Key Points and Summary – Russia has launched its largest conscription drive since 2016, aiming to draft 135,000 men using a new, draconian digital system.
-Electronic draft notices are sent via a government portal, which automatically flags recipients in all border databases, barring them from leaving the country.
-This effectively closes the borders to tens of thousands of draft-eligible men. Those who fail to report face severe civil penalties, such as losing the right to drive or get loans.
-The new system is designed to prevent a repeat of the mass exodus of men who fled Russia during the 2022 mobilization.
Putin Orders New Mobilization, Closes Borders to Draft-Age Males Emigrating
WARSAW, POLAND – As part of an annual autumn conscription drive, Russian President Vladimir Putin has increased border controls, stringently restricting who is permitted to cross the border to leave Russia. Following the institution of a nationwide system for electronic draft notices, thousands of Russians are now barred from leaving the country.
Putin imposed these restrictions as one of several changes to control the movements of any conscript-age male. Under the system now in place, anyone who received a draft notice has their data automatically entered into a government database.
According to a report by independent Russian media outlet Baza, as soon as an individual’s data is entered into the digital conscription registry, that person is flagged in all border control databases. They would be detained at any passport checkpoint if they sought to exit the country.
A notification is also sent through the Gosuslugi system, which is Russia’s government service portal. Draft notices reportedly arrive early in the morning to ensure the summons are received while their recipients are still asleep—they are then obligated to visit an enlistment station.
Under the new regulations, those who do not report within 27 days are identified in the system as draft evaders. Failure to show up for enlistment means losing the right to drive, register businesses, take out loans, or carry out property transactions. Russia’s Defense Ministry is reportedly planning to draft 135,000 men aged between 18 and 30, which will make this the largest draft since 2016.
Nationwide Campaign
Russia’s autumn conscription campaign will run until Dec. 31. Russian officials initially said that the electronic notice system would be implemented only in Moscow, the Mari El Republic, Ryazan, and Sakhalin regions.
But an independent military monitoring organization, the School for Conscripts group, reported summons are already being distributed to at least 15 additional regions, including Tver, Pskov, Nizhny Novgorod, Chelyabinsk, and several others in central and eastern Russia.
Human rights activists are raising the alarm that the electronic draft notices are misleading.
“People who are summoned are supposedly required to verify their personal data, but in reality, they’re immediately drafted,” said Timofei Vaskin, who is a lawyer with the School for Conscripts. “This practice is especially common in Moscow,” he added.
The implementation of a digital draft system was ordered by Putin after the 2022 mobilization, sparking a mass exodus of Russians leaving the country. Most of them have never returned.
An additional wave of draft-age males fleeing Russia was prompted when Putin later signed into law a regulation that equates electronic summonses with traditional paper ones. This relieves the state of the responsibility to verify delivery of the conscription order. The new law also began a regime of comprehensive penalties for anyone attempting to avoid their obligations for military service.
This latest conscription nationwide campaign calls for those punitive measures to be enforced to the fullest extent possible. This means Russia’s borders are closed to tens of thousands of draft-eligible men.
Russia’s Conscription System
In the current Russian conscription system, the draft is implemented twice a year, once during the spring and then again in the fall. Those who are eligible for the draft and are conscripted are also obligated to serve for a period of one year.
Conscripts are normally deployed to active combat areas, but due to staggering losses on the battlefield, the Russian military has enacted numerous financial incentives such as lucrative draft bonuses, criminal pardons, and other unorthodox measures.
According to data obtained by The Moscow Times, the September 2022 mobilization was extremely unpopular and prompted up to 1 million Russians to flee their country. Putin has since avoided another large-scale draft.
Recent reports by Ukraine’s Center for National Resistance indicate that Russia has even more chilling plans to ramp up mobilization in the temporarily occupied Ukrainian territories. The effort is reportedly targeting conscripts and even Ukrainians that are detained for minor offenses.
The Center for Countering Disinformation also warned that so-called “gamer units” composed of military-age males who are reportedly trained to operate drones, may be part of a surreptitious mobilization effort to bring in more draftees through a kind of side door.
Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate, suggested that Russia’s new mobilization drive could present a serious threat to Kyiv.
“Could the Russian Federation carry out a mobilization? Yes. Could it, unfortunately, be a serious threat? Yes. It would be painful for Russia, but it is realistic. And this threat, unfortunately, exists,” Budanov said.
About the Author: Reuben F. Johnson
Reuben F. Johnson has thirty-six years of experience analyzing and reporting on foreign weapons systems, defense technologies, and international arms export policy. Johnson is the Director of the Asia Research Centre at the Casimir Pulaski Foundation. He is also a survivor of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. He worked for years in the American defense industry as a foreign technology analyst and later as a consultant for the U.S. Department of Defense, the Departments of the Navy and Air Force, and the governments of the United Kingdom and Australia. In 2022-2023, he won two awards in a row for his defense reporting. He holds a bachelor’s degree from DePauw University and a master’s degree from Miami University in Ohio, specializing in Soviet and Russian studies. He lives in Warsaw.
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