Vladimir Putin is facing growing pressure to replenish Russia’s forces in Ukraine as European leaders warn that Moscow could combine a renewed military mobilisation with increasingly aggressive “hybrid” attacks against NATO countries supporting Kyiv.
Western intelligence assessments cited by The Telegraph indicate that Russian authorities are making administrative preparations that could allow the armed forces to expand after the country’s parliamentary elections.
One intelligence source told the newspaper: “What we are seeing is administrative preparations to make it possible to do it, if that was the decision.”
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has previously put the potential scale of a fresh Russian call-up at 300,000 people, although Western officials have questioned whether Moscow currently has the equipment, training capacity and administrative infrastructure required to absorb such a force.
Instead, intelligence officials believe Russia could favour a more gradual expansion of its manpower through recruitment incentives and other less visible measures.
“We see lots of what we call ‘stealth’ mobilisation and extra efforts to drive up contract recruitment,” one intelligence source said.
Recruitment efforts are reportedly extending beyond conventional military-age volunteers, including people facing court proceedings, individuals struggling with debt and university students who have fallen behind with their studies.
The pressure on Russia’s force-generation system is also reflected in battlefield assessments. The Institute for the Study of War said Russia’s casualty rate is currently exceeding recruitment by thousands of personnel each month, while the Russian military is still failing to achieve its stated operational and strategic objectives.
“Russia’s current casualty rate exceeds its recruitment rate by thousands per month, and the Russian war effort is even so failing to achieve its operational and strategic objectives,” the institute said.
At the same time, Poland has warned that Russia could seek to test Nato’s political resolve through attacks designed to remain below the threshold of an openly declared conflict.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk told parliament that intelligence assessments indicated Russia was considering “hybrid” drone and missile attacks against countries supporting Ukraine, including Poland. He warned that such attacks could be presented as accidents.
“These potential strikes would be quote-unquote ‘accidental’ in nature,” he told parliament.
Mr Tusk said they could be “intended to paralyse or at least weaken the resolve of NATO states to invoke the relevant NATO provisions in the event of aggression against a member country”.
The warning came after Poland scrambled fighter aircraft in response to Russian attacks in western Ukraine close to its border, while Warsaw has increased air-defence and rapid-response measures.
The concerns extend beyond the eastern flank. French President Emmanuel Macron said Russia’s hybrid activity against European countries and France had intensified, ordering officials to strengthen protection for critical infrastructure and sensitive sites against possible cyber and drone attacks.
“In recent weeks, the Russian hybrid threat against Europeans and against France has intensified.”
“The intent is to intimidate us and break our effort to support Ukraine. The result will be the exact opposite. We are not intimidated because we know that our security today and tomorrow is at stake in Ukraine.”
The combination of manpower pressure inside Russia and a widening European assessment of Moscow’s willingness to use covert or deniable tactics has increased concern over how the conflict could evolve beyond Ukraine.
Yet intelligence officials remain cautious over the prospect of a conventional mass mobilisation. One assessment suggested that a “very big public mass mobilisation feels unlikely”, pointing instead towards a gradual expansion of recruitment.
The Institute for the Study of War has similarly assessed that the timing and form of any future Russian mobilisation remain uncertain, although it has warned that continued casualties and insufficient recruitment could eventually force Moscow to change its force-generation system.
For European governments, the emerging concern is therefore not simply whether Russia can generate another large pool of troops, but whether Moscow can sustain its war in Ukraine while simultaneously increasing pressure on the wider European security system.
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