SPRING DRAFT….

This spring the armed forces will discharge some 215,000 conscripts and call up about 192,000 new recruits, not all of whom will be inducted. The reduction in force is not part of any long-range planning. The discharge rates are higher than usual because service in the North Caucasus qualifies draftees for early-out…. Draft-dodging, which had fallen in recent years, has risen again with the war in Chechnya. There are an estimated 38,000 draft evaders at large in Russia…. Universal military service is not universal. Exemptions have reduced conscription to 13 percent of the draft-age population.