"All of Vlad's forces and all of Vlad's men, are out to put Humpty together again." (3 Viewers)

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A book to look forward to:

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It's important to remember that with the Internet, information about the war is much harder to suppress. There's also a big difference in the state terror apparatus available to Stalin compared to Putin. These facts combine to imply that Putin must pay sensitive attention to public opinion, even as he seeks to manipulate it.

Another factor mitigating against mass levees of the type you're positing from WWII is that Russia's economy is slumping and they can't afford to take too many employees off production lines. Remember, by 1944 USSR was receiving great amounts of Lend-Lease, not just resources and raw materials but finished goods which would have otherwise had to have been produced in Russian factories. I can't specify how many workers this freed up for military service, but it had to be significant. Such circumstances not obtaining today, that's even less available.

For these reasons, I don't see the great levees of 1943-44 happening today. Look at the exodus the last one instigated, after all.

There were strong protests, bordering on revolts in Moscow and other cities in the Soviet Union prior to its dissolution. That was what forced the end of the Soviet Union. There was also a severe economic collapse. The CCCP simply could not "out-defense-spend" NATO. One can hope (but not expect) for that to happen again. That would be a more important outcome rather than a coup or "decapitation" of Putin.
 
I recall reading that 80% of Soviet males born in 1923 were dead by the end of the war (a truly harrowing figure...). No way to hide that sort of statistic these days. Not to mention that the Soviret Union was drafting from all the republics, not just the Russian Republic
I've read that's why we began to see a lot of beautiful women from eastern Europe starting in the 1960s, as there weren't enough young men in 1945-50 to marry any but the best women.

Let's see what this new shortage gets us.

 
Just a thought based I admit on no personal information. Much is understandably made of the much larger Russian population which gives it the ability to use almost WW1 like meat grinder tactics.
However there must be a limit which may not be so far away which once reached puts Russia in trouble. The poorer outlying areas of Russia are being bled white to supply the troops needed. The major cities comparatively have hardly been touched by the call up. The reason is both obvious and clear, the major cities are large centres of populations, which are also fundamental to keeping the economy going and the hardest to control should there be a revolt.

In numbers Putin has a large advantage, but how much more can he rely on the more distant parts of Russia. A lot of these areas see themselves as independent areas which are controlled by Russia.

Russia's population advantage is in my view the difference between how much he has bled the outlying areas and how much more he can bleed them. Once Putin starts to draw on the resources of the larger cities, the risk to his control will increase rapidly. The size of his personal guard has increased dramatically over the last six to nine months and I cannot help but think that this could be the reason behind that growth.
 

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