The lower house of Russia’s bicameral parliament, the State Duma, voted on Tuesday in favor of planned changes to the country’s conscription law.
According to the law previously in force in Russia, recruitment agencies had to deliver invitation messages to conscripts by letter. The obligation to register for service, on the other hand, entered into force at the moment when the person was deemed to have received information about being called up for service.
With the reform of the law, invitation letters can also be sent electronically in Russia in the future. Information about being called up for service is interpreted as received as soon as the call-up letter has been delivered to the e-mail address provided by the conscript, or to the Russian information system Gosuslug. Under the new law, those who avoid registering for service can be banned from leaving the country and, for example, their assets can be frozen.
The partial implementation of the movement initiated by Putin last year did not go according to plan. The news of the launch caused hundreds of thousands of Russian men to flee the country.
The Russian management has so far denied that it is planning a new business launch. President of Russia Vladimir Putin has, however, stated that the errors of the partial implementation seen last year should be corrected in case of the future.
A news website dealing with international security issues Defense One (you switch to another service) estimates that the new conscription law may be the first step towards a new campaign, with which Putin aims to recruit hundreds of thousands of new soldiers to Ukraine. Last year’s partial business launch concerned about 300,000 Russians.
Launching a new business is a huge challenge
Several experts interviewed by the news site Defense One see that a move similar to last year’s would be a huge political challenge for Putin.
Expert at the think tank Institute for the Study of War (ISW). Kateryna Stepanenko tells Defense One that Putin is clearly reluctant to start a new campaign. According to him, one big reason for this is probably the fact that Russia does not have the means to quickly train so many soldiers, or to process hundreds of thousands of invitation letters.
– In connection with the previous campaign, Russia had to send troops to the front that had no military training at all. They did not prove to be very effective, Stepanenko states.
The main reason for Putin’s hesitation, according to Stepanenko, is that Putin believes that the new partial motion proposal will have a poor reception among the citizens, which could significantly weaken his dominant position.
A researcher at CNA, a research institute focused on security issues by Sam Bendett according to Russia already had to notice last year that most young Russians do not want to be conscripted.
– Many have already left the country at this stage. In addition, various messaging services, such as Telegram, circulate images of brutal World War II-like battles in Ukraine, where crew losses are huge, Bendett estimates, according to Defense One.
According to Stepanenko, the Russian people are not yet ready for a new movement, even though patriotic rhetoric has increased in Russia.
– I believe that the Kremlin ran into a certain kind of predicament, because it simply did not prepare enough troops for the war before starting the attack. I also don’t think they ever thought they would need so many soldiers before the war.
The best cards have already been used
Last year, Russia recruited mostly soldiers living in rural areas and representing ethnic minorities.
A Russian politician who fled Russia due to the war in Ukraine Vladimir Milov believes that the new campaign launch would necessarily also partially extend to larger cities, in which case the risks of demonstrations will increase.
According to Milov, the best cards have already been used in the Kremlin.
– Last September, Russia was able to recruit people from villages where people have no experience in defending their own rights. At that time, they also recruited almost all such people with any kind of military abilities, says Milov.