The option is on the table, and there is a real probability that it will happen.
The question is how many people Russia could train to any meaningful degree, arm, and place into units at the same time. The situation there is not exactly rosy.
We are still talking about 300,000 to 500,000 men, not 25,000 to 50,000, correct?
If they go down that road, then yes, we would indeed be talking about larger numbers.
Russian society is already tired of the war and anxious. If you are going to pay the political price of mobilization, there is not much point in doing it for a small number.
It would certainly make Ukraine’s situation more difficult, but I do not see it automatically leading to a decisive breakthrough at the front.
Russian troops mobilized for the war train at a range in the Rostov region on October 4, 2022. Photo: AP/Scanpix
What would mobilizing, say, 300,000 or 500,000 men mean for Estonian security? After a possible ceasefire, for example, the Kremlin would have several hundred thousand more men at its disposal than it does now, even if they were poorly trained. That would have to be factored in immediately, wouldn’t it?
If that additional force is called up, those people have to be housed somewhere and trained somewhere.
At the moment, many of the Russian garrisons near us are fairly empty. That means there would be a fairly high probability that some of those personnel would again be stationed near our borders.