The writing is apparently on the wall for Ukraine, without a full-blown effort from the U.S. and Europe.

From The Saker at thesaker.is: 

So, after lots of speculation, we now know that the Kremlin has decided to mobilize about 300,000 soldiers from a total mobilizational potential of 25,000,000 soldiers.  That’s just a little over 1% of Russia’s mobilizational potential.  We are talking only about those soldiers who have an official status of “reserves” and all of them will have to undergo a special training before being sent to the Ukraine. A few comments about this decision:

  • It will take Russia a few months to gather and retrain (refresher courses) these forces and they will not be immediately available to protect the Lugansk, Donetsk, Zaporozhie and Kherson regions during the upcoming referendum on to whether to join Russia or not.  The 3rd volunteer army corps is already deployed in the south and could greatly assist in this.
  • Putin and Shoigu gave several reasons for this decision, including the very long line of contact, the direct involvement of NATO personnel who are now running the Ukronazi regime in Kiev and the threats by the West to dismantle Russia.
  • Shoigu indicated that the UAF lost about 50% of its personnel (over 100,000 soldiers out of a total potential of about 200,000).  He also added that most of the Ukrainian weapons systems, which were of Soviet origin, was mostly destroyed.  Russian KIAs are just under 6,000 soldiers.

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