Russia has massively expanded the pool of men eligible for recruitment with the maximum age raised from 27 to 30 – as Putin ally warns ‘it smells like a big war’
Russia today raises conscription age to 30 as ‘big war with West looms’
Vladimir Putin’s parliament today vastly extended the age at which men can be drafted to fight a ‘major war against the West’.
The maximum age for compulsory military service was raised from 27 to 30 with a warning that there could be ‘general mobilization’.
At the same time a plan to promote the under-18s was scrapped, making the team vulnerable to recruitment.
Tough new controls would also stop evasion of the draft, once men on the draft list were barred from fleeing overseas, as many have done since the war.
Colonel General Andrey Kartapolov, an MP and chairman of the loyalist Parliamentary Defense Committee, told the legislature: ‘This law was written for a major war, for a general movement. And now it already smells like a big war.’
Colonel General Andrey Kartapolov, an MP and Chairman of the Loyalist Parliamentary Defense Committee
Kartapolov slammed MPs for making it easier for certain groups to make concessions or avoid the draft – as many politicians’ children do.
‘We all keep looking for who to move away from [mobilisation]Who should we protect,’ he said.
But he warned: ‘There will be no one to protect later….’
He lashed out at MPs ‘who vote to preserve a comfortable life for draft dodgers’ by enabling them to flee abroad.
It remains to be seen whether the Kremlin will face any backlash from the families of those caught by the new rules, which take effect in January 2024.
Putin has previously objected to such changes to recruitment rules.
Now, the new law will also formalize the creation of militias, including governors of regions close to Ukraine.
Until now groups like Wagner’s private army have been illegal – although strongly supported by the Russian government.
Men in their 60s will be called like foreign nationals.
Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulates investigative agency officials on their professional holiday at the Kremlin in Moscow on July 25, 2023
Conscription changes apply to compulsory military training, a long feature of Russian life.
This differs from the partial mobilization of legal military-age men that Putin has also ordered for his war in Ukraine.
In theory, conscripts cannot be sent to foreign wars.
However, Putin now defines the invaded areas of Ukraine as part of Russia.