The Ministry of Defense will try to increase the number of recruits by hook or by crook
This week, the active sending of conscripts to the Russian armed forces began. During the spring campaign, 270,600 people will be called up. Meanwhile, the Russian government, with the participation of the Ministry of Defense, is planning a set of measures to increase the conscription base in the country. As is known, the presence of problems in the manning of troops was announced by Dmitry Medvedev on May 5, during a visit to the 5th separate Taman motorized rifle brigade near Moscow.
According to NVO sources in the Ministry of Defense, at the same time the presidential administration and the military department agreed and approved the basic principles for improving the conscription system. As you know, the President assured the public that the term of military service would not increase. Meanwhile, the country's leadership in the near future will take unpopular measures aimed at annually drafting at least about 800 thousand recruits into the army. This is due to the fact that, according to the officially announced concept of giving the Armed Forces a new look, by the end of 2010, only 150 thousand officers and 90 thousand contract soldiers will be left in the million-strong Russian army.
The rest of the army and navy will consist of conscripts. But where can we get so many of them? A source in the Ministry of Defense told NVO about the main measures to increase conscription resources. Firstly, in the near future the number of universities will significantly decrease, where students will be kept deferred from conscription. This will happen despite the fact that on the eve of the 65th anniversary of Victory Day, Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces Nikolai Makarov disavowed the statements of his deputy, head of the Main Organizational Directorate of the General Staff Vasily Smirnov that the Ministry of Defense proposes a radical reduction in the number of existing deferrals from military service and recruitment into it students. Postponements for students in law will be left. But they will be "tied" to military service by conscription not with the help of the new law "On the conscription of citizens of the Russian Federation", but more "prosaically" - by a government decree. At the suggestion of the General Staff, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin will determine the list of universities that will be given a new state accreditation. Basically, this list will include state educational institutions that have a state order for training specialists for state-owned enterprises and institutions of the country. University students who will not have state accreditation will be drafted into the army from the first or second year, receiving something like "academic" leave for a year.
In addition, according to the interlocutor of the NVO correspondent, the presidential administration agreed with the General Staff's proposals on a partial increase in the draft age. Its ceiling, of course, will not be as large (that is, up to 30 years old), as General Vasily Smirnov suggested on the eve of the May holidays, but there will still be an increase - most likely young people under 29 years old will be subject to conscription. This was partially confirmed on the eve of Victory Day and the head of the General Staff.
In the draft prepared by the Ministry of Defense of the new law "On the military duty of citizens of the Russian Federation", which, after the approval of the government, together with other legislative initiatives of the military department (on improving the pay of servicemen and on new social benefits for them), should go to the State Duma in the near future, will be increased the term of the spring conscription campaign (from April 1 to September 1) and increased responsibility of citizens for evading military service. Under the new bill, the state is invited to abandon the summons for citizens of draft age. They will be charged with the obligation to appear at the military registration and enlistment office at the appointed time in order to determine their further military fate, that is, directions to
conscription military service. Failure to appear will be considered a criminal offense.
The new military laws will clearly spell out the mechanism for preparing conscripts for military service. In particular, teaching in all schools of the basics of military service and obtaining a military specialty in DOSAAF organizations will be legalized as the main subject. This, by the way, was recently promised to war veterans by Vladimir Putin.
