Autumn military conscription? Russian soldiers “no” go to Ukraine

numberIn total, 120 thousand Russian citizens were called up, which is 7,500 less than in the same period last year, and the process of joining the armed forces will extend until December 31.

“Soldiers who perform compulsory military service carry out tasks according to the type of unit to which they will be assigned, but they will not be sent to the area of ​​special military operations,” Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said after a meeting with the Russian military command. ordering.

Meanwhile, he stressed that those who have completed their year of mandatory military service will return home this fall.

The Russian military leadership insisted on ensuring that conscripts were not sent to the territories of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics and to the Zaporizhia and Kherson regions, which were recently annexed by Moscow.

However, the American Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said the recruits “will almost certainly be sent to Ukraine” in March or April 2023, once their military training period is over.

According to ISW, recruits may be deployed even earlier, depending on the situation on the battlefield.

Autumn conscription in Russia usually begins on October 1, but this year it was delayed by a month due to partial mobilization, which Russian President Vladimir Putin issued on September 21, to deal with military setbacks in Ukraine.

On Friday, Shoigu considered that the order of the head of state had been fulfilled and announced that the plan to mobilize 300,000 reservists had also been implemented, of whom 87 thousand, as he said today, had already been sent to the military campaign area in Ukraine.

The call to compulsory military service is carried out throughout the Russian Federation, with the exception of 25 municipalities of five federal entities located in the Far East of the country, due to their geographical location and climatic conditions.

“Most of the recruits will be sent to training units, where within five months they will learn to use modern weapons and will be trained in military specialties,” said Admiral Vladimir Tsemlyansky of the Mobilization Department of the General Staff of the Russian Army. forces.

According to Tsimlyansky, more than 25,000 recruitment committees have all the necessary elements to equip recruits.

During the partial mobilization of the campaign in Ukraine, the complaints of reservists multiplied that the simplest equipment was not available and that they were forced to buy it with their own money.

Russian law states that all Russian citizens between the ages of 18 and 27 are required to perform military service, which lasts for one year. Escaping from compulsory military service is punishable by up to two years in prison.

Between May 1 and September 20 this year, 410 criminal cases were opened against those who escaped from compulsory military service, according to the RBC information portal, which highlighted that this is the largest number of cases in the past 10 years.

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