Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on the spring recruitment of conscripts into the army. "To carry out, from April 1 to July 15, 2022, conscription of citizens of the Russian Federation aged 18 to 27 who are not in reserve and are subject to conscription in accordance with federal law, in the amount of 134,500 people," the document published on Thursday, March 31, says. on the official Internet portal of legal information.
First of all, the appeal figures attract attention. They are slightly smaller, - then 134 thousand 650 recruits were put into service. It was this circumstance - the reduction of the soldier's recruitment - that was pointed out by the head of the department, Sergei Shoigu, at a meeting at the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation last Tuesday.
To exclude any speculation and speculation about the spring draft, he emphasized: "Conscripts will not be sent to any "hot spots". In other words, recruits and their parents, as well as relatives of other conscripts, can be sure that conscripts will not be in the combat zone and especially on the front line in any case. And those guys who have served the 12 months prescribed by law will be dismissed to the reserve within the prescribed time and sent home.
The fact that the conduct of a special military operation in Ukraine does not affect the spring conscription campaign in any way was also stated by the head of the main organizational and mobilization department of the General Staff, Yevgeny Burdinsky. He confirmed that only officers and military personnel under contract are selected to participate in it.
It is already known how and where the army formation of conscripts of spring-2022 will take place. According to Shoigu, most of them are waiting for professional training in the training centers of the Armed Forces. It will last from three to five months. The Minister ordered the first dispatches of recruits to the duty stations to begin in the third decade of May. "Despite the decrease in the incidence of coronavirus, I ask you to continue the complex of anti-epidemic measures for conscripted servicemen," Shoigu said at the meeting.
Here's what else the General Staff reported about the features of the spring draft campaign. It will be held in 82 regions of the Russian Federation. In the Komi Republic, Yamalo-Nenets and Nenets Autonomous Districts, conscript soldiers will not be recruited. Conscription events are held there only in autumn, Yevgeny Burdinsky recalled. At the same time, in a number of Russian regions, on the contrary, only the spring draft is carried out. "In accordance with the legislation, once a year - from May 1 to July 15, citizens of 24 municipalities of five subjects of the Russian Federation are called up for military service. These are the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), the Trans-Baikal, Kamchatka and Khabarovsk Territories, as well as the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug. This is primarily due to the physical and geographical conditions of these regions," the general explained in an interview with Krasnaya Zvezda.
He said that, as a rule, young people aged 20 to 35 who have completed their studies at universities or organizations of secondary vocational education are sent to military service. The number of yesterday's schoolchildren in the army and other law enforcement agencies does not exceed 5%. Such a small number of 18-year-old conscripts is due to the fact that the federal law "On Military Duty and Military Service" provides for deferrals from the barracks for education. This allows the children to decide on the choice of a specialty after school, get it and successfully master it. Young people with secondary general education have a legal right, including to enter a university.
And a few more "draft" numbers from the General Staff. The number of evaders from the army, that is, people who did not appear on the summons to the military enlistment office, now does not exceed 0.1% of the total number of conscripts. "Mowing down" from the army, as they say in the youth environment, has become unattractive," Burdinsky said on this occasion. And the system of "alternative" soldiers, who chose free work in medical institutions and social security organizations instead of military service, last fall consisted of only 443 people.
Yuri Gavrilov
