Conscription 2021 to be held with vaccination

Conscription in numbers

The spring conscription for military service started on 1 April in Tatarstan and throughout Russia. The numerical indicators of conscription has changed slightly: in total, about 135,000 people born in 1994-2003 will go to military service in Russia, specifically in Tatarstan — a little more than 3,000. In total, it is planned to conscript about 16,000 people to the military enlistment offices of the republic during the draft.

Three thousand conscripts will be distributed among the troops in the ratio:

• Ground forces — 45%,
• Navy — 12%,
• Aerospace Forces — 11%,
• Strategic Missile Forces — 11%,
• National Guard — 10%,
• Airborne forces and special forces — 7%,
• other forces — 4%.

Out of three thousand people, more than a thousand will go to the units sponsored by Tatarstan (representatives from the republic periodically come to such units and check how Tatarstan conscripts serve), as well as to the Presidential and Preobrazhensky Regiments, Major General Sergey Pogodin, the chief enlistment officer of Tatarstan, said on 1 April.

It is planned to send 30 people to the alternative civil service in this draft.

With PCR tests and without seeing-off at train station

The spring conscription 2021 is not the first conscription in the conditions of the coronavirus: military enlistment offices managed to conduct a draft campaign in April 2020, during the period of the most severe restrictive measures. Now the process is organised in a similar way: military enlistment offices have a stock of medical masks, antiseptics and bactericidal lamps, thermometry and so-called “barrier zones” are organised.

Besides, all conscripts undergo PCR tests for Covid-19, and, as follows from the words of Pogodin, twice: at the district military enlistment office and at the recruiting station in Kazan. Those who have been diagnosed with coronavirus, or those who have a high temperature, are sent to medical institutions.

“We have a huge experience in 2020. Eighty people that year were not admitted with a fever, we sent them to medical institutions. Covid-19 was confirmed in 19 of them. In the districts — 12 more people. The system is double — they are checked first in the area, then — at the assembly post. We are performing the most important task, it is to prevent children from entering military units with this disease," Pogodin said.

Parents, as in pre-covid times, are allowed to attend meetings of draft boards, but there will no longer be seeing-off at train stations. Conscripts will be sent to the service in isolated and disinfected wagons, Pogodin said. Besides, the set of a standard army travel bag from this draft includes an antiseptic.

Vaccinal conscription

However, the spring 2021 draft is the first to take place against the backdrop of a large-scale vaccination campaign, and it will also make some changes to the draft process. Vaccination is already underway among the employees of the military enlistment office, Pogodin reported. Conscripts do not need to be vaccinated before being sent to the troops, although it is recommended.

“For conscripts — it is an individual matter for each conscript personally. We recommend doing this," said the military commissar of Tatarstan.

Pogodin did not specify what kind of vaccine the soldiers would be vaccinated with.