Russia military conscription: Lawmakers move to introduce electronic military draft
Visit our website:
http://www.france24.com
Like us on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/FRANCE24.English
Follow us on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/France24_en
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 Our foreign affairs commentator Douglas Herbert has been looking into this a little and he
00:03 joins me now.
00:04 Doug, the Kremlin says this is not a further mobilisation.
00:09 They say this is just about making things more efficient when getting those soldiers
00:12 out to the front.
00:14 I know you find that claim rather hard to swallow.
00:16 Tell us why.
00:17 Look, boiled down, this is basically don't call it a mobilisation, mobilisation.
00:23 And why is the Kremlin doing this?
00:24 It's going out of its way not to use that word, the dreaded M word, because last fall,
00:29 as we know, when Putin called up, announced what he called a partial mobilisation, a draft
00:33 at that time, you had the spectacle that the world witnessed of thousands, if not tens
00:39 of thousands of young men making a scramble to get out of the country to the borders because
00:45 they did not want to fight a war that they did not believe in against Ukraine, which
00:50 they saw as a war of aggression by their president.
00:53 So it was a forced mobilisation and it led to absolutely absurd and sometimes downright
00:58 appalling images because at the time you had to get a written piece of paper, which you
01:03 had to sign a summons basically for the conscription and you had to sign it if you were being conscripted.
01:08 You had the spectacle of men, young men being nabbed outside metro stations as they're walking
01:13 down the street.
01:14 You literally had men having a cower in their homes and not go out for fear of being like
01:18 manhandled by security forces and forced to sign this paper and then be sent off possibly
01:22 to the front where many of them died.
01:25 So what do you have now?
01:26 You have these electronic summonses under this new law passed by the lower house of
01:30 parliament expected to be rubber stamped by the upper house as well and shortly signed
01:34 into law by Vladimir Putin.
01:36 How does it differ from what came before?
01:37 Well it's electronic.
01:38 It lands in your inbox and it lands in a box that is called Gosu Slugi, which is basically
01:44 a website used for a whole host of government services in Russia, whether it's tax payments
01:49 or housing payments, so on and so forth.
01:51 And basically what happens is if you do not show up at a conscription office within 20
01:55 days after receiving that, you are considered in violation, in flagrant violation, a draft
02:00 dodger and you have harsh penalties that will ensue against you.
02:04 Like what?
02:05 Well they've been outlined by the Duma in parliament.
02:06 The penalties include having your driver's license revoked, not being able to register
02:11 a company, not being able to self-employ yourself, not being able to buy a house, not being able
02:15 to get a loan, basically being shut out of Russia's system, being shut out of the system
02:21 that most people need to meet their daily needs, their daily life needs.
02:24 So it is a very harsh measure but it avoids the word mobilization.
02:28 They call it an efficiency measure just to make sure that people get their draft notice
02:33 and can't deny that they got it or can't pretend or claim ignorance.
02:37 But it's an extremely harsh measure.
02:39 The penalties are extremely harsh and my sense is that it is going to lead to more young
02:44 men trying to find an exit strategy from the country before they have to deal with the
02:48 prospect of that electronic quote "summonses" coming, falling in their mailbox.
02:53 Some aren't even part of the Gosu-Slugi website but they will be registered whether they want
02:57 to or not.
02:58 And Doug, it's worth emphasizing that at the same time Russian civilians also have to contend
03:03 with an intensifying crackdown against any form of dissent.
03:08 Wherever you look, Russia's darkening civil society climate was already just that, extremely
03:14 dark even before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine last February.
03:18 It has gotten much darker.
03:19 There is literally not just a closing window, there's almost no window for dissent anymore.
03:24 You know, we've seen once again those appalling images of people not even being able to hold
03:30 up a blank piece of paper because it's construed as some sort of protest.
03:35 Some people have actually compared it to the climate, the paranoia that existed.
03:39 Obviously it's not as bad.
03:40 In the Stalin era, when neighbor was afraid of neighbor, colleagues at the workplace were
03:44 afraid of colleagues.
03:45 No one knew what the other was going to say.
03:48 Public opinion turning very much, very hardened by the overall darkening ideological mood,
03:53 the climate that has been sort of created by Putin.
03:56 We saw recently a father whose 13-year-old daughter at school drew an anti-war drawing
04:02 in her classroom.
04:03 The father's now facing the prospect of years and years in prison.
04:06 They're trying to find custody, foster parents for the daughter.
04:10 Where will she live?
04:12 We saw a very well-known, I want to show you, a Russian dissident.
04:15 We always hear about Alexei Navalny, but perhaps the next bravest man in Russia, if not as
04:19 brave because he stayed in Russia like Alexei Navalny, not fled, that guy there, Vladimir
04:24 Karamurza.
04:26 He's a journalist.
04:27 He was twice poisoned in 2015, 2017.
04:30 He blames the regime.
04:31 The regime denies it.
04:32 This is what he said when he was facing a court hearing recently for, quote, discrediting
04:36 the army and, quote, high treason.
04:38 The day will come when the darkness over our country, that is Russia, will dissipate, when
04:42 black will be called black and white will be called white.
04:44 When at the official level, it will be recognized that two times two is still four.
04:48 When a war will be called a war and a usurper a usurper.
04:52 Sounds very Orwellian, right?
04:53 But he's, you know, he's basically one of the very few people who's still brave enough
04:57 at a height to speak truth to power in Russia.
05:00 And he's facing the consequences.
05:01 For many years, he was able to, you could almost say, get away with it, even though
05:04 he was twice poisoned.
05:05 And he's still suffering the consequences of those poisonings.
05:08 However, in today's Russia, zero window for a man like Vladimir Karamurza to have any
05:14 opportunity to be a critic of Vladimir Putin.
05:18 Human rights groups have repeatedly asked the question, if you claim to be a democratic
05:23 society, if you claim to embrace the values of freedom of expression and assembly, they're
05:27 asking Putin and the leadership, why don't you let opponents of your regime, such as
05:32 Vladimir Karamurza and Alexei Navalny, why don't you let them speak out, as would be
05:37 the norm in any other democratic country?
05:40 Douglas Herbert, as always, thanks very much.
05:41 Thank you.