Lithuanian Deputy Minister of Defense Vytautas Umbrasas said that the military department has prepared a bill to reduce the draft age. The official said this in an interview with BNS. Now residents of the Baltic republic are drafted into the army from 19 to 26 years old. The Ministry of Defense proposes to lower the lower bar of draft age to 18 years, and the upper - to 23.
According to Vytautas Umbrasas, this change will make military service “even more attractive and comfortable for draftees”.
The main rationale for the proposed changes is the physical condition of the recruits. According to Umbrasas, in 2018, 22% of recruits were young people over 23 years old, while the proportion of 19-year-olds was only 8%. The reason is that by the age of 19, young Lithuanians enjoy deferments, which are primarily associated with their studies. However, the older the recruits become, the worse their health and the less people fit for military service.
The Lithuanian Deputy Minister of Defense also believes that the reform will reduce the number of draft dodgers. Draftees of an older age, he said, are less motivated to serve and prefer to use any reason to avoid it. In addition, they are actively going abroad, and it is no longer possible to call them in Lithuania.
Recall that in 2008 in Lithuania abolished compulsory military service. However, in 2015, referring to the aggravation of the geopolitical situation, the call was partially returned. Now, young people are drafted into the Lithuanian army for a period of 9 months. In January 2019, it was announced that 3827 people would be called in during this year. At the end of military service, the former military are credited to the reserve.
Also, draftees from among students and graduates can be selected for training courses for junior officers. In addition, there is the opportunity, instead of compulsory military service, to choose voluntary service for a period of three to five years in the Volunteer Defense Forces of the Territory - territorial defense troops. However, there are more professional military personnel in the Lithuanian army as a whole than draftees. In 2018, there were 9,880 such military personnel in Lithuania.
The militarization of despair
This is not the first time that the Lithuanian Ministry of Defense has raised an insufficient number of conscripts. So, in February 2018, it prepared a certificate for members of parliament on the possibility of recruiting for military service from the age of 19 of both boys and girls from 2024.
- © Lietuvos Respublikos Krašto apsaugos ministerija
In June 2019, the Lithuanian government approved plans to expand the armed forces in the next 10 years. The number of professional military personnel should grow to 14.5 thousand people. Reservists, including members of the Volunteer Guard Forces, - up to 6.3 thousand
“If we talk about the political background of this step, then Lithuanian society is rapidly militarizing. In this sense, any talk about the army is an occasion to once again mention the aggression of Russia, which we have heard in recent days, ”commented Nikolai Mezhevich, President of the Russian Association of Baltic Studies, doctor of economic sciences, and the plans of the Lithuanian military in an interview with RT.
On the other hand, the expert notes, the contract army was too expensive for a small Baltic country. Vilnius was unable to pay a decent salary in order to take all the places of contract soldiers. Back in 2014, the commander of the Armed Forces of Lithuania, Major General Jonas Zhukas, claimed that there were not enough people, and among the recruits, he would have to look for the replenishment needed to increase the army.
“Obviously, the contract army is obviously more expensive. And there is no money for it. And when you need to create a large army for the Lithuanian scale, but not expensive, albeit not qualified, the transition to mass appeal is logical, ”says Nikolai Mezhevich.
Mass exodus
However, as noted by a military political scientist, head of the department of political science and sociology Plekhanova Andrey Koshkin, there is another reason for the attempts of the Lithuanian Ministry of Defense to justify a decrease in the military age.
“The main reason is the lack of people of draft age in order to serve in the armed forces. The draft age is being reduced to take a layer that has not yet gone somewhere to work and has not decided what to do next, ”RT Koshkin said.
After a year of full return to the draft system, Lithuanian politicians began to note that young people prefer emigration to military service.
- People in the old town of Vilnius
- Reuters
- © Ints Kalnins
“The number of emigrants greatly increased when the draft in the army of Lithuania began. I believe that this has greatly affected young people, some have decided that it is better to work abroad for a certain period of time, ”said then Prime Minister Algirdas Butkevicius.
The Lithuanian Ministry of Defense then even released a special video urging emigrants to repay their debt to their homeland.
However, persuasion did not help. As the Baltic news agency Delfi informed in July, referring to the data of the Lithuanian Ministry of Defense, in 2019, almost 7,000 people were punished for evading military service. According to the agency, a significant part are people living abroad. According to Delfi, in 2018 there were 60% of the total number of draft dodgers.
Failed offer
According to experts, the Lithuanian army is unlikely to achieve significant success in an attempt to “rejuvenate” its ranks.
“Military service in Lithuania is not attractive. Only against the background of poverty in the peasant regions of the southeast of the country does it have at least some attractiveness. Some of the natives of these places may want to stay on long service. In other cases, there is no such attractiveness, ”says Nikolai Mezhevich.
- Lithuanian Army Soldiers
- globallookpress.com
- © Alfredas Pliadis / Xinhua
According to the expert, the combat training of the Lithuanians as a whole leaves much to be desired, and the army of this country cannot compete not only with the Russian, but also with the armed forces of neighboring Poland and Belarus.
“This army is only suitable for war with its own people,” the expert believes.
In 2017, a survey conducted by the Center for Human Development Research showed that more than 90% of young people aged 15-19 are ready to leave Lithuania, if given the opportunity to work in the West in their specialty.
According to the expert, the Lithuanian authorities need to solve social problems in order to change the situation with military equipment. They lead not only to the emigration of youth abroad, which has become the scourge of almost all the Baltic countries, but also to the deterioration of public health. Many people simply cannot afford good medicine.
“If Vilnius decides to reduce the age of conscription, then for the first time they really will be able to increase the number of military. However, then they will have to solve more serious socio-economic and political problems in the country in order to increase the level of health and the number of conscripts whom they can call up for the army, ”the expert said.