Putin Drafting Occupied Ukrainians Could Fuel 'Mutiny,' Desertions

Potential Russian efforts to draft Ukrainians to fight against their own country in the ongoing war could raise the risks of desertions, defections and even "mutiny," according to experts.

The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said in an operational update Thursday that Russia was preparing a draft law that would legalize conscripting Ukrainians who currently live in Russian-occupied territories and have received a Russian passport.

The update said that the law would legalize drafting Ukrainians who meet this criteria from the spring of 2023.

A partial mobilization announced by President Vladimir Putin in September generated fierce opposition among Russian citizens, who took to the streets in anti-draft protests and fled the country by the hundreds of thousands within a period of just a couple weeks.

Experts believe that if Russia carries out a draft of Ukrainians living in occupied territories, some of which have been declared as "annexed" despite global outcry, attempts to have them fight could also see strong resistance.

Henry Hale, a professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University, told Newsweek that among Ukrainians who have accepted Russian passports, there may be a "small minority" that are pro-Russian.

Most of the others likely accepted passports for "opportunistic reasons," such as access to the Russian market, and some may have even done so under duress, he said.

"From that perspective, I would not expect these people to be happy at all about being conscripted, much less about actually being sent to fight other Ukrainians," Hale said. "We've seen a lot of resistance in Russia itself....I think [Ukrainians] would be even more unlikely to obey orders, fall in line."

"I do think that by trying to bring in such people if that's what they ultimately do, you're going to raise the risks of defection, mutiny, desertion," Hale continued. "So ultimately, you're weakening an already pretty demoralized and fragile occupation force."

In May this year, Putin signed a decree that simplified the process for Ukrainians living in occupied territories to receive Russian citizenship via obtaining Russian passports, The Moscow Times reported.

Russia had already provided a streamlined passport process for Ukrainians in the eastern Luhansk and Donetsk regions in 2019, but extended the simplified scheme to Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions in the new decree.

Ukraine condemned the decree at the time and stated that giving Russian passports to its citizens was not legally sound, Radio Free Europe reported. While Ukrainians who do receive Russian passports may be considered Russian citizens in the eyes of Putin's regime, it was not immediately clear if international law would recognize such citizenship.

Regardless, William Pomeranz, director of the Wilson Center's Russia- and Eurasia-focused Kennan Institute, told Newsweek that he believes there's a possibility that Ukrainians who have received Russian passports wouldn't want to fight in the war.

"I think that they would just turn around and run," he said. He also noted that any Ukrainians who surrender, as long as they are considered in Russia's eyes to be Russian citizens and part of the Russian army, could face "significant punishment" for doing so.

Sean Spoonts, a U.S. Navy veteran and editor-in-chief of Special Operations Forces Report (SOFREP), also told Newsweek that he would expect "a lot of desertions" by Ukrainians drafted to fight for Russia, as well as many instances of Ukrainian conscripts "slinking out in the dead of night, crawling across the lines and trying to surrender."

On the other hand, Russia may take actions aimed at mitigating potential desertions by drafted Ukrainians. Spoonts explained that Russia currently has paramilitary troops operating behind the lines of "unreliable units" in order to prevent them from fleeing.

In a situation where Ukrainians are drafted to fight for Putin, "Russians are smart enough to mitigate [surrenders by Ukrainians] by probably mixing them in among other Russian troops to prevent them from surrendering and laying down their arms," Spoonts said.

Newsweek reached out to the Kremlin for comment and confirmation that a Ukrainian conscription law was being prepared.