Draft offices in Russia’s Mari El region are sending draft cards to people “to clarify credentials’, the local government reports.
“The Chief of Russia’s General Staff schedules reservist training each year. In recent years there were several reasons, including the pandemic, for which such training was not carried out,” Mari El authorities say.
The reservist officer training is scheduled for a period between 17 March and 26 April.
Mari El has become the sixth Russian region to have officially confirmed sending draft cards, following the regions of Voronezh, Lipetsk, Yaroslavl, and Penza, as well as Khantia-Mansia. The government of the Tyumen region also officially reported plans to set up reservist training.
The Lipetsk regional government claims that draft offices are creating a digital database, and for this they need updates. Dmitry Peskov, Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, has referred to the sending of draft cards as “a usual thing” as “all data needs clarification and update”.
Pavel Chikov, the leader of Agora, a human rights group, believes that a “second wave” of mobilisation is not what is happening, at least so far. Chikov says individuals in as much as 43 Russian regions have already received their draft cards.
