Mobilization in Russia for July 14-16, 2026 CIT Volunteer Summary
Army Recruitment
The Kemerovo city administration has announced a reward of 115,000 rubles [$1,480] for anyone who "assists" recruits in signing a contract with the Ministry of Defense. For active-duty military personnel and law enforcement officers, the reward is 92,000 rubles [$1,180]. Draft office employees and relatives of those signing contracts are ineligible for the reward. The wider Kemerovo region offers a separate reward of 20,000 rubles [$260]. The regional budget has allocated approximately 20 million rubles [$257,400] for this purpose.
Governor Aleksandr Avdeyev of the Vladimir region introduced a one-time payment of 100,000 rubles [$1,290] for signing a contract to join the reserve and serve in the BARS-Vladimir unit, which was established to protect the region from UAV attacks. Additionally, unit members will receive payments of up to 80,000 rubles [$1,030] while at training camps and 20,000 rubles [$260] for each downed drone.
The Chelyabinsk region has begun recruiting for the second rotation of the BARS (Special Combat Army Reserve) volunteer unit, which defends the region against drone attacks. To join the unit, individuals must sign a reserve contract. Age limits are 52 for warrant officers, sergeants and soldiers; 57 for junior officers; and 62 for senior officers. Reservists receive a monthly allowance equal to 12% of the base pay for their rank and position, plus an additional 21,400 rubles [$280] to 56,500 rubles [$730] during training camps, depending on their rank. The first rotation of the unit was formed in June.
A 33-year-old man in Izhevsk, who was reportedly intoxicated, was detained by unidentified individuals and taken to a contract military service recruitment facility. There, he was allegedly tricked into signing a military contract despite suffering from hypertension, being registered with a psychiatric hospital and having previously undergone treatment for alcohol addiction. The man reportedly became ill, but an ambulance called by his mother was not allowed to reach him. A local Telegram channel had previously reported a rise in cases of people being coerced into signing military contracts in Izhevsk.
Residents of the Dzhankoy district in Russian-occupied Crimea have complained on social media that men seeking compensation for prolonged power and water outages are required to present passports bearing proof that they are registered for military service.
Mobilized Soldiers, Contract Soldiers and Conscripts
Military medic Ivan Kozlenkov, one of the key witnesses in the criminal case against Aleksey Marushchenko, the founder of the Yastreb PMC, has reportedly been sent on an assault mission. Kozlenkov was transferred to the home base of the 80th Tank Regiment in Kurakhove, Donetsk region. After his phone was confiscated, he was sent on a combat mission, and contact with him has since been lost. Earlier, Kozlenkov—who had testified in the case concerning the murder of his fellow soldier Dmitry Poloumov, who was beaten to death for attempting to desert—was declared AWOL, detained, returned to his unit and reassigned to an assault unit. According to fellow soldiers, the same has happened to several other mercenaries, including some of those implicated in Poloumov's murder.
Sentences, Legal Proceedings and Incidents
The Irkutsk Garrison Military Court has sentenced 25-year-old Baykalsk resident and participant in the war against Ukraine Ioann Paramonov to 16 years in a maximum security penal colony on charges of involving minors in the systematic consumption of alcohol, rape and sexual violence. According to the court, in May 2025, Paramonov repeatedly purchased alcohol for minors, including for a party during which his 17-year-old brother, Mikhail, fatally stabbed four teenagers, wounded four others and later died in a fire that he himself had started. Investigators also found that between 2023 and 2024, Ioann Paramonov committed sexual violence against children under the age of 14. He is believed to have served in the war from approximately spring 2024 to spring 2025.
The Southern District Military Court has sentenced 45-year-old Ukrainian prisoner of war Artem Sheiko to 18 years in a maximum security penal colony on charges of participating in a terrorist community and undergoing training to carry out terrorist activities. According to investigators, Sheiko had served in the Azov Brigade since 2015 as a battery mechanic in an armored vehicle repair company. In 2020, he allegedly underwent training in handling heavy weapons and "sabotage and terrorist methods." In May 2022, he was taken prisoner at the Azovstal Steel Factory in the city of Mariupol.
The same court has sentenced 48-year-old Ukrainian POW Roman Oliinyk to six years in a penal colony on charges of participating in a terrorist community. Oliinyk joined the Azov Brigade on Feb. 24, 2022, and was appointed as a senior rifleman. According to investigators, he "took part in terrorist activity" by performing guard and sentry duties. In mid-May of that year, he surrendered along with other Ukrainian service members defending Mariupol and the Azovstal Steel Factory.
The same court has sentenced 44-year-old former Ukrainian soldier Serhii Piskun to 16 years in a maximum security penal colony on charges of participating in a terrorist community and undergoing training to carry out terrorist activities. According to investigators, Piskun voluntarily enlisted in the Donbas 46th Separate Assault Battalion in 2018, where he served as an assault company squad commander. Despite having been discharged from the Armed Forces of Ukraine back in 2019, Russian authorities retrospectively classified his past service as participation in a terrorist community after officially designating the Donbas battalion as a terrorist organization in 2025.
In Kursk, the Investigative Committee has opened a criminal case against a 15-year-old teenager on charges of preparing to participate in a terrorist organization. According to investigators, in May 2026, the teenager independently initiated contact via Telegram with a representative of an unnamed organization that has been designated as a terrorist organization in Russia. During their communication, he allegedly expressed a willingness to join the organization. The agency added that the minor was identified during a joint operation with the Federal Security Service (FSB).
An 18-year-old resident of Russia’s Altai region, identified by the last name Masko, has been arrested in the Leningrad region in connection with a terrorist attack case. According to investigators, in the early hours of July 14, he set fire to a traffic police vehicle in Vsevolozhsk and then fled the scene, but was soon arrested at a hotel in Saint Petersburg. During questioning, the young man said that he had acted on the instructions of his handlers. According to media reports, before the arson, phone scammers posing as officers of the FSB had threatened to open a criminal case against his parents, including on charges of high treason.
In the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Region–Yugra [Russia's federal subject], officers of the FSB detained a man on suspicion of preparing a terrorist attack and illegally possessing explosive materials. According to investigators, he established contact with a representative of the Ukrainian intelligence services and forwarded information about the locations of fuel and energy infrastructure facilities. He was then allegedly instructed to carry out an explosion at an oil facility in Nyagan. The FSB claims that the man was arrested after retrieving an improvised explosive device from a dead drop. The device reportedly contained 1.5 kilograms of explosives, a timer and an electric detonator. A court ordered that he be held in a pre-trial detention center.
A 30-year-old Moscow resident, Pavel Kh., has been arrested on charges of attempting to participate in the activities of a terrorist organization. According to media reports, Pavel opposed Russia's war against Ukraine and, as early as 2023, tried to travel to Ukraine to join the Armed Forces of Ukraine. He was detained by officers of the FSB in the Kaluga region before reaching the border. At the time, authorities issued him an official warning that any further attempts could constitute treason. According to investigators, Pavel later made another attempt to join the AFU, leading to his arrest.
A court in the Kemerovo region has sentenced a 17-year-old to four years in a juvenile penal colony after convicting him of financing terrorism. Law enforcement officers allege that between November and December 2025, the teenager, from the city of Belovo, provided financial support to an unnamed organization banned in Russia by making cashless transfers through his account on a messaging platform, using the platform's reaction feature on posts published by one of the organization's channels. He was detained last spring. At the time, local media reported that the minor had left emoji reactions on the Telegram channel of a Ukrainian military unit. He remained under house arrest throughout the investigation.
A court sentenced 19-year-old Vladimir Surzhansky, a resident of the Krasnodar region, to 13.5 years in prison, while his 17-year-old acquaintance, Dmitry Rybka, received six years in a penal colony in a case related to an attempted act of sabotage. Surzhansky was also convicted of carrying out an act of sabotage and involving a minor in criminal activity. According to investigators, in May 2025, Surzhansky received an offer via Telegram to set fire to military vehicles in exchange for $700 and recruited Rybka, who was still under 18, to assist him. The pair attempted to enter a military base in the village of Kavkazskaya but failed to carry out the plan after Rybka broke his leg while climbing over the perimeter fence. Prosecutors say that Surzhansky later set fire to an electric locomotive at the Kavkazskaya railway station for 80,000 rubles [$1,030] and sent photographs and video to the person who commissioned the attack as proof that the assignment had been completed.
The St. Petersburg City Court has sentenced Andrey Matushkin, the president of the International Association of Private Detectives, to 12 years in a maximum security penal colony in a case of treason. According to investigators, Matushkin forwarded information constituting state secrets abroad. Law enforcement officers also suspect him of cooperating with a foreign intelligence service and of "assisting in carrying out its objectives on Russian territory." According to a source, the matter concerns Matushkin's contacts with representatives of the Baltic states. The detective's detention became known in October 2025. According to Mikhail Loktionov, a private detective, two other detectives were detained along with Matushkin, but one of them was later released.
The "Zaporizhzhia regional court," created by Russian authorities, has sentenced a 63-year-old resident of the occupied city of Dniprorudne, Vitaly Iliin, to 12 years in a maximum security penal colony in a treason case. The elderly man was detained in December 2024. According to investigators, in June 2024 he transferred 1,000 hryvnias [$27] from an account at a Ukrainian bank to the AFU. The same "court" sentenced a 52-year-old resident of the town of Tokmak to 12 years in a maximum security penal colony in a treason case. He was accused of passing information about the locations of the Russian army to Ukrainian intelligence in the fall of 2023.
The same "court" handed down 13 years in a maximum security penal colony to a 40-year-old resident of Melitopol, believed to be Roman Riabchik, in a case of espionage and calls for extremism on the internet. The man was detained on Aug. 24, 2024. According to investigators, before his detention he passed Ukrainian intelligence services information on the deployment of Russian soldiers in the Zaporizhzhia region and "regularly posted calls in pro-Ukrainian groups for the murder of Russian army servicemen and Russian citizens."
In the Voronezh region, 20-year-old Borisoglebsk Road College student Denys Kovalenko has been sentenced to 17 years in a maximum security penal colony for treason, public calls for terrorism and extremist activity. He was detained on July 17, 2025. According to investigators, the Ukrainian-born Kovalenko established contact with the SBU in the summer of 2024 and provided information about Russian military facilities. It is alleged that, after completing military training at an airfield in the Voronezh region, he shared data on the location of air defense systems and flight schedules, and later provided the coordinates of a patrol post in the Kursk region. He was also found guilty of posting two comments that allegedly justified terrorism and incited extremist activity.
The Southern District Military Court has sentenced 21-year-old Nikita Kovalchuk, a resident of the Russian-occupied city of Makiivka in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, to 23 years in a penal colony on charges of aiding terrorism, communicating with terrorist organizations, illegal explosives trafficking and treason. According to the prosecution, in December 2024, Kovalchuk contacted a Ukrainian intelligence officer and, in exchange for payment, provided the coordinates of locations in Makiivka where Russian troops were stationed. On Jan. 9, 2025, he recorded a video of the area near the city’s draft office and submitted it to an officer of Ukraine's Main Directorate of Intelligence. Kovalchuk then agreed to help prepare an explosion targeting a MoD vehicle in Donetsk. On Jan. 21, he arrived at a weapons cache, retrieved the device and was detained by Russian law enforcement.
The same court has sentenced Oksana Ptakhina, a resident of Russian-occupied Melitopol, to 18 years in a penal colony for involvement in a terrorist attack committed by a group, financing terrorism and communicating with a terrorist organization. She was accused of communicating with a relative who, in turn, collaborated with Ukrainian intelligence. From March to May of 2022 and again in September 2023, Ptakhina allegedly passed military information to a Ukrainian intelligence officer.
The Second Western District Military Court has sentenced 45-year-old Yevgeny Savostin to 28 years in prison on charges of high treason, ties with a terrorist organization and undergoing terrorist training. According to the prosecution, in the winter of 2023, Savostin traveled to Kyiv, where he joined the Russian Volunteer Corps, completed training and was assigned the role of armored personnel carrier driver. He fought in the Donetsk and Kharkiv regions. In October 2025, Savostin traveled to Saratov to await "further instructions" from the Russian Volunteer Corps but was detained on Oct. 30.
Children and Militarization
The Higher School of Economics has offered applicants who fell short of admission cutoff full tuition coverage in exchange for signing a contract and serving one year in the BARS-Moscow reserve force or the Unmanned Systems Forces. The offer applies exclusively to those who sign contracts through the university. Upon completing their service, participants are guaranteed admission to their chosen undergraduate or graduate program.
Longreads
Idel.Realii, part of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty online media outlet, reported on a 20-year-old resident of the Ulyanovsk region who signed a contract with the MoD in December 2024 and, after several attempts to avoid returning to the frontline, treatment in a psychiatric hospital and a military hospital, fled Russia for Armenia.
The Moscow Times reports on how nearly 100,000 recruiting agencies promoting enlistment in the Russian Armed Forces have opened since the start of the war and how the recruitment process works.