Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law scrapping the upper age limit for contract service. The document was published on the official legal information portal.
Previously, only Russian citizens aged 18 to 40 and foreign citizens aged 18 to 30 could sign up for military contract service. According to the new law, any citizen of working age will be able to enlist.
The explanatory note to the bill published by the Russian parliament says that highly professional specialists, usually aged 40-45, are required to deploy high-precision weapons and military equipment. The document also points out that scrapping the upper age limit would attract doctors, engineers, technicians and communications specialists to the army.
On 25 May, the Russian State Duma (lower house of parliament) approved the amendments to the law “On military duty and military service” in three readings at once. The Russian Federation Council (upper house) approved this initiative as well.
