Army Contract and Draft: the New Architecture of Military Conscription

On July 22, 2025, Russian lawmakers introduced a bill to the Russian State Duma that would significantly alter the regular procedure for military conscription. Previously, conscription was held in two cycles, in the spring and fall. Now, military registration and enlistment offices will keep conscripts “on file” year-round, from January 1 to December 31. Although enlistment in the military is still scheduled for the spring and fall, the entire preparatory process, including medical examinations, checks, and the issuance of conscription notices, will now be continuous.

The document was authored by Andrei Kartapolov, the Chairman of the Russian State Duma’s Defense Committee, and his First Deputy, Andrei Krasov. According to them, the reasons behind this initiative are purely “technical”: to ease the workload of military registration and enlistment offices, eliminate the usual rush, and ensure more thorough military medical examinations.

However, other reasons can be inferred from public statements. For instance, Deputy Committee Chairman Aleksey Zhuravlyov stated outright, “There will be no time to relax.” In other words, the usual time intervals during which it was possible to buy some time are disappearing. Now, the conscription notice could come at any time. For those who had hoped to wait out between conscription calls, there is now very little room to maneuver. 

The bill has already passed the first reading in the State Duma on September 24, 2025. Given that MPs have not raised any serious objections, the bill is expected to be approved within the next few weeks and come into effect on January 1, 2026.

“The bill does not formally shorten the list of reasons for deferral from military service, but it does make conscription a year-round process. This eliminates the usual ‘windows’ between draft campaigns when people could buy time or exploit procedural difficulties,” explained Valeria Vetoshkina, a lawyer with the Movement of Conscientious Objectors, in a conversation with Posle.Media. “Now conscription notices can come at any time, leaving little room for maneuvering. In addition, starting this year, the draft board’s decision is valid throughout the country for 12 months, and it will no longer be possible to ‘reset’ it by moving to another region or changing registration address.”

According to lawyers, the longer a person remains “under the control” of the military registration and enlistment office, the more likely they are to receive a contract before being assigned to a military unit. Although this will be presented as voluntary, it is often difficult to refuse in practice. This is especially true as the last legal means of deferring service disappear. The disappearance of typical time “windows” means that many will lose their last legal means of delaying service or finding a legitimate reason for deferral. Now, one could end up at the military registration and enlistment office in any month, with no opportunity to “wait it out” between drafts.

All of this is happening amid increasingly frequent reports of pressure being exerted on recruits and conscripts to persuade them to sign up for the military. For some, it is an opportunity to earn money. For others, however, it is a trap that is difficult to escape, especially as the frontline approaches.

The case of 18-year-old Nikita Berketov, who was drafted in July, is telling. According to his sister, he was subjected to systematic pressure for two months at Military Unit No. 16871. The command tried to turn his fellow soldiers against him and imposed collective punishments.

On September 1, the situation escalated when Nikita was forced to sign the contract right in the infirmary. The soldier was driven to hysteria; moreover, he was denied access to his phone, preventing his family from intervening. Berketov’s relatives filed complaints with the prosecutor’s office and the Investigative Committee, demanding that the contract be declared invalid.

Is Russia Running Out of Contract Soldiers?

The Russian military continues to rely on a system of contract recruitment to conduct combat operations in Ukraine. However, there has been a steady decline in recruitment rates in recent years. According to official data, the average daily number of contracts signed in the fourth quarter of 2024 was approximately 1,700 — 30% fewer than in the same period of 2023.

Despite consistent increases in monetary payments and expanded social guarantees, the number of citizens willing to sign a military service contract has steadily declined. This results from a combination of factors.

First, the state has managed to mobilize the most loyal and socially vulnerable groups in the population, including residents of impoverished regions, individuals with low incomes, and migrants with Russian citizenship. However, this pool of potential recruits is gradually being depleted.

Secondly, potential recruits are becoming more aware of the risks involved in military service. As the fighting in Ukraine continues and reports of high casualties become more frequent, potential contract soldiers become more reluctant to participate and take underlying risks.

Third, financial incentives, initially perceived as effective, are gradually losing their appeal against the backdrop of inflation, rising prices, and declining purchasing power. Additionally, social risks, such as health issues and potential death, are beginning to outweigh the economic benefits.

As people become less patient with the ongoing war and their disappointment grows, recruitment increasingly becomes a challenge. 

​​Thus, while hiked up contract pay still attracts some, it does not solve the underlying recruitment issues. The decline in the number of people willing to sign up for contract service is clear evidence of Russia's mobilization resources reaching their limits in the context of a prolonged military conflict.

As conventional recruitment methods become less effective, the state is forced to expand its range of administrative and organizational tools to recruit new contract soldiers and retain conscripts under military control. Generous handouts and social benefits are no longer sufficient, which forces the state to tighten conscription controls. In this context, the bill on year-round conscription should be viewed as a way to tighten control over the population liable for military service. Continuous conscription minimizes opportunities for potential recruits to dodge or defer military service. It also creates conditions for constant administrative pressure on conscripts and extends the time frame during which they can be involved in both compulsory service and contract recruitment processes.

Thus, uninterrupted conscription and the updated online conscription data base are more than just technical improvements to conscription procedures. The new bill is aimed at establishing full control over potential recruits, given the diminishing number of contract soldiers and funds. These measures reflect a shift from predominantly incentive-based recruitment methods to strategies that limit alternatives and strengthen coercion.

The Experience of 2022: the Price is Too High

An analysis of the current policy on staffing the armed forces reveals that the Russian authorities prefer the strategy of gradually tightening conscription practices and expanding the contract system rather than repeating the large-scale mobilization of 2022. This is due to the high political and socio-economic costs the regime would incur by implementing such a scenario.

The 2022 autumn mobilization, which saw around 300,000 military personnel called up, had significant side effects. According to various estimates, up to one million of able-bodied citizens fled Russia, which exacerbated the labor shortage in the country and put pressure on key sectors of the economy. The mobilization also caused an increase in social tension, as evidenced by protests, as well as increased anxiety and distrust of government institutions.

Taken together, these factors have led to the perception of full-scale mobilization as a tool that carries significant political risks and threatens economic stability. As a result, the leadership’s priority is to find “hybrid” forms of mobilization techniques, ranging from encouraging contract service to tightening legislative control over conscripts. As the events of 2022 have demonstrated, mass mobilization is considered a last resort, one that the authorities will consider only if military defeat is imminent.

New Model of Control 

Thus, the transition to year-round conscription should be viewed as part of a broader institutional transformation of the military recruitment system rather than as an isolated innovation. It is being introduced along with the so-called “electronic” register of people subject to conscription. Together, these changes significantly strengthen the state’s control over mobilization resources.

The electronic register is already operational. Since 2023, conscription notices have been published in users’ personal accounts on the Gosuslugi website. These notices are considered received even if the citizen has not opened them. The system also includes restrictive measures for draft dodgers, such as bans on traveling abroad and restrictions on real estate registration, driver’s license issuance, and loan eligibility. After being tested in several regions, this mechanism was gradually introduced throughout the country in 2024, becoming a standard tool for military registration and enlistment offices. Thus, digitization eliminates the main flaw of hardcopy conscription letters — a potential conscript used to be able to dispute the fact of delivery or evade receipt of a conscription notice.

The year-round conscription process eliminates possibilities for deferrals, and the digitization of conscription notices reduces chances for individuals to resist administrative practices procedurally. The Russian state has developed a new model to control its citizens. In this model, military draft becomes permanent, and efforts to evade it begin to look futile. 

From a political and legal standpoint, this indicates a shift from predominantly incentive-based and temporary forms of recruitment methods to a more systematic approach that utilizes technologies to control conscripts and potential contract soldiers. These measures demonstrate the authorities’ desire to institutionalize mobilization resources while avoiding another large-scale, politically costly mobilization campaign.

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