The Kremlin found a way to send another 2 million Russians to war. The fireworks to which the Russian government resorted to

On Monday, the Russian government approved a draft law that will allow President Vladimir Putin to resort to reservists not only during the war or official mobilization, but also during peace, including in operations abroad, according to the Russian independent publication The Moscow Times.

The legislative project effectively eliminates the current legal barriers against the reservists in battle in the absence of an officially declared mobilization or a war, according to ISW.

This will allow you to mobilize up to 2 million people for the needs of the army, the vice -president of the State Duma Commission, Alexei Juravliov, told RTVI.

“We carry a real and magnificent struggle, but officially no war was declared. These legal subtleties limited the possibility of maneuver of the Ministry of Defense, and now they have been eliminated,” said the Russian deputy.

He explained that the law concerns the persons who have previously served voluntarily and who currently receive payments and benefits as reservists. These troops, he added, will now be mobilized “much more common than before”, which he called “completely normal, given the situation that our country faces.”

According to the proposal of the Russian government, the reservists will follow a “special training” for defense missions, with a maximum duration of two months.

Russia did not officially declare war

Russia calls its war campaign in Ukraine a “special military operation” since the beginning of the invasion in February 2022.

The analysts from the Institite for the study of war appreciated that the Kremlin has raised key restrictions on the use of reservists in battle, opening the way for their development in the Ukraine.

The change will probably allow the Kremlin to fight faster reservists in the fight faster than possible in the previous mechanism, which requires a formal declaration of war or a mobilization order, considers ISW. And the new method would be much cheaper for the Russian government to generate new forces to send them to the front.

An explanatory note of the draft law specifies that the modification would allow Moscow to carry out reservists even during peace time, broadening the scope of the current laws that limit such use to the mobilization periods or the martial law.

The president of the state -of -defense commission, Andrei Kartapolov, confirmed that the legislation will allow the reservists to be sent abroad, “including in the Sumî and Kharkov regions.”

“I give their hands free”

The initiative seems to be a safety measure if the mobilization will be concluded, and the number of people will be higher than the one who can be recruited in the mobilization, said Grigori Sverdlin, the founder of the non-profit organization “Idite Lesom” (go to the forest), which helps the Russians to avoid mobilization, designated by Moscow.

“It seems that they simply give their hands free, as if they would give their freedom of action,” Sverdlin said.

According to the legislation in force, the Russians who are part of the mobilization reserve can be involved in real fighting actions only in the mobilization, and for this they are required to mobilize, which no longer works from 2023, the lawyer for the artiom Klîga human rights appreciates. “We see that the authorities avoid the second round of mobilization, which is why they need another procedure, in which they can use the mobilization reserve,” he said.

According to a decree given by Putin in 2015 regarding the creation of the mobilization reserve, it includes the persons who signed a contract with the Ministry of Defense. The first contract is concluded for a period of three years. The reservists participate annually in military instructions, during this period the jobs are kept, and the employers receive compensation for the absences of the employees.