Mobilization in Russia for April 28-30, 2026 CIT Volunteer Summary
Army Recruitment
Dmitry Medvedev [Deputy Chairman of Russia’s Security Council] claimed that 127,000 people have signed contracts with the Russian Ministry of Defense since the beginning of the year, and another 10,000 have enlisted to serve in "volunteer units." In late March, Medvedev reported that 80,000 people had enlisted in 2026, excluding volunteer fighters. According to calculations by economist Janis Kluge, based on regional budget data, around 70,500 people likely joined the Russian Armed Forces in the first three months of the year, and the recruitment rate fell by approximately 20% compared to the same period in 2025. Medvedev also reiterated in his speech that 450,000 people had signed contracts in 2025. In January, he clarified that 422,704 people signed contracts during the previous year, and another 32,000 joined "volunteer units."
The Belarusian State Border Committee confirmed that it will not allow Russians under exit bans to leave Belarus for third countries. Responding to journalists, the agency stated that border services use a database shared by the two countries. The Voyennye Advokaty [Military Lawyers] Telegram channel suggests this involves the full integration of migration registration systems within the Union State. While updates to these databases had previously been delayed or incomplete, the Unified Military Register and the Belarusian border service database now likely operate almost as a single entity, meaning an exit ban imposed in Russia automatically appears on a Belarusian border guard's monitor. Earlier, the Movement of Conscientious Objectors [a human rights organization supporting those who refuse to perform military service] reported the first such case: authorities initially banned a conscript from Saint Petersburg, who had received a digital draft notice and an exit restriction, from crossing the Russian-Belarusian border, and then twice prevented him from flying out of Minsk. Draft offices can impose exit bans only on men aged 18 to 30 who are subject to regular conscription and lack a draft deferment or exemption. This restriction does not affect citizens who possess a military ID or are 30 or older.
In the city of Kemerovo, a conscript who had just returned from service was told at the draft office that he had been "automatically enrolled" in the BARS (Special Combat Army Reserve) volunteer unit. According to his relatives, the day after he returned home he was summoned for registration and informed that a group of 200 demobilized conscripts was being formed, all of whom would automatically be assigned to a BARS unit. The men were given informational materials about contracts and warned they might be called in again, though they were not asked to sign anything at that point. Lawyers note that automatic enrollment in BARS units is unlawful, as joining the reserve is only possible through voluntary contract signing.
In 2025, the number of defendants and convicts held in pre-trial detention centers fell to a historic low of 81,000 people, according to data from the Federal Penitentiary Service analyzed by Vazhnyye Istorii [IStories, independent Russian investigative media outlet]. The prison population in pre-trial detention centers and penal colonies has been declining gradually since the mid-2000s, but the drop accelerated sharply in 2023. In 2024, it decreased by 14,000 people—the largest annual decline on record. In 2025, it fell by another 7,500. Overall, over the four years of the full-scale war, the number of people held in pre-trial detention has decreased by more than a quarter. One likely explanation is the option for defendants to sign military contracts and go to war before trial. In the first half of 2025, Russian courts released 350 convicted individuals from punishment "in connection with military service during mobilization, martial law, or wartime." Another 25,000 cases were suspended for reasons unrelated to the defendant being on the run or ill—something that likely also reflects suspects being sent to the war. The number of such suspensions has been rising since the start of the full-scale invasion; in pre-war 2021, there were only 1,214.
Since February 2022, Russia has recruited at least 27,000 foreign nationals from more than 130 countries to fight in the war against Ukraine, according to estimates by the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), the Ukrainian human rights organization Truth Hounds, and the Kazakhstan International Bureau for Human Rights and the Rule of Law. According to the human rights advocates, the scheme can be described as global, and on the Russian side, it is run not only by private recruiters but also by state structures. More than 10,000 people from Central Asia have joined the Russian Armed Forces, along with about 1,800 people from South Asia, 1,700–4,000 people from Africa, and between 1,000 and 8,000 people from Latin America. According to Ukrainian authorities, at least 3,388 of them have been killed.
A court in the city of Yaroslavl has refused a conscript’s request to replace military service with alternative civilian service. The claimant argued that military service contradicts his beliefs: violence is unacceptable in his family, he cannot take up arms, and the very idea of conscription causes him severe distress. However, the court noted that he had been registered with the draft system since 2019 but only declared these beliefs in 2022, having previously relied on educational deferments. In the court’s view, this looked not like a genuine development of convictions but rather like “an attempt to find new ways to avoid conscription.” The judge also pointed out that since 2024 the man had failed to appear for medical examinations and had been placed on a wanted list, interpreting this not as an exercise of his beliefs but as bad-faith conduct. According to the ruling, a negative attitude toward military service or unwillingness to serve is not sufficient grounds for substitution; to qualify for alternative service, a person must demonstrate a consistent "prehistory" of such beliefs well before being called up and confirm them through their lifestyle. Earlier, the Constitutional Court of Russia stated that unwillingness to perform military service or a negative attitude toward it does not in itself grant an automatic right to alternative civilian service.
Sentences, Legal Proceedings and Incidents
The Southern District Military Court sentenced 28-year-old Ukrainian serviceman Oleksii Zhernovskyi of the Azov Brigade to 29 years in prison on charges of participating in a terrorist organization and receiving training to carry out terrorist activities. According to investigators, in 2020 he joined the Azov Brigade, completed training, and took part in combat operations, before being taken into Russian captivity in May 2022. This is already the third sentence for Zhernovskyi: earlier he was sentenced to 24 and 28 years in a penal colony in cases involving cruel treatment of civilians, deliberate destruction or damage of property, attempted murder of two or more persons committed by a group and in a generally dangerous manner, as well as murder committed by a group and motivated by hatred or enmity.
The same court sentenced another captured Azov Brigade fighter, Oleksandr Kryvytskyi, to 20 years in prison on charges of participating in a terrorist organization and receiving training for the purpose of carrying out terrorist activities. According to investigators, he joined the Azov Brigade in the winter of 2015 and was taken into captivity in the spring of 2022.
The Russia-installed "Supreme Court of the DPR" sentenced another captured Azov Brigade fighter, Oleksandr Biliaiev, to 22 years in prison on charges of murder and cruel treatment of civilians. According to the prosecution, he planted a tripwire grenade in Mariupol in the spring of 2022; a civilian was killed when it detonated.
For the third consecutive year, the number of convictions and prison sentences in Russia has declined, according to statistics from courts of general jurisdiction. While 167,000 people were sent to penal colonies in 2022, the figure fell to 161,000 in 2023 and 147,000 in 2024, before dropping more sharply in 2025 to 113,000 (down 23% from 2024). The decline has been driven almost entirely by district courts, while the number of convictions in military courts has been increasing. The total number of convicted individuals has also decreased: 579,000 in 2022, 556,000 in 2023, 513,000 in 2024, and 438,000 in 2025 (down 14.6%). Again, the drop is largely attributable to district courts, while garrison military courts have shown sharp growth—from 4,100 convictions in 2022 to 7,800 in 2023, 13,700 in 2024, and 13,600 in 2025. Human rights advocates say the decline is explained by state policies encouraging recruitment for the war as an alternative to prosecution. This occurs at every stage from investigation to trial. At the same time, the decrease in convictions does not necessarily indicate a reduction in crime.
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) reported the detention of a resident of annexed Crimea on charges of preparing an act of terrorism and illegally possessing explosives and explosive devices. A court ordered him held in pretrial detention. According to the security service, the man, born in 1977, was allegedly recruited via Telegram and passed information about military facilities in Crimea to Ukrainian intelligence services, while also preparing attacks on infrastructure sites and an attempted assassination of a "high-ranking" law enforcement official.
The Orenburg Regional Court sentenced an 18-year-old resident of the Orenburg region to eight years in prison in a case involving sabotage committed by a group. According to investigators, in March 2025, he acted on instructions from an unidentified contact via a messaging app: first photographing communications infrastructure for payment, and then setting fire to base station equipment in Orenburg.
The First Western District Military Court has sentenced Stepan Kosarev, a 21-year-old resident of the Leningrad region, to 11 years in prison on charges of committing an act of terror and damaging a cultural heritage site. According to law enforcement, on Dec. 20, 2024, the young man threw two Molotov cocktails at the Leningrad regional draft office in central Saint Petersburg. On the day of the arson, scammers posing as intelligence services officers contacted him. They told Kosarev that he was suspected of financing the Armed Forces of Ukraine and demanded that he set fire to the draft office, promising money and a certificate of commendation in return. Prosecutors said the criminal case against the "unidentified person" with whom the convict had communicated via a messaging app has been split off into separate proceedings. A wave of arson attacks swept across Russia in late December 2024. Mediazona [independent Russian media outlet] has documented, according to their tally, at least 50 attacks by Russians on banks, police cars and other targets since Dec. 13, all carried out under the influence of phone scammers.
In Khabarovsk, a man and a young woman have been detained on suspicion of "carrying out a bombing that caused the death of other persons and destabilizing government authorities." A court has sent them to a pre-trial detention center. Pretrial restrictions have been imposed in absentia on another defendant in the case, who has "fled outside the territory of the Russian Federation." According to investigators, those arrested were involved in an explosion in the village of Knyaze-Volkonskoye, home to the 64th Motor Rifle Brigade. The VChK-OGPU Telegram channel had earlier reported that on the morning of April 28, a bomb planted in a mailbox detonated in one of the homes there. According to the channel, the explosion killed "Lieutenant Colonel Kuzmenko, commander of a training signal battalion," while the target of the terrorist attack was Major General Azatbek Omurbekov, who commanded the 64th Brigade during the occupation of Bucha and earned the nickname "the Butcher of Bucha" for war crimes committed under his command. A local woman confirmed that the explosion took place on the grounds of the military garrison and that an officer was killed—36-year-old Aleksey Kuzmenko, whose death was confirmed to Mediazona by his aunt and sister. The blast, however, occurred in a neighboring entrance, not the one where Omurbekov lives. According to a source, Omurbekov is alive. The bomber likely confused the entrances.
The Federal Security Service (FSB) reported detaining two brothers in Moscow, one of them a minor, who allegedly hung bloody hammers on the doors of officials from Roskomnadzor [Russia's internet censorship agency] at the direction of Ukrainian intelligence services. According to the FSB, the two Moscow region residents were recruited via Telegram under the cover of working for a detective and debt collection agency. On April 28, acting on instructions from their handlers, they carried out intimidation actions at the homes of four Roskomnadzor officials. A criminal case was opened on charges of hooliganism. The FSB had previously reported detaining seven people in Moscow, Ufa, Novosibirsk and Yaroslavl in connection with a plot to carry out terrorist attacks against Roskomnadzor employees. An eighth suspect, identified as the group’s leader, was shot and killed. The latest detention does not appear to be connected to the earlier case.
In Krasnodar, FSB officers detained a local resident suspected of high treason. A court ordered him held in custody. According to investigators, the suspect, born in 1963, contacted a representative of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) via a messaging app and shared photographs and coordinates of fuel and energy facilities in the Krasnodar and Stavropol regions. He also provided locations of military vehicles described as "ensuring air defense." Investigators say the man, acting on instructions from his handlers, was collecting information about employees of one of the facilities and attempted to obtain access to its corporate email on behalf of Ukrainian intelligence.
The Krasnodar Regional Court sentenced Svetlana Denisenko, 38, to 13 years in a penal colony on charges of high treason. According to the prosecution, she made several transfers totaling 100,000 rubles [$1,330] in support of the AFU in February 2022.
On the Southern District Military Court website, the names of defendants in terrorism-related criminal cases have been widely concealed—spanning charges from "justifying terrorism" to "an act of international terrorism." The number of entries marked "Information concealed" has surged from 129 to 1,080, now accounting for more than 60% of all cases in these categories. The Southern District Military Court is one of the key venues for hearing criminal cases against Ukrainian citizens.
Children and Militarization
In April, hundreds of schools across Russia held classroom sessions on the topic "Treason to the Motherland is the Gravest Crime." The lessons, delivered to students in grades 1 through 11, featured officials from the Interior Ministry, the prosecutor’s office, the Investigative Committee and other speakers. Children were warned of the legal consequences of actions the Russian authorities classify as treason, including espionage, defecting to the enemy and providing assistance to foreign states. For such offenses, students were threatened with life imprisonment.
Miscellaneous
Samara region Governor Vyacheslav Fedorishchev announced the creation of a new position: an assistant to the governor for drone defense. Denis Portnyagin, a war veteran who was awarded the title of Hero of Russia, has been appointed to the position. According to the governor, this appointment is a response to an increase in drone attacks, which he described as one of the region’s most pressing challenges.