Russian conscripts called up for military service depart from St. Petersburg in June. Photo: EPA-EFE/ANATOLY MALTSEV
Vladimir Putin has signed a decree calling up 133,000 young men for mandatory military service as part of the routine autumn conscription campaign, according to a document published on the Russian government’s website on Monday.
Combined with the 150,000 men drafted in the spring, the Russian military will have conscripted 283,000 men by the end of 2024. In 2023 Russia conscripted a total of 277,000 men.
All men in Russia aged 18–30 are required to perform a year-long period of military service. Avoiding conscription is punishable by up to two years in prison. Russia’s Defence Ministry conscripts men semi-annually, with the autumn draft lasting from 1 October until 31 December and the spring draft running from 1 April until 15 July.
Shortly after launching the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin promised that inexperienced conscripts would not take part in combat operations, a statement echoed on Monday by the Deputy Head of the Russian Defence Ministry’s mobilisation department Vladimir Tsimlyansky, who said that those called up for military service in the autumn would not be sent to the front.
Despite these official pronouncements, there have been a growing number of media reports about conscripts being sent into combat in Russia’s southwestern Kursk region to tackle the Ukrainian army’s ongoing incursion there, with some conscripts having been captured and held as Russian prisoners of war.
