According to a senior source, there are no plans to send out large electronic warnings under the new system that President Vladimir Putin recently signed into law. Instead, Russia’s usual spring military draft campaign is progressing as expected.
The remark by Colonel Andrei Biryukov, a representative of an army division in charge of the draft, seemed to be made in an effort to allay concerns that Russia may rapidly use the new mechanism to conduct another large-scale call-up for the war in Ukraine.
As part of its long-standing twice-yearly conscription cycle, Russia is presently enlisting 147,000 men between the ages of 18 and 27 for military duty between April 1 and July 15.
The first draftees would be sent to “permanent deployment points on the territory of the Russian Federation” starting on April 20, according to Biryukov.
He emphasized that some persons might still opt out of military duty and declared that there would be no bulk mailings of fresh electronic summonses to those who had reached conscription age.
In comparison to the 134,500 conscripts called up at this time last year, the current anticipated cohort of spring conscripts is 12,500 larger. After acknowledging instances in which this had occurred in the early weeks of the conflict last year, Russia has vowed that conscripts will not be deployed into war zones in Ukraine. They need months of preparation before being transferred there.
However, they offer a pool of young, skilled individuals who might subsequently be urged or under pressure to enlist as professional soldiers as Russia pursues its declared goal of increasing the armed forces by more than 30% to 1.5 million.
Since the start of the conflict, tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of Russian men have left overseas. This flight culminated in September when Putin ordered the first extraordinary mobilization of reservists with military experience since World War Two, including 300,000.
Putin approved new legislation on Friday that replaces the previous method in which call-up notices had to be personally delivered by introducing electronic draft papers.
The new draft regulations will close many of the openings that draft dodgers took advantage of and create the framework for Russia to carry out a much more extensive and widespread mobilization operation, should it choose to do so.
In accordance with the new regulations, anyone who avoid the draft will be prohibited from traveling abroad and subject to additional limitations, such as those on loans and government assistance.
