Russian conscripts pictured at a railway station in Sevastopol, Crimea, November 2022. Photo: EPA-EFE/STRINGER
The Russian authorities have begun testing a new system for digitally issuing military draft notices to eligible conscripts in three regions of the country, independent Russian-language broadcaster Dozhd reported on Wednesday.
According to the website, the URL of which translates as “draft notice register”, a “unified register of military registration” is currently being tested in central Russia’s Ryazan region, the Volga region’s Mari El republic and on the island of Sakhalin in the Russian Far East.
The authorities in all three regions announced that they would begin testing the system by issuing draft notices to local residents digitally from 15 September.
In April 2023, the Russian government announced that digital draft notices would be issued nationwide from 1 November 2024 using both the unified military register and the call-up notice service, following Vladimir Putin’s signing of a law that granted digital draft notices equal status to those received in person.
The register will include detailed records of men liable for military service, who will receive notifications via Gosuslugi, the state government services portal, if they are called up for military service.
After seven days, the recipient will be considered to have been served regardless of whether they have received the notice, at which point those who do not present themselves to a military recruitment centre will be deemed to be evading conscription, meaning that they will no longer be permitted to travel abroad, register a business, drive a car, or take out a bank loan.
While the vast majority of Russian military recruitment offices do not at present keep digital records, preventing the sharing of conscripts’ personal data with the Russian border authorities, once the digital register is rolled out nationwide, men liable for military service will be unable to leave the country once they have been called up.
