By EUDO citizenship country expert Shushanik Makaryan

On 15 May 2013 in its second reading the State Duma (parliament) of Russia reviewed and set for adoption an amendment to Article 23 of the 1998 Federal Law No. 53 on “Military Obligation and Military Service.”

The new amendment will make it mandatory for all 18-27 years old Russian citizens (including dual citizens residing in Russia) to serve in Russia’s  military forces even though they may have already performed a mandatory military service in another country’s army. The explanatory note to the legislative initiative stated that “the demographic situation (such as declining population trends and ageing), number of grounds for exemption from the military service, as well as unwillingness among Russia’s population to perform military duties” have made challenging the recruitment of new persons into private and sergeant level personnel of the Russian army.

The amendment is in part meant to help fulfill the objectives, set in Decree 604 of the President of the Russian Federation and issued in May 2012, to improve army forces and expand the contracted military conscription by 50,000 persons annually. However, by adding more contracted army personnel, the pool for  potential mandatory conscripts will decrease. Thus, this legislative amendment is estimated to “expand the conscription resources of Russia by 1,000 persons annually”, and is expected to “halt migration” of [dual citizen] persons who do not intend to “perform their state duty and serve in the military forces of Russia” (cited in the explanatory note).

The amendment has been approved in second reading by the Russian Duma, and is set to be adopted into Law. The Law should enter in force on August 1, 2013.

The interested reader can read the brief discussion on the amendment in Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, or can consult further details on the website of the State Duma (parliament) of Russia.