There are signs that the ongoing conflict with Ukraine is starting to cause problems for the Russian military. The frontline for Russian forces is over 1500 miles long, and this can’t be defended without enough soldiers.
In a speech made from the Kremlin earlier this week, President Putin announced that he would be calling up 300,000 reservists to the front line. He also said in his speech that the west did not want to see peace in Ukraine and that Russia was entitled to defend itself.
While people may expect that this would be bad news for the people of Ukraine, it has given them some hope. Russia has lost some of the ground that it had gained in the country recently, and this new announcement seems to confirm that the Russian army cannot continue to operate effectively with the manpower that it currently has.
There is also growing discontent in Russia about the conflict in Ukraine. Anti-war protests are breaking out all across the country and 1300 demonstrators were arrested on the day of Putin’s speech. Now that another 300,000 families will be directly involved in the conflict, it is not hard to imagine that Russian support for the war will lessen even further.
