Wagner’s Revolt May Weaken Russia’s Draft

A couple of months ago, Russia launched its twice-yearly conscription campaign, where all the men eligible for military service are assessed and assigned to military units. It’s a system that goes back centuries in varying forms—though this year, it’s been updated to electronic summonses rather than paper ones. Every fall and spring, young men receive orders to present themselves for assessment for military service. And every year, men try to avoid the brutal military service through means including pursuing graduate studies, heading overseas, or claiming disability. Traditionally, that’s left conscription the lot of the poor and unconnected.

The Armed Forces have been claiming that conscripts are reporting to their units—and have taken pains to emphasize that conscripts wouldn’t be sent to fight in Ukraine. But after this weekend’s abortive coup by the paramilitary Wagner Group, things may look very different—and young Russians will be even less keen to obey their call-up orders.

The desire to get out of military service in the Russian Armed Forces already existed during Soviet times. “I hoped that I would not be sent to Afghanistan,” recalled Artis Pabriks, who until late last year was Latvia’s defense minister and as a young man served as a conscript in the Soviet Army. “And today, I believe that many young Russian conscripts are hoping that this war ends and they won’t be forced to fight Ukrainians in vain.” After the Soviet collapse, the endemic and brutal hazing in the Russian military has prevailed, sometimes including the rape or murder of conscripts—as has corruption that left many soldiers hungry, in ill-fitting clothes, or short of critical equipment at war.

Knowing that the Russian military was short-staffed in Ukraine—and had to rely on the Wagner Group as a stopgap measure—many Russians worried that the spring conscription would break the government’s promise not to send conscripts to the “special military operation” in Ukraine. The truth is, Russia has already sent some there—while others were pressured into signing up for the army, switching from conscripts to contract soldiers. But by and large, Russia has avoided using conscripts en masse, fearful in part of public blowback.

When Russia mobilized last year, young men fled across the border to other countries to dodge the war. But so far, this spring’s call-up has proceeded without complications, the Russian military reported—perhaps because the new electronic system means that banks and other crucial institutions will know if someone has evaded the draft. “During last year’s autumn conscription drive, quite a few young men tried to leave the country,” said Gudrun Persson, an expert on the Russian Armed Forces at the Swedish Defense Research Agency. “But the new electronic system is making that more difficult.”

Even that enforced compliance, though, may change now. A few days before the Wagner revolt, the Duma passed legislation that will allow convicts to serve in the military. Under the new legislation, people convicted of certain political crimes such as extremism won’t be allowed to serve, but others will. The Russian Armed Forces are learning from the Wagner Group’s use of criminals, and that’s hardly an incentive for young men already worried about the military’s notorious hazing to obey their summonses.

And now there’s Wagner’s extraordinary rebellion against the Russian military. The Wagner Group and its leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, have demonstrated that even Russians under arms can defy the military’s most senior leaders without facing serious punishment. “Soldiers and officers including senior officers—of course they’re seeing that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin has been weakened,” Persson said. “Those being called up for military service still don’t have a choice. But these turbulent 24 hours will have an impact.”

Retired Maj. Gen. Pekka Toveri, a former chief of Finland’s military intelligence and newly elected member of the Finnish Parliament, told me that “the rebellion very clearly showed Putin as to be a weak leader, and the authority of the Ministry of Defense was challenged without punishment. Many more conscripts will ignore their call-up orders in the future.” On top of that, the loss of Wagner soldiers may leave Russia hurting for manpower and willing to throw in conscript forces.

Though it’s difficult, prospective new draft dodgers could try to find sanctuary in other countries as thousands have already done since the invasion of Ukraine first began.

The looming dearth of soldiers poses an urgent problem for the military, which relies on conscripts and tries hard to incentivize them to stay on as contract soldiers. What’s more, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, whose future remains unknown after the last few days’ tumultuous events, is in the midst of an expansion of the Russian military—announced last December—that will see the force grow by about 30 percent, to some 1.5 million men.

That’s an ambitious plan, especially considering that Russia has lost at least an estimated 100,000 soldiers during the war in Ukraine. This need for growth, and Prigozhin’s open contempt for Russia’s military leadership, had caused the Ministry of Defense to begin aspiring to incorporate Wagner soldiers into its ranks. Even if that happens, though, it will only be a temporary boost. “Some Wagner soldiers will join the official Russian military, but many are likely to leave now,” Persson said, and Pabriks observed that “from Prigozhin’s Mussolini-like march to Moscow, we saw how rotten Russians’ loyalty to their regime is.”

Conscription is mandated service, but to make it work, the military has to make service attractive. To be sure, military duties are always grueling, but for soldiers to perform well—and, indeed, to turn up for military service—they have to feel they’re given a certain amount of respect. Russia, though, has failed to root out the pervasive hazing of conscripts. Finland, which also has mandatory conscription for men, takes a very different approach. It treats its conscripted soldiers with dignity, and some 20 years ago it even launched a conscript satisfaction system that allows conscripts to rate aspects ranging from the accommodations to the officers. When I wrote about the system in 2017, the most recent survey of graduating conscripts showed that 42 percent would serve even if conscription weren’t mandatory, while only 36 percent would not serve. If the Russian military dared to conduct similar assessments, the percentage willing to do military service of their own volition would likely be minuscule.

Indeed, even with military service being mandatory, last year Russia only had 254,500 conscripts, in part thanks to the country’s dire demographics. With some 1.4 million babies born in 2005—about half of whom were boys—this translates into a conscription rate of less than 40 percent. Finland’s conscription rate, by contrast, is in the high 70s. And now Russia’s number is likely to drop further, just at the moment when the Armed Forces need warm bodies the most. “If you focus on mass but lack mass, you have a problem,” Persson said.

That’s the longer-term consequence of the chaos over this last weekend and the Duma introducing Wagner-like recruitment. Not even the most compliant people will sacrifice themselves for an institution that’s likely to bring them nothing but pain.