The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation considers the rotation of the mobilized “impractical”

The Ministry of Defense of Russia refused to limit the term of service of those mobilized to one year and reported that the conscripted servicemen would be in service until the end of the war. This is how the military department responded to the request of Borys Vishnevsky, a member of the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly.

Vyshnevsky wrote the appeal after the wives of those who had been mobilized collectively turned to him. They asked to amend the legislation and limit the term of service for mobilization to one year. Vyshnevsky wrote an appeal to the head of the Ministry of Defense Sergei Shoigu.

In response, the agency reported that “the term of military service of citizens called up for mobilization expires upon completion of the period of partial mobilization on the basis of a presidential decree.”

The Ministry of Defense considers it “unexpected” to limit the term of service for mobilization.

A day earlier, Shoigu announced that since December 1, the Ministry of Defense of Russia began to implement Vladimir Putin’s order to increase the number of the Russian army to one million 320 thousand people. “In proportion to external threats, the number of the Armed Forces will be increased to one and a half million servicemen in the future,” Shoigu emphasized.

Partial mobilization in Russia began in September 2022. Already at the end of October, President Putin announced its completion. At the same time, he did not sign the decree on the termination of mobilization, stating that it was not necessary. Human rights activists point out that the absence of a decree allows the authorities not to release the mobilized from the service.

In September, the chairman of the State Duma defense committee, Andrey Kartapolov, said that there would be no rotation of the mobilized, which means that those called up for mobilization will also be required to remain in the zone of hostilities until their end. This gave rise to sharp criticism from many groups of relatives and friends of the mobilized, who regularly appeal to the authorities to return soldiers from the front.

Wives and mothers of military personnel create numerous petitions and write letters to the President of Russia Vladimir Putin with a request to rotate the mobilized servicemen.

In November, a movement called “The Way Home” appeared in messengers. Wives of those mobilized published a manifesto and petition against indefinite mobilization.

Relatives talk about injustice in relation to the mobilized and compare the situation with what happens in the colonies, where recruited prisoners are released home after six months of being in the war zone.

The governor of the Leningrad Region, Alexander Drozdenko, promised to apply for the rotation of the mobilized in September 2023. But there were no reports that he sent it.

On December 14, during the live broadcast, Vladimir Putin said that in 2022, 318 thousand people were called up as part of the partial mobilization. However, neither Putin nor Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu publicly talked about the decision to leave those mobilized at the front until the end of the war.