State Duma Deputy Andrey Kartapolov proposed concluding contracts for military service with school graduates who did not do military service. This drew the attention of the Russian service of the BBC.
Now, in order to conclude a contract, you must be in military service for at least three months or have a specialized secondary education. Kartapolov proposed to allow males who have received a secondary general education and are not in the reserve to conclude a contract.
The profile committee on defense approved this amendment and recommended the adoption of the bill. The second reading was scheduled for June 28.
At the end of May, the State Duma unanimously adopted a law on the abolition of the upper age limit for concluding a military service contract in three readings at once. Prior to this, the first contract could be concluded by Russians aged 18 to 40 years and foreign citizens aged 18 to 30 years.
Earlier, the founder of the Conflict Intelligence Team, Ruslan Leviev , said that from 20% to 40% of contract soldiers who returned from Ukraine and who are being prepared for a new transfer refuse to fight. According to him, this is becoming a systemic phenomenon:
“If an objector fought as part of a battalion tactical group, it was taken to Russia and is being prepared for re-entry into the territory of Ukraine, and he refuses, but does not run home, then what happened is not considered desertion, but failure to comply with the order.
There is a criminal article for non-execution of an order in the event that it caused significant harm to military service, but this already needs to be proven somehow. Based on what we have seen in the examples, they are all frightened with a criminal offense and dragged to the military prosecutor's offices. But in the end no one was convicted. I note that so far this is only our observation.
