Putin drafts another 150,000 men into the army

Vladimir Putin has signed an executive order on spring conscription into the Russian Army, drafting roughly 150,000 men between April 1 and July 15. The order also releases military personnel whose terms of service have expired. 

Conscription in Russia is carried out twice a year: once in the spring and again in the fall. Men are drafted into military service for one year.

On March 24, a Duma committee endorsed legislation that would place foreign travel restrictions on men who evade the draft, possibly prohibiting them from going abroad for as many as five years. The law would also ban draft dodgers from working in the civil service and any municipal offices for a period of five years.

Another bill now in the Duma would change the way men are called into the army recruitment office. Currently, conscripts are required to get a signed document when they cannot appear for a summons. Responsibility for delivering conscripts to the recruitment office falls to the police. The new draft legislation would allow recruiters to send out their summons by registered mail. The letters would be considered received by the sixth day after they’re sent.

In late February this year, Lithuania introduced a plan to reinstate its draft, aiming to conscript as many as 3,500 men annually, beginning in September 2015.