OREANDA-NEWS The Council of the State Duma on Tuesday morning will approve the working procedure of the chamber for this week. The preliminary plans include several issues related to defense and security. So, the deputies will raise the draft age, allow people with a criminal record to serve under a contract and establish the right of priority admission to schools and kindergartens for children of participants in a special military operation (SVO) in Ukraine. A bill on blocking information containing proposals on financing the enemy in an armed conflict will also be considered. The Duma Committee on Defense last week recommended the adoption in the first reading of a bill that allows citizens with a criminal record or recognized as limited fit for military service to enter it under a contract (while the criminal record will be repaid). The exception will be persons convicted of rape, terrorism, treason, espionage and a number of other serious and especially serious crimes. The draft was submitted to the Duma on May 31 by the head of the Defense Committee Andrey Kartapolov and his deputy Andrey Krasov (both United Russia).

In the explanatory note, they note that many Russians want to enter military service under a contract, but do not have the legal right to do so.

The committee's conclusion also states the need to adopt amendments to the Criminal and Criminal Procedure Code in order to provide for such persons the procedure and grounds for release from punishment, repayment of criminal record, suspension of preliminary investigation and termination of criminal prosecution.

Also this week, the Duma will consider in the first reading a bill of deputies from the Defense committee on a phased increase in the draft age: from 2024, citizens aged 19 to 30 will be drafted into the army, from 2025 - from 20 to 30 years, from 2026 — from 21 to 30 years. In the explanatory note, the authors explain their initiative with the desire to guarantee young people an education. In addition, according to their calculations, this will reduce the cost of medical examination of conscripts receiving general or secondary vocational education by more than 639 million rubles per year.

The agenda of the plenary session on June 14 is planned to include amendments to the law "On the status of military personnel", introduced by a group of senators and deputies (including leaders of all factions), on the priority admission to schools and kindergartens of children of the participants of the SVO. Also, the opposition's initiatives on deferrals from the mobilization draft, which the deputies introduced immediately after its announcement last fall, will be submitted for consideration. So, the communist Mikhail Matveev proposed to exempt doctors and candidates of sciences from mobilization, as well as citizens who did not undergo military service, and the "New People" advocated postponement to individual entrepreneurs and heads of farms. All these proposals were recommended by the Defense Committee for rejection.