Instruct: Given a question, retrieve passages that answer the question.
Query: Does Russia have mandatory military service?
There is a universal military draft for men, but the Constitution provides for alternative service for those who refuse to bear arms for reasons of conscience. The length of alternative service is longer than the standard military service. The standard length of military service is 18 months, alternative service in a Ministry of Defense agency is 27 months, and alternative service in a nondefense agency is 31.5 months. Some human rights groups have complained that the extended length of service for draftees requesting alternative assignments acts as a punishment for those who exercise their convictions.
Russia has thousands of rivers and inland bodies of water, providing it with one of the world's largest surface-water resources. However, most of Russia's rivers and streams belong to the Arctic drainage basin, which lies mainly in Siberia but also includes part of European Russia. Altogether, 84 percent of Russia's surface water is located east of the Urals in rivers flowing through sparsely populated territory and into the Arctic and Pacific oceans. In contrast, areas with the highest concentrations of population, and therefore the highest demand for water supplies, tend to have the warmest climates and highest rates of evaporation. As a result, densely populated areas such as the Don and Kuban River basins north of the Caucasus have barely adequate (or in some cases inadequate) water resources.
Switzerland has mandatory military service for all able-bodied male citizens, who are conscripted when they reach the age of majority, though women may volunteer for any position. People determined unfit for service, where fitness is defined as "satisfying physically, intellectually and psychological requirements for military service or civil protection service and being capable of accomplishing these services without harming oneself or others", are exempted from service but pay a 3% additional annual income tax until the age of 30, unless they are affected by a disability. Almost 20% of all conscripts were found unfit for military or civilian service in 2008; the rate is generally higher in urban cantons such as Zurich and Geneva than in the rural ones. Swiss citizens living abroad are generally exempted from conscription in time of peace while dual citizenship by itself does not grant such exemption.
After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Armenia has shared Russia's approach aimed at strengthening the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Armenia and Russia are both members of a military alliance, the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), along with four other ex-Soviet countries, a relationship that Armenia finds essential to its security. Among the contracts and the agreements, which determine intergovernmental relations – a treaty of friendship, collaboration and mutual aid of 29 August 1997 are a number of the documents, which regulate bases of Russian military units and liaisons in the Republic of Armenia. Armenia became a full member of the Eurasian Economic Union on 2 January 2015.
In early 2015, the North Korean government decided to make military service mandatory for all women living inside the country's borders. The intention is to improve the country's dwindling military forces. For women ages 17 to 20 that have graduated from middle and high school, enlistment is now a requirement. Prior to 2015, women only served on a voluntary basis, whereas men have always been forced to serve.
The House of Romanov ruled the Russian Empire from 1721 until 1762, and its matrilineal branch of patrilineal German descent the House of Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov ruled from 1762. At the beginning of the 19th century, the Russian Empire extended from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Black Sea in the south, from the Baltic Sea on the west to the Pacific Ocean, into Alaska and Northern California in America on the east. With 125.6 million subjects registered by the 1897 census, it had the third-largest population in the world at the time, after Qing China and India. Like all empires, it included a large disparity in terms of economics, ethnicity, and religion. There were numerous dissident elements, who launched numerous rebellions and assassination attempts; they were closely watched by the secret police, with thousands exiled to Siberia.
Citizens of the following 5 countries can enter Ukraine without a visa for an indefinite stay.
Iran has mandatory military service for men which starts at the age of 18. Duration of military service is normally 24 months but it can be also varying according to some conditions and circumstances. There is a 24-month military service for general, 22 months for destitute areas and 20 months for boundary areas; there is two months for military education. There are exceptions for those who cannot serve because of physical or mental health problems or disabilities. Students are exempt as long as they are attending school. The higher the education of a man, the higher his rank will be in the military service. Since 2008 and the commence of Iran's National Elites Foundation (Bonyade Mellie Nokhbegan), students or university graduates who are accepted as members of this organization (because of their special achievements, e.g., recognized researchers with proven accomplishments, national and international olympiad medalists and winners of invention competitions) can have a "scientific research" substitution instead of mandatory military service, and the research grant is given to these members from military universities, otherwise, formally these members are regarded as "soldiers" who are spending the mandatory military service program, and in any publication related to that research, their citations have to be that of the military university giving the research grant. The 45-day mandatory military training is applicable even for those who are members of Iran's National Elites Foundation.
Russian and some Western observers, as well as a few people who have been personally involved with the Wagner Group, believe that the organization does not actually exist as a private military company and is but a myth created by Russian propaganda. They believe it is in reality a disguised branch of the Russian MoD that ultimately reports to the Russian government. Private military companies are not legally allowed in Russia; nevertheless a number of them appear to have been operating in Russia and in April 2012 Vladimir Putin, then Russian prime minister, speaking in the State Duma endorsed an idea of setting up PMCs in Russia. Several military analysts described Wagner as a "pseudo-private" military company that offers the Russian military establishment certain advantages such as ensuring plausible deniability, public secrecy about Russia′s military operations abroad, as well as about the number of losses. Thus, Wagner contractors have been described as "ghost soldiers", due to the Russian government not officially acknowledging them. In March 2017, "Radio Liberty" characterized the "ChVK Wagner" as a ″semi-legal militant formation that exists under the wing and on the funds of the Ministry of Defence″. In September 2017, the chief of Ukraine′s Security Service (SBU) Vasyl Hrytsak said that in their opinion Wagner was in essence ″a private army of Putin″ and that the SBU were ″working on identifying these people, members of Wagner PMC, to make this information public so that our partners in Europe knew them personally″. The Wagner Group has also been compared with Academi, the American security firm formerly known as Blackwater.
Russian was granted official status in Gagauzia, a region in the south of the country inhabited mostly by ethnic Gagauz, and in the breakaway region of Transnistria in the east of the country.
Conscription in South Korea has existed since 1957 and requires male citizens between the ages of 18 and 28 to perform in the army compulsory military service. Women are not required to perform military service, but may voluntarily enlist.
In Moldova, Russian is considered to be the language of inter-ethnic communication under a Soviet-era law. According to estimates from Demoskop Weekly, in 2004 there were 450,000 native speakers of Russian in the country, and 1.9 million active speakers. 50% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 19% used it as the main language with family, friends or at work. Russian is the language usually spoken by 16% of Moldovans according to a 2004 estimate from the World Factbook.
Standardised Slavic languages that have official status in at least one country are: Belarusian, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Macedonian, Montenegrin, Polish, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovene, and Ukrainian.
All parties registered by the Ministry of Justice have the right to participate in any elections all over the country. The list is placed on the Justice Ministry website. In December 2012, there were 48 registered parties in Russia; 6 of them are currently represented in the State Duma as of 2017.
After the Perestroika reforms in the 1980s Russia had over 100 registered parties, but the people elected to the State Duma represented only a small number of parties. After 2000, during Vladimir Putin's first presidency (2000-2008), the number of parties quickly decreased. From 2008 to 2012 there were only seven parties in Russia, and every new attempt to register new, independent parties was blocked. The last-registered party of this period was the government-organized Right Cause (registered on 18 February 2009). Before the 2011 parliamentary elections, about 10 opposition parties were denied registration. However, after a series of mass protests and a 2011 European Court decision on the case of the Republican Party of Russia, the law changed and the number of registered parties quickly increased to more than 48 .
Strikingly different interpretations of the medieval state of Kievan Rus' appear in the four schools of historiography within Ukraine: Russophile, Sovietophile, Eastern Slavic, and Ukrainophile. The Sovietophile and Russophile schools have become marginalized in independent Ukraine, with the Ukrainophile school being dominant in the early 21st century. The Ukrainophile school promotes an identity that is mutually exclusive of Russia. It has come to dominate the nation's educational system, security forces, and national symbols and monuments, although it has been dismissed as nationalist by Western historians. The East Slavic school, an eclectic compromise between Ukrainophiles and Russophilism, has a weaker ideological and symbolic base, although it is preferred by Ukraine's centrist former elites.
There are eight public holidays in Russia. The New Year is the first in calendar and in popularity. Russian New Year traditions resemble those of the Western Christmas, with New Year Trees and gifts, and Ded Moroz (Father Frost) playing the same role as Santa Claus. Rozhdestvo (Orthodox Christmas) falls on 7 January, because Russian Orthodox Church still follows the Julian (old style) calendar and all Orthodox holidays are 13 days after Catholic ones. Another two major Christian holidays are Paskha (Easter) and Troitsa (Trinity), but there is no need to recognize them as public holidays since they are always celebrated on Sunday.
The long, cold winter has a profound impact on almost every aspect of life in Russia. It affects where and how long people live and work, what kinds of crops are grown, and where they are grown (no part of the country has a year-round growing season). The length and severity of the winter, together with the sharp fluctuations in the mean summer and winter temperatures, impose special requirements on many branches of the economy. In regions of permafrost, buildings must be constructed on pilings, machinery must be made of specially tempered steel, and transportation systems must be engineered to perform reliably in extremely low and extremely high temperatures. In addition, during extended periods of darkness and cold, there are increased demands for energy, health care, and textiles.
The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS; ), also sometimes called the Russian Commonwealth in order to distinguish it from the Commonwealth of Nations, is a regional intergovernmental organization of 10 post-Soviet republics in Eurasia formed following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. It has an area of 20,368,759 km² (8,097,484 sq mi) and has an estimated population of 239,796,010. The CIS encourages cooperation over economical, political and military aspects and has certain powers possessing coordinating in trade, finance, lawmaking and security. It has also promoted cooperation on cross-border crime prevention.
On 14 March 2012, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Russia was ready to lift visa requirement for Georgian citizens in case of repealing by Tbilisi its law on occupied territories. "When he [President Saakashvili] announced that all Russian citizens could travel to Georgia without visa, he forgot to mention that a law 'on occupied territories' is in force in Georgia according to which anyone who has visited South Ossetia or Abkhazia since [the 2008 August] war, which was launched by Saakashvili, will face criminal liability in Georgia with jail term from two to four years," RIA Novosti news agency quoted Lavrov as saying while addressing the lawmakers in the State Duma.
In 1989, 73.4% spoke Russian, though this figure has declined due to the wars for a large number of reasons (including the lack of proper education, the refusal to learn the language, and the mass dispersal of the Chechen diaspora due to the war). Chechens in the diaspora often speak the language of the country they live in (English, German, Arabic, Polish, Georgian, etc.).
The late Soviet Armed Forces were manned by mandatory draft (with some exceptions) for all able-bodied males for 2 years (3 years for seagoing parts of the Navy and Border troops), based on the 1967 Law on Universal Military Service. A bi-annual call-up in spring and autumn was introduced then, replacing the annual draft in fall. The conscripts were normally sent to serve far away from their place of residence.
The Soldiers' Mothers Movement was formed in 1989 to expose human rights violations in the armed forces and to help youths resist the draft. The movement has gained national prominence through its opposition to the war in Chechnya. Numerous protests have been organized, and representatives have gone to the Chechen capital, Groznyy, to demand the release of Russian prisoners and locate missing soldiers. The group, which claimed 10,000 members in 1995, also has lobbied against extending the term of mandatory military service.
, Serbia no longer practises mandatory military service. Prior to this, mandatory military service lasted 6 months for men. Conscientious objectors could however opt for 9 months of civil service instead.
The Cypriot National Guard has been involved in multiple combat operations, all within Cyprus territory.Military service in the Republic of Cyprus is mandatory for males (Efthymiou 2016). Today, the obligatory service period is 14 months. Currently, only Greek Cypriots serve in the military. Legally, the Greek Cypriot community comprises the ethnic Greek population as well as Cypriots belonging to three Christian minorities—the Armenians, Latin Rite Catholics and Maronites. Since 2008, service is mandatory for all members of the Greek Cypriot community and not only for ethnic Greek Cypriots. The current supreme commander is a Greek military commander, as have been all of his predecessors. All male visitors to the island of military age (16 and over) who have a father of Cypriot extraction are required to obtain an exit visa from a Defence Ministry office.The Cyprus National Guard has since 2016 aimed to move towards semi-professionalization (Efthymiou, S. 2016). In the scope of this change, the military serviced time was reduced from 24 months to 14 months, whilst about 3, 000 professional soldiers were hired. Even though long wished by the public, these changes have been said to be no more than a political expediency. The way in which the semi-professionalization has been conducted has been illustrated as unprofessional and undermining the ability of the force, by academic researchers.
Europe’s defence is present in Cyprus through PESCO. The government had argued for it to increase deterrence against any intervention on the island. Cyprus has made available the military base in Paphos and the naval base in Zygi, along with other facilities. These have been upgraded and equipped with electronic surveillance systems.