Mobilization in Russia for Feb. 2-4, 2025 CIT Volunteer Summary
Authorities and Legislation
Russia’s Ministry of Defense has drafted amendments to the Regulation on Military Medical Examination, proposing substantial revisions to the List of Diseases, that serves as the basis for assessing the health of potential conscripts and those serving under contract or mobilization. The draft amendments would shift conscripts suffering from syphilis in the primary, secondary or latent stages from service fitness category "V" (partially fit for military service) to "B-4" (fit for military service with minor restrictions). The Russian Armed Forces usually exempt the former, defined as partially fit for military service, but draft individuals under all "B" categories. Conscripts with first-stage hypertension would move to "B-3" instead of "V." Until now, it has been common for conscripts to obtain exemptions based on this condition. These amendments could "practically eliminate" the possibility of avoiding service on those grounds, said Artyom Klyga, Head of the Legal Department at the Movement of Conscientious Objectors, in an interview with TV Rain [independent Russian television channel]. The human rights organization, which supports individuals who refuse to perform military service, was the first to draw attention to the proposal. The same amendments would also place contract and mobilized soldiers diagnosed with moderately severe, short-term endogenous or sharply pronounced neurotic psychoses under category "V" rather than "D" (unfit for service). The authors propose to extend the validity of military medical examination conclusions for one year beyond the end of any mobilization period, martial law or wartime. The current rule limits them to one year from the date of issuance or until a new examination takes place. Higher-level military medical boards would gain authority to overturn lower-level decisions if they detect procedural violations, and they would be able to order individuals to undergo medical reexaminations, including in absentia.
Fighters who have been discharged from volunteer units and do not agree with the established fitness categories will now undergo medical examinations remotely. According to lawyer Arseny Levinson, this regulation deprives servicemen of an important tool for protecting their rights—the independent military medical board—and will also allow the military to avoid discharging soldiers with severe PTSD, alcoholism and drug addiction. Additionally, as noted by the Voyennye Advokaty [Military Lawyers] Telegram channel, the proposed amendments suggest reducing the grounds for financial compensation to servicemen. The explanatory note states that the broad interpretation of the concept of "military injury" has significantly expanded the number of candidates eligible for payments, leading to disproportionate compensation for servicemen with chronic illnesses compared to those who sustained injuries while executing military duties. Therefore, the amendments will introduce a separate category for health conditions that are not related to the execution of military service.
The government has endorsed a bill to increase fines for citizens who fail to fulfill their military registration obligations. Under current law, if a man who moves to a new residence without registration for more than three months and fails to inform the draft office can be fined between 1,000 rubles [$10] and 5,000 rubles [$50]. The bill, introduced by Andrey Kartapolov, Chairman of the Defense Committee of the State Duma [lower house of the Federal Assembly of Russia], proposes raising this fine to match the penalty imposed on conscripts who fail to notify authorities of their departure during a regular conscription campaign period. This would increase the fine to between 10,000 rubles [$100] and 20,000 rubles [$200].
According to the Baza Telegram channel, the MoD is drafting a law to impose additional accountability on military personnel who commit crimes in combat situations. The bill’s authors state that the measure is designed to "improve discipline and prevent serious and especially grave crimes." The law will apply to combat veterans if the crime was committed in a "combat environment," including during martial law, wartime or armed conflict. Under the proposed legislation, combat veterans who commit serious or especially grave crimes will face additional punitive measures, such as the termination of service-related payments and the revocation of benefits and privileges associated with their combat veteran status.
Vladimir Putin has signed a decree integrating the MoD, the Ministry of Sports and the Ministry of Education into DOSAAF [Russian Army, Air Force and Navy Volunteer Society]. Previously, DOSAAF focused on military-sports activities and "patriotic" training for civilians and co-founded Young Army Movement [pro-Kremlin youth militarized organization]. Under the new decree, DOSAAF will also be tasked with training mobilized soldiers and conscripts during drills. Additionally, the minimum age for joining DOSAAF will be lowered from 18 to 14.
Army Recruitment and Military Service Advertising
Vasily Starkov, the former minister of transport for the Sverdlovsk region, who was sentenced to six and a half years in a maximum security penal colony for bribery, has expressed his intention to go to war immediately after the verdict. In September 2023, Starkov accepted a 4 million ruble [$40,100] bribe from a construction company in exchange for securing a contract. Later the fall, he voluntarily resigned and announced his deployment to the frontline. However, no reliable evidence confirmed his presence in a combat zone. In July 2024, Starkov was detained, placed under house arrest and then released on recognizance.
In Saratov, law enforcement officers conducted a raid targeting migrants and draft dodgers, checking more than 50 people. Over a dozen men who had obtained Russian passports but failed to register for military service were summoned to a draft office. A similar raid took place in Chelyabinsk, targeting individuals who had failed to register for military service. In Saint Petersburg, law enforcement officers also conducted roundups in several large shopping areas, checking more than 200 people. Of those, 30 were transported to a draft office to complete their military registration.
Mobilized Soldiers, Volunteer Fighters and Contract Soldiers
Based on open sources, Mediazona [independent Russian media outlet] and BBC News Russian, together with volunteers, have verified the names of 91,059 Russian fighters killed in Ukraine, including 10,489 mobilized soldiers. Over the past two weeks, the list has grown by 1,040 soldiers.
Mediazona has found that in 2024, courts received 20,040 petitions to declare individuals missing or deceased. This is 2.5 times higher than in previous years and peacetime. Over 6,000 cases are directly linked to military personnel, though details are often concealed. According to journalists' findings, most of these petitions were filed by military unit commanders who are "cleaning up" their personnel rosters of those killed in action but whose deaths weren't officially confirmed. Once a service member is declared dead or missing, they can be removed from the roster and replaced with a new recruit. Military units began filing petitions en masse in the second half of 2024, the first significant surge since the war began. The Oktyabrsky Court in the Rostov region received the highest number of missing person petitions in 2024, with 1,243 such cases. Among the units filing the most missing person petitions were the motorized rifle regiments of the 144th Division (254th, 488th, 752nd, and 1428th), the 7th Military Base, the 108th and 331st Regiments of the Russian Airborne Troops, and the 27th and 36th Motorized Rifle Brigades. As CIT noted in its comment to Mediazona, the number of service members being written off as missing in units correlates with the combination of combat intensity and the static nature of the frontline in a specific direction.
Another 18-year-old contract soldier has been killed in the war with Ukraine. Lev Okkert from Bratsk, who was born in June 2006, signed a contract with the MoD in late August 2024, shortly after reaching legal age and graduating from high school. According to Okkert's girlfriend who spoke to the Astra Telegram channel, the young man wanted to prove he was "a real man who could protect his loved ones." The young soldier was killed on Sept. 30, 2024, with his funeral scheduled for Feb. 6 in Bratsk. He became one of the youngest Russian soldiers to die in Ukraine.
35Media, a Vologda-based news outlet owned by Aleksey Mordashov, a businessman with close ties to Putin, has deleted news coverage about regional residents killed in the war. The outlet removed both recent and previously published obituaries.
The Krasnodar region draftee Aleksey Abramov, whose wife had been trying to save him, went missing. The man has not been heard from since January. Ksenia, his wife, said that his draft office did not have any information on her husband and she sent an inquiry to the state-run Defenders of the Fatherland Fund. The Fund’s employees took a DNA sample from Aleksey’s mother and Ksenia filled out an identification form. The Fund found out through its "internal sources" that the man had been listed as missing in action in the Pokrovsk direction since Jan. 24. Abramov was mobilized in 2022 despite suffering from a herniated disc. His wife participated in pickets and, in 2023, succeeded in bringing him home to undergo medical examination. In 2024, however, he was forced to appear at the commandant’s office and from there he wastaken to join the assault troops even though he was walking with crutches.
Relatives of the KIA and MIA soldiers from the 123rd Motorized Rifle Brigade created a petition addressed to the Minister of Defense Andrey Belousov demanding the sacking of the brigade’s commander Roman Shkroba and the commander of the 1st Motorized Rifle Battalion Aleksey Korchagin suspected of torturing his subordinates. The relatives demand a "global investigation" into the unit whose "service members have been disappearing in large numbers for a long time." To date, 160 people signed the petition.
Sentences, Legal Proceedings and Incidents
A court in the Perm region [Russia’s federal subject] has sentenced former Wagner Group mercenary Artyom Sychyov, previously convicted of murder, to 10 years in a maximum security penal colony. According to the court's verdict, Sychyov stabbed his ex-wife’s partner to death out of jealousy. It is likely that while serving his last sentence, Sychyov was recruited for the war, for which he received a pardon from Putin. On the frontline, Sychyov was captured but was exchanged in the winter of 2024.
The Moscow City Court has received a case against war participant Pavel Guguyev, who returned from Ukrainian captivity and was accused of "confidential" cooperation with foreigners. Guguyev was recruited for the war in May 2023 from a penal colony, where he had served 10 years of a 12-year sentence for murder. He was captured at the front, and while in captivity in the spring of 2023, he gave an interview to Ukrainian journalist Dmytro Karpenko. In the interview, he stated that he was HIV-positive and declared that he would "on principle" refuse to return to the war after his captivity. Later, Guguyev was returned to Russia as part of a prisoner exchange and, in the summer of 2023, gave a second interview to Karpenko from a military unit in the Moscow region. In it, he reported that he had been held in the unit for two months and was pressured to claim that he had been "forced" to record the first interview. Guguyev also confirmed that he did not intend to return to the frontline. He has been under arrest since the end of 2023.
In the Bryansk region, a criminal case has been opened against Vladimir Reuk, a former deputy of the Klintsy City Council from United Russia [Putin’s ruling party]. He is being charged with three counts of fraud. According to investigators, Reuk took bribes from war veterans in exchange for state awards and payments for injuries, as well as exemption from service. In 2023, Putin awarded him the Medal of the Order "For Merit to the Fatherland." Reuk was arrested in June 2024 and sent to a pre-trial detention center.
The Second Eastern District Military Court has sentenced a soldier from the Irkutsk region, Sergey Taltykin, to two and a half years in a penal colony for "justifying terrorism." He was also stripped of his ranks. According to the court, Taltykin, 63, made posts in Telegram calling for "violence against Russian citizens" and for "providing moral and financial assistance to the Armed Forces of Ukraine."
Valentina Aparneva, a resident of Saint Petersburg, has been sentenced to two years in a penal colony for allegedly making a knowingly false bomb threat. According to investigators, on Jan. 30, Aparneva called the emergency number 112 and reported bomb threats at the draft offices in the Krasnoselsky and Moskovsky districts. She was arrested in February of the same year and placed in a pre-trial detention center. Aparneva has denied any involvement and has not admitted guilt.
In Dzerzhinsk, Nizhny Novgorod region, an 18-year-old vocational school student has been accused of planning to sabotage power transmission lines. The young man was arrested back in September 2024 on charges of illegally acquiring and possessing explosives. During the investigation, law enforcement officers discovered alleged plans by the young man to undermine power lines in Dzerzhinsk. He may now face additional charges of sabotage.
The Volgograd Regional Court sentenced Kamyshin resident Sergey Mironov to nine years in a maximum security penal colony on charges of treason for allegedly attempting to fight on Ukraine’s side. According to investigators, Mironov "entered into correspondence with a representative of Ukraine’s intelligence services," "recorded a video on his mobile phone expressing his desire to join the enemy," and used money sent by his contact to buy train tickets. He was detained on the morning of Feb. 13, 2024, as he boarded a train at Kamyshin railway station. Following his arrest, he was repeatedly placed under administrative detention under the pretext of being intoxicated and using foul language. Later, a criminal case was initiated against him.
Assistance
Muslim participants in the war from the Zabaykalsky region [Russia's federal subject] and their families will have the opportunity to make a free pilgrimage to Mecca. The trip is expected to be financed by Dagestani billionaire and senator Suleyman Kerimov.
Debt collectors in Udmurtia [Russia's constituent republic] sent seven confiscated cars to the frontline, which had been seized from drivers convicted of drunk driving.
Children
In the Vladimir region, kindergarten children were involved in making trench candles for soldiers fighting in the war with Ukraine.
Longreads
The Vyorstka media outlet shared the story of a mobilized man who ended up in pre-trial detention for attempting to set fire to the forensic bureau after struggling unsuccessfully to receive the compensation he was owed for injuries sustained at the frontline.