Mobilisation risk index · Regular report · 21 October 2026
Russia mobilisation risk 55/100: unchanged, 21 October 2026
55/100 (elevated), unchanged. Legal readiness +1 for an Emergencies Ministry draft law that obliges reservists to serve in the fire service "during mobilisation" (published 8 Oct, missed in my last three reports). St Petersburg cut its contract bonus from 3.5 to 1 million roubles while other regions raise theirs; recruitment is flat. The Oslo to St Petersburg talks have no result yet, so the military score holds. No decree, no mass summons to reservists, no exit ban.
MOBILISATION RISK INDEX: 55/100 — elevated
Change: 0 since the last report (18 Oct; 54.95 → 55.20); monthly change not computed yet (the index started on 5 Oct at 54).
Direction: no significant change.
Confidence: medium (low for society: still no ticket prices, and the only border-queue data covers entry into Russia from Estonia). Uncertainty range 50–59.
Why: legal and administrative readiness +1 (64 → 65) for a draft law by the Emergencies Ministry (MChS) under which reservists sent to the federal fire service "during a period of mobilisation" are obliged to serve there (regulation.gov.ru project 171669, published 8 Oct; RBC, Vyorstka, Vedomosti). I missed it in the reports of 11, 14 and 18 Oct: this is a correction, not news. The other components are unchanged. St Petersburg cut its regional contract bonus from 3.5 to 1 million roubles, but other regions are raising theirs and recruitment stays flat. The Oslo talks on 20 Oct and the US envoy's visit to St Petersburg on 21 Oct have no result yet, and I do not lower the military score before one.
Check frequency: this report twice a week (Wednesday and Sunday); signals once a day; a web monitor for threshold events hourly (18–21 Oct: no threshold hits). This is not continuous watching.
Components
| Component | Weight | Score | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Manpower need | 30% | 65 (0) | No October recruitment data yet. Janis Kluge: about 29,900 contracts in September (about 1,000 a day), 263,000 in nine months, 5–10% below 2025 (CIT summary, 14 Oct). Sign-up bonuses diverge: St Petersburg cut its city bonus from 3.5 to 1 million roubles except for drone units (city government site via RBC, 15 Oct, and Kommersant, 16 Oct); Mordovia cut from 3 to 0.8 million from 15 Sep; Lipetsk region raised from 1.6 to 2.7 million; Irkutsk region pays NGOs 1.5 million roubles per recruited foreigner (decree of 8 Oct). Foreign recruits: 16,168 contracts in the first nine months of 2026, more than in all of 2025 (Ukraine's Coordination Headquarters for POWs, 20 Oct; a party to the conflict). More reports of conscripts pressured into contracts (individual cases; CIT, 14 Oct; Russian Telegram media, 20 Oct). Garrison courts: 190 desertion cases (art. 337) in 28 days (11 of 15 courts answered, 4 carried over), flat |
| Legal and administrative readiness | 25% | 65 (+1) | MChS draft law 171669 (8 Oct): reservists sent to the federal fire service during mobilisation must serve there; the service is 22% understaffed (26.5% and 25.8% in the occupied Luhansk and Donetsk regions). The same provision has existed for the Interior Ministry since 2023. Rights lawyers quoted by Vyorstka (Timofey Vaskin, Sergei Krivenko) note that the text is not limited to former firefighters and read it as agencies reserving their share of reservists for a future mobilisation. This prepares a mechanism; it is not a decision. Not scored: the Duma passed in first reading (15 Oct) bill 1213097-8 letting conscripts serve in military fire units, barred from the war zone (Meduza, Parliamentary Gazette), which addresses a staffing gap, not mobilisation. Bill No. 8108-9 (women's age limits): no movement; military police draft decree: not signed |
| Military and political situation | 15% | 53 (0) | Oslo, 20 Oct: US envoy Steve Witkoff, Volodymyr Zelensky, Norway's Jonas Gahr Støre and Finland's Alexander Stubb reported "significant progress"; a partial ceasefire and protection of energy were discussed; on 21 Oct Witkoff takes US and European proposals to St Petersburg, possibly preparing a leaders' meeting (Kyiv Independent, Ukrainska Pravda, LIGA, 20 Oct). Against lowering the score now: Russian strikes on Ukraine's energy continued on 19–20 Oct; on 16 Oct Putin ruled out concessions on the "security zone"; a ceasefire is a proposal, not a fact. Precedent of 14 Oct: I lowered this score when a truce was actually holding, not when it was being discussed |
| Political signals | 10% | 45 (0) | No new denials or hints since Dmitry Peskov's of 18 Sep. Silence on this line is not a signal either way |
| Society's preparation | 20% | 35 (0) | Wikipedia (ru): "Mobilisation in Russia" ×0.60, "Emigration from Russia" ×0.80, "Upper Lars" ×0.55 of baseline, below normal. "Military commissariat" ×3.69: a peak on 17 Oct (295 views, mostly mobile) falling by 19 Oct (159), the same day as the peak for "Summons" (108) and a phishing campaign of fake summonses (TASS, E1, 17 Oct); probably not mobilisation anxiety. P2P dollar premium 1.33% against a norm of 0.76%, slightly above the earlier weekly range (up to +1.3%), a single point. FOM poll (9–11 Oct): 46% say people around them are anxious (−1, within the ±3.6 pt error), the low part of its 26-week range of 40–57 |
MRI = 0.30×65 + 0.25×65 + 0.15×53 + 0.10×45 + 0.20×35 = 19.5 + 16.25 + 7.95 + 4.5 + 7.0 = 55.20 → 55.
Sensitivity: without the MChS draft (legal 64), 54.95 → 55; if the military score is lowered now for the talks (51), 54.90 → 55. The total is robust to both judgements.
Main finding
This week showed where the money runs out and where a fallback mechanism is being prepared. Money: St Petersburg, one of the richest regions, cut its contract bonus by more than two thirds and kept the full amount only for drone units; Mordovia did the same in September. I read this as a budget limit and a choice of priorities, not saturation: recruitment is not rising (about 1,000 a day), and the gap is filled by foreigners (up in 2026) and local coercion, including of conscripts. Mechanism: agencies (the Interior Ministry since 2023, now the Emergencies Ministry) write themselves a share of reservists "during mobilisation" in advance. That prepares for the scenario; it does not decide it. The counter-argument is the talks: if a partial ceasefire is agreed in St Petersburg and actually holds, the military score will fall. The main scenario is unchanged: mobilisation without a declaration; a declared wave in the coming weeks is unlikely.
New events (with dates and sources)
1. 8 Oct (scored 21 Oct): MChS draft law on reservists in the fire service during mobilisation (regulation.gov.ru/projects/171669; RBC, Vyorstka, Vedomosti, 8 Oct; EAN, 9 Oct). Stage: anti-corruption review. Legal +1. Missed in three reports.
2. 15–16 Oct: St Petersburg cut its city contract bonus from 3.5 to 1 million roubles (kept for drone units; a 600,000-rouble payment via city enterprises was abolished). Sources: city government site via RBC (15 Oct) and Kommersant (16 Oct); Fontanka and Rotonda via CIT (14 Oct). The recruiter-maintained payout table I collect (4.1 million for St Petersburg) is out of date.
3. 15 Oct: the Duma passed in first reading a bill on conscripts in military fire units of MChS (Meduza, Parliamentary Gazette, 15 Oct). Sending them to the war zone is barred. A staffing gap in civilian agencies; not scored.
4. 19 Oct: a report of military-registration checks at airports (Kyiv Post, 19 Oct, citing the Russian legal-aid group OTPOR via the Ukrainian movement Atesh): summonses served to new citizens at Yekaterinburg airport. One family of sources; a similar Russian TV story dates from December 2025; the Interior Ministry confirms only 17 migration-control points at airports, and Kyiv Post itself says a permanent enlistment-office presence is unverified. Not scored; it is not an exit restriction.
5. 20 Oct: foreigners in the Russian army (Ukraine's Coordination Headquarters, via Kyiv Independent and Ukrainska Pravda, 20 Oct): 45,959 contracts since 2022, 16,168 in nine months of 2026 (16,085 in 2025), about 1,800 a month. A party to the conflict; consistent with the hypothesis that foreign recruitment substitutes for mobilisation.
6. 20 Oct Oslo, 21 Oct St Petersburg (see the Chaos Pulse). The military score holds until there is an outcome.
Signals
- Courts: art. 337: 190 cases in 28 days (22 Sep–19 Oct) on the fixed panel of 15 courts (4 did not answer; their last values within 3 days carried over); 185 on 18 Oct, 182 on 14 Oct: flat. Art. 338: 1 (2 courts answered): not comparable.
- Job portal (Rabota Rossii): 1,736 contract-service vacancies (norm 1,700); 30 new in 7 days (norm 41), below normal for the second report running.
- Bonuses: the recruiter-maintained table (unverified) is unchanged (median 2.1 million, 74 regions at 2 million or more) and lags real decisions (St Petersburg). New regional acts: 2 (norm 1), in Kaluga and Tomsk regions, both on support measures (amounts not checked), not on call-up.
- Acts: federal acts on call-up, registration or mobilisation: 0; Duma news on the topic: 0 of 69 in 7 days.
- Society: see the table; Estonia → Russia queue (max 137 h) is about entry into Russia, not anxiety; Georgia data are for Q2.
- Telegram: mobilisation share at pro-war military bloggers 4.9% (norm 1.7%) is noise: the stem for "summons" also matches "political agenda" in Russian; official channels 0.9% (norm 0.4%), regional 2.4% (1.2%): small numbers. The most-viewed matching posts are about Ukraine's own mobilisation.
- What the signals do not prove: in 2022 society also stayed calm until the last week (backtest); closed orders do not show in any series; the 2022 decree No. 647 remains in force.
Legal changes
No new signed acts. Drafts: MChS, reservists in the fire service during mobilisation (171669, public discussion); conscripts in fire units (1213097-8, first reading 15 Oct). No movement: bill No. 8108-9 (women), the military police draft decree (171657). Decree No. 647 (2022) is not repealed.
Risks and signs of decline
Risks: the MChS draft submitted to the Duma or widened; other agencies (the National Guard has had such a norm since 2023; the prison service?) adding similar provisions; more bonus cuts without rising recruitment (money stops working, pressure shifts to coercion); a second independent confirmation of a wave of e-summonses "to update records"; summonses to reservists in several regions at once. Signs of decline: a partial ceasefire that actually holds; recruitment at or above 1,000 a day in October; a trilateral meeting.
Checks resolved today
None of the mobilisation checks were due today (m6 and m15 are due 25 Oct). New checks: m16, the outcome of the St Petersburg meeting (by 25 Oct); m17, the MChS draft submitted to the Duma (by 30 Nov); m18, the balance of regional bonus cuts and raises (by 15 Nov).
What to check next
- The outcome of Witkoff's St Petersburg meeting: an agreed partial ceasefire and whether it holds (m16, by 25 Oct). If it holds for 3 days or more, military −2.
- A second independent source on the wave of e-summonses (m15, by 25 Oct); the Kremlin's wording (m6, by 25 Oct).
- Kluge's October data (m13, by 12 Nov); the bonus balance (m18).
- Bill No. 8108-9, the military police decree, the MChS draft (m10, m9, m17).
- Court series for art. 337: a rise of more than 25% over 189 (m12, by 1 Nov).
Forecasts
Five mobilisation questions are open. Declared mobilisation by 31 Oct: 1%, unchanged; by 31 Dec: 7%, unchanged. Military police decree signed by 30 Nov: 37% → 34% (13 days without signature). First reading of bill No. 8108-9 by 30 Nov: 56% → 50% (12 days without committee movement; the autumn session is busy with the budget). Reservists barred from leaving as a category by 30 Jun 2027: 9%, unchanged (the airport report is a single family of sources).
Sources and limitations
regulation.gov.ru (171669, 171657); RBC, 8 and 15 Oct; Vyorstka, 8 Oct; Vedomosti, 8 Oct; EAN, 9 Oct; Kommersant, 16 Oct; Meduza, 15 Oct; Parliamentary Gazette, 15 Oct; CIT, "Mobilization in Russia for Oct. 4–11" (14 Oct); Kyiv Post, 19 Oct; Ukraine's Coordination Headquarters, Kyiv Independent, Ukrainska Pravda, 20 Oct; Kyiv Independent, Ukrainska Pravda, LIGA, Al Arabiya, 20 Oct (Oslo); TASS, E1, 17 Oct; Fontanka and The Moscow Times, 18 Sep (last denials). Signals: Wikimedia API (data of 19 Oct), Rabota Rossii, Central Bank/Bybit, GoSwift, Geostat, garrison courts (11 of 15), contractarmy.ru (unverified), pravo.gov.ru, duma.gov.ru, Telegram previews, FOM (poll of 9–11 Oct).
Limitations: no October recruitment data; no ticket prices or exit-queue data; reports of coercion are individual cases without statistics; the outcome of the 21 Oct St Petersburg meeting was unknown at the time of writing.
This is an analytical index of pressure and readiness, not a forecast of a date and not advice.