Russia is resorting to desperate measures to recruit soldiers

IN SEPTEMBER Russian television audiences will be treated to a new hour-long daily show. Its name is still to be decided, but the producers are already selecting their cast: the wives and mothers of military recruits. The participants must evoke the heroism of their husbands and sons and tell tear-jerking stories that will serve as an accompaniment to the Kremlin’s plans to throw more young men into the meat-grinder that is its war with Ukraine.

Last September Vladimir Putin shocked the Russian public by declaring a “partial mobilisation”, breaking an earlier promise that citizens could watch the war from the comfort of their homes, with no need to deploy people doing compulsory military service, or to call up reservists. But Ukraine’s counter-attacks, which liberated territories around Kharkiv and Kherson, forced Mr Putin to call up the reserves, something not seen since the second world war. Refusal to comply when summoned, surrender to the enemy, and desertion all became criminal offences carrying a ten-year prison sentence.

That first wave of mobilisation produced at least 300,000 reinforcements. Poorly trained and badly equipped, many of them have since been killed or injured. Those who survive desperately need to be rotated, as Ivan Popov, a senior general, recently made clear in a leaked message after being sacked. The departure of the Wagner Group from the battlefield in June has made the shortfall more acute. So in the past few weeks the Kremlin has passed a series of laws designed to increase its pool of potential recruits. As Andrei Kartapolov, head of the Russian parliament’s defence committee and author of the legislation, told lawmakers, “This law was written for a big war, for a general mobilisation. And you can already smell that big war in the air.”

“In the past they went for low-hanging fruit,” says Grigory Sverdlin, who runs Idite Lesom (“Get Lost”), a volunteer organisation that helps people avoid being forced to fight for Russia. “Now they are casting the net a lot wider.” The volume of requests for his help has more than doubled since last spring.

How many men will be needed depends on the progress of Ukrainian forces. But though Mr Putin may not have enough troops to take more territory, he is making sure he has enough to keep Russia fighting for as long as he remains in power. “War is his only legacy now. He can scale it down or intensify it. But he can’t end it,” says one weathered observer of Russian politics who remains in the country.

In contrast to Ukrainian commanders, who have been trying to preserve lives, the Russian army relies on what it considers an inexhaustible human resource that can be thrown into the war, guided by a centuries-old saying: “Russian women will breed more.”

Mobilisation, however, carries political risks. Last September it triggered protests across Russia. Military-recruitment centres were torched and hundreds of thousands of people fled the country. A month later, having reached his target, Mr Putin told Russians that mobilisation was “complete and over. Full stop.” That, too, turned out to be a lie. The president never signed a legal document ending forced recruitment. But to calm things down, the flow of call-up papers slowed to a trickle. The Kremlin hoped to make up the numbers by signing up more contract soldiers, who, at least in theory, fight voluntarily in return for pay. Sergei Shoigu, the defence minister, set a target for up to 400,000 new contracts.

Billboards have since sprung up around Russia. A sleek video advertises the benefits of swapping the job of taxi-driver, fitness instructor or security guard in a supermarket for that of a warrior. “You are a man. So be one,” it declares. Large advertising budgets, however, have not translated into large numbers of volunteers. Officials say 117,000 people had signed new contracts by June. Independent observers, such as Mr Sverdlin, say the real figures are likely to be less than half that.

But the Kremlin has started to lay the groundwork for more efficient mobilisation. Previously, reservists could be held liable for service only once they had physically received their call-up papers. Thousands dodged this by moving out of their registered addresses; some fled the country. But since April reservists have been liable from the moment a recruitment commission issues the notice, regardless of whether they receive it or not. Call-up papers can now be served electronically or posted on a government web portal. In place of the old dusty files of reservists, a new electronic register is being set up. Having several children, or disabled dependents, is no longer grounds for exemption.

From the day a notice is served it is now illegal for a conscript to leave the country. Those who hide inside Russia quickly find themselves outside the law, unable to drive a car or to make financial transactions, including paying mortgages. The Kremlin has also extended the age limit of reservists who can be called up. And to make up the numbers, it has drawn men from the ranks of those called up for their compulsory year of military service; there are two intakes a year, selected from those aged 18 to 27.

Sending those doing military service to the front line has been considered taboo since the Soviet war in Afghanistan and the Chechen war of 1995-96, explains Sergei Krivenko of Memorial, a banned human-rights group that monitors mobilisation. Breaking this practice risks a backlash from the mothers of the young men. But the Kremlin has found a way of doing it covertly, by pressing those doing military service to sign contracts with the army, which formally turns them into volunteers.

The ministry of defence says the most recent military-service call-up produced just over 140,000 young men; the real figure is likely to be lower. Up to half of them could have been induced to sign a contract through threats, coercion and lies, says Mr Krivenko. Young men with little knowledge of their rights and limited options for contacting their families or lawyers are being lied to or threatened into signing a contract, confirms one young man from southern Russia who managed to desert with the help of Idite Lesom.

In the past such a contract could be signed only after three months of military service. Mr Putin’s laws passed in April scrapped that restriction. “If it was not for fear and coercion, there would be few people left in the army,” the young man says. There is also a great deal of lying. “They are told they could be sent to the front anyway, but if they sign a contract at least they get paid. They are not told that the contract they enter cannot be terminated. Basically this turns these men into serfs,” says Mr Krivenko. Most importantly, once the young men finish their military service they enter a pool of reservists that can be tapped through mobilisation. In July the Kremlin passed a law that increases the size of the pool. A new law raises the maximum age for compulsory service from 27 to 30, while keeping the minimum at 18.

One limiting factor in the mobilisation is the number of training centres. Even more acute is the shortage of officers. This is why the Kremlin raised the age of former professionals who can be called up to the age of 65. Pavel Luzin, a visiting scholar at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, says that “they are combing through the last Soviet generation.” ■