Starting from November 4, 2022, a new ground for employment termination has been added to the Labor Code of the Russian Federation – the employer's conscription for military service on mobilization. This ground is included in Article 83 of the Labor Code (paragraph 7 of the first part of Article 83 of the Labor Code), which provides for cases of termination of an employment contract by reason of circumstances which are beyond the parties' control.
A new ground for termination of an employment contract is applied to certain categories of employers – an employer who is an individual or the sole founder (shareholder) of a company and at the same time has the powers of the sole executive body (General Manager) of this company, if for the period of its military service on mobilization such an employer has not authorized another person (other persons) to exercise its rights and obligations of the employer.
The first category of employers also covers situations where the employer is an individual entrepreneur. As for the second category, it is not entirely clear how it will be implemented in practice since neither the founder (shareholder) nor the General Manager of the employer company act as an employer in this case, but only its governing body, while the company is the employer.
It is possible to terminate an employment contract on this new ground starting from September 21, 2022 (the law1 extends its effect to legal relations since September 21, 2022, i.e. from the date of the announcement of partial mobilization in Russia).
1 Federal Law No. 434-FZ dated 04.11.2022 "On Amendments to the Labor Code of the Russian Federation"