Ukraine: Russia excludes some IT professionals, bankers and journalists from mobilisation
- Moscow said some employees would be except from the draft to ‘ensure the work of specific hi-tech industries, as well as Russia’s financial system’
- Companies have been caught off guard by Putin’s mobilisation order, after weeks of speculation about how he would respond as conflict enters seventh month
Russia said on Friday it was exempting some bankers, IT workers and journalists from being drafted into the army to serve in Ukraine under President Vladimir Putin’s mobilisation.
Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Wednesday that Russia would seek to call up 300,000 additional troops for Russia’s war in Ukraine in what the Kremlin calls a “partial mobilisation”.
The section of the official decree announcing mobilisation which included the number of people who would be drafted was kept classified and unpublished, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
Russia’s defence ministry said some employees working in critically important industries would be excluded from the draft in a bid to “ensure the work of specific hi-tech industries, as well as Russia’s financial system”.
The exceptions apply to some IT workers, telecommunications workers, finance professionals, as well as some employees at “systemically-important” mass media outlets and interdependent suppliers including registered media and broadcasters.
Russia classifies major employers and core companies in set industries as “systemically-important” if they meet certain thresholds in terms of headcount, revenue or annual tax payments.