On March 31, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed a decree announcing another call to the country's armed forces. According to this Decree, it is planned to send 218, 7 thousand recruits to the RF Armed Forces this spring. This is 60 thousand less recruits than in the fall of 2010. At the same time, representatives of the interregional public organization for aid to servicemen, Soldiers' Mothers, believe that the Ministry of Defense will not be able to fulfill even this plan. After all, more than 200 thousand people are already hiding from being drafted into the army.
Earlier, representatives of the RF Ministry of Defense voiced a plan that meant to call in the spring of 2011 203, 7 thousand people. According to the head of the General Staff of the Russian Ministry of Defense, Colonel-General Vasily Smirnov, additional recruits will be drafted into the internal troops. The conscription will go from April 1 to July 15 this year for citizens from 18 to 27 years old.
Even taking into account the increased plan, it is planned to draft 60 thousand less people than last autumn. Smirnov explains this, firstly, by the fact that currently recruits who were born in the 1990s, when the demographic decline occurred, are being recruited, and secondly, by the desire to improve the quality of the conscript contingent. Earlier, already in the Ministry of Defense, they complained about the poor health of the conscripts. So, according to the colonel-general, about 30% of conscripts were declared unfit for service by medical commissions. In addition, over 50% of recruits are drafted with health restrictions that do not allow them to serve in some branches of the military, for example, in the airborne troops. The head of the general staff assumes that the number of appeals that follow this will not differ from him by more than 3-5 percent.
According to the head of Soldiers' Mothers, Svetlana Kuznetsova, the Russian Ministry of Defense will not be able to fulfill the conscription plan in the prescribed volume. As an example, she cites the military registration and enlistment offices of Moscow, the chiefs of which "grab their heads from the order." Kuznetsova says that currently there are no conscripts, and the military commissars do not know with whom to fill the niches that have formed. She is sure that when the military registration and enlistment offices realize that they are not recruiting recruits, then round-ups will begin, the so-called "calls of one day."
It should be noted that according to the data of the General Staff of the Ministry of Defense, currently more than 200 thousand people are evading the draft, this is actually as much as it is necessary to send to the army this spring. But at the same time, during the autumn conscription campaign, only 80 criminal cases were initiated against the fugitives. During the spring conscription, it will be even more difficult for military registration and enlistment offices to carry out raids, since law enforcement officers, according to the law "On the Police" that has come into force, cannot take part in such events. State Duma deputies tried to help fulfill the plan by introducing a bill that extended the appeal until August 31 and December 31. This measure would lead to the fact that the servicemen who were called up in the spring would serve longer for at least 1 month. This bill did not find support in the presidential administration, which instructed it to be finalized and take into account the increase in the number of contract soldiers.
At the same time, bullying remains the main problem of the armed forces. According to the Chief of the General Staff, the conscripts, 42% of whom have never studied or worked anywhere before, are transferring the habit of hooliganism in civilian life to the barracks. This is confirmed by the data of the Main Military Prosecutor's Office, which indicates that at the beginning of last year the number of offenses in the troops decreased by 12-14%, and at the end of the year the number of crimes had already increased by 16%. In fact, 25% of the crimes committed are related to bullying. The Chief Military Prosecutor of the Russian Federation Sergei Fridinsky paid special attention to this. He pointed out that the commanders of the military units do not pay attention to the fact that the servicemen of various communities and ethnic groups are trying to introduce their own order in the barracks. The shortening of the army service did not give the proper effect of the fight against bullying. The soldiers continue to be divided into "old" and "young". According to the prosecutor, bullying is the main reason for so many suicides in the army. So, in January-February this year alone, 500 violent crimes were committed in army units. As a result, 2 of them were killed and 20 injured.
