Save your country or go to Ukraine and fight the war, Russia’s army is not enough; Putin is in big trouble…

The long-running Russia-Ukraine war is still raging.

Sometimes Russia dominates and sometimes Ukraine gains a small lead. However, for some time now, Ukrainian forces have been giving Russia a tough time.

Fierce fighting continues in Russia’s Kursk region where Ukrainian troops have been stationed since August 6. Recently, the Ukrainian army said that it had gained control of the city of Sudja, 10 kilometers away from the Russian border.

This town, with a pre-war population of about 5,000, is the largest town to be captured by Ukrainian troops since the invasion began. Now there are reports that the Russian army is facing a big crisis of saving its own land.

put soldiers on rotation

Military aid sent by Russia failed to halt the Ukrainian offensive in the Kursk region for the second week, Al Jazeera reports.

This has created a dilemma for the Kremlin: either call up more battalions fighting in Ukraine to defend Russia or send new recruits who have been hastily recruited into the war.

Russia has so far kept its regular conscripts on rotation and sent only contract troops to the bloody battlefields of Ukraine. But the Kursk offensive has changed that delicate strategic balance.

There will be no additional recruitment of reserve soldiers – Putin

Russian President Vladimir Putin responded, understanding the potential political opposition to sending recruits to Ukraine in the early days of the war.

“I emphasize that conscript soldiers are not taking part in combat,” Putin said in a televised message in March 2022, responding to concerns from the mothers of conscripts.

He said there would be “no additional recruitment of reserve troops.” But he has now given the Federal Security Service (FSB) permission to recruit them in order to deploy them in border areas. This could be controversial from a legal point of view.

On August 10, four days after the Ukrainian incursion, Russian mothers began complaining that their sons were involved in active combat.

“Oksana Deeva, the mother of a soldier fighting in the Kursk region, has published a petition calling for the soldier’s return from the war zones. Nearly three thousand people signed it in three days,” wrote Okno, an independent Russian news publication.

The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said soldiers’ mothers’ organizations have political power in Russia.

Will mothers’ organizations create ruckus?

“Mothers’ organisations have been able to lead major Russian social movements in the past, such as the Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers (later renamed the Union of Committees of Soldiers’ Mothers), which united around issues concerning Soviet soldiers in the late 1980s and early 1990s and successfully demanded greater transparency in the Soviet military,” it said.

In the early days of the invasion, Putin assured family members of soldiers that professional soldiers would bear the brunt of the fighting. But heavy deaths in special forces and other experienced units have forced Putin to take several major steps.

At present, the attacks taking place in the Kursk region have created a new crisis for Russia’s security.

Now the Kremlin must decide how it can counter this attack without weakening its military, especially as Ukraine continues to shift its strategies.

Given the growing concerns and political opposition to this issue within Russia, Putin and his advisers face difficult decisions. It remains to be seen in the coming days how the Kremlin confronts this challenge and whether it makes any major changes to its war approach.