On Saturday, a top official said Russia’s spring military conscription campaign is going as planned, and there are no plans to send out mass electronic warnings under a new mechanism put into law by President Vladimir Putin.
Colonel Andrei Biryukov, a draft officer at an armed forces department, appeared to dispel speculation that Russia may rapidly employ the new method to undertake another mass call-up for the Ukraine war.
Russia conscripts 147,000 18-to-27-year-old men between April 1 and July 15 as part of its twice-yearly conscription cycle.
“Permanent deployment points on the territory of the Russian Federation” will receive the first conscripts on April 20, Biryukov stated.
He stressed that some persons might still postpone military duty and that there would be no mass mailings of new computerized summonses to conscripts.
Twelve thousand five hundred more spring conscripts are expected than last year’s 134,500. However, after recognizing incidents in the opening weeks of the conflict last year, Russia has declared conscripts would not be deployed into fighting zones in Ukraine.
However, they provide a pool of young, skilled individuals who may be urged or forced into joining the military as Russia seeks to increase its armed forces by more than 30% to 1.5 million.
Since the war began, tens of thousands of Russian men had gone overseas, peaking in September when Putin ordered a special mobilization of 300,000 reservists with military experience, the first since World War Two.
Putin approved legislation on Friday to replace hand-delivered call-up notifications with electronic draft sheets.
The new draft regime closes many draft dodger loopholes and prepares Russia for a more extensive mobilization drive if it chooses.
Under the new laws, draft evaders would be barred from traveling abroad and denied loans and public subsidies.
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