1 Institute for the Study of War & AEI’s Critical Threats Project 2022
Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, September 20
Katherine Lawlor, Karolina Hird, George Barros, and Frederick W. Kagan
September 20, 8:45pm 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.
Russian-appointed occupation officials in Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhia
oblasts announced on September 20 that they will hold a “referendum” on acceding to
Russia, with a vote taking place from September 23-27.
The Kremlin will use the falsified
results of these sham referenda to illegally annex all Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine and is likely to
declare unoccupied parts of Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizha oblasts to be part of Russia as well.
The Kremlin’s annexation plans are primarily targeting a domestic audience; Putin likely
hopes to improve Russian force generation capabilities by calling on the Russian people
to volunteer for a war to “defend” newly claimed Russian territory. Putin and his advisors
have apparently realized that current Russian forces are insufficient to conquer Ukraine and that efforts
to build large forces quickly through voluntary mobilization are culminating short of the Russian
military’s force requirements. Putin is therefore likely setting legal and informational conditions to
improve Russian force generation without resorting to expanded conscription by changing the balance
of carrots and sticks the Kremlin has been using to spur voluntary recruitment.
Putin may believe that he can appeal to Russian ethnonationalism and the defense of
purportedly “Russian peoples” and claimed Russian land to generate additional
volunteer forces. He may seek to rely on enhanced rhetoric in part because the Kremlin cannot afford
the service incentives, like bonuses and employment benefits, that it has already promised Russian
recruits.
But Putin is also adding new and harsher punishments in an effort to contain the risk of the
collapse of Russian military units fighting in Ukraine and draft-dodging within Russia. The Kremlin
rushed the passage of a new law through the State Duma on September 20, circumventing normal
parliamentary procedures.
This law codifies dramatically increased penalties for desertion, refusing
conscription orders, and insubordination. It also criminalizes voluntary surrender and makes
surrender a crime punishable by ten years in prison. The law notably does not order full-scale
mobilization or broader conscription or make any preparations for such activities.
ISW has observed no evidence that the Kremlin is imminently intending to change its
conscription practices. The Kremlin’s new law is about strengthening the Kremlin’s
coercive volunteerism, or what Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov called “self-
mobilization.”
The Kremlin is taking steps to directly increase force generation through continued voluntary self-
mobilization and an expansion of its legal authority to deploy Russian conscripts already with the force
to fight in Ukraine.
• Putin’s illegal annexation of occupied Ukrainian territory will broaden the
domestic legal definition of “Russian” territory under Russian law, enabling the
Russian military to legally and openly deploy conscripts already in the Russian
military to fight in eastern and southern Ukraine. Russian leadership has already
deployed undertrained conscripts to Ukraine in direct violation of Russian law and faced
domestic backlash.
Russia’s semi-annual conscription cycle usually generates around 130,000
