1 Institute for the Study of War and AEI’s Critical Threats Project 2022
Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, September 26
Kateryna Stepanenko, Katherine Lawlor, George Barros, Riley Bailey, and Frederick W. Kagan
September 26, 11:25 pm ET
Click here to see ISW’s interactive map of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This map is updated daily
alongside the static maps present in this report.
The Kremlin is attempting to message its way out of the reality of major problems in the execution of its
“partial mobilization,” but its narratives are unlikely to placate Russians who can perceive the real
mistakes all around them. The Kremlin is deflecting blame for the Russian government’s failure to abide by its own
stated criteria for mobilization and exemptions onto the failing bureaucratic institutions responsible for the mobilization.
The Kremlin is downplaying the widespread violations of the mobilization law as individual errors of local authorities,
claiming to correct these errors as citizens call attention to them. The violations are clearly too common to be merely the
result of individual errors, however, and Russian citizens can see them all too clearly. Unlike Russian failures in Ukraine,
which the Kremlin has been able to minimize or deflect because its citizens cannot see them directly, violations of the
mobilization decree are evident to many Russians. Word of these violations does not even require access to media or social
media, because they are occurring in so many locations and victims’ families can spread their anguish by word of mouth.
Russian state media has begun acknowledging social media complaints of persistent problems with the mobilization
process, largely pinning the blame on the supposedly unmotivated and careless employees of the military recruitment
centers.[1] Russian propagandists and heads of federal subjects are actively discussing instances of wrongful mobilization
of men older than the maximum mobilizable age, those who had never served, and those who have medical conditions, as
well as poor treatment of mobilized individuals. Omsk Oblast Governor Alexander Burkov declaimed that the bureaucracy
is the “enemy of patriotism” and blamed bureaucrats for focusing on meeting unstated quotas rather than correctly
fulfilling Russian President Vladimir Putin’s partial mobilization order.[2] One state television host threatened to punish
workers of military recruitment centers if they fail to abide by the limited reservist mobilization order.[3] The Kremlin’s
media outlets and voices are increasingly sharing individual stories in which military recruitment centers released some
men who were unfit for service following the involvement of local officials or with the help of Kremlin state media to
suggest that errors are being corrected when called to the Kremlin’s attention.[4]
The Kremlin faces a daunting task in trying to calm the Russian people while still mobilizing enough men
to keep fighting. The Kremlin’s current narrative aims to assuage its distraught and panicking population with the
promise of fixing and punishing bureaucratic institutions for widespread “mistakes” in the mobilization campaign, but
such messaging is unlikely to solve the Kremlin’s problems. Putin will have to fix (or convincingly appear to fix) the
mobilization bureaucracy sprawling across 11 time zones while simultaneously getting it to meet the mobilization quotas
he has set for it to support the war effort. These imperatives are likely mutually exclusive in a short period of time. The
Kremlin also risks further undermining this critical bureaucratic institution during an important period by continuously
blaming it for failures that are likely not entirely of its making. Some Russians are already directing their anger onto
enlistment officials; a man who opposed mobilization shot the head of the Ust-Ilimsk military recruitment office in Irkutsk
Oblast on September 26.[5]
