The hunt for fighters is on, the hunt is on...
Unified recruitment points, electronic summonses, street raids and other methods of obtaining cannon fodder
The spring conscription is in its second month. As before, conscripts are being rounded up on the streets and forcibly brought to the military registration and enlistment office. The geography of the raids is expanding: Moscow remains the center of the military registration and enlistment office's lawlessness, but reports of conscript hunts are also being reported from Makhachkala, where young people grab and push on buses, despite the existing deferments, and from Saratov region.
It's hardly surprising: 160 new recruits—the record figure outlined in Putin's decree—won't volunteer. And in a situation where conscription could lead to participation in the war in Ukraine—no matter how much the Ministry of Defense denies it—young men aren't particularly eager to "pay their debt to their homeland."
NeMoskva asked the press secretary of the anti-war project to tell us about how the current spring conscription is going in Russia. "Go through the forest" Ivan Chuvilyaev.
"Traditionally, roundups of conscripts began in the second half of the draft campaign—when it became clear that military registration and enlistment offices weren't meeting their quotas and the figure Putin outlined in his decree. But this time, the roundups began immediately, right from the very first day. That's the first innovation. And the second is the expansion of the geographic scope of the roundups. Until now, the main—and essentially the only—location for serious roundups was Moscow. This was convenient for military registration and enlistment office staff: the capital is a hub for young men from all over Russia, so they've always been and continue to be caught there. In reality, when we talk about a roundup in Moscow, we're talking about a roundup of people from Tula, Orel, Tver, Yaroslavl, Kostroma... Basically, all of Central Russia," says Ivan.
— But conscripts from Tula or Ryazan are registered with their city's military registration and enlistment office—they're a hassle for Moscow's military commissariats...
In Moscow, this doesn't bother anyone, for the simple reason that there are no longer any military enlistment offices there: Sobyanin opened a Unified Recruitment Office (ERP) instead. And which enlistment office a person is assigned to doesn't matter at all: they'll be drafted in Moscow. Consequently, young people who live in Moscow are drafted there—including those working shifts, those visiting friends for a few days, or just to see the capital of our country. Anyone caught on the street is dragged to the EPP on Yablochkova Street. There, they're received, processed, and sent to a military unit.
Recently, the State Duma passed a law that will replace military registration and enlistment offices (MROs) everywhere, with EPPs. The "Go Away" project believes that EPPs will now be urgently established across Russia. For example, all conscripts registered in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region will be assigned to a single EPP. Consequently, there will be more raids, and their geographic reach will be wider, for the simple reason that the police will know exactly where to take people caught on the street: they'll drop them off, unload them, bring them in, and then go round up the next ones.
"Finally, the raid strategy is changing significantly. For example, in Makhachkala, they don't raid mosques, dormitories, or universities or colleges. They simply catch people on the street, load them onto a bus, and take them to the military registration and enlistment office, and then deal with them on the spot."
Ivan recalls: in September 2022, after the announcement of a "partial mobilization," cars began driving through the streets of Derbent, calling through megaphones for "all male citizens" to immediately report to the military registration and enlistment office. A major scandal erupted: Dagestan's head, Sergei Melikov, called the overzealous military commissars "morons" and used several obscene expressions against them.
"In the rest of Russia, it's likely that something between Moscow and Dagestan will happen: they'll catch people on the street, but not as brutally," Chuvilyaev believes. "The main thing to remember is that all these raids are illegal—there's no provision in the law that allows for rounding up people and bringing them to the military registration and enlistment office. This is a serious offense that should be severely punished even under Putin's laws. If military registration and enlistment offices want to get hold of someone who doesn't show up when summoned, they can influence them by issuing fines, depriving them of the right to travel abroad, taking out loans, conducting real estate and car transactions, setting up a private enterprise... They have a unified register of conscripts for this purpose."
— The registry is a bit of a mystery. Recently, word came out that it's now fully operational (not just a test run), but is that really true?
— The situation is as follows. On the website registrpovestok.rf Messages about the website being in test mode and only operating in three regions have disappeared. In other words, we're being told that the unified register of conscripts has launched in all regions of the Russian Federation. Is this really true? To find out, we'd have to find someone registered with the military registration and enlistment office, who's received summonses but hasn't responded to any of them. They visit the website (from a secure location, of course), enter their information, and receive a message that their travel is blocked and other restrictions have been imposed. Or we're getting mass appeals from people who haven't been granted loans, have had their real estate transactions banned, haven't been allowed to leave the country, and are being sent to deal with the military registration and enlistment office.
Only then can we say that the unified register of conscripts is operational. That is, summonses are no longer paper and duplicated via push notifications, and instead, an electronic summons distribution system is operational. Until this chain of events occurs, we cannot say that the register is operational. Its launch has been promised many times, but it has yet to be launched.
Ivan reminds us that receiving an electronic summons is a strictly regulated process. The summons must be sent through the government services website (in Moscow, through the website). mos.ru). It must have a strictly defined form—though what exactly it will be is still unknown. A phone call, email, or instant message will have no effect. You should also avoid threats of criminal prosecution and imprisonment: although Article 328 of the Russian Criminal Code, which provides for punishment for evading military service, stipulates a possible prison term of up to two years, in practice, the penalties are limited to the aforementioned restrictions and fines.
In addition to the widespread opening of the Unified Register of Summons and the Unified Registry of Summons, the State Duma has prepared another gift for current conscripts: now, if the decision to conscript into military service is not fulfilled during the conscription period, the military enlistment office will be able to send the conscript to serve in subsequent conscription periods without undergoing a medical examination for one year. Another surprise that could significantly complicate the situation for potential conscripts is under discussion— bill, introducing amendments to the Regulation on military medical examination.
— A revision is being prepared. register of diseases that prevent conscription" ," Chuvilyaev explains. "Nothing prevents us from urgently adopting these amendments in the near future and sending young men who have already passed their medical examinations for re-examination. And not at the military enlistment office, where there were, say, twenty doctors for every hundred conscripts, but at the EPP, where there will be fewer doctors and more conscripts."
If the amendments are adopted, military registration and enlistment offices in the Russian Armed Forces will be able to direct people with syphilis, hypertension and “moderate endogenous psychoses,” such as schizophrenia.
As for deferments for studies, nothing has changed. The same applies to alternative service, but recently, draft boards satisfy Only about a thousand (or a little bit) applications for the ACS per year. And even then, with great difficulty.
