Protests have rocked Moscow and cities across the Russian Federation!

President Vladimir Putin has announced a mobilization of Russian reservists to fight in Ukraine. Additionally, there are reports of protesters being arrested and being handed conscription papers, while university students who are protected from the draft are being threatened with expulsion, where they would then face the risk of being forced to fight in Putin's war.

The mayhem and chaos from Russia's defeat thus far continues all the way to the far east, where men over the age of 40 are being pulled from their beds in the middle of the night in order to presumably fight in Ukraine.

Conscription like this has often been necessary for nations throughout history, but it's difficult to control the fallout if the war is not universally popular. The last two times mobilizations like this happened were the World Wars. The Soviet Army forcibly drafted virtually every male in the country to push back against the Nazi invasion and subsequently capture Berlin and East Germany. The effort to defend the homeland and later destroy the Nazis was a matter of national survival; which made the war universally popular and necessary.

The war in Ukraine, however, more closely resembles the Tzar's participation in World War I; which had nothing to do with survival and had everything to do with symbolic alliances and international intrigue. At the onset of World War I, the Russian Army used conscription to jump from 1.4 million soldiers to 4.5 million. The Russian Army wasn't prepared logistically for such a large scale, prolonged conflict and lacked much of the equipment and gear needed to supply that many soldiers. This led to devastating defeats in the first stages of the conflict; which resulted in the deaths of hundreds of experienced officers and further contempt for the highest ranking Russian military commanders. The soldiers eventually revolted and left the front lines; weakening the strength of Tzar Nicholas II and leading to the Revolution and the death of the Tzar.

Like the Central Powers in WWI, Ukraine did not and does not present an existential threat to Russia. It has been well documented that the world, including Russian military and political leaders, expected Kiev to fall in a matter of days. When it didn't, Russia found itself in a similar position as in World War I; a drawn out conflict without enough equipment and gear to supply its soldiers. Just like in World War I, the fighting in Ukraine resulted in the deaths of many experienced military officers, including several generals. When the Ukrainian military finally pushed a counter-offensive this month to recapture large swaths of territory held by Russia, the Russian soldiers retreated in disguise and leaving even their weapons behind. In recent months, we've heard of Russia; once a top producer of military hardware, scrambling to recover mothballed Soviet tanks, begging China for military equipment and economic aid, and purchasing explosive UAVs from Iran. It's really quite pathetic to see how poorly equipped the Russian military was. It's just like in World War I when the Russians were completely dependent on the Allied powers for supplies.

The conscription is likely only to further worsen Russia's problems. As Ukraine destroys an entire generation worth of Russian military equipment and weapon systems, the new mass of conscripts being forced to the front lines after minimal training will only prove to be fodder for the Ukrainians who are enjoying a (still too limited but) steady supply of weapons from the NATO alliance.

Conscripts will have even less discipline than the Russian Army has already shown; which is difficult to fathom. They'll also be less equipped, less experienced, less trained than the first wave of Russian soldiers to date. Of course, there's always a fear of a mastermind strategist being discovered in the ranks and being promoted, but shy of this, it should be expected that the Russian death toll and rate of abandonment will skyrocket when these conscripts hit the battlefield; resulting in further expensive military losses (both in terms of life and equipment).

It's difficult to see Russia's end game at this point. It appears as though Vladimir Putin has fallen victim to the fallacy of sunken cost. His biggest obstacle now isn't how to win the war, but how to save face in the face of a humiliating defeat without triggering an international nuclear war.