Russian security forces hunt for migrants making them obtain military registration

In Voronezh, about 50 clients of Azerbaijani restaurant Fort received military summonses. Security officials came to the restaurant when a large group of people was celebrating a birthday party and carried out a document check in the middle of the celebration.

Local TV channels said that most of the guests at the restaurant who were given papers summoning them to the military enlistment office, were nationals of Azerbaijan who had received Russian citizenship.

In the town of Kotelniki near Moscow, the riot police carried out a similar raid near a mosque. They checked documents of as many as 300 individuals and sent them all to military commissariats.

In Chelyabinsk, migrants who received Russian citizenship and did not register with the military office were given call-up papers on the Chinese market of the city. Employees of military commissariats with the support of the riot police handed out summonses to seven people, three were taken away for registration.

In St. Petersburg, the police forcibly delivered more than 100 migrants to city military registration and enlistment offices. All those brought to the commissariats already had Russian passports, but had no military registration documents.

Migrants can be stripped of citizenship if they refuse army service

Kirill Kabanov, a member of the Human Rights Council, believes that the Russian authorities should strip migrants of their acquired citizenship if they refuse to register with the military and serve in the Armed Forces.

In his opinion, migrants want to obtain Russian citizenship, but at the same time they refuse to fulfill obligations assumed when acquiring Russian citizenship.

"A person gets a passport and then tries to avoid military registration. They start running away from their duty. Accordingly, if you don't want to register for military service, then give the passport back and you're free to go," Kirill Kabanov said.

On August 28, a draft law was submitted to the State Duma providing for the deprivation of acquired citizenship for evading military registration and mobilisation.