Mass requests to report to military enlistment offices are being issued for a second consecutive day across Russia
Students of Novosibirsk State University are receiving requests via their personal accounts on the school’s website. They have to come for a notice in person, otherwise, they might get investigated by the police. The university administration claims that the current procedure concerns only the matter of the spring and fall mandatory drafts.
While authorities and military committees claim that the men are being called up only for data verification, some regions are holding military training exercises for them.
In the Sverdlovsk region, military office representatives conducted home visits in the town of Studenetsky and summoned several men to a training camp. According to the E1 publication, the men were expected to verify personal data on March 14th and go for a month of training the following day.
In the Penza region, six-day and thirty-day training camps have been announced for updating the men’s military skills.
Sergei Kuzmenkov, the military commissar of Kaluga, speaking on draft notices, said that it was not mobilization but rather “the actualization of data.” Meanwhile, a resident of Voronezh told 7x7 that his girlfriend had found in a mailbox a draft notice for her landlord, who passed away two years earlier.
Federal authorities have not provided any reasons for the mass distribution of draft notices. Human rights activists say that a presidential decree is mandatory for calling up people for military service. So far, no decree has been published. Military Ombudsman Maxim Grebenyuk, speaking to 7x7, speculated that the decree might have been issued under a "classified" or "for official use only" stamp.