Russia’s Putin paves way for new call-up as Ukraine invasion drags on

MOSCOW – The Kremlin introduced harsh new penalties for people who evade a military call-up, adding to fears that the government is planning another mass mobilisation as the invasion of Ukraine drags into its second year.

President Vladimir Putin on Friday signed the law, which was rushed through Parliament earlier this week in 24 hours, according to the Tass state news service.

Under the new rules, the authorities can deliver military call-up notices both for conscripts and mobilised reservists online, and almost immediately bar the recipients from leaving the country.

Those who ignore the summons within 20 days will be barred from buying or selling property, or driving a car, among other rights.

Previously, all such notices had to be hand-delivered and signed for by the recipient to be legal.

Former Kremlin adviser Sergei Markov described the changes as a “big shock for Russia”, with even those who have left the country not spared, as they will also receive the summons electronically and face the same restrictions as people living inside Russia.

“This is a new world,” he said on Telegram.   

The measures create a new national online system for tracking the tens of millions of Russians potentially eligible to be called to serve.

The Kremlin says there are no plans currently to mobilise more people to fight in Ukraine.

But Russia is digging in for a fight that may last years as Kyiv prepares to launch a counter-offensive using new weapons supplied by its allies in the United States and Europe.

The call-up in 2022 of 300,000 reservists provoked public panic that prompted up to a million Russians to flee the country.

Mr Putin later ordered officials to streamline and automate a mobilisation system that had not been updated in decades. 

In 2023, the Kremlin has so far taken a gentler approach, seeking to recruit as many as 400,000 contract troops in the hope of avoiding the outcry a new mass call-up would cause.

Officials and military experts say that goal is likely to prove ambitious, given a shortage of recruits.

Up to 200,000 Russian soldiers were killed or wounded in the first year of fighting, according to Britain.

Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said in September that Russia has at its disposal 25 million reservists, though it initially called up only just above 1 per cent of them.  

“The most logical thing to do is never to come back until the end of the Putin regime,” said Ms Anastasia Burakova, founder of the Ark, an association helping Russians to leave for other countries.

Officials sought to reassure citizens as the changes were rushed through Parliament virtually without debate, describing them as aimed at improving efficiency.

In a rare dissenting voice, Senator Lyudmila Narusova said the legislation violated basic rights and was adopted in a “huge rush”.

She added at a parliamentary hearing: “Let’s not pretend otherwise – we all understand what this law is aimed at.”

Ms Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Centre and founder of the R.Politik consultancy, said that the move to harness digital technology to round up people for military duty in Ukraine is a modern reincarnation of Soviet-era controls used in the Gulag system of penal camps. 

“The authorities are very fast, ahead of many other states, even of an authoritarian type, building a new political reality where rights and obligations will be regulated through digital platforms controlled by state agencies,” she added.

“It started back in the Covid-19 pandemic, when many people were already talking about the digital gulag. Now, it is accelerating.” 

BLOOMBERG