Category: NEWS

December 2023

(31.01.2024) Hello, dear friend. This is Artem Klyga, the advocacy manager of the Russian MCO. I want to share some news from December and update you on our activities in the last month of the past year. December was marked by unprecedented raids on conscripts. President Putin instructed the Ministry of Defense to launch an electronic register of military conscription from the fall of 2024. We continued to assist conscientious objectors in courts, military commissariats and draft commissions.

The latest conscription for mandatory military service has ended in Russia

The Ministry of Defense of Russia reported the completion of the fall-winter campaign to draft new conscripts into military service. According to authorities, 130,000 individuals were sent into service. In this call-up, military offices definitively shifted to a tactic of forced conscription, aided by amended legislation and legal practices against conscripts. Any man of conscription age can be detained without cause on the streets and brought to the military office within a day, from where they are illegally sent to their place of military service. Police and military raids are conducted at places of work or study or in locations with a large number of people. Citizens who obtained Russian citizenship not by birth are in a particularly high-risk group. The police provide information about them to military offices and intimidate them with the revocation of Russian citizenship for evading mandatory conscription. Under the new rules, a Russian citizen who acquired citizenship by application, not by birth, can be stripped of citizenship for committing a criminal offence of evading mandatory military service.

President Putin demands the launch of an electronic register of military conscription from the fall of 2024

The electronic register of military conscription, introduced into Russian legislation in 2023, is not yet functioning technically. President Putin calls for a solution to this problem. In his written instructions to executive authorities, he demanded that the Ministry of Defense conduct the draft in October-December 2024 using the electronic register. The register will significantly complicate opportunities for conscripts to evade mandatory service, as it will collect a vast amount of personal data, including medical records. Currently, conscripts have the advantage that no sublegal acts have been adopted on how this register will operate. The technical question is also unresolved. Authorities are creating the largest registry of citizens’ personal data, but, as it turns out, establishing it nationwide is a task that goes far beyond a single year.

The MCO exposed crimes against the Kiskorov brothers

We received information from Semen Kiskorov and Gennady Kiskorov about the pressure exerted on them by Russian army commanders for filing applications to replace military service with alternative civilian service. “My brother was tied to a tree, and they won’t let me see him,” wrote Semen Kiskorov, Gennady Kiskorov’s brother. Captain Rubanov, deputy commander of the military-political work battalion of the first motorised rifle battalion of military unit No. 21005, refused to accept reports from the brothers. To force Gennady Kiskorov to agree to participate in combat actions, he was tied to a tree on the street for the entire night in winter and not allowed inside. According to our information, Gennady eventually agreed to participate in combat actions. Semen Kiskorov said that similar measures are applied to other military personnel who refuse to engage in combat. In our channel, there is a separate video showing an attempt to tie a person to a tree. We filed reports of a crime based on these events with the Investigative Military Administration.

Protests by mobilised wives are taking place in Russia

Protests by the wives of men mobilised by Russian authorities for the war with Ukraine are taking place in Russia. Women demand leave for the mobilised and adjustments to the mobilisation service term. To achieve these goals, they address officials and deputies with public letters and attempt to organise public rallies. In December, the wives of the mobilised called on President Putin to stop the war against Ukraine or go to the front himself. It is worth noting that the movement of mobilised wives cannot be purely labelled anti-war. Women are primarily concerned with the rotation in the Russian army and the establishment of specific rules regarding the term of service for current servicemen. This movement does not explicitly articulate anti-war slogans directed at ending the war with Ukraine.

Thank you for reading!

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Movement of Conscientious Objection Russia (MCO): Digest December 2023

Frankfurter Rundschau, Germany

(29.12.2023) The political director of the German Peace Society – United War Resisters (DFG-VK), Michael Schulze von Glaßer, has called for the permanent protection of Ukrainian conscientious objectors in Germany. “As long as Ukraine does not recognize the human right to conscientious objection to military service, Germany must not deport any refugees who are threatened with forced recruitment. Instead, all those who refuse to serve in the war must be granted protection – both from Ukraine and especially from Russia,” he told Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland. Furthermore, the mostly young refugees should not be treated worse than others – for example by being deprived of citizens’ benefits.

“No one should be forced to pick up a weapon and murder other people – and no one should be forced to expose themselves to the deadly dangers on the front line,” warned Schulze von Glaßer. The DFG-VK, which has looked after conscientious objectors in Germany for decades, is particularly concerned that the German government has currently only granted protection status to Ukrainians who have fled to Germany until March 2025. This is because there is no end to the war in sight.

Military service not a reason for asylum

There are currently almost 200,000 Ukrainians of military age in Germany, and around 650,000 in the EU as a whole. They are missing from the country, which has been attacked by Russia and has suffered heavy losses. Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umjerov has therefore recently appealed to his compatriots who have fled to report to the recruitment centers of the Ukrainian armed forces.

Although there is no obligation on the German side to extradite them, conscientious objection is not grounds for asylum. And CDU defense expert Roderich Kiesewetter recently told the “Schwäbische Zeitung” newspaper: “It is right that Ukraine is now making efforts to bring these men back.” Not all of them have to fight on the front line. It is also “a difference whether a country goes to war voluntarily or, like Ukraine, defends itself against an attack by Russia waged as a war of annihilation”.

Ukrainian refugees have humanitarian residence status under the EU’s “mass influx directive” – until March 2025. According to the DFG-VK, more than 250,000 conscripts have also left Russia to escape the war.