MOSCOW. March 30 (Interfax-AVN) - The Armed Forces will once again recruit undereducated people or former convicts in spring, the Russian General Staff says.
"Recruitment commissions have no choice, since the Armed Forces induct almost all citizens, who are not entitled to exemption or postponement," Colonel General Vasily Smirnov, head of the General Staff Mobilization Directorate, told reporters in Moscow on Tuesday.
"This inevitably causes a constant decrease in draftee quality, and the spring 2004 recruitment campaign will not be an exception," he said.
Smirnov said that last fall the Armed Forces recruited about 21% of undereducated citizens, 40% of whom had not worked or studied anywhere for a long time, while some of them were even illiterate. About 5% of all conscripts had previous convictions, while 21% came from families without a farther, or a mother, the general said.
He also said that just like the previous one, the spring recruitment campaign may be hindered by citizens' evading the military service. "Despite the fact that in fall 2003 we managed to reduce the number of people, evading the military service, this figure is till very large, and at the present time amounts to 18,000 people," he said.
Smirnov also said that the Moscow Military District had had the greatest number of citizens, evading the military service: Moscow accounts for 1,100 people, the Moscow region for about 2,500 people, and the Nizhny Novgorod region for about 1,000 men.