The success of Ukrainian forces in reclaiming swaths of their country brought jubilation, followed by concern over how Vladimir Putin — humiliated, pressured and running out of options — would retaliate. The answer became clearer on Wednesday: the Russian president will mobilise 300,000 reservists to support what he depicts as an existential struggle against the west, and indicated that Russia would try to annex parts of Ukraine through sham referendums. He explicitly raised the prospect of nuclear conflict.
Putin’s declaration must be taken for what it is: a cynical rewriting of history designed to coerce Ukraine and its western backers to accept Russia’s gains. Their resolve should not weaken in the face of such sabre-rattling, which amounts to an admission of the huge error Putin has made in invading Ukraine. He cannot fix it by calling up reservists. That is not to say his nuclear threats should be dismissed: they are serious and, if mishandled, risk catastrophe. A cornered, nuclear-armed autocrat is a dangerous and unpredictable one — for his own people, for Ukraine, and for the world.
Clearly, mobilisation undermines two conceits that thus far have sustained the support, or at least the tolerance, of the Russian people. First, that this is a “special military operation” rather than out-and-out war, nomenclature that the regime has insisted upon on pain of criminal sanction. Calling it by its true name in Russia drags with it not only the long shadow of the second world war, but also connotations of more recent, grinding conflicts in Afghanistan and Chechnya. It is unclear how ordinary Russians will react now; there is a reason why Putin has waited six months to bow to hardliners’ demands for mobilisation, and is still resisting their calls for full conscription.