There are increasing signs of an imminent second wave of mobilisation in Russia, according to independent Russian media. The independent outlet Verstka says there are "numerous indications that mobilisation may start at any moment".
According to Verstka, "military registration and enlistment offices continue to send out summonses, and in Moscow, a group of specialists who helped the Moscow mayor's office to handle cases of illegal drafts is on 'combat readiness'".
Utility workers are reported to be preparing to deliver mobilisation notices and, according to a source, have been banned from taking holidays in January and February. Sources in Moscow's military registration and enlistment offices have told Verstka that their superiors have warned them that January-February "will be difficult".
Verstka has also been told by sources in the Russian parliament that a second mobilisation will happen soon.
The Kremlin is reported to have been working over the winter to avoid the many well-publicised problems encountered in the first wave of mobilisation and has taken technical and organisational steps to overcome them.
As Verstka notes, "Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu himself said that the work of the military registration and enlistment offices was being modernised, the existing databases were digitised and interaction between them and the regional authorities was being established."
A parliamentary source says that "since October, the authorities have more or less managed to solve the problem of manning and uniforming the mobilised".
Until now, conscripts (men doing compulsory military service – a distinct category from the mobilised) have been exempt from mobilisation. However, the source says that newly serving conscripts will be the first to be called up for mobilisation.
The Kremlin is unlikely to try to keep the new mobilisation secret, as information about it "will turn up on social networks anyway". However, there's little doubt that it will be controversial, especially if conscripts are now to be mobilised.
Russian law prohibits deploying conscripts outside the borders of the Russian Federation. Putin's annexation of four Ukrainian regions last year likely overcomes this legal obstacle, clearing the way for conscripts to join the fighting.