Where Have All The Russians Gone
28th October 2017
Russia needs soldiers and they have become increasingly hard to obtain since the 1980s and got worse after 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union. Having tried just about everything else Russia is now appealing for Russian speaking foreigners to apply. If they have meet the psychological and physical standards, and especially if they have needed skills, good jobs are available. It is unlikely that enough qualified and willing foreigners are going to strp forward.
This inability to attract new recruits, even with conscription puts the government in an embarrassing situation because promises were made on this issue and not kept. Not once but multiple times. Some of the solutions make the problem worse. For example in 2012 the government assured the public that conscription would end by 2020 and be replaced with better paid and trained volunteers (“contract soldiers”). That did not happen because of a shortage of volunteers and money to pay them. To make matters worse the number of eligible conscripts continues (as expected) to shrink. This also puts at risk plans to also create a large reserve forces.