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- A new law allows Russian conscripts to be notified of their military service via government portal.
- Failure to report for duty can lead to a suspended license or blocked real estate transactions.
- Critics say the move creates "a digital system of social control" akin to a virtual Gulag labor camp.
Last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed into law a bill allowing conscription notices to be sent to recruits through a digital government portal — and to be punished if they don't report for duty, whether or not they have an account.
The April 14 bill authorized the creation of "a single registry of people eligible for military service" and tightened existing conscription laws, according to Russian state media agency TASS. The new law allows notice of compelled military service to be sent not just to a conscript's place of residence but also through the state services website, Gosuslugi, which many Russians use for tasks like paying fines or applying for passports.
Electronic notices were previously used as a failsafe announcement, with only a printed copy starting a recruit's two-week countdown toward service. AP reported the bill aimed to close a loophole used by some Russians to avoid service by simply avoiding their home addresses.
Notices will still be mailed to those called to duty, but the digital notices will become active seven days after being uploaded to the state portal, whether the conscript uses Gosuslugi or not, and regardless of whether they've received a hard copy in the mail.
If a Russian called to military service fails to report for duty after receiving the summons, whether they object to the war or do not use the state service, their driver's license will be suspended, they will be prevented from making real estate transactions, and they will be barred from leaving the country, according to TASS.
Military strategists suggest the move may signal a new wave of mobilization against Ukraine, according to AP. Still, Russian political analysts warn the move is a sign of something much darker and further-reaching than the front lines of the invasion.
"With nothing to stop this approach from being expanded to other spheres to establish a state system of complete digital surveillance, coercion, and punishment, the Digital Gulag that has been widely discussed ever since the COVID-19 pandemic is now taking shape," Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, wrote in an essay critiquing the law. The new conscription law, she wrote, "brings the Digital Gulag much, much closer."
Representatives for Stanovaya at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
What is the Digital Gulag?
In addition to changing the summons delivery procedures, the amended law creates a digital registry of Russians eligible to be drafted, including most Russian men under 65, AP reported.
That registry, and the normalization of being punished for failing or refusing to comply with even the most extreme government orders, helps "facilitate the emergence of an entirely new system of controlling civic behavior in Russia," Stanovaya and other critics argue.
The Digital Gulag, as critics like Stanovaya have called it since observing Russia's authoritarian approach to COVID-19, is reminiscent of the brutal forced labor camps run under Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin — only updated for the digital age.
According to the Wilson Center, nearly 18 million people passed through the Gulag camps from the 1930s to the early 1950s, and approximately 1.6 million died. Those sent to the Gulags included petty criminals alongside political prisoners, sentenced to work until death, or near death, in industrial mining and construction projects.
With the digital registry and harsh punishments for noncompliance, "the government wants to create a digital system of social control by regulating individual access to rights and benefits," Stanovaya wrote. "Being outside of this system will effectively spell social death."
Russian politician Leonid Gozman wrote in an opinion article for Novaya Gazeta Europe that the Digital Gulag's reach wouldn't be limited to banning conscripts from leaving the country for skipping out on the draft — Russians will likely soon see the expansion of social surveillance nationwide.
"These bans are like water in connected vessels, the water level will approximately be at the same height. They'll ban you from changing your job without permission: first for those employed in the defense industry, and then for everyone," Gozman wrote. "The unemployed will be put to order, too: those used to be called "social parasites". And then labor mobilization would follow: what use is there to waste time in the office or in the service industry, the front awaits!"
While Gozman acknowledges that no government can last forever, he argues that Putin has succeeded in creating a fascist state and the current course of Russian life is on a dangerous downward trajectory.
"There's nothing good this state can offer to us — both to those who have left and to those who have stayed. The force is on their side, and they do not hesitate to use it," Gozman wrote. "I'm afraid for the country. And for all of us."
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