Conscription to be introduced year-round in Russia – draft bill passed in first reading

The Russian State Duma has passed a bill in its first reading that provides for the introduction of year-round compulsory military service. The initiative received the support of 386 deputies. If the bill is also passed in further readings, conscription would no longer take place only in spring and fall, reports RBC.

Under current law, conscripts are drafted twice a year – from April 1 to July 15 and from October 1 to December 31. The new proposal covers not only conscription to military registration offices, but also medical examinations, psychological tests, and meetings of the conscription commissions.

The authors of the bill are Defense Committee Chairman Andrei Kartapolov and his deputy Andrei Krasov. They emphasize that year-round conscription should distribute the workload of recruitment centers more evenly and improve the overall quality of the process.

Kartapolov explained that the new system would eliminate the rush and overload at recruitment centers during the traditional conscription periods.

At the same time, he assured that this was not a plan for more extensive conscription, but rather a technical efficiency improvement.

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