The men in question are part of a group of some 30,000 freshly-minted Russian citizens who have reportedly been “caught” failing to register for obligatory military service, Alexander Bastrykin, head of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, told the press.
He said that the conscripted individuals were given the task to “dig trenches and build fortifications,” by which he likely meant to suggest that they were not being sent into combat.
Until recently, all Russian men aged between 18 and 27 were subject to compulsory military service as part of the conscription process. The maximum age was raised to 30, effective January 1 this year, however, due to massive casualties sustained by the Russian invasion forces since the launch of a full-scale war against Ukraine in February 2022.
Back in October 2023, Bastrykin said that naturalized citizens who decline their military summons may see their Russian citizenship revoked.
The Motherland needs more bodies for the grinder
As recently as March 31, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree to conscript 150,000 people into the military as a part of the semi-annual draft.
Under Russian law, conscripts cannot be sent to fight abroad. Still, the Kremlin has been skirting its own regulations from the onset of the war, and this was made even easier to justify to the Russian public after sham referendums held in occupied territories in late September 2022, which resulted in Moscow proclaiming the annexation of the Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson regions, even parts of them that are not under actual Russian control.
Very quickly after the February 2022 invasion, it became apparent that the Russian losses were greater than expected, and the war would not be the quick excursion the Russians had hoped for, forcing the Kremlin to relax the minimal requirements for military service several times.
This included the requirement that foreigners wishing to join the army know Russian, enabling the recruitment of prisoners (initially excluding those convicted of certain violent crimes, such as rape or murder, which requirement was subsequently dropped), and relaxing standards of medical fitness.
Incentives were also provided, such as promises of amnesty for prisoners or waiving of outstanding debts to regular citizens who volunteer.
Russia has also been coercing Ukrainian citizens in territories it occupies into its armed forces, a practice contravening international law. Those who refuse to accept Russian citizenship, which would make them eligible for the draft, face persecution and
deportation
.
All these efforts have proven insufficient, eventually forcing Putin to declare a ‘partial mobilization’ in late September of 2022, necessitating the calling up of 300,000 men out of Russia’s two-million-strong reserves. Less often talked about, but no less painful, was the announcement that men currently under arms would not be released from service until the end of hostilities, which would affect conscripts, contract soldiers (who make up the bulk of Russia’s professional military), and the aforementioned, more-or-less-willing, volunteers recruited in prison camps.
As the war drags on, Russia has been forced to step up its attempts to put still-warm bodies into uniforms. Drafting new citizens is one way to do it but Russia has also actively attempted to recruit citizens of surrounding nations, such as Armenia and Kazakhstan, as well as more distant ones, for example West African states ruled by Kremlin-friendly military juntas, as well as South Asian countries suffering from economic crises, such as Sri Lanka and Nepal.
This too, has proven to be insufficient, however, with the police rounding up migrant workers, particularly from former Soviet republics of Central Asia, and press-ganging them into the service after confiscating their passports.
Kim chips in
Putin’s recent visit to North Korea, the most recent step Russia has taken toward tightening its cooperation with Kim Jong-un’s Hermit Kingdom, resulted in the signing of a defense agreement between Moscow and Pyongyang on June 19.
According to the agreement:
“In case any one of the two sides is put in a state of war by an armed invasion from an individual state or several states, the other side shall provide military and other assistance with all means in its possession without delay.”
The North Korean military has announced that it will deploy an engineering unit to assist the Russian army in the Donetsk region of occupied Ukraine as soon as next month.
Commenting on the development Pentagon spokesperson Maj. Gen. Pat S. Ryder said on June 25 that he thinks if he were in the position of “North Korean military personnel management, I would be questioning my choices on sending my forces to be cannon fodder in an illegal war against Ukraine.”
Ryder added that the tightening cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang is “something to keep an eye on.”
