When Russian authorities announced a “partial mobilisation” last year to reinforce their military objectives in Ukraine, thousands of reservists immediately knew what it meant – they would be sent to war. To avoid being deployed, thousands left Russia or tried to hide from recruitment agents at home. For many, their strategies worked. Now the Russian government wants to put a stop to that with a new electronic draft system that will be almost impossible to dodge.
“Once the ‘send’ button has been clicked, you’ve been called up,” is how one military expert on Russian warfare explained the new system.
Senators in Russia’s upper house of parliament on Wednesday approved a bill that will allow authorities to serve conscripts and reservists with a draft summons electronically. It was the second vote in two days after lawmakers in Russia’s lower house, the state Duma, greenlighted the proposal on Tuesday. The bill – once President Vladimir Putin has signed it into law – will make Russian military mobilisation efforts significantly easier.
Under the new legislation, Russian recruiters will no longer have to spend time trying to track down “missing” draftees to serve their summons in person. Instead, they just send the papers electronically via an official online platform. Once the summons is uploaded, the platform – which has collected personal data from the tax office, several government ministries and other Russian authorities – the draftee is considered to have been “served”.
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Russian draftees will be banned from leaving Russia and will have to report to their nearest enlistment office within 20 days of the electronic call-up papers being posted online.
Moreover, those who fail to show up are no longer able to take out loans, register property or work as entrepreneurs.
According to the Kremlin, the electronic system is nothing but an overhaul of an outdated system and says it is not currently planning another mobilisation drive.
FRANCE 24 spoke to Lieutenant-Colonel Joakim Paasikivi, a teacher in military strategy at the Swedish Defence University and an expert on the Russian military, about what the electronic draft means for Russia’s military capacity – as well as for its draftees.
How have unwilling Russian reservists been able to avoid the draft until now?
One way has been to just stay away from the address that you’ve registered at the enlistment office, and by ignoring the requirement to update your address if you move.
Another way has been simply to leave Russia – hundreds of thousands have done this – and go to any country that will have you. A small number have gone to Western Europe, a pretty significant number have gone to Turkey. But the bulk of fleeing Russians have gone to former Soviet republics. And those who have a lot of money have gone to the United Arab Emirates and places like that.
What is this new legislation a reaction to – is it a sign of the Russian army’s desperation?
To some extent, yes, but then it is also a fairly natural upgrade of what was really an antiquated system.
They couldn’t [easily] draft people who were able to avoid recruitment agents when they came to the registered address.
There were also some totally bizarre scenarios, posted on social media [during the draft] back in September, showing police officers and recruitment officers trying to climb through windows to get into houses because draftees wouldn’t open the door.
By using a digital system like this, they have a much better chance of actually finding the people who are to be served. And once the “send” button has been clicked, you’re considered to have been called up.
The Kremlin claims it proposed the new law in response to the 'mess' it experienced in its conscription offices last fall. What was it referring to?
Part of it was because addresses and other information at the enlistment offices hadn’t been updated for years, so the agents couldn’t get hold of the people they were trying to contact.
Another problem they encountered was that there was a large number of people who were mobilised by mistake – people who should have been exempt for one reason or another, including people who were too old, people who were too sick, students and so on, and who were just swept up and sent [to Ukraine].
Several recruitment officials have been punished for that, and there have also been a series of suicides within this mobilisation machinery because things just didn’t work.
The problems weren’t just highlighted by those who were wrongly drafted but also by Putin himself, who at one point admitted that there were 9,000 who had been drafted by mistake and needed to be sent home. He did that because he needed to show that he was a man of action on the matter. So he portrayed himself as the “Good Tsar” who could make things right again, and blame the mistakes that were made on administrative middlemen.
