The Russian Defense Ministry is seeking to make it more difficult for conscripts to secure medical exemptions from military service, including those diagnosed with syphilis, high blood pressure, and severe mental disorders.
The little-noticed proposal published on an official Russian government portal was flagged by the Movement of Conscientious Objectors, a Russian antiwar group that said it would “significantly worsen the situation of both military personnel and conscripts” if adopted.
Artyom Klyga, a lawyer with the group, told Current Timethat he and his colleagues had assisted soldiers and draftees with medical exemptions ever since Russia launched its all-out war on Ukraine in 2022.
‘Thousands Of Gaps’ In Legislation
It was only a matter of time until Russian officials began tightening the rules on these exemptions, Klyga said in an interview published on February 6.
“I’ve been waiting probably all year thinking: ‘When will the government get around to these changes in order to start closing this loophole?’” Klyga told Current Time.
Seven months after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, his government ordered an official mobilization that, officially, has yet to be canceled in the war in which Russia’s killed and wounded are estimated to exceed 700,000.
But his government has sought alternative routes to boosting its ranks while avoiding the politically sensitive issue of mass mobilization, including by deploying North Korean troops and making it easier for criminal convicts and suspects to serve.
The proposed rules, which would also tighten medical exemptions for those who have already been conscripted or have signed up to fight, would revise the Russian military’s Schedule of Illnesses that outlines eligibility for exclusion based on a person’s state of health.
The proposed revisions would make it harder to avoid service due to high blood pressure, asthma, and obesity, among other conditions. The current rules state that those diagnosed with latent syphilis are not subject to conscription during peacetime, while the proposed revision would declare them fit to serve in a range of military roles, including as engineering and railway troops, signalmen, and technicians.
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The proposed rules would also designate those diagnosed with “severe” mental problems due to stress and mood disorders as fit to serve during wartime, while the current schedule designates them as “unfit for military service.”
They would lock in a diagnosis designating them as fit to serve for the duration of mobilization or wartime, Klyga told Current Time.
“Many changes have been promised since the 2000s, but no one touched either the draft or the issue of mobilization,” Klyga said. “As soon as [mobilization] was announced in September 2022, we realized that we have thousands of gaps in the legislation.”
Written by Carl Schreck based on reporting by Current Time and RFE/RL’s Russian Service
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