Mobilization in Russia for Aug. 21-24, 2025 CIT Volunteer Summary
Army Recruitment
The Ukrainian Hochu Zhit [I Want to Live] project has reported that since the beginning of 2025 at least 122 citizens of Turkmenistan have signed contracts with the Russian Ministry of Defense to take part in the war against Ukraine. The project stated that citizens of Turkmenistan comprise a minority among the mercenaries recruited from other Central Asian countries. However, despite resistance from Turkmenistan authorities, the recruitment rate has increased each year since 2023. Previously, the Hochu Zhit project published the names of 628 Tajik citizens who signed contracts with the Russian MoD since the beginning of 2025.
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 124,832 Russian fighters killed in Ukraine, including 13,525 mobilized soldiers. Over the past week, the list has grown by 1,949 soldiers, 65 of whom were mobilized. According to their tally, at least 11,250 Russian soldiers have been killed since February 2025, when Moscow and Washington began official negotiations on ending the war. The total number of Russian military fatalities is estimated to range from 192,049 to 277,404, or from 213,049 to 300,904 including fighters from the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics ("DPR" and "LPR").
Russia and Ukraine carried out a prisoner of war exchange. According to the Russian MoD, 146 servicemen of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were handed over to Ukraine, while 146 Russian soldiers and eight residents of the Kursk region were sent in the opposite direction. The Ukrainian side has not specified the number of exchanged soldiers. According to Volodymyr Zelenskyy, most Ukrainians had been in captivity since 2022. Among those returned are UNIAN [Ukrainian news portal] journalist Dmytro Khilyuk and former mayor of the city of Kherson, Volodymyr Mykolaienko. Both were abducted in 2022.
A serviceman of the Russian Armed Forces, Valentin Martynov, was unlawfully held at his unit and later sent to the forward positions, his wife claims. Martynov signed a contract in September 2023. He was wounded twice and, most likely during treatment in a hospital, contracted hepatitis C. Since this type of hepatitis can lead to early discharge, the man decided he shouldn't continue serving. When he went AWOL, a criminal case was opened against him.
In July 2025, Martynov applied to his unit in the city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky to obtain a referral to a military medical board, although he is formally attached to a unit in the village of Mulino, Nizhny Novgorod region. However, he was locked up in a so-called cell, and after his wife filed a complaint with the prosecutor’s office, he was deceitfully sent to the town of Kreminna in the Luhansk region, where he was thrown into a refusenik basement, had his fingers broken, and his kidneys beaten. On Aug. 18, she managed to contact him and learned that Martynov had been released and once again sent into fighting.
Sentences, Legal Proceedings and Incidents
The Rostov regional court sentenced 26-year-old war participant Ruslan Shingirey to life imprisonment in a case of the murder of an 8-year-old girl. He was found guilty of the murder of a minor, rape, sexual violence, and the abduction of a minor. It is known that the convicted man was drafted for regular biannual conscription at the age of 18, later signed a contract, and in 2022 was sent to the war. He later returned to the Rostov region. Shingirey’s acquaintances believed that he had deserted from the frontline.
In the Vladimir region the Federal Security Service (FSB) has detained a Ukrainian citizen born in 2001, who is suspected of "terrorist activity on the territory of the Kursk region." According to the FSB, in October 2024 he "crossed the state border with weapons in his hands and invaded the territory of the Kursk region," where he "participated as part of Ukrainian formations in terrorist attacks, intimidating civilians, damaging infrastructure and households." The specific nature of his "terrorist activity" was not specified. The circumstances under which the man, apparently a serviceman of the AFU, ended up in the Vladimir region were also not explained by the FSB.
Additionally, the FSB claims that it detained in the Saratov region an accomplice in the murder of General Yaroslav Moskalik. According to the intelligence services, the detained local resident born in 1976 carried out a "task of Ukrainian intelligence services" and was "involved in the delivery" of an improvised explosive device that was used to kill Moskalik to the Moscow region. The man is also accused of corresponding in July 2023 with an "employee of Ukrainian intelligence services" and collecting for him "information regarding servicemen of the Russian Aerospace Forces, managers and employees of defense enterprises, and objects of critical and transportation infrastructure." All this he allegedly did for financial compensation from Ukrainian intelligence services. Deputy Chief of the Main Operational Directorate of the General Staff, General Moskalik, was killed on April 25 in Balashikha, Moscow region, as a result of a car bombing. The following day, Ignat Kuzin, suspected of carrying out the bombing, was detained.
The Second Eastern District Military Court has sentenced Vitaly Pirogov, a resident of the Altai region [Russia’s federal subject], to 18 years in a maximum security penal colony. He was convicted on multiple charges, including committing an act of terror, undergoing training for terrorist activities, incitement to terrorism, and public calls for terrorism. According to investigators, Pirogov allegedly set fire to draft offices in the Rubtsovsk, Rubtsovsk, and Yegoryevsk districts, and attempted to persuade an acquaintance to carry out a similar attack. The court did not disclose the dates of the alleged arsons, and Mediazona was unable to locate any public reports confirming fires at those locations. Notably, in June 2024, the same court reported that an individual with the same full name had been sentenced to four years in prison for public calls for terrorism.
The Federal Security Service (FSB) has announced the arrest of two residents of Donetsk, born in 1987 and 1997, on charges including treason, committing an act of terror, and illegal trafficking of explosives. According to the intelligence services, one of the suspects was allegedly recruited by Ukrainian intelligence in 2022 and subsequently enlisted his acquaintance in the operation. The latter is accused of traveling to Moscow twice in 2023 to surveil the residence of an unnamed Russian journalist. Investigators claim the pair were involved in two vehicle bombings in 2024: one targeting an employee of the so-called Kherson region government in March, and another targeting a former senior official of the "Russian Federal Penitentiary Service in the DPR" in December. They are also suspected of plotting attacks against the head of a municipality in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and a volunteer battalion commander.
Two residents of the Primorsky region [Russia's federal subject] have been detained on charges of "confidential cooperation" with a foreign state. According to the FSB, they allegedly acted on behalf of Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) and planned to collect information about Russian military facilities.
A "court" in Sevastopol has sentenced 46-year-old local resident Sergey Bodnarashik to 14 years in a maximum security penal colony on treason charges. According to investigators, between January and October 2023, Bodnarashik used Telegram to send Ukraine’s intelligence services photographs and coordinates of air-defense systems and other military equipment. He admitted that he first filmed the operation of an air-defense system from his balcony and sent the video to an unnamed Telegram channel, after which he was contacted by an unidentified individual who asked him to provide the system’s coordinates and a photo. Bodnarashik had previously been fined for "discrediting" the Russian army.
19-year-old Taganrog resident Nikolay Chernetsky has been sentenced to six years in a penal colony on treason charges. Investigators claim that at the time of the offense, when he was 17, Chernetsky contacted an officer of Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate and offered to provide information about military facilities in Taganrog. According to reports, Chernetsky pleaded guilty.
A court in Yakutsk issued a formal warning to a kindergarten for failing to allocate a job to a war veteran or a relative, as required by Russia’s law on employment quotas. The court acknowledged the violation but dismissed the case as insignificant, noting that relatives of war participants were already employed at the kindergarten. The quota amendments, mandating jobs for veterans and their families, have been in effect in Russia's constituent republic of Sakha (Yakutia) since April 2023.
Children and Militarization
As part of Russia’s Flag Day celebrations, children’s events were held across the country. In the Vladimir region, a cake decorated in the colors of the Russian tricolor was baked under the Taste of the Motherland campaign and presented to children of war participants. In several schools, students wove camouflage nets in the national colors, while kindergartens staged plays, contests, and patriotic crafts. In Ryazan, children took part in a motor rally using bicycles and scooters.
Miscellaneous
Russia has widened its recruitment of women from South Africa to work in the Alabuga Special Economic Zone in Tatarstan [Russia’s constituent Republic], where Shahed-136 attack UAV are assembled, Bloomberg reported. Researchers estimate that up to 90 percent of the women hired are in fact engaged in drone production, though the positions were advertised as jobs in construction and services. In May, the South African branch of the BRICS Women’s Business Alliance signed an agreement to send 5,600 workers to Russia. South African authorities have opened an investigation and may summon Russian diplomats, while Alabuga officials deny that African women are involved in assembling drones. Russia has launched similar recruitment campaigns in other African countries. Earlier, the Azattyq Asia media outlet reported that teenagers from Central Asia had been recruited to assemble UAVs at the Alabuga plant.
Longreads
The Vot Tak [Like This] media outlet published a story of 31-year-old Ivan Okhlopkov, a soldier in the Somali Battalion, who admitted to killing five Ukrainian prisoners of war in May 2024 in the village of Karlivka. Okhlopkov, who had been serving a sentence in a penal colony, signed a contract to go to war but deserted in January 2025.