MOSCOW, March 30. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree on calling up 135,000 conscripts for military service from April 1, according to the document posted on the government’s legal information web portal on Monday.

"To implement the call-up for military service from April 1 to June 15, 2020 of 135,000 citizens of the Russian Federation aged 18 - 27 who are not in the reserve and are subject to conscription for active duty," the decree says.

In the spring of last year, Russia also called up 135,000 conscripts for military service. The document also orders "to discharge from military service soldiers, sailors, sergeants and master sergeants whose term of active duty under conscription has expired."

The Kremlin earlier said it would study the issue of postponing the army draft to a later date over the coronavirus. Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said that the conscripts would undergo a mandatory two-week quarantine after they arrived at military units.

In late December 2019, Chinese authorities notified the World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak of a previously unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, in central China. Since then, cases of the novel coronavirus - named COVID-19 by the WHO - have been reported in more than 160 countries, including Russia.

On March 11, 2020, the WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic. So far, more than 735,000 people have been infected around the world and over 34,000 have died, and over 156,000 have recovered.

As of March 30, Russia registered 1,836 coronavirus cases. As many as 66 people have recovered from the disease while nine have died. Most infections have been registered in Moscow (1,226 cases).

The Russian government has set up an Internet hotline to keep the public informed about the coronavirus situation.