Russia will keep its minimum conscription age at 18 despite promising to raise the limit as part of the army’s plans to increase the number of soldiers, a senior lawyer has said. said Friday.
A bill originally supported by President Vladimir Putin considered an increase in the age limits for compulsory military service from the current range of males aged 18–27 to 21–30.
A transition period widening the pool of eligibility was seen by critics as an attempt to compensate for troop losses in Ukraine by increasing the number of men eligible for conscription.
Andrei Kartapolov, a co-author of the bill and chairman of the defense committee of Russia’s lower house of the State Duma, said the new amendments would keep the lower age limit intact and only raise the upper limit to 30.
“We decided to keep the age limit lower than 18 because a lot of young men want to serve at 18,” Kartapolov told reporters.
The Duma Defense Committee backed the new version of the bill on Friday ahead of its second and third readings, with an upper house Federation Council vote and Putin’s signature now required for it to become law.
Once adopted, the changes will be applied during the call in the spring of next year, Kartapolov said.
Putin endorsed Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu’s proposal in December to raise the age limit for conscription and increase Russian combat personnel by 30%, from 1.15 million to 1.5 million.
Tens of thousands of Russian men of military age fled the country after Putin announced a “partial” mobilization last fall.