Mobilization in Russia for Aug. 30-Sept. 6, 2026 CIT Volunteer Summary

Authorities and Legislation

Vladimir Putin endorsed a proposal by war correspondent and propagandist Yevgeny Poddubny to recruit volunteer fighters with service fitness category "D" ("unfit for military service") to regional units that combat drones. Among those who receive that service fitness category are people with Group I or II disabilities, people who suffer from severe physical and mental illnesses or congenital defects, and people who have lost limbs. Poddubny claims that certain "fighters who were wounded and received service fitness category 'D' [...] are strongly asking to be allowed, as an exception, to serve in the regional units that defend facilities against drones." Putin promised to support this initiative and to speak with military leaders "about improving the country's air defense system against attacks by the Armed Forces of Ukraine."

The government authorized Russian Post facilities to be equipped with technical means to counter drones. The decree expands a list of weapons and special equipment, in effect since 2005, with which organizations of the national postal service may be equipped. Until now, the list included service and civilian weapons, ammunition, body armor, and other personal protective equipment. It now also includes equipment to counter unmanned aerial, underwater, and surface vessels and craft; unmanned vehicles; and other automated unmanned systems.

Army Recruitment

In a number of regions in southern Russia, payments for signing a contract with the Ministry of Defense have been increased:

• in the Volgograd region, as of Sept. 1, the sign-up bonus was increased from 2.6 million rubles [$30,000] to 3 million rubles [$34,700];
• in the Krasnodar region, the total payment was increased as early as Feb. 1, from 2.1 million rubles to 2.5 million rubles [$28,900], while in the city of Krasnodar itself, a municipal supplement of 1 million rubles [$11,600] is in effect;
• in the Astrakhan region, the bonuses were increased from 2.1 million rubles [$24,300] to 2.6 million rubles [$30,000];
• in Adygea [Russia's constituent republic], as of April 15, the payment was increased from 1.5 million rubles [$17,300] to 2.1 million rubles [$24,300];
• in the Stavropol region, it was increased from 1.6 million rubles [$18,500] to 2.7 million rubles [$31,200], with municipalities paying an additional 400,000 rubles [$4,620];
• in Kabardino-Balkaria [Russia’s constituent republic], the payments were increased from 1.8 million rubles [$20,800] to 2.4 million rubles [$27,700].

Payments for signing a contract with the MoD for Russian citizens in the Irkutsk region have been reduced from 2.1 million rubles [$24,300] to 1.8 million rubles [$20,800]. At the same time, regional authorities introduced a payment of 900,000 rubles [$10,400] for foreigners and stateless persons who choose to sign a contract with the MoD. Payments for convicts and defendants in the region remain unchanged at 1 million rubles [$11,600]. Meanwhile, the regional Legislative Assembly rejected a bill that would have introduced payments to recruiters for recruiting contract soldiers.

According to a tally by the Lyudi Baikala [People of Baikal] independent media outlet, over the past year, the Irkutsk region may have sent about 3,000 volunteer fighters to the frontline. Journalists examined reports by local officials in several cities and districts in the region who publicly report on the deployment of contract soldiers to war. Together, these cities and districts account for 17% of the region’s total population. Over the past year, they sent 514 people to the frontline. By extrapolating their data to the entire region, the journalists estimated that at least 3,000 people were sent from the region. This figure does not include people recruited in penal colonies or conscripts who signed contracts at their military units. At the same time, over the same year, the number of known military fatalities from the Irkutsk region increased by 3,200.

In Blagoveshchensk, Amur region, the city administration changed payments for recruiting people to sign military contracts. If the recruit is a resident of Amur region, a foreigner, or a stateless person, the payment will be 115,000 rubles [$1,330]. For residents of other Russian regions, it will be 230,000 rubles [$2,660].

In Bashkortostan [Russia’s constituent republic], Rosgvardia [the Russian National Guard] has begun looking for employees to protect Ozon and Wildberries warehouses from UAV attacks. The agency’s Federal State Unitary Enterprise Okhrana posted a vacancy on the HeadHunter website for an "air surveillance post rifleman." The job description says employees will be responsible for monitoring the airspace around the facilities, traveling to suspected attack routes, and working with small arms. Applicants are offered a salary starting at 65,000 rubles [$750], and those without experience combating drones are promised training. The employer also offers official employment, a one-day-on, three-days-off shift schedule, timely salary payments and "life and health insurance." In addition, the employer guarantees free medical checkups and uniforms. According to HeadHunter, more than 100 people have already applied for the position.

According to the Mozhem Ob'yasnit [We Can Explain] Telegram channel, on Sept. 4 Sberbank [Russia's largest bank] held an internal meeting on military registration and mobilization deferments for employees. According to a source, the meeting covered who can count on a mobilization deferment, who is not entitled to one, and what will happen to registration data. Based on the information presented, mobilization deferments are to be granted to employees whose military registration is in order, meaning they are registered at their current place of residence and their data in the registry are accurate and up to date. At the same time, interns, "part-time employees," and remote workers, along with people holding a mobilization order and those removed from the military rolls, will not be eligible for a mobilization deferment. Starting Sept. 10, Sberbank will begin verifying military registration data across the entire bank. According to the journalists, this is the first time Sberbank has held such a general meeting.

At the Patriot Park outside Moscow, the Avangard center for military-patriotic youth training is likely being used to train mercenaries from Latin America who have signed contracts with the MoD. Photographs of foreigners posing with weapons on the grounds of the Avangard center surfaced in a Telegram chat where residents of Latin American countries search for relatives who went missing after signing contracts. The Astra Telegram channel geolocated the images.

For the first time, a man in the reserve has been barred from leaving Russia because of a draft office decision, reports the Idite Lesom! [Flee through the woods/Get lost you all] Telegram channel. The 24-year-old resident of the Rostov region completed his statutory military service in 2024 and was then placed in the reserve. On Sept. 2, he tried to fly out of Krasnodar, but at passport control he was taken aside for an additional check, then denied exit and handed an official notice of a temporary restriction on his right to leave Russia, citing a restriction imposed by the draft office. In November 2025, the man had gone there in response to a draft notice to update his military registration documents, after which officials pasted a mobilization order into his military registration documents. Yet that same draft notice now appears in the registry with the status "Citizen failed to appear," and the draft office imposed a temporary exit restriction. The reservist learned of it only at the border. This is the first known case of a reservist being barred from leaving Russia by a draft office decision, even though, under the law, this ban may be imposed only on young men subject to regular conscription, not on those in the reserve. Still, a single case is not enough to conclude that all reservists with draft notices will now face exit restrictions.

According to statistics from the Federal Service for Labor and Employment, the number of young people performing alternative civilian service (ACS) has increased by a quarter over the past year. In spring 2025, 2,722 people were performing ACS; a year later, that number rose to 3,387. The statistics do not include the number of applications filed, rejections by draft boards, or appeals. Not only is the number of people choosing ACS growing, but opportunities for such service are expanding as well. In May, the Ministry of Labor expanded the list to 363 occupations. At the same time, the number of organizations where ACS can be performed increased from 1,798 to 1,927. Still, despite ACS becoming more popular, the number of approvals remains catastrophically low—around 1 percent of all conscripts. According to human rights advocates, on average, only one in 10 applications for ACS is approved. Draft boards obstruct citizens from exercising their constitutional right, while courts rarely side with conscripts.

The Supreme Court has ruled that a gap between completing a master's degree and entering a postgraduate program does not deprive conscripts of their right to a draft deferment. The ruling came in a case involving a Moscow man whose deferment was denied because of the gap between completing his master's degree and enrolling in a postgraduate program. The man completed his master's degree in June 2023 and in 2024 enrolled in a full-time postgraduate program at Moscow State University. However, the draft board denied him a deferment and decided to conscript him for statutory military service. Courts at three levels upheld the decision, citing the significant period between the completion of his master's degree and his enrollment in the postgraduate program and, consequently, a lack of continuity in his studies. The Supreme Court, however, pointed out that the law does not require applicants to enter a postgraduate program immediately after completing a master's degree and does not establish a deadline for doing so. It overturned the lower courts' decisions and ordered the draft board to reconsider the question of granting him a deferment.

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 243,674 Russian fighters killed in Ukraine, including 20,066 mobilized soldiers. Over the past week, the list has grown by 927 soldiers. Journalists have also detailed the fate of mobilized troops over four years of war, noting that, according to published obituaries, the highest losses occurred in their first two years of service, with 35 percent of all confirmed deaths of the mobilized taking place in the first year and 39 percent in the second one. Meanwhile, German economist Janis Kluge, who analyzed budget expenditures on payments to mobilized soldiers, estimated that, if there were about 290,000 of them on the frontline by the end of 2022, their numbers could have dropped to 168,000 by 2025 due to deaths, discharges and the signing of military contracts.

Emil Zhenishbekov, a conscript from Krasnoyarsk, who has been suing the MoD for more than a year over a forged military contract, has been informed of an imminent transfer to an assault company. Earlier, his commanders demanded that he submit a written request for deployment to the frontline, and after he refused, filed a report of insubordination and threatened him with criminal charges or forced deployment. Zhenishbekov, who was conscripted in April 2025, claims that his signature on the contract was forged. Independent forensic analysis confirmed that the signature was not his, but the court refused to consider it. Although his conscript service should have ended on April 8, instead of being discharged, Zhenishbekov was taken to a training range in Chebarkul, Chelyabinsk region, where he has been held for five months.

In Boguchar, Voronezh region, another conscript, Maksim Mistin, 19, was coerced into signing a contract. On Aug. 19, after a shooting exercise, he was sent to a recruitment lecture. He felt ill in the heat and developed a nosebleed, but was left alone in a locked room for two hours, after which he was forced to sign a contract under threat. That same day he submitted a written request to terminate the contract, but commanders later forced him under threat to record a video stating that he had signed the contract voluntarily and had no complaints against the commanders of the 245th Regiment. Neither Mistin nor his parents have been given the contract or a copy of it. It has also recently come to light that 22-year-old Aleksey Polyakov from the Kemerovo region and 20-year-old Aleksandr Safonov from the Kursk region were similarly coerced into signing contracts. Human rights advocates and media outlets (1, 2) have reported numerous other such cases.

Sentences, Legal Proceedings and Incidents

The Southern District Military Court closed the criminal case against former Bashkir Vatan battalion commander Ramil Ulmasbaev over the murder of three subordinates. He had been charged with making death threats, abuse of authority, torture, kidnapping two or more people and the murder of two or more people with particular cruelty. The proceedings had previously been suspended after Ulmasbaev was sent to the front, where he received a state award, which became grounds for the case to be closed entirely. Ulmasbaev was accused of murdering Salavat Rafikov, Aydar Akhtaryanov and Ilshat Nabiullin in August 2023, after they witnessed the murder of another battalion member, engineering reconnaissance commander Igor Popov. In August 2023, Popov had beaten a fellow soldier after smelling alcohol on him, and that soldier shot and killed him in response. Days later, Ulmasbaev decided to eliminate the three witnesses. Ulmasbaev had them captured, shot them in the knees and beat them with a crowbar. He then slashed their stomachs open with the tip of the crowbar while they were still alive. They were loaded into the trunk of a car, driven to the village of Melovatka in the Luhansk region, doused with gasoline and set on fire. Grenades were then thrown at the bodies and they were burned again. After the murder, Ulmasbaev recorded a video claiming the three men had deserted and blaming them for the original killing. All four were buried as soldiers who died in the line of duty. Ulmasbaev’s driver, Ilnur Kutluyulov, who was also tried in the case, was found guilty of kidnapping, aiding torture, abuse of authority and murder and sentenced to 10 years in a penal colony.

In the Arkhangelsk region, a 32-year-old former Wagner Group mercenary, Maksim Fisun, killed a woman. On Aug. 11, he agreed to give 62-year-old Svetlana Soboleva a ride to Novodvinsk. However, the two reportedly got into an argument along the way. The man then stopped on the highway and stabbed the woman in the head, neck, and chest. Fisun later dumped her body in the bushes. He was detained in Novodvinsk the same day. He is currently being held in a pre-trial detention center. Fisun had previously been sentenced to 14 years and three months in prison for murder and theft. In 2022, he signed a contract with the Wagner Group and was released from the penal colony.

Fifty-five servicemen who had gone AWOL from their military units were detained in Udmurtia [Russia's constituent republic] over the course of a month, from August 1 to 30, said Maksim Tikhonov, the republic’s interior minister.

The Interior Ministry of Russia’s Altai region [Russia’s federal subject] has announced the completion of an investigation into a fraud scheme involving payments to participants in the war against Ukraine. According to investigators, the group of 13 people was led by a local resident who "holds the highest position in the criminal hierarchy." The charges included holding the highest position in the criminal hierarchy and fraud. The group consisted of four men and nine women between the ages of 18 and 55. They sought out men who led an "antisocial lifestyle," helped them restore their documents and pass medical evaluations, and persuaded them to sign contracts with the MoD, promising that they would serve in rear units. The women in the group entered into sham marriages with the prospective soldiers. After the marriages were registered, they took their husbands’ bank cards and arranged powers of attorney giving them access to their bank accounts. The marriages were registered in Russia’s Altai region, Kemerovo region and Novosibirsk region. If the men were wounded or killed, the women appropriated the compensation and other payments. At least 32 people were victims of the scheme, 10 of whom entered into sham marriages and went to war. The total damage caused by the group was estimated at approximately 60 million rubles [$693,100].

Two local residents in the Novosibirsk region, Denis Bareyev and Aleksandr Novikov, have been detained on charges of misappropriating payments intended for participants in the war. According to investigators, the two were part of a group that persuaded victims to sign contracts with the MoD and then stole their money. In total, the group stole 6 million rubles [$69,300]. The detainees had previously been convicted of theft and robbery.

The Voyennye Advokaty [Military Lawyers] Telegram channel has reported on several court rulings involving sham marriages with military personnel. In all of the cases, the marriages were registered shortly before the servicemen signed contracts or left for military service, after which disputes arose over payments and other rights of the spouses. The courts ruled that the marriages were invalid.

Children and Militarization

The Mozhem Ob'yasnit Telegram channel has reported on efforts to involve war veterans in Russia's schools as part of celebrations marking Sept. 1, the traditional start of the school year. In 40 regions, as part of an initiative called "Being There," veterans accompanied first-graders from families of soldiers killed in the war to school. In several regions, veterans also conducted "lessons of peace" and "patriotism," while schoolchildren reenacted combat operations involving assault rifles, grenade throwing and drone launches.

A new veterans' organization named "SVOi" [a play on "SVO"—Russia's official acronym for its war in Ukraine and the Russian word for "one's own"] has launched in Udmurtia. Forty veterans recently joined the club, which plans to mentor local youth, assist returning servicemen, and conduct 50 "lessons of courage" across 16 schools in Izhevsk. The initiative received 2.8 million rubles [$32,300] in grant funding.

A specialized UAV class has opened at School No. 65 in Cheboksary, the Chuvash Republic. Students will learn drone assembly, repair and modeling, as well as drone operations—starting on flight simulators before progressing to hands-on piloting.

Longreads

At least 17,000 Russian debtors killed in the war against Ukraine owed a combined total of over 3.5 billion rubles [$42 million], according to an investigation by Vazhnyye Istorii [IStories, independent Russian investigative media outlet]. The outlet also detailed how debtors end up on the frontline and what happens to their debts after their deaths.

The Pervy Otdel [Department One] human rights project has prepared a report on prosecutions for high treason and espionage for the first half of 2026 and for all four and a half years of the full-scale war. In the first six months of the current year alone, 284 people were convicted of these offenses—more than in all the pre-war years combined (170 sentences).

The Vyorstka media outlet and the Ne Norma [Not a Norm] Telegram channel have reported on how the rhetoric of school social media pages has changed against the backdrop of the war, with "patriotic" words now being used twice as often.