Russian news agencies have disseminated information that the Defense Ministry is discussing an additional mechanism that will solve the problem with the systematic shortage of conscripts. This mechanism could be the conscription into the Russian army of those young people of military age who received Russian citizenship, and before receiving it, managed to do conscription service in the state from which they came to the Russian Federation. In other words, if a person decides to change any citizenship to Russian, while being at the same time of draft age, then Russia can call this person for compulsory military service, even if he has already passed it abroad at one time.
This method found both supporters and opponents. In this material, we will present the arguments of both.
Aleksandr Kanshin, a member of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation, is a supporter of the idea of recruiting for the “new Russians”. In the RF JV, he holds the post of chairman of the Commission on National Security Problems and Socio-Economic Conditions of Life of Servicemen, Members of Their Families and Veterans. In his opinion, the idea of conscription into the Russian army of those who have received a Russian passport and have already served in their homeland before is reasonable. He compares the new Russian version with the Israeli version, recalling that all those who receive Israeli citizenship have to start their lives literally from scratch: the Israeli authorities often simply do not pay attention to all previous merits, including military ones., in fact, pushing a person to prove himself in his new homeland. The same practice, according to Alexander Kanshin, could be introduced by Russia.
At the same time, supporters of the idea of repeated conscription agree that it would be nice to consider not conscripting young people who have received a Russian passport if they have completed military service, for example, in the army of one of the CSTO states. Thus, it is emphasized that the members of such a structure as the Collective Security Treaty Organization, militarily, fulfill the tasks of ensuring the security of the borders of the states that signed the treaty, which are similar in spirit.
It should be emphasized that today there is an agreement with only one state that is part of the CSTO so that there is no precedent for the so-called re-conscription. In this case, we are talking about Tajikistan. However, there is another state with which Russia has a similar agreement, and which is not part of the CSTO. This is Turkmenistan. In all other cases, the possibility of re-conscription when changing citizenship or obtaining a second citizenship has not yet been regulated.
The point of view of the opponents of the new initiative of the Russian Ministry of Defense is as follows. In their opinion, the new version of the law "On conscription and military service" can somehow scare off young people of military age who have already completed military service abroad, and now want to become Russian citizens and get jobs in Russia. This may lead to the fact that those very young qualified specialists, whose involvement in the country is said by representatives of the Russian authorities, may abandon the idea of obtaining a Russian passport. After all, not all persons of draft age who seek to obtain Russian citizenship have a desire to serve again.
To understand what is more - pluses or minuses in the new initiative coming from the main military department of the country, it is necessary to deal with the immigration issue. In other words, it is necessary to clarify the number of persons who have recently received a passport of a citizen of Russia - immigrants from other states. Thus, it will be possible to form a picture: what state can become a real "donor" of conscripts for the Russian army and whether it can.
If we consider the statistics of obtaining Russian citizenship by immigrants from foreign countries over the past year, then the following canvas emerges. Russian citizenship or a residence permit (the official statistical services summarize both of these figures) received almost 30 thousand people from Uzbekistan, 20 thousand from Kyrgyzstan, 15 thousand from Armenia, about 9 thousand from Azerbaijan, 5 thousand from Georgia, about 2 thousand - from the Baltic states, about 1.5 thousand - Turkmenistan and Tajikistan.
Experts explain the relatively low number of those who received a Russian passport or residence permit from Tajikistan and Turkmenistan by the fact that the bulk of immigrants from these former Soviet Republics (especially Russians by nationality), seeking to obtain a passport of a citizen of the Russian Federation, arrived in Russia in the period from 1992 to 2007 years.
If we talk about the statistics of persons who received Russian citizenship or a residence permit over the past year, in relation to the countries of the so-called far abroad, then China holds the first place (about 3 thousand people), in second place is Germany (about 1, 9 thousand) …
The statistics of obtaining Russian citizenship by residents of Kazakhstan and Ukraine in recent years suggests that the residents of these states are less striving than before to obtain Russian citizenship. The reasons - from “everyone who needs to have arrived long ago” to the improvement of the economic situation in these republics.
Let us return, however, to the “re-appeal” for the “new Russians”. The total figures for those who received Russian citizenship (not a residence permit) per year are no more than 50-55 thousand people. How many of them are young people of military age? Unfortunately, official statistics do not yet provide such data. But we can assume that no more than a third, that is, about 15-18 thousand. If we consider that from the number of these young people one can safely deduct those who cannot serve for health reasons, at least 10-15 percent, and also subtract those who served in the armies of the CSTO member states, then we can say far from the most impressive number of potential "re-conscripts". In the best case, no more than 4-5 thousand. These calculated calculations, of course, do not pretend to be the ultimate truth, but the real number of those who can be drafted by the RF Ministry of Defense into the Russian army, if there will be more, is clearly not much.
So what happens? And it turns out that the initiative on the re-conscription for persons who have received a Russian passport is quite worthy of attention, but it will not solve the problems with our rooted shortage of recruits. Is that in some, let's say, local version. But it is also difficult with local options. Indeed, today the state deliberately limits the conscription of residents of some North Caucasian republics for a number of reasons. Will it not turn out that for the “new Russians” something similar will have to be considered at the legislative level.
In general, the renewed appeal initiative, for all its external logic, has a lot of pitfalls that the Ministry of Defense should take into account.
