Russia Signs 280,000 for Contract Military Service This Year, Says Medvedev

Deputy head of Russia's Security Council Dmitry Medvedev attends a meeting with officials and employees of the military industrial corporation "Scientific and Production Machine Building Association" in the town of Reutov in the Moscow region, Russia, April 25, 2023. (Sputnik / Reuters)
Deputy head of Russia's Security Council Dmitry Medvedev attends a meeting with officials and employees of the military industrial corporation "Scientific and Production Machine Building Association" in the town of Reutov in the Moscow region, Russia, April 25, 2023. (Sputnik / Reuters)
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Russia Signs 280,000 for Contract Military Service This Year, Says Medvedev

Deputy head of Russia's Security Council Dmitry Medvedev attends a meeting with officials and employees of the military industrial corporation "Scientific and Production Machine Building Association" in the town of Reutov in the Moscow region, Russia, April 25, 2023. (Sputnik / Reuters)
Deputy head of Russia's Security Council Dmitry Medvedev attends a meeting with officials and employees of the military industrial corporation "Scientific and Production Machine Building Association" in the town of Reutov in the Moscow region, Russia, April 25, 2023. (Sputnik / Reuters)

Some 280,000 people have signed up so far this year for professional service with Russia's military, the deputy chair of the Russian Security Council, former President Dmitry Medvedev, said on Sunday.

Visiting Russia's Far East, Medvedev said he was meeting local officials to work on efforts to beef up the armed forces.

"According to the Ministry of Defense, since Jan. 1, about 280,000 people have been accepted into the ranks of the Armed Forces on a contract basis," including reservists, state news agency TASS quoted Medvedev as saying.

Last year Russia announced a plan to expand its combat personnel more than 30% to 1.5 million, an ambitious task made harder by its heavy but undisclosed casualties in Moscow's war against Ukraine.

Some Russian lawmakers suggested Russia needs a professional army 7-million strong to ensure the country's security - a move that would require a huge budget allowance.

President Vladimir Putin ordered a "partial mobilization" of 300,000 reservists in September 2022, prompting hundreds of thousands of others to flee Russia to avoid being sent to fight. Putin has said there is no need for any further mobilization.



ICC Opens Inquiry into Hungary for Failing to Arrest Netanyahu

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán welcomes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Budapest earlier this month. (AFP)
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán welcomes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Budapest earlier this month. (AFP)
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ICC Opens Inquiry into Hungary for Failing to Arrest Netanyahu

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán welcomes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Budapest earlier this month. (AFP)
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán welcomes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Budapest earlier this month. (AFP)

Judges at the International Criminal Court want Hungary to explain why it failed to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he visited Budapest earlier this month.

In a filing released late Wednesday, The Hague-based court initiated non-compliance proceedings against Hungary after the country gave Netanyahu a red carpet welcome despite an ICC arrest warrant for crimes against humanity in connection with the war in Gaza.

During the visit, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán announced his country would quit the court, claiming on state radio that the ICC was “no longer an impartial court, not a court of law, but a political court.”

The Hungarian leader, regarded by critics as an autocrat and the EU’s most intransigent spoiler in the bloc’s decision-making, defended his decision to not arrest Netanyahu.

“We signed an international treaty, but we never took all the steps that would otherwise have made it enforceable in Hungary,” Orbán said at the time, referring to the fact that Hungary’s parliament never promulgated the court’s statute into Hungarian law.

Judges at the ICC have previously dismissed similar arguments.

The ICC and other international organizations have criticized Hungary’s defiance of the warrant against Netanyahu. Days before his arrival, the president of the court’s oversight body wrote to the government in Hungary reminding it of its “specific obligation to comply with requests from the court for arrest and surrender.”

A spokesperson for the ICC declined to comment on the non-compliance proceedings.

Hungary’s decision to leave the ICC, a process that will take at least a year to complete, will make it the sole non-signatory within the 27-member European Union. With 125 current signatory countries, only the Philippines and Burundi have ever withdrawn from the court as Hungary intends.

Hungary has until May 23 to submit evidence in its defense.