapless Kremlin PR guy, Dmitri Peskov, has come out recently categorically denying that a second mobilization is in the works. That means that there is almost certainly a second wave of mobilization being planned.

TASS:

The Kremlin is not discussing the possibility of a second mobilization wave in Russia, Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday.

"There is currently no discussion on the matter in the Kremlin," Peskov noted, adding, however, that he could not speak for the Russian Defense Ministry.

On October 28, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu reported to President Vladimir Putin that a partial mobilization campaign, which had kicked off on September 21, was over. According to Shoigu, 300,000 people were called up and there are no plans for additional tasks in terms of partial mobilization.

As a matter of historical record, Peskov has been wrong about just about everything in the past.

He came out promising that there wouldn’t be vax mandates in Russia, and that’s exactly what happened about a month later. Then, literally hours before the start of the special military operation, he categorically denied that such a thing was even possible. Putin also like to routinely poke fun at Peskov saying that he has no idea what goes on in Peskov’s head. I’ve written about this countless times and it’s about as far as I go in trying to “read Kremlin tea leaves" about who is who relative to who in the Kremlin. The reason for this is because all we have are disaffected Liberals and their supposed inside sources to rely on.

Take Newsweek’s rolling coverage of the 5D slow-motion coup against Putin for example. It sounds like the plot to a really cool movie, so I have to share it just for that:

Leaked emails from a whistleblower at Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), shared with Newsweek, reveal a civil war among President Vladimir Putin's closest allies as his invasion of Ukraine continues to falter.

The agent, dubbed the Wind of Change, writes regular dispatches to Russian dissident exile Vladimir Osechkin, revealing the anger and discontent inside the FSB over the war that began when Putin invaded neighboring Ukraine on February 24.

Osechkin is a Russian human rights activist who runs the anti-corruption website Gulagu.net.

Now, it makes sense on some level that the leakers would be Liberals and the people they leak to would be Liberal outlets. Most of the Kremlin is Liberal, after all.

The emails were shared in full with Newsweek by Igor Sushko, the executive director of the Wind of Change Research Group, a Washington-based non-profit organization. Sushko has been translating the correspondence from Russian to English since they began on March 4.

Previous FSB letters authored by the whistleblower, and published by Osechkin, have been analyzed by Christo Grozev, an expert on the FSB. He said he had shown the emails to two FSB officers who had "no doubt it was written by a colleague."

This whole anonymous source thing has been abused to death and back in both Russia and the United States. It has come to mean, “I made it up, lol”. It’s a shame because, occasionally, in theory anyways, there might actually be an interesting leak that is then drowned out in the shum of the modern dis-information age and the accumulated lack of trust that people have acquired for journalism.

Dated November, the agent's latest emails detail inner turmoil and conflict within the Kremlin, predicting an "inevitable" civil war, and that Russia will soon "descend into the abyss of terror" as people grow increasingly tired of the war.

The whistleblower focuses on Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Putin ally and founder of the mercenary outfit the Wagner Group, and Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov.

Both Prigozhin and Kadyrov have continued to criticize how Putin's war against Ukraine is being handled, appearing to be siding with each other in rare displays of dissent, suggesting that rifts may be emerging inside the Kremlin.

Or it might mean the complete opposite - that they are favored by the Kremlin and that they know ahead of time who they are allowed to criticize and how. No criticism of the Kherson retreat, but broadsides launched at the military command, most notably General Lapin, who seems to have run afoul of some Kremlinite.

U.S. think tank the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) also assessed in late October that Prigozhin and his military group could "pose a threat to Putin's rule."

The FSB agent, however, said that "there is no model of 'just changing power'" in Russia.

"There is no way to 'change everything' in Russia so that the country as a whole will function and does not descend into the abyss of terror," the email said, laying out how a civil war would play out in the country.

"In the beginning we may get a haphazard riot, with only looting and chaotic skirmishes between everyone. Let me try to explain: the struggle of security agencies against Prigozhin's structures, a real war against each other, is bad, but generally inevitable," they wrote.

"Or there will be battles of the regions for the division of resources. Or a scramble of various forces for control over regions or chunks of the country (Russia)."

But the country could collapse into total chaos, the agent said.

It’s a fine story, sure. But there’s no proof whatsoever that Prigozhin’s mercenaries are looking to take on the much-larger FSB gang. If they did, it would be kind of cool, you have to admit.

I’ll be cheering for Bane Prigozhin if it comes to that.

Fantasies aside, I think that a second and a third wave of mobilization are very likely possibilities, regardless of what Peskov says. In fact, now that Peskov is saying that there won’t be one, I am firmly convinced that there will be an announcement about a second wave by New Year’s. Yes, I’m willing to make another solid prediction: Peskov will be wrong again and there will indeed be a second wave of mobilization in Russia.

The reason for this is simple math. The first wave only puts Russia near parity with the Ukrainians and can, in theory, plug the manpower gaps and stop the Ukrainian advance. Chances are, the 300k simply won’t be enough though. America continues to pour weapons into Ukraine, and Ukraine can mobilize still more men. Furthermore, although their numbers remain small in comparison to the regular army, the NATO mercenaries continue to trickle into the country.

Coming back to Peskov, I honestly think that the poor man is just being abused and bullied and treated like the Kremlin idiot by the big boys. But I don’t feel much sympathy for the guy because he’s clearly in the Liberal camp. One of the actual functions of Peskov when he’s not being actively led to look like a fool is to say deeply unpopular things. It is unclear why he is allowed to do this. Perhaps it is an actual 5D play in which Peskov says something unpopular and Putin swoops in to contradict him and reassure the people.

I’d actually be impressed if this were the case.

The second wave might also go better than the first. That is, if its done with advance notice and in an orderly, pre-planned way. The first wave was done in a panic, at the last moment, when it became clear that whoever was filing reports to Putin about the situation at the front was lying and that the NATOan army was advancing. We knew beforehand that it would be a sloppy mess.

Dmitri @wartranslated

Out of all mobiks we've seen so far, these guys from Serpuhkov were definitely born to lose: a) no armour given b) abandoned by commanders c) shelled by own Russian forced d) not given any food e) after retreating, placed in a building with no windows. The list goes on...

And the MoD didn’t fail to disappoint.

But pointing out that a portion of the recruits are poorly equipped, trained and demoralized is sort of pointless. This is not what will decide the outcome of this war. Ukraine has the same problems and had them to a worse degree. Quantity, however, is its own quality, a lesson that you would think that Russia wouldn’t have to re-learn.

Russia didn’t have time to train the recruits that were badly needed on the front, and the army had, apart from the professional corps apparently, been thoroughly looted for decades at that point so there wasn’t much in the way of equipment reserves, apparently. We’ve talked about Ukraine’s staggering 70% loot rate before. But the looting on both sides is continuing apace, even now.

All of this occurred under the watchful eye of the secret police, mind you.

It’s just like in America where drugs, crime and child predation seems to be flourishing and growing despite record budget windfalls for the secret police agencies tasked with fighting this.

People ought to be sitting up and asking questions, at least among themselves.

People rarely do though.

People who end up trusting the promises of the authorities always end up in a bad ways, one way or the other. Most of the time, they end up against the wall.

ZOKA @200_zoka

Ukrainians continue to harass population in Herson

“You were waiting for the FSB to save you, fucker?”