After the Russian authorities began to withdraw the citizenship granted to migrants who refuse to fight in the war in Ukraine at the end of 2023, a draft law on compulsory military service for persons acquiring Russian citizenship is being examined today in the State Duma, IPN reports with reference to Moscow media.

Speaking about the bill, the chairman of the Investigative Committee of Russia Alexander Bastrykin recently said that “we caught more than 30,000 [migrants] who took (Russian) citizenship, but evaded military service. We included them into records and about 10,000 have already been dispatched to the area of the special military operation (at war in Ukraine - IPN).”

“This bill was drafted within the State Duma Commission on Migration Policy and aims to ensure the mandatory fulfillment by the “new citizens” of Russia of the constitutional obligation to protect the Motherland,” reads the explanatory note to the draft law.

The document contains amendments to the law “On Citizenship of the Russian Federation”, which stipulate that men of military age who adopted citizenship are obliged to register for military service at their place of residence. In this connection, the explanatory note mentions that the “new Russian citizens” are evading military service.

The bill proposes synchronizing the military registration and citizenship obtaining processes. If the law is adopted, the Ministry of Internal Affairs will be obliged to provide information in electronic format about men who were granted citizenship, and they will take the oath of allegiance to Russia.

Moreover, the Duma’s chairman Vyacheslav Volodin suggested extending the term of military service for “new Russians” to two years. The limit of the age of conscription for them can also be increased. In January, President Vladimir Putin signed a decree enabling foreigners who sign a military service contract to obtain Russian citizenship in a simplified way.

According to Russian press reports, the number of Moldovan citizens living and working in Russia has been decreasing over the last ten years. At the beginning of 2014, there were slightly over 600,000 citizens of the Republic of Moldova in Russia, at the beginning of 2021 - about 150,000, while in February 2022 - about 75,000. Most of the Moldovans in Russia also had Russian citizenship, IPN reports.