Mobilization in Russia for July 19-21, 2026 CIT Volunteer Summary

Army Recruitment

The Pepel [Ashes] Telegram channel reports that the command is forcing fighters of Belgorod’s Orlan unit to sign contracts with the Ministry of Defense. Legally, they had not previously been service members and had not signed contracts with the MoD. Instead, they had concluded civilian agreements with an entity created by the Belgorod regional government. They are now being offered a contract with the MoD for service in a volunteer unit. The agreement is with a Russian Aerospace Forces training center, runs for 12 months, and provides for the possibility of transfer to another volunteer unit if operationally necessary.

Buryat media are advertising service in UAV troops on the front pages of their websites. At least two publications placed the ads at the top of their sites. The ads appear on both the front pages and individual news pages. They promise readers a one-time payment of two million rubles [$25,500] after signing a contract.

Mobilized Soldiers, Contract Soldiers and Conscripts

Parents of conscripts from the Perm region have alleged that their sons were coerced into signing contracts with the MoD while en route to their duty station in the Primorsky region. According to their account, the incident took place in the early hours of July 7, aboard a military trainload transporting the conscripts to their unit in the city of Ussuriysk. The officer accompanying the conscripts, Junior Lieutenant Armen Atanyan, subjected them to psychological and physical pressure to force them to sign military contracts. At the time the documents were signed, however, the mandatory enlistment procedures—including a military medical board examination and psychological testing—had not been carried out. The unit's personnel department also credited the servicemen's bank accounts with 500,000 rubles [$6,380] in sign-up bonuses without obtaining either their Individual Insurance Account Numbers or their consent. The parents filed a collective complaint with the Prosecutor General's Office, the Investigative Committee, and the Military Prosecutor's Office, demanding an investigation and the annulment of their sons' contracts.

A similar case came to light in January of this year, when at least nine conscripts from Khakassia [Russia’s constituent republic], the Sverdlovsk and Chelyabinsk regions signed military contracts after being subjected to physical and psychological pressure aboard another military trainload bound for Ussuriysk. Two sergeants and Junior Lieutenant Artyom Kharitonov were accused of coercing the young men. Ultimately, some of the conscripts succeeded in having their contracts terminated.

Vladimir Dyomin, a 42-year-old native of the Donetsk region who has served in the 114th Motorized Rifle Brigade since October 2024, is being prepared for redeployment to the frontline despite having sustained combat injuries and suffering partial hearing loss following a concussion. Dyomin says that after obtaining a Russian passport, he was coerced into signing a contract with the MoD. Following the disbandment of his battalion, he was transferred to an assault unit, where he sustained shrapnel wounds and a fractured tibia in May 2025. He now relies on a walking stick to get around. According to Dyomin, after completing medical treatment he has been denied access to a military medical board examination and has instead been threatened with being sent back to a combat zone.

Sentences, Legal Proceedings and Incidents

The Central District Military Court sentenced two repeat offenders and veterans of the war against Ukraine—50-year-old Vasily Katkov and 37-year-old Stanislav Kichayev—to 21 and 27 years in prison, respectively. They were convicted of the murder of two people, unlawful entry into a residence, theft of a firearm, illegal possession and transportation of firearms and ammunition, armed robbery, and theft. Kichayev was also convicted of desertion. According to the prosecution, in December 2024, the two servicemen murdered Bashkortostan farmer Oleg Poletavkin and his wife, Valentina, for whom they had been working. They then disposed of the bodies, stole firearms, jewelry worth 87,000 rubles [$1,110], and a bank card, and fled in the couple's car. The two men were detained on Dec. 6 and reportedly resisted arrest. Katkov signed a military contract on Sept. 6, 2023, and Kichayev on Sept. 15 of the same year.

A court in the Kursk region sentenced serviceman Nikita Seliverstov to 10 years in a maximum security penal colony on charges of illegal possession and trafficking of weapons. He was also stripped of his rank of sergeant and deprived of his military decoration. According to investigators, Seliverstov stole an underbarrel grenade launcher and 20 rounds of ammunition for it from his unit. He later gave the weapon to a resident of the Kursk region.

The Southern District Military Court sentenced 31-year-old Luhansk region resident Oleksandr Mityuk to five and a half years in a penal colony on charges of participating in a terrorist community. The charge stemmed from his alleged service in the Azov Brigade. No other details of the case have been disclosed.

Authorities in the Leningrad region have detained a teenager suspected of trying to set fire to two gas stations in the Vsevolozhsky district. The fires broke out on July 20 at two gas stations. In all, according to the Interior Ministry, 13 gas stations have burned down in Saint Petersburg and the Leningrad region over the past year, 10 of them set ablaze by teenagers between the ages of 14 and 17.

The Federal Security Service (FSB) reported the murder in Tyumen of a man suspected of preparing to bomb a local oil refinery on the orders of Ukrainian intelligence services. According to investigators, a 60-year-old man who lived in Tyumen but was born in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic contacted a representative of Ukraine's intelligence services via Telegram and, on his instructions, was preparing a terrorist attack on the Tyumen oil refinery. To that end, he allegedly studied a section of railroad tracks, the security system and the schedule of train movements tied to the enterprise of the military-industrial complex. On the instructions of his handlers, the man gathered the necessary components and built an improvised explosive device. On the night of July 19, he placed it in a cache on the ground floor of an abandoned building in Tyumen. At that moment, law enforcement officers tried to detain the man, but he allegedly opened fire with a Kalashnikov assault rifle and was killed by return fire. A criminal case has been opened on charges of preparing a terrorist attack, illegal weapons trafficking, and an attempt on the lives of law enforcement officers. This is the 87th time the FSB has reported the murder of a suspect during an arrest since the start of Russia's full-scale war against Ukraine, according to a tally by Vazhnyye Istorii [IStories, independent Russian investigative media outlet].

The Baltic Fleet Military Court has opened a criminal case against a 19-year-old student from Zelenogradsk, Timur Strizhakov, who is accused of preparing an act of terror. What exactly Strizhakov is charged with is unknown. He has been held in a pre-trial detention center since September 2025.

The Stavropol Regional Court has ordered the arrest of a man born in 1977 who is accused of preparing an act of terror and treason. According to the FSB, the suspect contacted a representative of a Ukrainian intelligence service on his own initiative and was tasked with setting up an explosion of a car belonging to a reservist captain who had fought in Ukraine. To carry out the task, he allegedly traveled to the Stavropol region, scouted the target’s residence, and began assembling an improvised explosive device before being detained.

The Central District Court of Krasnoyarsk has fined Vitaly Rogov, a local resident, 60,000 rubles [$770] for failing to report a crime. According to investigators, the man did not inform law enforcement that in September 2025, his acquaintance offered him money to participate in setting fire to infrastructure facilities. Later, the acquaintance, along with another person, set fire to three relay cabinets on a railway line and is now a suspect in a sabotage case.

The Second Eastern District Military Court has sentenced a 38-year-old Novosibirsk resident to 20 years of imprisonment for treason, illegal possession of explosives, an act of terror, undergoing training for terrorist activities, and intentional destruction of property. According to the FSB, in the fall of 2024, the detainee, who was unemployed at the time, acted on orders from "Ukrainian handlers" for payment, setting fire to a Federal Bailiff Service building and later preparing an attack using three drones equipped with drop devices targeting an industrial enterprise in the Novosibirsk region.

Ivan Matveyev, 34, a Vladimir resident, was sentenced to 15 years in prison on charges of high treason, participation in a sabotage organization, sabotage training and illegal possession of explosive devices. An appeals court upheld the sentence. Matveyev was ordered held in custody on March 15, 2025. Details of the case have not been disclosed; the proceedings were held behind closed doors.

According to a tally by Pervy Otdel [Department One] and Parubets Analytics, Russian courts handed down a record 1,776 verdicts under terrorism-related statutes in 2025, convicting 2,078 people. The names of 1,383 of those convicted, or two-thirds of the total, were withheld. The number of convictions in 2025 is more than double that of 2024, when 1,021 people were convicted, a record high under Russia’s current criminal code. On nearly every working day, courts issued more than seven verdicts and convicted more than eight people; only three cases were dropped. Based on verdict data, analysts found that:

• nearly every other person convicted, 889 in total, was charged with publicly calling for, justifying or promoting terrorism. Of those, 588 were convicted exclusively for making public statements, most often online;
• at least 630 citizens of Ukraine were convicted under "terrorist" articles, which accounts for about 30% of all those convicted;
• more than 60% of all sentences under these articles were handed down by just two courts: the Second Western and Southern District Military Courts;
• among the 809 convicted individuals for whom the handed-down punishment could be established, 15 received life imprisonment, and another 83 received 20 years of imprisonment or more;
• the median term of imprisonment was 15 years, with 467 out of 794 convicted individuals with known terms (58.8%) receiving at least 15 years in a penal colony or life imprisonment.

Longreads

The Insider [independent Russian investigative media outlet] has published a story by Junior Sergeant Andrey Chernenko of the 76th Air Assault Division, who fled the army, about corruption in the assignment of personnel, the overstatement of unit sizes, losses of the Russian Airborne Troops, the search for deserters, and the forgery of documents.

Novaya Gazeta Europe [European edition of the independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta] has released the third part of an investigation into how Chechen units participating in the war against Ukraine are organized (Part 1, Part 2).