Since the autumn of last year in Russia, a database has been created with comprehensive data on those liable for military service. It will allow the authorities to quickly close the border for those subject to mobilization, as well as search for them in city cameras, according to the Explanatory Note project by journalists Farida Rustamova and Maxim Tovkaylo.

Formally, the base will start working in 2024, but the test version is already ready, the journalists write. It can be tested in the near future if the Kremlin announces a second wave of mobilization or its equivalent (for example, exercises or training for all those liable for military service).

First of all, the current registration addresses, photographs, and telephone numbers of those liable for military service are entered into the database, an interlocutor in an IT company told Explanatory Note: this is necessary, among other things, in order to search through city cameras for those who fall under mobilization, but did not come to the military office.

The database will contain information on deferrals: data on students, residents, graduate students from the Ministry of Science and regional authorities, about IT specialists who have a reservation, MPs of all levels, and candidates for MPs from the Central Election Commission (according to the law on military duty and military service, a deferment from conscription is received any deputies and candidates for deputies).

A high-ranking interlocutor participating in the preparation of the new base told Explanatory Note that the work is not being done from scratch: the bases of the military registration and enlistment offices will be tied to the unified population register already created by the Federal Tax Service, which has long collected data from various government agencies about all citizens of Russia.

With the help of the new base, it will be easier for the authorities to close the “deviators” from leaving the country. During the mobilization announced by Putin in the fall, the lists of those who were banned from leaving by the military registration and enlistment offices arrived at the border points with a delay, and those liable for military service managed to escape for Kazakhstan or through Minsk. Now all the information will immediately go to the border guards, a source in the security service of one of the Moscow airports told the project.

The authorities also plan to equip ground border crossings at the Russian borders with cameras with face recognition to prevent the exit of citizens who are wanted or banned from leaving the country. So far, even those under house arrest have managed to leave the country.