MOSCOW. Oct 1 (Interfax-AVN) - Lieutenant General Vasily Smirnov, chief of the General Staff main mobilization department, believes that the autumn draft that began in Russia on Tuesday will take place in more complicated conditions than in the year 2001.
"We are planning to draft a total of 174,000 people," Smirnov said in an interview with the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper published on Tuesday.
Smirnov said the main problems in the sphere were created by new legislation that expands the category of people entitled to deferments through inclusion of students of higher educational establishments and allows them to extend the deferment period without any limitations.
Smirnov stressed that "the share of people of conscription age that can indeed be drafted is 11.2 percent."
According to him, the health of young people has changed for the worse dramatically. "Results of the past few years show that 30 percent of young men that show up at draft boards were exempted from conscription or got a deferment due to poor health. In 1988, only 6.7 percent of potential draftees fell into this category," Smirnov said.
This provided for an increase in the number of people fit for military service with minor restrictions. In spring 2002, the number totaled 51 percent, which is a substantial growth from 40 percent in 1996. Those people cannot be sent to special-purpose units of the border guard and Interior Ministry troops, Navy, Airborne Troops and some other forces and several other units.
The educational level of recruits is still low; some 25 percent of this spring's conscripts only have general or primary education.
Three percent of people drafted to the armed forces in spring 2002 had been previously detained for anti-social actions and six percent have cancelled convictions.
The number of draft dodgers made over 30,000 people in spring.
Smirnov believes that changes in the attitude of the country and society to military service and transition to professional army are the only ways to improve the situation.