At the end of last year, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the government to draw up a package of measures by 2023 that will increase birth rates and life expectancy in Russia. He also expressed bewilderment at the falling birth rates in a number of regions. Yet just a few days later, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu proposed changing the age at which Russian men are conscripted for mandatory military service from eighteen to twenty-one and increasing the upper age limit for conscription from twenty-seven to thirty. That would mean young men being called up after earning their college degrees, and trained specialists being pulled out of the job market to have their skills voided by military service. ..

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