A senator from the “United Russia” party, headed by President Vladimir Putin, proposes to reduce the list of diseases due to which men in Russia cannot be accepted into the armed forces, Kommersant reports.

Olha Kovitidi, a senator from Crimea in the upper house of the Moscow parliament, believes that a number of diseases should be excluded from the medical criteria, due to which a citizen of Russia cannot be recognized as fit for military service.

“It is necessary to update the eligibility criteria for military service: to exclude diseases for which a conscript is recognized as unfit for service,” she states, indicating that “a number of diseases”, including scoliosis and platfus, can be recognized as such. compatible with military service.

“Now Russia needs not only a professional army of volunteers, but also an increase in the reserve of young people recognized as fit for service,” the senator claims.

Before entering the Russian Senate, Kovitidi was a high-ranking Ukrainian official, serving as a member of the Verkhovna Rada of Crimea from 2006 to 2014. It sided with the Russians after the peninsula was illegally annexed by Moscow in 2014.

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a partial mobilization decree in Russia on Wednesday morning, justifying the measure by saying that Russia will fight the “collective West” and has a defense front of more than 1,000 kilometers.