The Russian Parliament assures that there will be no general mobilization

Sep. 21 () –

The head of the Defense Committee of the Russian Parliament, Andrei Kartapolov, has assured that the general mobilization in Russia will not be decreed, hours after the Lower House has toughened prison sentences for acts during wartime.

Asked in an interview with ‘Parliamentska Gazeta’ about the fears that had been raised about a possible general mobilization in order to reinforce the front in Ukraine, Kartapolov assured that such fear is “absolutely unjustified”, while at the same time maintaining that “there will be no general mobilization”.

“The president has spoken about this more than once and speaks directly through his press secretary Dmitry Peskov. ‘Law’ is not the same as ‘mobilization’. It is not adopted specifically for a special military operation, it is adopted for be done for a long time. At least until the time comes when it is no longer necessary”, he said in the interview.

In this sense, he has justified the bill approved on Tuesday by the Duma — which contemplates penalties of between three and ten years in prison for surrender — as a way of “putting everything in its place.”

“The fact is that at the time of the general ‘democratization’ of our State in the 1990s, when laws were imposed on us according to the patterns of our ‘sworn friends’, a number of articles and provisions of our legislation simply disappeared. The time has come to put everything back in its place,” added the head of the Defense Committee of the Russian Parliament.

However, he has admitted that “the catalyst of the process” has been the “military operation” that is being carried out in Ukraine, which he has described as “a full-fledged war, a war between Russia and the collective West.”

“Fighting with one finger, you understand, is impossible. We have to go and tighten the laws too,” Kartapolov said.

After the approval of the law by the State Duma, analysts have speculated that it was a preliminary step towards a general mobilization in the face of the war in Ukraine, due to the military setbacks of recent weeks, although the The Kremlin had previously noted that this option was not on the table.