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They can force conscript, if Putin's willing to pay the costs he's gone to significant expense to avoid to date, but a major issue is that the Russians already cannibalized their mobilization and training infrastructure. The units whose job it is/would be to train new arrivals have already had their cadres raided to fill in at places like Kherson, and some reports of mobilized reservist training are of 1 week refresher before going to the front.
So, yes, probably cannon fodder, especially as the systems they would be meant to give mass to- and which in turn force-multiply them- have been extremely degraded, and the Russian supply system hasn't fixed its fundamental dependence on rail.
The crux of mobilization is that it would have been far more effective far earlier, when Russia still had its higher-tech precision strike capabilities and hadn't lost modernized tanks number in the multiple european nations. Even if mothball reserves still exist /work / get refurbished, they're at this point to replace superior equipment that already failed, even as Ukrainian capabilities have grown.
The argument generally rests on Russia's record oil import dollars from the energy price jump, while ignoring different metrics like the GDP slump or impacts to various non-oil industries like the airline sector (uh, not good) or vehicle manufacturing (97% car production decline in May 22 compared to May 21), on top of the implications of hundreds of thousands range of emmigration.
The general argument is that thanks to the fuck-off money the other impacts don't matter, and that the Europeans will cave and go back to buying Russian gas long-term instead of completing the gas import terminal projects, thus giving Russia a bumper crop of energy sales instead of functionally increasing the room temperature by burning down the house.
Supply chains no, food chains maybe, but the assumption to be challenged is why Assad would be stable in a food-insecure region, and how insecurity in the middle east actually benefits Russia beyond 'oil price stronk' arguments that resolve economic health to oil prices and assumptions that the US response to a Middle Eastern humanitarian crisis won't be to just sell the oil-rich countries more food at higher prices.
There isn't enough exports worldwide.
EU imports from RU were the size of the LNG spot market.
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