Mobilization in Russia for Feb. 5-8, 2026 CIT Volunteer Summary
Army Recruitment
The Rostov region increased the sign-up bonus for Ministry of Defense contracts by 300,000 rubles [$3,910] for soldiers joining specific units listed in a government decree. The payment remains 2 million rubles [$26,000], a rate set in May 2025, for all other personnel. With this adjustment, recruits entering designated units—including those in the Unmanned Systems Forces—will receive a total of 2.7 million rubles [$35,200], which includes a federal component of 400,000 rubles [$5,210].
The independent Russian investigative media outlet Vazhnyye Istorii [IStories] uncovered a new financing method for one-time regional payments to contract soldiers in which local authorities tap funds from other regions through so-called "horizontal" subsidies. In late December 2025, the Orenburg region received a subsidy from the Nizhny Novgorod region and used the funds for sign-up bonuses for approximately 1,000 new contract soldiers, pooling these funds with local resources to spend about 400 million rubles [$5.21 million], though officials did not disclose the precise funding ratio. While the government introduced this inter-regional financing mechanism in 2019 for medicine, transport and education, using it for military payments represents an atypical shift that the publication attributes to the strain that war expenses have placed on regional budgets. In 2025, the Orenburg region spent nearly 12 billion rubles [$156 million] on contract soldiers—a figure comparable to its annual spending on free school and preschool education—even as the donor Nizhny Novgorod region simultaneously registered one of the highest budget deficits and the largest volume of accumulated regional debt. As economist Janis Kluge notes, regional budget deficits hit a record 1.5 trillion rubles [$20 billion] in 2025, while regions spent at least 1 trillion rubles [$13 billion] on sign-up bonuses and payments to those wounded in action and families of those killed in action.
Class representatives at Plekhanov Russian University of Economics have begun receiving instructions requiring them to send at least two students each month to sign contracts with the MoD for service in the Unmanned Systems Forces. The message says the directive came directly from the MoD and that the first two candidates must be found urgently.
A court in Moscow has banned online platforms where conscripts and migrants sought women to enter into sham marriages in order to obtain draft deferrals or Russian citizenship through a simplified procedure. The men looked for women with disabilities and married them for money, since under Russian law a conscript who cares for a disabled wife is eligible for a deferral from military service. The ruling is set to take effect on Feb. 25.
Mobilized Soldiers, Contract Soldiers and Conscripts
BBC News Russian, together with Mediazona [independent Russian media outlet] and a team of volunteers, has identified—based on open sources—the names of 173,477 Russian servicemen killed since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, including 16,931 mobilized soldiers. Over the week since the previous update, the list grew by 5,335 names, including 175 mobilized personnel. BBC News Russian notes a correlation between a region’s poverty level and its share of residents killed in the war. The highest proportion of fatalities relative to the regional population is in Tuva and Chukotka (0.5%), as well as in Buryatia (0.4%). In Moscow, by contrast, the share of war dead is just 0.02%—the lowest figure in the country. Journalists had previously found that men from Altai and Tuva were 30-40 times more likely to be killed in the war than residents of Moscow. That situation has not changed since.
Sentences, Legal Proceedings and Incidents
A court in the city of Vladimir has sentenced contract soldier Sergey Mymrin to seven years in a penal colony for three counts of going AWOL and for causing grievous bodily harm with a weapon. In May 2024, Mymrin left his unit to care for his ill mother but was caught and returned. He later fled again and got into an argument with a stranger at a café in Vladimir, during which he stabbed the man in the stomach. Mymrin was detained and sent for evaluation to a psychiatric hospital, from which he also escaped. He was detained again and this time placed in a pretrial detention center. In 2011, Mymrin was sentenced to three years in prison for seven car thefts and three attempted car thefts.
In Khabarovsk, six local residents have been placed in pretrial detention on charges of large-scale fraud. Investigators say they sent people in "difficult life circumstances" to the war by entering into sham marriages with them and then appropriating the military payments for themselves. In total, the alleged fraudsters earned more than 4 million rubles [$52,100] by sending seven people into the army. Law enforcement has not disclosed the names of either the suspects or the victims.
The Southern District Military Court has sentenced 29-year-old Ukrainian prisoner of war Bohdan Musikhin to 17 years in prison on charges of participating in a terrorist organization and receiving terrorist training. According to prosecutors, in August 2024 Musikhin, who was living in Mykolaiv, joined the Crimean Tatar Noman Çelebicihan Battalion, underwent training in the Odesa region, was assigned the role of a rifleman and was captured by Russian forces on Oct. 18.
In Saint Petersburg, the Investigative Committee has opened a criminal case for aiding terrorist activities against a 13-year-old boy. According to investigators, on Feb. 5, 2026, unidentified individuals coerced him by phone into setting fire to a gas station in the city’s Kirovsky district. As a result of the blaze, the teenager himself suffered severe burns and was taken to intensive care, where he remains in critical condition and is not fit to be questioned.
A court in Barnaul has ordered a 26-year-old local resident, believed to be Denni Soloshchenko, held in a pre-trial detention center in a case involving the financing of terrorism. According to investigators, Soloshchenko transferred 24 million rubles [$312,500] via cryptocurrency "to finance units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, including an organization designated as terrorist." Prior to his arrest, he practiced combat sports and competed as part of the Altai region’s regional team.
The Primorsky Regional Court sentenced an employee of a mobile phone operator to 15 years in prison on charges of sabotage, laundering criminal proceeds and unlawful access to subscribers’ personal data. According to prosecutors, in August 2024, in exchange for payment in cryptocurrency, the man set fire to a cellular base station in the Primorsky region. He also allegedly collected data on deceased subscribers, reissued their SIM cards in electronic form, copied QR activation codes and passed them on to third parties.
The Baltic Fleet Military Court sentenced 21-year-old Sergey Igumnov, a native of Ulan-Ude, to 15 years in prison on charges with participation in a terrorist organization, financing terrorism, incitement to terrorist activity and incitement to extremism. The court did not disclose details of the accusations. According to the Memorial Human Rights Defense Center, Igumnov planned to join the Freedom of Russia Legion. In September 2024, he was added to the register maintained by the Federal Financial Monitoring Service of the Russian Federation (Rosfinmonitoring).
The 1st Western District Military Court has sentenced an 18-year-old resident of St. Petersburg to six years in a penal colony on terrorism charges. According to prosecutors, in May 2025 the young man, acting on instructions from an unidentified individual via a messaging app, carried out arson at the St. Petersburg-Sorting-Moskovsky rail depot.
In the Khabarovsk region, a 48-year-old resident of the town of Bikin has been detained on charges of treason. The Federal Security Service (FSB) says the man established contact with a paramilitary group banned in Russia and passed to Ukrainian intelligence information about military personnel involved in combat in the so-called special military operation zone, as well as information about the location and security of military units in Bikin. His name and other details of the case have not been disclosed.
In St. Petersburg, a medical researcher and employee of Russia’s consumer protection agency Rospotrebnadzor Aleksey Dudarev has been arrested on treason charges. He was detained on Jan. 14 while on his way to work, and law enforcement officers searched his apartment. Investigators say his research conducted as part of the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme was used by Norwegian intelligence. Dudarev denies the charges. According to his son, the scientist never had access to state secrets.
Political prisoner Roman Sidorkin died in a prison in Balashov, Saratov region, after contracting pneumonia. According to activists from the Rus' Sidyashchaya [Russia Behind Bars] civil rights foundation, in Dec. 2025, Sidorkin was treated for bronchitis in a penal colony without hospitalization. Later, his condition worsened, and on Jan. 5, he was transferred to a regional tuberculosis hospital, where he died four days later. In 2023, Sidorkin and his wife, who worked at a military-industrial complex company in the Kursk region, were sentenced to 17 years in a maximum security penal colony on charges of high treason, preparation for sabotage and illegal possession of firearms. In 2025, Sidorkin received an additional sentence for the theft of military equipment on a particularly large scale, increasing his total sentence to 23 years. The defense addressed his chronic illness, the presence of a minor child, and pressure from the FSB, but the courts ignored these arguments. Sidorkin's wife, Tatyana, was tried together with her husband and received a 13-year sentence in a penal colony.
Children and militarization
Ahead of the Defender of the Fatherland Day on Feb. 23, children in Russian kindergartens have been shown puppet shows about a heroic rabbit who goes off to join the army. On Feb. 5, at least three kindergartens held such performances in Novoaltaysk [Altai region], Yetkul [Chelyabinsk region] and Novosibirsk. The performances were part of an initiative in support of the war and were accompanied by songs and stories about "courage" and "service."