Mobilization in Russia for Dec. 21-23, 2025 CIT Volunteer Summary

Authorities and Legislation

Sergey Novikov, head of the Presidential Directorate for Social Projects, stated that 167,000 war participants had "returned to civilian life," adding that "several times more will return" should victory arrive tomorrow. In June, Novikov estimated the number of returnees at 137,000. Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin stated last week that 700,000 people were currently in the "special military operation zone."

Army Recruitment

Vazhnyye Istorii [IStories], an independent Russian investigative media outlet, analyzed more than 100 gigabytes of internal documents from Mikord, a key developer of the Unified Military Register. A group of anonymous hackers breached the company, and the Idite Lesom! [Flee through the woods/Get lost you all] Telegram channel provided the data to journalists. The leaked data revealed that:

The Unified Military Register is designed to store data on 25 million citizens, representing Russia’s entire mobilization base—men aged 18 to 70 and women aged 18 to 50 who are not incarcerated.
A separate dashboard for the Minister of Defense defines the category eligible for mobilization differently: men aged 30 to 50 and women aged 30 to 45 with fewer than five children under 16. This indicates authorities would likely draft this group first during mobilization.
The register holds more than 300 data attributes per person, including education, residence, employment, health, assets and family details. It has the capacity to issue up to one million draft notices annually and process 600,000 requests to restrict or clear citizens who fail to report to the draft office.
Besides regular conscription, the system is designed to facilitate mobilization, contract recruitment and the search for volunteer fighters.
The register includes functionality for the untraceable removal of individuals from it or for replacing their personal data with fictitious information, as well as for canceling issued draft notices or imposed restrictions. This can be done on an individual basis or in bulk. Who exactly will be protected from conscription in this way is not known for certain; however, the documentation implies that the data of employees of law-enforcement and security agencies, members of the government and their families will be protected. Information on those subject to removal is provided by the Federal Security Service (FSB), the Federal Protective Service and the Foreign Intelligence Service, while the deletion itself is carried out by a special unit of the MoD. Even records of the deletion of entries are themselves subject to deletion.
Despite the digitization of the registration system, conscription procedures still require draft office staff to manually select which conscripts will be sent draft notices—the Unified Military Register itself does not provide for automating this process. To send a draft notice, a military commissar must also electronically sign it, after which citizens receive notifications in their personal accounts.
To bar a person from leaving the country, a military commissar must, with a separate mouse click, sign a decision imposing the ban and forward it to the FSB. The imposition of such restrictions may be automated in the future. At present, however, this process is not automated because draft offices and the FSB have not established data exchange between their systems.
Vazhnyye Istorii reconstructed a prototype of the Unified Military Register based on leaked data, making it possible to understand how the system is intended to function.

In Bashkortostan [Russia's constituent republic], a resident of the city of Neftekamsk, Danil Melnikov, was forcibly taken to a draft office and coerced into signing a contract to participate in the war. Two unidentified men in military uniform came to his apartment and used force to take him to the draft office. There, Melnikov was questioned about whether he consumed alcohol and, under threats of being sent to an assault unit, was forced to sign the contract. After that, law enforcement officers confiscated his personal belongings and apartment keys and told him he would spend the night at the draft office. The man is seeking the opening of a criminal case on charges of kidnapping and unlawful deprivation of liberty.

Mobilized Soldiers, Contract Soldiers and Conscripts

More than 70% of appeals submitted to the online reception office of Russia’s human-rights ombudsman are related to the war against Ukraine, the Echo media outlet has found after reviewing a dataset of 9,476 complaints obtained by the newsroom. The appeals were filed between late April and early September 2025. A total of 6,739 of the 9,476 complaints—about 71%—were linked to the war. Of these, 6,087 complaints (around 90%) concerned participants in the invasion. Sixty percent of that number—3,645 appeals—were requests for help locating people listed as missing in action. At least seven of these were collective complaints, with the largest signed by 97 people. Servicemen and their relatives say commanders are sending untrained recruits to forward positions, failing to evacuate troops who do not return from combat missions, and concealing losses by classifying those believed to have been killed as missing in action or as having gone AWOL. According to the complaints, people are recruited for the war under false pretenses, prisoners of war are not searched for or exchanged, and those released from captivity are sent back to the front. Applicants also report denial of medical care and widespread violence—from humiliation, threats, and the confinement of those deemed at fault in torture pits and basements to being sent on so-called "meat assaults" and killings allegedly carried out on commanders’ orders.

In Moscow, volunteer Viktor Kaplan—the last witness to the deaths of servicemen Dmitry Lysakovsky and Sergey Gritsay—was detained again. Kaplan was taken to a police station on suspicion of going AWOL, despite a recent decision by investigators to drop the case against him. Authorities claimed a new criminal case over alleged unauthorized absence had been opened in Moscow several weeks earlier. Kaplan was released about an hour later.

Sentences, Legal Proceedings and Incidents

A Moscow court has sentenced 40-year-old Russian serviceman Dmitry Stenkin to life imprisonment on charges including the attempted murder of two or more people with particular cruelty; the murder of two or more people with particular cruelty; unlawful entry into a dwelling using violence or the threat of violence; and the abduction of a minor using violence and weapons. On April 30, 2025, Stenkin forced his way into the Larins family home in the village of Giri in Russia’s Kursk region under the pretense of checking documents. He attempted to rape the mother of two children, but when she resisted, he opened fire with an assault rifle, killing the woman and seriously wounding her husband. He then tried to flee with the children but was detained. Stenkin had previously been convicted multiple times. In 2017, he was sentenced to four and a half years in a penal colony for rape. In 2024, he received a two-year sentence in a maximum security penal colony for assaulting a police officer, and in early 2025 an additional five months for violating administrative supervision rules. After that, he likely went to war.

In the Sverdlovsk region, the Central District Military Court in Yekaterinburg has sentenced 50-year-old serviceman Mikhail Molochkov to 18 years in a high security colony for murder with extreme brutality. The prosecution requested a sentence of 19 years and 10 months of imprisonment. Molochkov stated that he does not intend to appeal the verdict, as he plans to go to war. According to the prosecution, in May 2024, Molochkov escaped from his military unit in the Leningrad region and began living as a homeless person, while a criminal case was initiated against him for going AWOL. At the end of June 2024, he found himself in Russia's constituent Republic of Udmurtia, in the town of Sarapul. There, he asked a janitor for a place to sleep in his shed. While drinking alcohol with the janitor and his acquaintance, Molochkov decided to burn his drinking companions alive. In 2012, Molochkov was sentenced to 11 years in a penal colony for causing grievous bodily harm resulting in death. According to leaks, his history of criminal convictions also includes murder and theft. Shortly after his release from the penal colony, on Oct. 25, 2023, he signed a contract with the MoD. He served in the army for a total of 27 days.

In Russia's constituent Republic of Buryatia, a court in Ulan-Ude has sentenced Mikhail Yerofeyev, a 47-year-old local resident who participated in the war, to 11 years in a penal colony for intentionally causing grievous bodily harm. Initially, he was charged with attempted murder, but the charge was later reduced. According to the court, on July 9, 2025, Yerofeyev, while intoxicated, stabbed an acquaintance twice in the chest. Six months prior to that, on Dec. 10, 2024, Yerofeyev had fatally beaten his drinking companion and was sentenced to nine years in prison for causing grievous bodily harm. It is likely that he signed a contract with the MoD while serving that sentence.

Two former war participants, 50-year-old Vasily Katkov and 37-year-old Stanislav Kichaev, have been accused of illegal entry into a residence, theft of weapons, robbery and the murder of Bashkir farmer Oleg Poletavkin and his wife Valentina. Kichaev is additionally charged with going AWOL. At the end of 2024, after fleeing their military units, the two men were working on the Poletavkin family’s property. On Dec. 5, after consuming alcohol, they agreed to murder and rob the couple. They first attacked Valentina, restrained her and fatally struck her on the head with an axe. Then they retrieved a rifle from the farmer's safe and fatally shot him when he returned home. After that, they disposed of the bodies, took the rifle, jewelry worth 87,000 rubles [$1,100], and Valentina’s bank card and fled in the victims’ car. On Dec. 6, they were detained and resisted arrest. Katkov signed a contract with the MoD on Sept. 6, 2023; Kichaev did so on Sept. 15, 2023, and fled his military unit on Jan. 27, 2024. Mediazona reports that both men have multiple prior convictions.

Military courts are processing five treason cases against war participants:

The case against 26-year-old Anton Kuruu, a native of Tuva, was filed on Nov. 21, 2025. The charges have not been disclosed.
Aleksandr Firstov, 30, from the Sverdlovsk region, was sentenced in February 2022 to one year on probation for biting off part of an opponent's nose during a fight. He served as a mercenary with the Wagner Group. When he returned from the frontline is unknown. In January 2025, he was arrested on charges of treason and participation in a terrorist organization for attempting to join the Freedom of Russia Legion. His trial began in September 2025.
Georgy Borzdov, 24, from the Donetsk region, obtained Russian citizenship and relocated to the Rostov region between 2019 and 2020. How he ended up on the frontline is unknown. In addition to attempted treason, he is charged with attempted participation in a terrorist organization and going AWOL.
Nikita Bogomolov, 35, from Kirov, also faces charges of treason, going AWOL, participation in a terrorist organization and aiding terrorist activities. When exactly he was detained remains unclear. The details of his case are unknown; it has been in court since August 2025.
Another serviceman from the Kirov region, 23-year-old Artyom Kharin, faces charges of treason, sabotage, and participation in terrorist activities. He had two prior convictions for theft. Kharin was likely mobilized. His case was filed on Jan. 14.

In the Moscow region, a 17-year-old college student was detained and sent to a pre-trial detention center on charges of committing a terrorist attack. According to investigators, the teenager agreed, through a messenger, to set fire to a piece of transportation infrastructure for money at the request of Ukrainian intelligence services. On the evening of Dec. 17, he set fire to a relay cabinet on the Zhilevo-Stupino rail line, recording his actions on his phone to send a "report to his handlers," but never received the promised payment.

In Chelyabinsk, a 20-year-old native of Troitsk has been detained on charges of committing an act of terror; the court placed her in a pre-trial detention center. According to investigators, the detainee set fire to a police service vehicle after entering the grounds of a district department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. She was detained on Dec. 20.

The First Court of Appeal of General Jurisdiction in Moscow has upheld the 17-year prison sentence of 25-year-old Voronezh resident Andrey Vasilenko, who was convicted of treason, preparation for sabotage and undergoing training to carry out sabotage. According to investigators, in March 2024 he made contact with representatives of Ukrainian intelligence services and passed on information about railway infrastructure facilities in Voronezh. He also allegedly underwent sabotage training and was preparing to set fire to a relay cabinet with a locomotive, acting as part of a group with unidentified accomplices. Vasilenko was detained at the site of the alleged planned sabotage.

In the Krasnodar region, a priest of the Greek Orthodox Church from the village of Blagoveshchenskaya has been detained on charges of participation in a terrorist organization. According to the FSB, since the end of 2023, the clergyman had been recruiting parishioners into the Russian Volunteer Corps.

Animal rights activist from the Moscow region Yevgeniya Konforkina has been accused of treason and charged with participation in a terrorist organization. Law enforcement officials allege that she organized the filming of the National Helicopter Engineering Center in Lyubertsy on instructions from the Freedom of Russia Legion. Konforkina was detained in October 2024.

Children and Militarization

Aleksey Milchakov, the leader of the openly neo-Nazi Russian volunteer unit known as the Sabotage Assault Reconnaissance Group [DShRG] Rusich, held what organizers described as a "lesson of courage" at School No. 538 in the Kirovsky district of St. Petersburg. Milchakov first became widely known in 2011, when he posted photographs on the VKontakte social network depicting the beheading of a puppy. Since 2014, during Russia’s war against Ukraine, he has been accused of torture, abuse, executions of prisoners of war and other crimes.

Russian schools have begun assigning extracurricular tasks as part of history classes that are explicitly linked to supporting participants in the war against Ukraine and military veterans. Students are encouraged to identify participants in the so-called "special military operation" or veterans of World War II in their communities, collect gifts for them, provide assistance and then write essays describing the work they have done.

More than 18,000 children across Russia have taken part in an initiative known as Portrait of a Hero. As part of the campaign, students in art schools are instructed to draw portraits of participants in the "special military operation"—both living and killed.

Longreads

The Sibir.Realii online media outlet, part of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, has reported that soldiers performing their statutory military service are being coerced and deceived into signing contracts with the MoD for deployment to the war.