Putin Signs Decree To Draft 130K Young Men In Fall Conscription

In a fall call-up, Russia is drafting 130,000 more young men for compulsory service, based on a decree signed by President Putin on Friday. Men aged 18-27 will be recruited for a one-year period from Oct.1 and Dec.31, however, this latest conscription drive will not involve sending this new batch to fight in Ukraine, the Kremlin said. 

Deputy head of the military’s mobilization department, Rear Admiral Vladimir Tsimlyansky, sought to assure in a briefing, “There are no plans for additional mobilization measures.”

The defense ministry previously said they are taking long-term steps to reach Putin’s goal of increasing the national armed forces’ combat personnel from 1.15 million to 1.5 million.

The last draft came in the spring, which conscripted 147,00 men, and thus with this new fall drive a total of 277,000 will have been conscripted in 2023.

While new conscripts will not be sent to fight in Ukraine, for the first time they will be drawn from the newly “reunited” regions of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, and the Zaporozhye and Kherson oblasts:

Conscription for military service in what Moscow describes as Russia’s new regions is regulated by a so-called constitutional law on admission to the Russian Federation, according to Russian state news agency TASS.

According to the law, the autumn 2023 conscription round will include the newly annexed territories for the first time.

Russia is meanwhile celebrating one year since these territories were declared ‘legally’ part of the Russian Federation, according to remarks of Putin Saturday.

“A year ago, on September 30, a defining and truly historic event took place when agreements were signed to incorporate four new constituent entities into the Russian Federation,” he said in a video address, according to TASS.

He hailed the occasion on which “millions of residents of Donbass and the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions made their choice to be with their Fatherland,” saying further: “This conscious, long-awaited, hard-won and genuinely popular decision was made collectively through referendums in full compliance with international norms.”

One year ago it was noted by media sources that Russia was annexing lands roughly the size of Portugal…

“People showed courage and integrity in the face of attempts to intimidate and deprive them of their right to determine their own future, their destiny, and to take away something every person values, namely, culture, traditions, and mother tongue, in a word, everything that was loathed by nationalists and their Western patrons who orchestrated a coup in Kiev in 2014 and then unleashed a full-scale civil war and terror against dissenters and organized blockades, constant shelling, and punitive actions in Donbass,” Putin described, reiterating his rationale for the “special military operation”.