Mobilization in Russia for Jan. 27-29, 2026 CIT Volunteer Summary
Russian authorities continue to press students to enlist in the Unmanned Systems Forces, according to the Idite Lesom! [Flee through the woods/Get lost you all] Telegram channel, which reported a recent recruitment drive at a technical college in Yessentuki. Recruiters there enticed students with one-year contracts and promised payouts of up to 15 million rubles [$196,500], veteran status and benefits packages, while framing the service as office-based computer work located safely away from the frontline. These officials further urged students to enlist as a means to earn money and clear their relatives' debts, assuring them of eventual discharge and demobilization. Separately, media outlet T-invariant details how the Higher School...
Mobilization in Russia for Jan. 25-27, 2026 CIT Volunteer Summary
Ufa City Hall set the one-time municipal bonus for signing a contract with the Ministry of Defense at 300,000 rubles [$3,920]. Although the city had offered 700,000 rubles [$9,150] beginning in January 2025, Bashkortostan Governor Radiy Khabirov reduced the amount to 100,000 rubles [$1,310] by decree in December. The new rate applies to contracts signed on or after Jan. 1, 2026. With the inclusion of a 1 million-ruble [$13,100] regional component and a 400,000-ruble [$5,230] federal component, recruits enlisting in Ufa will now receive 1.7 million rubles [$22,200].
Mobilization in Russia for Jan. 22-25, 2026 CIT Volunteer Summary
The State Duma [lower house of Russia’s Federal Assembly] passed a bill in its first reading that prevents the deportation of foreign citizens and stateless persons who sign a contract with the Ministry of Defense, and instead proposes that authorities impose fines of 1,000 to 50,000 rubles [$13-$660] or up to 200 hours of mandatory labor. The proposed legislation would also prohibit the denial or cancellation of residence permits for foreign nationals serving under contract and stipulate that adverse rulings issued after Feb. 24, 2022, will become unenforceable. The government introduced the bill in the State Duma last November.
Mobilization in Russia for Jan. 20-22, 2026 CIT Volunteer Summary
In the Sverdlovsk region, Governor Denis Pasler signed a decree increasing the one-time bonus for signing a contract with the Ministry of Defense to 2.7 million rubles [$34,800], up from 2.5 million rubles [$32,200] set in March 2025. With the addition of the 400,000-ruble [$5,150] federal component, contract soldiers enlisting in the region stand to receive a total of 3.1 million rubles [$39,900].
Mobilization in Russia for Jan. 18-20, 2026 CIT Volunteer Summary
The Russian government’s legislative commission endorsed a Ministry of Defense bill introducing mandatory genomic registration for volunteer fighters, civil servants, and personnel from the Interior Ministry, the Russian Armed Forces and Rosgvardia [Russian National Guard] involved in combat operations. Authorities will store the resulting data until the individual turns 100 or, in the event of death, until remains are identified, though veterans may request the destruction of their records after discharge. This legislation broadens the scope of mandatory DNA collection, which applies only to criminal suspects, administrative detainees, unidentified bodies, relatives of those missing in action, and convicts whose DNA was seized during...
Mobilization in Russia for Jan. 15-18, 2026 CIT Volunteer Summary
Dmitry Medvedev, Deputy Chairman of Russia’s Security Council, announced that 422,704 people signed contracts with the Ministry of Defense in 2025, while another 32,000 joined “volunteer units.” On Dec. 24, 2025, however, he claimed that approximately 417,000 recruits had signed contracts for the year and more than 36,000 had enlisted in “volunteer units.” For comparison, federal budget data indicates that between 374,200 and 407,200 personnel signed contracts in 2024, up from 345,400 in 2023.
Mobilization in Russia for Jan. 13-15, 2026 CIT Volunteer Summary
Russia’s Ministry of Education and Science has revised the distribution rules for state-funded places among quota applicants. Unfilled spots originally designated for applicants for targeted training, orphans and disabled individuals will now be reallocated to a separate quota for war participants, their families and the children of medical workers who died during the Covid-19 pandemic, rather than reverting to the general applicant pool. The independent media outlet Agentstvo [Agency] calculated that if this new enrollment order had applied in 2025, the number of spots available to war participants and their relatives would have surged from roughly 50,000 to 118,800. This figure would have represented nearly one in four of the...
Mobilization in Russia for Jan. 11-13, 2026 CIT Volunteer Summary
Nearly 45 percent of the decrees Vladimir Putin signed in 2025 remain classified; authorities withheld 449 of the 1,010 documents. While the share of secret orders rose 3.4 percentage points from 2024—when the state withheld 465 of 1,132 decrees—it remains below the highs of 2022 and 2023. In those years, classified files accounted for 45 percent and 49.5 percent of the total, respectively.
Mobilization in Russia for Jan. 7-11, 2026 CIT Volunteer Summary
In the Irkutsk region, authorities more than doubled the sign-up bonus for military contracts in January, increasing it from 1 million rubles [$12,600] set in March 2025 to 2.4 million rubles [$30,300]. The federal government pays an additional 400,000 rubles [$5,040], and advertisements distributed by regional officials now promise contract soldiers salaries of 5.32 million rubles [$67,100] for the first year of service. As of summer 2025, the region ranked last in the Siberian Federal District for recruiting volunteer fighters, while authorities had to cut healthcare spending to address a budget deficit.
Mobilization in Russia for Dec. 25-28, 2025 CIT Volunteer Summary
Dmitry Medvedev, Deputy Chairman of Russia’s Security Council, announced that approximately 417,000 people signed contracts with the Russian Armed Forces this year, and more than 36,000 joined "volunteer units." Separately, Defense Minister Andrey Belousov previously reported that the military recruited nearly 410,000 personnel for contract military service in 2025. Infographics presented at a board meeting of the Ministry of Defense set the annual plan at 403,000 and the "benchmark" at 420,000. For comparison, federal budget data indicate that between 374,200 and 407,200 individuals signed contracts in 2024, up from 345,400 in 2023.