JRL NEWSWATCH: “Drafted at the DMV? Military conscription goes digital in Russia” – Christian Science Monitor/ Fred Weir
“Russia is integrating its military draft with its digitized, pervasive bureaucracy. That could make new mobilizations for its war in Ukraine more efficient – and much harder to evade.”
“In Russia, it used to be that to get called up for military service, an eligible recruit had to be issued a draft summons in person. Not anymore. Under a new law rushed through the State Duma with almost no publicity and signed by … Putin last month, potential recruits can be called up through the … Gosuslugi network … heavily digitized state services bureaucracy that most Russians use to obtain basic documents, from driver’s licenses to death certificates. Some observers perceive the coming of a ‘1984’-like total surveillance society, a ‘digital gulag’ in which every element of life will be overseen, recorded, indexed, and, if necessary, punished. Focusing on … military implications, many fear the haste in implementing the new system foretells … another wave of mobilization …”