Russian MP shares plans to conscript people as old as 30 in coming spring

Russia can start conscripting people up to 30 years of age in the coming spring, head of the State Duma (lower house of parliament) defence committee Andrey Kartapolov said in an interview with Parlamentskaya Gazeta.

Each draft office will be required to identify how many people meet the new requirements before the spring conscription campaign begins, Kartapolov said.

“So, a draft office roughly has 100 people aged between 21 and 30 who never served and did not have enough qualifications to do so. And the benchmark figure to meet is 200. Correspondingly, half of them will be aged 18, as before, and the other half will be people between 21 and 30.”

“So this is how we will gradually move to the new system, slowly increasing the draft age with each campaign,”

he added.

Russian Defence Minister Sergey Shoigu in December revealed the plan to increase the minimum conscription age from 18 to 21 and the maximum age from 27 to 30 in a gradual manner. He defended the initiative by saying that Russia should be defended from NATO who seeks to boost its “military potential” near Russian borders. It can take up to several years to switch to the new system.