Well, it seems the quoted political analyst in the article remembers that some people in St. Petersburg have autonomy/independence in their minds. If Putin is too harsh, the effect may be the opposite.

And here it is:

https://www.ft.com/content/fc1413ee-...3-403bc7e42979

Russia announces partial mobilization and in connection with annexation explicitly re-iterates the nuclear threat: "He accused the west of using “nuclear blackmail” against Russia and vowed: “If its territorial integrity is threatened Russia will use all the means at its disposal. This is not a bluff.”"

I repeat, this is not a bluff

Sounds all very desperate to me. They say they will call up only 300.000, no students etc. Trying to tell the public that this isn't really mobilization while announcing mobilization. MOEX is down another 5% this morning after dropping 8% yesterday.

It is not clear what Putin means by "partial mobilisation", presumably as posted it is intended to reassure his citizens that is not a "full mobilisation". Hard to believe the Russian records are so good and accessible that they can easily identify its citizens with previous military experience. It's not clear how many people with this background have already been mobilized.

With his armed forces heavily depleted and even having gone so far as to have pulled people from their training facilities to join the fight then it is not clear how they plan to train these new recruits. Likely they will be old and not at peak fitness and have forgotten most of their training, certainly, they will not be familiar with the newest types of equipment like battlefield radars, air defenses, and electronic counter warfare.
Russian military equipment is also heavily depleted so they will be furnished with museum pieces dragged from storage to fight against the ever more modern Ukraine forces.

It will be a death sentence for many of the forecast 300,000 especially if they do not have enough good quality winter uniforms for them as Ukraine slowly moves to bitterly cold weather, it is reported Ukraine is already issuing its soldiers with winter uniforms.
Great timing starting a mobilisation at this time of year, look at the failure of the German Operation Barbarossa.

Edit: “210th day of the ‘three-day war,’” Mykhailo Podolyak, adviser to the Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, said on Twitter.

“Russians who demanded the destruction of [Ukraine] ended up getting:
1. Mobilization.
2. Closed borders, blocking of bank accounts.
3. Prison for desertion,” Podolyak tweeted.
“Everything is still according to the plan, right? Life has a great sense of humor.”

Apparently the decree says nothing about "partial", but that quotas are set for each region. If this is true, then they could try to mobilize any number of people, but need to balance with what they must fear in opposition. It also seems that the decree extends existing contract soldier indefinitely. People will see that as what it is. Not escalation, but an attempt of fixing what is so obviously broken. Won't change anything on the battlefield in the foreseeable future.

We will see what the potententially escalatory move of annexation yields.

I would assume they don't start with "old" people, I'd think they'd start with people who left the military less than 5 years ago. Then those at 10 years, etc.
But I think you're right about the equipment, I would be more worried about the cold than the enemy.

There was a good piece by Lawrence Freedman on Russian nuclear deterrance yesterday, which he just edited to reflect Putin's speech.

https://samf.substack.com/p/going-nuclear

Postscript

The day after this post was published, Putin made a speech in which he announced military mobilisation. His description of the origins of the course of the war can be left to another day. It is an extension of the delusional analysis which he has been promoting since the start of this disastrous war. The mobilisation announced will, I suspect, aggravate rather than solve the problems faced by Russian forces at the front. I will consider these in my next post. His main statement on nuclear weapons, however, is wholly in line, with my analysis. This is what he said (in full)

‘Nuclear blackmail also came into play. We are talking not only about the shelling of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, encouraged by the West, which threatens a nuclear catastrophe, but also about the statements of some high-ranking representatives of the leading NATO states about the possibility and admissibility of using weapons of mass destruction, nuclear weapons against Russia. To those who allow themselves such statements about Russia, I want to remind you that our country also has various means of destruction, and in some components more modern than the NATO countries. And if the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, we will certainly use all the means at our disposal to protect Russia and our people. It's not a bluff.

The citizens of Russia can be sure that the territorial integrity of our Motherland, our independence and freedom will be ensured - I emphasize this again - with all the means at our disposal. And those who are trying to blackmail us with nuclear weapons should know that the wind rose can also turn in their direction.’

This is still about deterrence. It came at the end of the speech as a warning to the West about further escalation. There is an issue as to whether the sham referendums proposed to support the annexation of the various occupied territories will be backed by this deterrent threat. He may be content to leave this ambiguos, but so was the statement on these referendums:

‘The parliaments of the people's republics of Donbass, as well as the military-civilian administrations of the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions, decided to hold referendums on the future of these territories and asked us to support such a step. Let me emphasize that we will do our best to ensure safe conditions for holding the referendum. To enable people to express their will. And we will support the decision about their future, which will be made by the majority of residents of the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics, Zaporozhye and Kherson regions.’

No link was made in the speech between this promise and the nuclear threat. Only Luhansk is close to being fully occupied, and that is now being contested again. No new red line has yet to be established here. If he wanted to protect these gains with nuclear threats, before they are taken back by Ukrainian forces, he would need to have made this explicit.

No students? That means next mobilisation move will comprise students. So, this is a huge green flag for young Russians to start racing to the borders, leave the country and seek asylum somewhere else.

And, famous last words...

Simonyan took to Twitter right after the speech and seemingly wanted to calm down people. I guess she got orders to do that and prevent spontaneous reactions on the streets of Moscow.

As to leaving the country, I don't know if this mobilization decree actually prevents potential conscript from doing so. There were reports yesterday that "how to leave Russia without visa" was among to top searches in Google.

It seems the guy not bluffing lost his ability to scare people:

https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/switzer...ndums/47917118

I think there is such a huge cost and so little gain in using nuclear weapons that it's main value is as a threat so far and so it would be unwise to specify exactly how you will use it to avoid having your bluff called. Better to allow some ambiguity.

Putin mentions NATO potentially using nuclear against Russia? Anyone know which comments he is referring to here?

The splitting of atoms perhaps.

I agree, I think the ambiguity is intended here. And yes, he talked about using nukes as response to nuclear threats by NATO. Which do not exist.

According to this site the decree does mention partial.
With typical Russian attention to detail point 7 is missing, or maybe point 7 is too explosive to release publically.

Well, yeah, so it says in the headline. But you will note that according to the text basically anyone can be called up if within the age, health etc. limits. So they might only call 300.000 people, but it reads like "legally" they could call up millions.

Which again raises the question of who will be allowed to leave the country.

I wonder if many tried to leave yesterday as these plans started to become known.

From UK's Ministry of Defence:



https://twitter.com/DefenceHQ/status...98934580256768

Virtually all flights from Russia to available foreign destinations in the coming days were sold out Wednesday after President Vladimir Putin declared a “partial” mobilization of the country’s 25 million reservists.

Flights from Moscow to the capitals of Georgia, Turkey and Armenia — which do not require visas for Russians — for Sept. 21 were unavailable within minutes of Putin’s announcement, according to Russia’s top travel planning website aviasales.ru.

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/...ization-a78852

wow. 25 million reservists ?

It seems Latvia worries about terrorism.

But, men fleeing from war cause other many uncomfortable questions. How will other countries answer to asylum requests from Russian citizens? China, India?

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/...g-mobilization