Russia is seeking to widen the pool of soldiers it can potentially draw on to fight in Ukraine.
(Bloomberg) — Russia is seeking to widen the pool of soldiers it can potentially draw on to fight in Ukraine.
The lower house of parliament on Tuesday approved a law raising the upper age limit for military conscripts from 27 to 30 years under rules that would come into effect in 2024 after being endorsed by the upper house and signed into law by President Vladimir Putin.
“This law was drafted for a big war, for general mobilization and this already smacks of a big war,” Andrei Kartapolov, head of the lower chamber’s defense committee, said in a broadcast debate before the vote.
While Russia has said it won’t send conscripts to fight in Ukraine, they can be mobilized once they finish their draft. The changes would mean would mean an extra 2.4 million potential conscripts will become liable for 12-month military service, according to Igor Yefremov, a researcher and specialist in demographics at the Gaidar Institute in Moscow.
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The extra recruits may help Putin to wage the conflict for longer and bolster the army elsewhere. Russia has struggled to make progress after failing to capture the Ukrainian capital Kyiv early in the war and focusing its attention on the southeast of the country. While a Ukrainian counter-offensive currently underway so far hasn’t achieved a major breakthrough, Ukraine’s US and European allies are ratcheting up weapons supplies.
Russia last year mobilized 300,000 men to bolster the ranks of its armed forces in Ukraine, which Putin invaded 17 months ago. While Russia put military losses at about 6,000 in the last figures it made public in September, the US and its European allies estimate tens of thousands of Russian soldiers have died in the fighting.
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Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu at the end of last year first proposed raising the draft age to 30 while exempting 18-20 year-olds under a gradual shift taking effect from 2024-2026. Despite criticism from some senior Russian senators, lawmakers decided to keep the draft from 18 years in the approved version.
On Monday, Putin signed a law raising the age at which senior reserve officers can be sent to fight from 60 to 65. Russia is gradually increasing its pension age, which for men next year will be 63, meaning retirement-age reserve officers could potentially be recruited for the invasion.
(Updates with lawmaker’s comment in third paragraph)
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