On 2025-10-28, Russian lawmakers approved the core of a new conscription system that would make draft administration a year-round process as the Kremlin keeps building manpower for the war in Ukraine.
The State Duma passed the bill in a third and final reading. If the upper house clears it and President Vladimir Putin signs it, conscription offices would be able to summon draftees for medical exams and other procedures at any time of year. The bill's authors say the change is meant to ease pressure on draft offices and make them more efficient rather than alter the basic length of service.
That distinction matters because the law does not turn military service itself into a year-round obligation. The draft would still lead to service only during the usual spring and summer call-up periods. Men aged 18 to 30 are currently required to serve for one year, although many avoid the draft through student deferments, medical exemptions and other legal carve-outs. The military has said it calls up between 130,000 and 160,000 draftees in each round of conscription.
Russian authorities say those draftees are not sent to fight in Ukraine, arguing that the war is being carried by volunteers and reservists. Rights activists and media reports have repeatedly said, however, that some conscripts have been pressured or pushed into signing contract papers as volunteers. The new year-round system sits alongside an electronic conscript register that can serve summonses online in some regions and impose penalties on men who ignore them, including limits on bank transactions, driver's licenses and foreign travel.
The draft overhaul is part of a much broader effort to keep Russia's forces growing without repeating the political cost of a full mobilization. After early setbacks in the war, Putin ordered a “partial mobilization” of 300,000 reservists in 2022, a move that sent hundreds of thousands of Russians abroad to avoid service. Since then, the Kremlin has leaned on volunteers, saying about 440,000 joined in 2024 and another 336,000 signed military contracts this year.
Lawmakers also approved a separate bill on Tuesday allowing reservists who volunteered for the active reserve to protect critically important facilities in some regions, part of a defense against Ukrainian drones that have reached more than 1,000 kilometers inside Russia. The legislative push comes as Putin rejects calls for a quick ceasefire and keeps insisting on maximalist demands that Kyiv and its Western allies reject.
Taken together, the measures show a system that is trying to normalize wartime manpower management while avoiding the political shock of a new large-scale mobilization. The army is getting the tools to draft, summon and monitor men more continuously, but the Kremlin is still presenting the process as an administrative adjustment rather than a confession of deeper manpower strain.
The bill also fits into a broader system of pressure around the draft. Russia this year launched an electronic registry of conscripts to send summonses online in some regions, and it introduced penalties for ignoring them. Those sanctions include limits on banking, driver licensing and foreign travel, which means the new year-round schedule is as much about enforcement as paperwork.
