Conscription in Russia

Conscription in Russia (Russian: всеобщая воинская обязанность, romanized: vseobshchaya voinskaya obyazannost, translated as "universal military obligation" or "liability for military service") is a 12-month draft, which is mandatory for all male citizens who are between 18 and 30 years old, with a number of exceptions. Avoiding the draft is a felony under Russian criminal code and is punishable by up to 26 months of imprisonment.

History

Imperial Russia

Main article: Conscription in the Russian Empire

Before Peter I, Russia formed the bulk of the military from the nobility and people who owned land on condition of service. During wars, additional recruiting of volunteers and ordinary citizens was common. Peter I introduced a regular army consisting of the nobility and recruits, including conscripts. The conscripts to the Imperial Russian Army were called "recruits" in Russia (not to be confused with voluntary recruitment, which did not appear until the early 20th century). The system was called "recruit obligation" (Russian: рекрутская повинность).

Russian tsars before Peter maintained professional hereditary musketeer corps (streltsy in Russian) that were highly unreliable and undisciplined. In times of war, Russia augmented the armed forces with feudal cavalry and peasant levies. Peter I formed the Imperial Russian Army built on the German model, but with a new aspect: the Army did not necessarily draw officers from the nobility, giving talented commoners promotions that eventually included a noble title at the attainment of an officer's rank. Russia organised the conscription of peasants and townspeople on a quota system per settlement. Initially, it based conscription on the number of households in a given area. Later it was calculated on population numbers. The conscripted serfs dramatically increased the size of the Russian military during the Napoleonic Wars.

The term of service in the 18th century was effectively for life, so long as an individual remained physically capable. In 1736 it was reduced to 25 years, with one male member of each family excluded from the obligation to serve in order to manage shared property. In 1834 the term was reduced to 20 years plus five years in the reserve, and in 1855 to 12 years plus three years of reserve liability.

After the Russian defeat in the Crimean War during the reign of Alexander II, the Minister of War Dmitry Milyutin introduced military reforms, with an initial draft presented in 1862. On 1 January 1874 , a statute concerning conscription was approved by the Tsar by which military service was generally made compulsory for males at the age of 21. The term of actual service was reduced for the land army to 6 years, followed by nine years in the reserve. This measure created a large pool of military reservists ready to be mobilized in the event of war while permitting the maintenance of a smaller active army during peacetime. Most naval conscripts had an obligation for seven years of service, reflecting the extended period required for technical training.

Conscription of Poles to the Russian Army in 1863

Immediately before the outbreak of World War I, the Imperial Government imposed compulsory service of three years for entrants to infantry and artillery regiments and four years for cavalry and engineers. After completing this initial period of full-time service, conscripts passed into the first class reserves for seven years. The final obligation for compulsory service ended at age 43, after eight years in the second reserves.

The large population of Russia permitted exemptions from military service on a greater scale than in other European armies of the period. Muslims and members of certain other racial or religious minorities were generally exempted from conscription, as were about half of the Russian Orthodox population. Only sons were normally not required to serve. Until 1903 the Military of the Grand Duchy of Finland was organised as a separate entity.

Soviet Union

Main article: Conscription in the Soviet Union

The first all-union conscription law of 1925 was tailored for the mixed cadre-militia structure of the peacetime Red Army after the Civil War. Draft-age was 21 years. Terms of service varied between one year in territorial formations and 2 to 4 years in the cadre army. Only "workers and peasants" were seen worthy to serve in combat units. Men of other social backgrounds were restricted to rear or labor services or had to pay a military tax.

The 1936 Soviet Constitution declared military service a "sacred duty" of all Soviet citizens. The Constitution dropped any reservations regarding social or national background. A 1939 service law lowered the call-up age to 19. The Red army had adopted a full-cadre structure in the 1930s.

During the Great Patriotic War, all non-disabled men of ages 18–51 were subject to draft except specialists declared vitally necessary in the domestic military/defense industry.

Soviet Armed Forces completed post-World War II demobilisation in 1948. A 1949 service law set service terms at three years in ground forces and four years in the navy.

Late Soviet Union

The late Soviet Armed Forces were manned by mandatory draft (with some exceptions) for all able-bodied males for 2 years (3 years for seagoing parts of the Navy and Border troops), based on the 1967 Law on Universal Military Service. A bi-annual call-up in spring and autumn was introduced then, replacing the annual draft in fall. The conscripts were normally sent to serve far away from their residence.

Men were subject to draft at the age of 18. The draft could be postponed due to continued education. However, since the early 1980s Soviet Union had a mandatory draft for students of most colleges/universities — the first mass student recruitment was in spring 1983, the maximum conscription fraction in 1987 — until it was abolished in the spring of 1989. Students were drafted for two or, if for the navy, three years of military service typically after termination (more seldom in the middle) of the first or second year of college.

Most universities had military departments which were in charge of military training of all non-disabled male students to become reserve officers of a particular military specialty depending on the university. At the moment of the Dissolution of the Soviet Union, there were 397 civilian institutions of higher education which had military departments, in whole USSR. There was the practice of the selective conscription of graduates of civilian institutions of higher education (universities, academies and, strictly speaking, institutions), who have graduated the military departments of their almae matres and received a commission as an officer, in the Soviet Union. Such a person could be conscripted from the reserve of armed forces to active duty, but until the age of 27 only; the period of active duty of such an officer was several years, and at the end of that period, he was due to be enlisted in the reserve of armed forces again. Such officers were called "blazers" in army's slang (for example, Anatoly Kvashnin was a "blazer").

Russian Federation

The draft board in one of the districts of Samara Oblast during the COVID-19 pandemic

The two-year conscription term in force in the USSR after 1967 continued in Russia following the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union until 2006, when the Government of Russia and State Duma gradually reduced the term of service to 18 months for those conscripted in 2007 and to one year from 2008, while dropping some legal excuses for non-conscription from the law (such as non-conscription of rural doctors and teachers, of men who have a child younger than 3 years, etc.) from 1 January 2008.

As of 2021, all male citizens aged 18–27 are subject to conscription for 1 year of active duty military service in the armed forces, but the precise number of conscripts for each of the recruitment campaigns, which are usually held twice annually, is prescribed by particular Presidential Decree. Russian law provides some grounds for temporary postponement of and permanent exemption from military draft, for example it is written into law that students in higher education obtain deferments.

The conscription of graduates of civilian institutions of higher education, who have graduated the military departments of their universities and received a commission as an officer was abolished on 1 January 2008 when the amendments, contained in Federal Law of 6 July 2006, No.104-FZ, entered into force.

After the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine

On 8 March 2022 president Vladimir Putin promised that no conscripts would be used in the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

In April 2023, the Russian State Duma passed legislation to change the nature of conscription summons and how they are served. Previously a summons had to be physically served on the person being called up. Now a summons is deemed to be served once it appears on the government services portal called "Gosuslugi". Failure to obey such a summons could mean potential "bans on driving, registering a company, working as a self-employed individual, obtaining credit or loans, selling apartments, buying property or securing social benefits."

In July 2023, the Russian State Duma passed legislation to raise the maximum age for military conscription to 30. The new legislation, which came into effect on 1 January 2024, required men to carry out at least a year of military service, or equivalent training during higher education, between the ages of 18–30, rather than 18–27. The law also bans men from leaving Russia from the day they are summoned to a conscription office.

In August 2023, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law raising fines relating to conscription avoidance, after being approved by the State Duma and the Federation Council. Since 1 October 2023, the fine for failure to appear at the military enlistment office without a valid reason was raised from 500–3,000 rubles to 10,000–30,000 rubles. There were two additional offences: the fine for not reporting change of residence to the enlistment office is 20,000–30,000 rubles, and the fine for not reporting change of status (e.g. employment and marital status) is 1,000–5,000 rubles.

Began in October 2023 the process of the creation of the Unified Military Register (Russian: Единый реестр воинского учета also known as Unified Register of Military Personnel (Russian: Единый реестр военнообязанных). in November 2022 Putin signed a decree in which he instructed the Ministry of Digital Development and the Federal Taxation Service, with the participation of the Ministry of Defense, to form a state information resource for updating military registration documents by April 2024. The new system makes it possible to receive and enter information about those liable for military service online, and both military registration and enlistment office employees and citizens themselves will have access to it. In addition, employers will also be able to inform commissariats online about those liable for military service and update military registration information. Information for the register will be taken from various government resources and systems, including the State Services portal. As a result, it will be possible to register online with the military registration and enlistment office. This is especially true for 16–17-year-old boys of pre-conscription age, who must submit information about themselves from 1 January to 31 March. When registering remotely, the person liable for military service will not need to attach a medical certificate, and will still need to undergo a medical examination and psychological examination in person. The register includes among others personal data (full name, passport, address), health status, reasons for delay, sending and receiving subpoenas, appearance/failure to appear at the military registration and enlistment office, restrictions imposed for failure to appear, complaints and appeals in connection with accounting, administrative and criminal liability for military registration. Citizens will also have the opportunity to check the registry through Gosuslugi portal or on the website of the registry of electronic subpoenas. The register of the call-ups will be synchronized with the register of persons liable for military service, but it will contain data directly about these official documents:

• Information about the recipient of the summons (full name, place of residence);
• Information about the military registration and enlistment office that sent the summons;
• Date of referral to the military registration and enlistment office;
• The date on which the summons is considered served;
• The date when the conscript must report to the military registration and enlistment office;
• Application/removal of restrictive measures.

In August 2024, Ukrainian forces crossed the border into Kursk Oblast during the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine resulting in part of the oblast becoming under Ukrainian occupation. Since the majority of the better-equipped Russian troops were deployed in Ukraine, most of the men guarding the border in the Kursk Oblast were young, inexperienced conscripts from the FSB Border Service, who suffered heavy losses in combat with experienced Ukrainian troops. Some of the conscripts stationed on the border with Ukraine were unarmed. Although President Putin repeatedly promised that young conscripts would not be deployed in the war with Ukraine, conscripts from the FSB Border Service from several Russian regions were sent to fight with Ukrainian troops in Kursk Oblast. An online petition launched by the mothers of the conscripts requesting for Putin to withdraw the conscripts from Kursk received more than 10,000 signatures. On 29 August the Institute for the Study of War reported that most of the Russian prisoners of war taken in Kursk by the Ukrainians were young conscripts. There is an NGO called Get Lost for Russians seeking to avoid conscription.

In November 2024, reports and videos of police raids on some of Moscow's largest and most popular nightclubs surfaced, many male patrons were detained and transported to local conscription offices. These reports came amid indications that Russia was struggling to meet manpower demands due to heavy losses, leading to intensified conscription efforts.

See also

• Cantonists
• Dedovshchina

Further reading

• "Russian Military Complains About 'Low Quality' of Recruits as Spring Draft Begins." Associated Press. 1 April 2005. (Via Levis-Nexis).

External links

• Conscription through detention in Russia's armed forces
• Only eleven percent of Russian men enter mandatory military service.
• https://www.ipernity.com/doc/57114/5919363
• The Economic Cost of Soviet Military Manpower Requirements, RAND Corporation (1989)
• Conscription and Reform in the Russian Army (2004)