Moscow chief draft officer says authorities using facial recognition cameras to track down conscripts

Moscow Chief Enlistment Officer Maxim Loktev said Tuesday that the city’s network of facial recognition cameras are being used to search for conscripts in Russia’s spring mandatory military service drive.

Speaking to Russian state media, Loktev said that the primary reason conscripts don’t report to enlistment offices is that they don’t live at the addresses where they’re registered and thus don’t receive hand-delivered summonses.

“Moscow’s video monitoring systems are being used to determine where conscripts reside,” said Loktev. “At the direction of the mayor of Moscow, organizations where conscripts work are providing information about them to military commissars. Educational institutions are helping us determine where conscripts live.”