Conditionally able to fight at the front?
Russia lowers requirements for military service again
06/21/2023, 09:52 am
The Kremlin has already sent many people to their deaths in its war of aggression against Ukraine. Moscow has been trying to recruit new soldiers for a long time. A new law should now even make it possible for Russians to join the military who are actually only partially fit for it.
It is not known how high the Russian losses are in the large-scale invasion of Ukraine, which has been going on for more than a year. Kiev now states the number of dead at over 220,000 – on Tuesday alone around 1000 are said to have been added. In the West, this information is considered exaggerated, but most observers there also see the losses on the Russian side many times higher than on the Ukrainian side. It should be clear that both sides need able-bodied soldiers. According to a report by the state news agency TASS, referred to by the Institute for War Studies (ISW), a law was recently passed in Moscow that further lowers the requirements for military service in order to increase the recruitment base.
Accordingly, the Russian State Duma passed a law in the third and final reading that allows citizens with an entry in the criminal record and citizens who are classified as “conditionally fit” for military service to enter into contracts in times of war, mobilization or martial law close with the Russian military.
It is not the first time since the invasion that measures have been taken to recruit more people into the military. For example, a law was only passed in the spring, according to which notifications of conscription no longer have to be handed over in person, but can be sent digitally. Many Russians can no longer avoid being drafted by simply not living at their registered address.
Ministry of Defense is said to have recruited 15,000 prisoners
Earlier this month, the well-known Russian portal “The Insiders” reported on a text that the military is said to have accidentally published briefly. It described problems in mobilizing for the war against Ukraine. Ex-President Dmitry Medvedev claimed in May that around 120,000 people had volunteered for military service in the first three months of the year. Most recently, Moscow had tried, among other things, to recruit volunteers with a martial commercial. People are said to have been specifically addressed in shopping centers as well.
An essential feature of the Russian recruitment efforts is also the recruiting of prisoners. At first they were probably mobilized by the thousands by the Wagner mercenary group. Then the Ministry of Defense is said to have withdrawn this opportunity from its head, Yevgeny Prigozhin – in order to recruit fighters for the regular Russian army in the prisons. According to ISW, the head of the independent Russian human rights organization “Russia behind bars”, Olga Romanova, put the number of prisoners the Russian Defense Ministry is said to have recruited since February 1 of this year at 15,000.
There is great concern among the Russian population about major mobilizations for military service and thus possible deployments in Ukraine. In the Kremlin, too, there is said to be a certain fear of negative reactions from the population. When President Vladimir Putin ordered 300,000 reservists to be mobilized in September 2022, it triggered a real panic, and hundreds of thousands of Russians fled abroad. A decree in May of this year, according to which all two million reservists can be called up for annual exercises, also caused unrest.