Russia appears to be running out of willing recruits and is laying the legal groundwork for rolling involuntary reserve call-ups, while simultaneously suppressing potential dissent through new legislation and Telegram restrictions. The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) assessed on 18 February that Moscow is acting from a position of weakness as its expensive voluntary recruitment system nears exhaustion.
As Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine approaches the completion of its fourth year, Russian forces continue ground assaults along the front line, sustaining heavy losses. Ukraine has reported that in recent months, Russia's loss rate first matched its recruitment rate and then surpassed it, resulting in a 8,600-troop gap seen in January.
The Russian State Duma adopted a bill in its first reading on 18 February that would strengthen measures against "distortion of historical truth" and "evasion of the duty to defend the Fatherland." ISW assesses the bill likely aims to give Moscow a legal basis for prosecuting Russians who criticize involuntary reserve call-ups.
Duma Committee on Security and Anti-Corruption Deputy Chairperson Anatoly Vyborny stated the bill's primary objective is to shape Russian public consciousness to think of evading service as "socially unacceptable."
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A year of quiet legal preparation
The groundwork has been building since at least October 2025, ISW notes. In October 2025, the Russian Cabinet approved a bill allowing the deployment of active reservists in expeditionary operations outside Russia without an official mobilization declaration or state of war.
On 4 November 2025, Putin signed a decree enabling year-round conscription rather than the traditional twice-yearly cycle. On 8 December 2025, he signed another authorizing compulsory call-up of an unspecified number of inactive reservists for "military assemblies" across the Armed Forces, National Guard (Rosgvardia), FSB, Ministry of Emergency Situations, and other security agencies in 2026. Two of the decree's four provisions were classified.
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Recruitment can no longer keep pace with losses
Russia's recruitment rate has barely matched its monthly loss rate for much of the war, ISW notes, but that balance appears to be tipping. Bloomberg reported on 11 February, citing Western officials, that Russia sustained about 9,000 more battlefield casualties than it replaced in January 2026 — after years of recruitment roughly meeting the replacement rate.
Replacing losses underpins Putin's theory of victory, which depends on the Russian military grinding forward long enough for Ukraine's defenses and Western support to give out, ISW notes.
Mobilization fallout and the Kremlin’s “butter vs. guns” dilemma
The September 2022 partial mobilization — which drafted 300,000 reservists, triggered domestic backlash, and drove an estimated 700,000 to 900,000 Russians abroad — still constrains the Kremlin. Vladimir Putin has avoided another call-up, despite demands to rotate troops mobilized in fall 2022, some 78,000 of whom were reportedly still fighting as of May 2025.
Meanwhile, acute labor shortages and a projected need for 2.4 million additional workers by 2030 leave Moscow facing a stark trade-off: expanding mobilization risks undermining both the civilian economy and defense production, ISW says.
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