Mobilization in Russia for Aug. 9-16, 2026 CIT Volunteer Summary
Authorities and Legislation
Lawmakers introduced a bill in the State Duma [lower house of Russia's Federal Assembly] that would toughen penalties for fraud and extortion targeting military personnel and volunteer fighters. If the crime caused significant damage to military personnel, the offense would be classified as a grave or especially grave crime. The bill proposes adding new qualifying circumstances to the relevant Criminal Code articles, with penalties of up to 10 years in prison for fraud and fraud involving electronic means of payment, and seven to 15 years for extortion. The government and the Supreme Court supported the idea but concluded that the proposed mechanism—in particular, linking the gravity of the crime primarily to the victim's status rather than to the amount of damage caused—requires revision.
The Ministry of Defense has proposed changing the procedure for granting deferrals from conscription and for reversing draft board decisions. Under a proposed government resolution that would amend the Regulation on Conscription for Military Service, Interior Ministry employees with special ranks would be able to receive a draft deferral after graduating from specialized universities or during part-time study. In addition, those granted a draft deferral for family reasons, as well as Interior Ministry employees enrolled in part-time programs, would have to confirm the grounds for the deferral each year in September and October. The proposal would also require that a reversal of a draft board decision—whether by a higher-level regional commission or by a court—be recorded in the conscript’s electronic personal file and in the Unified Military Register.
Army Recruitment
Recruitment into the Russian army stabilized at around 30,000 people per month in the second quarter of this year, according to German economist Janis Kluge, who analyzed regional budget spending data. His estimate suggests that Russia recruited around 1,000 contract soldiers per day between March and July.
According to data for the first quarter of the year, however, recruitment rates had fallen by roughly 20% compared with the same period in 2025. While 1,000–1,200 people per day were recruited in the first three months of 2025, that figure fell to 800–1,000 per day during the same period this year. Overall, around 70,500 people may have joined the Russian Armed Forces during the first three months of 2026.
In the second quarter of 2026, around 93,000 new contracts were signed, bringing the estimated total for the first half of the year to around 172,000. This is roughly 10% below the official figure given by Dmitry Medvedev [Deputy Chairman of Russia’s Security Council], who said that more than 200,000 contracts had been signed during the first six months.
Meanwhile, the long-term decline in recruitment has continued since the end of 2024, even as recruitment spending has increased compared with 2025. The average regional sign-up bonus reached a record 1.65 million rubles [$19,700] in August, while actual regional spending on signing bonuses increased by roughly 30%. At the same time, competition among regions for potential contract soldiers has intensified, including through higher recruitment bonuses for bringing in residents of other regions. The number of regions paying such commissions has increased from 31 in October 2025 to 56 in August 2026.
As a result, the total cost to regional governments of recruiting a single contract soldier, including recruitment commissions, has risen from 1.4 million rubles [$16,800] in mid-2025 to 1.8–1.9 million rubles [$21,500–$22,700]. According to figures reported by regional authorities, the nationwide recruitment target for 2026 remains at 0.3% of the population per year, or approximately 438,000 people.
Several cases of men allegedly being abducted in Omsk and subsequently coerced into signing military contracts through the Sirius 55 recruitment center have emerged:
- On July 28, police officers forced a 46-year-old man into a patrol car at a bus stop, saying they needed to question him about a stolen chain. In the car, they asked him to sign some documents, which he signed without reading. It turned out that the documents included a military contract. The man was then taken to the Sirius 55 volunteer recruitment center
- On Aug. 8, police officers detained a 31-year-old man who was drinking beer in the courtyard of his home. He was brought to Sirius 55, where they allegedly tried to pressure him into signing a contract. The man managed to escape, but that evening, three unidentified men in civilian clothes forcibly put him into a car and took him back to Sirius 55, where they compelled him to sign a contract despite not having his passport or military ID. The necessary documents and bank cards were also issued to him there. The man is married and officially employed. His relatives appealed to the prosecutor’s office
- On Aug. 10, unidentified men took 55-year-old Kanat Seitov, a native of Kazakhstan and father of five who works part-time as a janitor, allegedly for an identity check. He was also taken to Sirius 55, where he was forced to sign a contract, although staff at the recruitment center and police said he had done so voluntarily. The man has already been sent for training in Yurga, Kemerovo region, where he told his family that he "had not signed anything" and that his phone had been taken away. All of Seitov’s documents remained at home
The Sota media outlet has reported, citing subscribers, that several residents of Yaroslavl, aged 30 to 40, who had not previously served in the military and had not undergone military department training, were summoned to military training via draft notices sent through the Gosuslugi public services portal.
Mobilized Soldiers, Contract Soldiers and Conscripts
Based on open sources, Mediazona [independent Russian media outlet] and BBC News Russian, together with volunteers, have verified the names of 239,354 Russian fighters killed in Ukraine, including 19,778 mobilized soldiers. Over the past week, the list has grown by 1,340 soldiers. Journalists have noted that since the beginning of 2026, they have been able to establish the dates of death of more than 77,000 Russian soldiers. At the same time, 90% of those soldiers were killed in the period between 2022 and 2025. Due to the slowdown in advances on the frontline, data for 2026 are coming with increasing delays.
The Pskov Garrison Military Court ruled that a contract signed by Anton Filimonov, a student at the Pskov Agrotechnological College, was unlawful. According to Filimonov, he was tricked into signing the document when he was still 17, believing it to be routine paperwork. On the day he turned 18, he was taken from his home, brought to a military enlistment office and was set to be sent to war as part of the 3rd Unmanned Communications Battalion of the 69th Motor Rifle Division, despite his claims that he had never agreed to serve. The court ruled unlawful not only the contract itself, which was signed before he turned 18, but also the orders related to its signing and his enrollment in the unit, as well as the directive to report to a selection point. The court also ordered the Ministry of Defense to remove the contract from his military records. The Military Prosecutor's Office separately identified violations in the contract’s execution.
The Military Investigative Office of the Investigative Committee for the Penza garrison found evidence of abuse of authority in forcibly sending Vladimir Podkovyrkin, a Penza region resident, to war. According to investigators, recruiters fraudulently brought the man to a selection point, where he was physically and psychologically pressured despite having medical conditions that barred him from military service. A criminal case has been opened. The Investigative Committee had previously claimed Podkovyrkin signed the contract voluntarily. Podkovyrkin himself said he was first forcibly sent to war in November 2025, was wounded at the front and managed to escape. In late July 2026 he was detained and sent back to war. Despite the investigative findings, he is now set to be sent on an assault mission. He has written a farewell letter, published by Mediazona.
Another conscript serving at a military base in Boguchar, Voronezh region, has been signed up for contract service without his knowledge. 22-year-old Aleksey Polyakov from the Kemerovo region was drafted in May of this year and transferred two weeks later to the 245th Motor Rifle Regiment in Boguchar. In mid-July, he was informed that his name appeared on the official roster of contract soldiers, despite never having signed any papers. According to Polyakov’s sister, unidentified individuals forged his signature on a formal request expressing a desire to enlist under contract. Furthermore, on July 11—the date stamped on the document—Polyakov was away at a military training range. The conscript submitted formal statements declaring that he had not voluntarily entered into a contract and demanding its annulment, but military commanders refused to comply. Separately, reports emerged that another conscript stationed in Boguchar—Aleksandr Safonov from the Kursk region, serving in the 237th Tank Regiment—was coerced into signing a military contract through threats.
The Movement of Conscientious Objectors, ASTRA and Echo had previously reported on the practice of pressuring conscripts serving in Boguchar into signing contracts. In November 2025, a criminal case was opened over the coercion of conscripts. Despite this, attempts to force them into signing contracts have continued.
A resident of Komi [Russia's constituent republic] who had been mobilized in 2022 was sent to the frontline again, despite having been diagnosed with bladder cancer. After his health deteriorated in 2025, he was sent for treatment, but was later returned to the frontline. His condition worsened there. The serviceman was sent to a military hospital, where doctors diagnosed him with bladder cancer, performed surgery and prescribed further treatment. After he returned to his military unit, his commanders did not allow him to undergo the necessary examinations regularly, preventing him from registering with an oncologist and obtaining a disability status. In June 2026, Aleksandr underwent another operation, and in August he submitted a report requesting his discharge, but was again sent to the frontline.
A 48-year-old resident of Leningrad region, Roman Alfutin, was mobilized in September 2022, but after his family appealed the decision, his mobilization was canceled. Despite this, he was forcibly taken from his home and sent to a combat zone. After his mobilization was canceled, Alfutin returned home and lived in the town of Luga for nearly four years. Then, in March 2026, several people broke into his apartment. They took his documents and phone, put him in a car, and took him to a military unit. Several days later, he was sent to a combat zone in handcuffs. He was also told that he had been placed on a wanted list for going AWOL. His family provided documents showing that Alfutin had been discharged from military service, as well as records documenting his health problems. The military unit, however, said it had lost the documents concerning his discharge, and that the copies held by the family were insufficient. The family filed a lawsuit arguing that Alfutin had not been removed from the military unit’s personnel rosters, and the court granted interim protective measures. Ultimately, the Veliky Novgorod Garrison Military Court confirmed that the original decision to mobilize Alfutin had been canceled. However, the court ruled that he was already considered a servicemember and had to seek discharge through the standard procedure. According to lawyers, this creates a dangerous precedent: once a person has been called up under mobilization, even if a court or prosecutor's office has ruled that the mobilization should be canceled, the person may still be forced to seek discharge through the standard military procedure.
Sentences, Legal Proceedings and Incidents
The 235th Moscow Garrison Military Court has begun hearing the case against Pavel Gudochkin, a former junior lieutenant in the 272nd Motor Rifle Regiment, and four of his fellow officers: Gennady Kazakov, Vitaly Kozlov, Aleksandr Tonilin and Aleksandr Ovcharov. According to investigators, the five men formed a criminal group within the regiment’s assault units. Members of the group allegedly demanded money from servicemen seeking to avoid being sent into combat, obtain medical treatment or take leave. Those who refused to pay were beaten, and some were killed in efforts to conceal the extortion, according to investigators. The money belonging to dead soldiers was then allegedly stolen through their banking apps. In August 2025, 10 servicemen from the 272nd Regiment filed a collective complaint with the prosecutor’s office. They alleged that, since 2023, commanders had systematically killed enlisted soldiers and then withdrawn money from their bank cards. Kazakov is alleged to have played the leading role in the group and faces 62 counts. Gudochkin, whom investigators describe as one of the group’s direct perpetrators, is charged in connection with 46 incidents. He faces charges including murder for financial gain and to conceal other crimes, abuse of authority involving violence, accepting bribes on an especially large scale, extortion and theft of weapons. Gudochkin was sent to the frontline after signing a contract with the MoD while serving time in prison. In 2016, he was sentenced to 16 years in a maximum security penal colony for aiding in the contract killing of 22-year-old Ilya Samoylenko, who was murdered in 2014. All five defendants have pleaded guilty and given testimony against one another. Kazakov and Ovcharov have already been sentenced, although the length of their prison terms is not known.
Alexander Bastrykin, the head of the Investigative Committee of Russia, ordered that a criminal case be opened following an attack by a serviceman on a 77-year-old woman and a 29-year-old woman. On July 24, in Yurga, a man was walking his Staffordshire terrier without a leash or muzzle. The dog attacked the elderly woman’s dachshund and then attacked the woman herself after the serviceman pushed her to the ground. Her 29-year-old granddaughter tried to help her, but the man and an acquaintance began pushing the granddaughter as well, and then one of them hit her in the jaw. One of the attackers dropped a military identification tag during the altercation, which helped establish his identity. Later that night, the dachshund died. According to police, the attacker is 30 years old. Local social-media groups report that he serves in the military. Despite complaints being filed, no action was taken by law enforcement for two weeks after the incident. It was only after the case received media attention that the Investigative Committee reported that procedural measures had been initiated.
The trial of 30-year-old company commander Vladislav Balgrabsky has begun. He is accused of voluntarily surrendering to the enemy, desertion, publicly calling for activities against state security, and treason. In the summer of 2024, the man signed a military contract and became the commander of a company in the 7th Motorized Rifle Regiment. Eight months later, according to his account, he refused to carry out an order from his commander that he believed was clearly impossible to fulfill and surrendered to Ukrainian forces along with five of his subordinates. In April 2025, while in captivity, Balgrabsky gave an interview in which he called on Russian soldiers to surrender. By December, he was back in Russia, although the circumstances of his return have not been disclosed.
Children and Militarization
Universities and colleges have been ordered to give priority admission to applicants who pledge to serve in the Unmanned Systems Forces. This became known from a directive of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education and the Ministry of Education on carrying out priority admission mechanisms for citizens entering service in the Unmanned Systems Forces, which is mentioned on the website of Novosibirsk State Technical University. The university cited those directives while describing admission under the "unmanned systems certificate" introduced in the Novosibirsk region. According to a presentation on the website of the regional education ministry, the certificate was created for applicants who failed to secure a state-funded place at a university or college and cannot afford tuition. By signing the certificate, an applicant "pledges" to sign a contract with the Unmanned Systems Forces. The plan is first to admit such applicants to fee-paying programs, grant them academic leave to serve, and then give them a "guaranteed" state-funded place a year later. In all, the Novosibirsk region has introduced priority admission for those who have served in the Unmanned Systems Forces at 27 universities and colleges. Institutions in the Irkutsk and Smolensk regions, as well as in the Khabarovsk territory, have published similar offers. Across Russia, there are 39 such institutions.
The Ministry of Education has released a textbook, "The History of Our Region: The Donbas and Novorossiya," for fifth- through seventh-graders in the occupied territories of Ukraine. It covers periods from the earliest times to the present. In the chapters on recent history, the authors ask students to prove that the "feats of the fighters of the special military operation are worthy of the heroes of the Great Patriotic War," place the blame for the "destruction of the USSR" on Ukrainian nationalists, assert that after 2014 "Hitler's henchmen" became Ukraine's heroes, and call Volodymyr Zelenskyy a "former KVN comedy actor," after whose election "the aggressiveness of the Kyiv regime increased." The textbook is due to reach schools by Sept. 1.
Assistance
A section for psychological assistance to service members and their families has appeared on Gosuslugi. The MoD launched the service together with MinTsifry [the Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media of Russia]. The agency said in a statement that the assistance is provided free of charge, voluntarily and confidentially, regardless of where the service member and their relatives are. In the new section, users can learn about the available types of psychological assistance, contact a support line and sign up for an online consultation.
Longreads
The Sibir.Realii [part of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty] online media outlet has reported on an ongoing aggressive recruitment campaign in the Penza region, in which men are abducted on the streets, in parks and near their homes and subsequently coerced into signing contracts with the MoD.
The Vyorstka media outlet has reported on an experiment involving the mass recruitment of female prisoners for the war against Ukraine. The convicts were promised a one-year contract, a salary starting from 220,000 rubles [$2,630], payments for injuries and death, as well as a pardon. Several hundred women were recruited into special units, with some of them assigned as combat medics. Vyorstka's interlocutors spoke of sexual violence by commanders, extortion, threats of being "zeroed out" [killed], denial of medical treatment, leave and awards, as well as cases where women continued to be held in service after giving birth. A third intake of women from penal colonies was halted in 2025, and the experiment itself was deemed a failure.