I hear a lot of talk that a new mobilization may be silent. The mobilization decree of 2022 was never formally ended, so legally no new mobilization would need to be publically declared. How will you resolve in that scenario? What do you consider an 'admission' of mobilization by the Russian government? What if it happens through the same methods we've already been seeing? i.e. more forceful recruiting through universities and workplaces?

@Sqeedee admission by government is not needed, if it unambigously looks like a mobilization and works through the same systems a mobilization would. In particular, large number of people must be enlisted in short time without even pretending that they volunteered. There should be a qualitative difference to current approach. If western military analysts (e.g. as published in foreign affairs, War on the rocks) broadly agree its mobilization, this resolves YES. Grey areas and edge cases are possible and will be discussed here if they arise, prior to resolution.

@AIBear

Must be called "mobilisation" by the Russian government (possibly with extra adjectives") OR use the same lagal structure a general mobilization would use as it's main legal background.
This market resolves purely based on announcements/admissions by the Russian government.

admission by government is not needed

i would ask you not to change the resolution criteria such that you're asking an entirely different question!!

an announcement by official government channels would be fairly easy to determine unambiguously. "unambigously looks like a mobilization" really isn't.

i mean. there's an assumption baked in, here, that the future will be similar to the past: either it's "mobilization": officially announced, summonses sent, several hundreds of thousands of people enlisted within a month — or it's not, i.e. none of that happens. and the problem is that the future is never like the past. suppose nothing is officially announced; there are conflicting reports about the number of people recruited (if anyone is even counting well enough; maybe there's already someone who's publicly estimating recruitment in russia?); some experts say it's been 50k in October, some others that it's 100k, the Russian state media says the allegations are false, and Medvedev boasts 300k like he always does regardless of the season. how do we resolve?

(this is not a gotcha; this is pretty much what i expect to see if the crawling recruitment/mobilization efforts are commanded to carefully expand)

@mxxun ok, turns out I did the last clarification in a hurry and I think you are correct that I misinterpreted my own initial wording of the question.

It is clear from the original wording that the question must resolve only based on "announcements/admissions by the Russian government. ", and that Explicitlycalling the process "mobilisation" is a sufficient, but not a necessary condition. I think what I was originally going for was to resolve YES even when they invent some form of neologism for mobilisation, so what they announce is mobilisation in all but name (like "special military operation").

So I propose to resolve YES also if government sources (broadly construed) admit/announce that a large number of people were enlisted in a short time without pretending they volunteered.

Does that make sense?

@Sqeedee if you or any other traders feel they lost mana on the mess, I am happy to reimburse.

@AIBear I didn't lose mana, i was just asking for clarification and i'm satisfied with the clarification.

I don't think it will matter much. Russia probably won't just mobilize hundreds of thousands of people and say nothing. There will have to be some acknowledgement at least after the fact, if only to avoid chaos. That's what I bet on.

Russia Tests Readiness for New Round of Military Mobilization:
wsj.com

wsj.com

Russia builds a hidden draft system | Eastern Express

Russia builds a hidden draft system | Eastern Express

Russia may be preparing to expand military mobilization after September’s State Duma elections. New databases, recruitment vacancies, and legal changes have ...

More detailed options at

Russia announces whatever their political establishment wants people to believe, hell we do this in the UK, but Russia is the poster-child of this sort of make_it_up_as_you_go_along press.

@AlanTennant Betting on that view is encouraged :-)

A partial mobilization has already been ordered years ago, no? So under the current rules this should be resolved yes.

As far as I looked into this, Russia is keeping their conscription and mobilization policy intentionally vague, so I think it might be difficult to make clear rules for resolving this market.

@JohansyOpn This is intended to capture a new wave of mobilisation as rumored. I.e. must happen after question creation. Agree that there can be difficult edge cases, but I find it likely that things will be relatively clear cut.