Mobilization in Russia for June 14-16, 2026 CIT Volunteer Summary
Authorities and Legislation
In the first three months of 2026, 56 of the 89 regions listed in the Russian Constitution (including the occupied territories of Ukraine) reported budget deficits, according to a report by Russia's Accounts Chamber. A year earlier, 46 regions closed the first quarter with a deficit. In 2022, only six regions recorded such shortfalls. Thirty-five regions showed a high deficit (exceeding 10% of revenue), an increase of 12 from the previous year. Meanwhile, 34 regions recorded a surplus, down 10 from the previous year. Of those, 23 had surpluses of no more than 5 billion rubles [$68.98 million]. The combined surplus of the consolidated regional budgets totaled 140 billion rubles [$2 billion]. This figure represents a 2.4-fold decrease from last year and a nearly 4.5-fold drop from 2024. Regional budget expenditures in the first quarter reached 5.37 trillion rubles [$74 billion].
The Federal Security Service (FSB) plans to lower the physical fitness requirements for candidates seeking contract military service in security agencies, as well as for applicants to its educational institutions. The agency will relax the standards most significantly for older men. However, it is tightening requirements for candidates applying to FSB special operations units. The new document is expected to replace the current 2016 FSB order. In addition to revising the minimum physical fitness requirements, the agency is introducing a new age scale: for men, the youngest category will be "under 25," followed by "25–29," as is currently the case. The "over 30" group will be split into several brackets, the oldest being "50 and older." For women, the categories will range from "under 25" to "45 and older" (replacing the current "25 and older" bracket).
Army Recruitment
Thirty-five students from the medical and pharmaceutical departments of Bratsk Medical College were expelled shortly after taking their state examinations. According to the students, the decision was made after the exams had already been completed, and they were not shown their final results. They also maintain that none of them had any outstanding academic debts. The expelled male students were encouraged to sign contracts with the Ministry of Defense and go to war, while female students were told they could retake the exams in six months if each paid 86,000 rubles [$1,190]. After the story attracted media attention, the Ministry of Health of the Irkutsk region stated that the expulsions had resulted from a "technical error" during the processing of state exam results. The expulsion orders were subsequently revoked, and the students were allowed to continue their final certification process.
Tomsk State University has launched a "free UAV operator training program" open to applicants from the Tomsk region and neighboring regions. Participants are promised placement in a UAV unit upon completion of the course, while those traveling from other cities are offered free transportation, accommodation, and meals during the training period. According to the program's website, the training is conducted at Tomsk State University, and participants who successfully complete the course receive a certificate issued by the university. The program consists of ten days of instruction followed by two months of practical training. Applicants can choose from three tracks: UAV Operator, FPV Drone Technician, and FPV Drone Operator. The program is open to men aged 18-60 and to women aged 18-35 who have completed at least a vocational secondary education.
The head of Bashkortostan [Russia's constituent republic] announced that the region's BARS (Special Combat Army Reserve) volunteer unit, tasked with protecting industrial facilities, will consist of 300 personnel. These troops will be organized into approximately 100 mobile fire teams.
Mobilized Soldiers, Contract Soldiers and Conscripts
Former Tomsk State University student Artyom Matveyev, who had signed a contract with the MoD, was killed on the frontline. According to his aunt, Matveyev signed the contract in order to "work with drones," but after completing training at a military range, he was assigned to the 247th Air Assault Regiment of the 7th Guards Air Assault Division of the Russian Airborne Forces. He ultimately ended up in forward positions, where he was killed under unknown circumstances.
Sverdlovsk region Governor Denis Pasler signed a decree establishing a registry of regional residents killed in the war against Ukraine and other armed conflicts. The registry will include servicemen whose remains are buried in military cemeteries located within the region. Special commissions will be created to collect information on the deceased and submit it annually by March 1. The registry will be maintained in both paper and electronic form and is intended to be published online for public access. Each entry will include information about the individual’s military awards as well as a biographical summary. The registry will include participants in the wars in Ukraine, Chechnya [Russia's constituent republic], and Afghanistan.
Sentences, Legal Proceedings and Incidents
A criminal case on robbery charges has been opened against Ion Dmitriyev, a serviceman from Russia’s republic of Sakha (Yakutia) who was awarded the Order of Courage. A court denied investigators’ request to arrest him and declined to place him in a pre-trial detention center. Dmitriyev himself stated that he had pleaded guilty and planned to return to the front line. The 29-year-old gained public attention in late 2025 after pro-government media outlets publicized what they described as his feat: allegedly "single-handedly defending a village in the DPR for a month." According to those reports, Dmitriyev had volunteered for military service, and the events took place in February 2025 in the village of Burlatskoye. Following the publicity, he appeared at public pro-war events and received an award from the head of the republic of Sakha (Yakutia).
The Southern District Military Court has sentenced 29-year-old Ukrainian prisoner of war Dmytro Lebedev to 17 years of imprisonment for participation in a terrorist community and terrorist training. The prosecution accused the service member of serving in the Azov Brigade. However, during the investigation, he identified himself as a marine, and his military ID, confirming his affiliation with that specific branch of the military, was attached to the case files. Yet, right before closing arguments, Lebedev unexpectedly stated that his military ID "is actually fake and served as a cover," and that he himself had fought in the Azov Brigade special forces detachment. His real documents had allegedly burned during street fighting in the city of Mariupol.
The same court has sentenced 45-year-old Azov Brigade fighter Vasyl Mukhin to 20 years in a maximum security penal colony under articles concerning participation in a terrorist community and terrorist training. According to the prosecution, he joined the unit in 2015 and was captured in May 2022.
FSB officers have detained a Rybinsk resident born in 2003 on suspicion of attempting a terrorist attack. The court has already sent him to a pre-trial detention center. The FSB claims that the young man acted on instructions from Ukrainian intelligence services, who blackmailed him with a "charge of financing a terrorist organization." The detainee allegedly carried out assignments for "Ukrainian handlers" over a "prolonged period," and law enforcement officers documented "several episodes of his unlawful activity at energy and transportation infrastructure facilities." The young man was detained while attempting to plant an improvised bomb at a railway facility.
The Saint Petersburg City Court has sentenced local resident Sergey Sakharov to 12 years of imprisonment under the article on sabotage. According to investigators, in the early hours of Jan. 18, 2025, Sakharov set fire to a locomotive at the Ruchyi railway station. As a result, the driver's cab was completely burned out and the high-voltage chamber of the locomotive was partially destroyed. The damage was estimated at 6.5 million rubles [$89,700]. The man was detained the day after the arson. According to his mother, since February 2022, he had been in a legal dispute with a draft office after refusing to serve in the army due to health problems and a rejection of violence. Shortly before the arson, Sakharov "started constantly receiving calls from someone via a messenger." Subsequently, he pleaded guilty to the arson, but specified that at the time he "was under psychological influence."
The FSB has detained a resident of the Orenburg region born in 2008 in a high treason case. Law enforcement officers claim that the youth "proactively established contact via Telegram with a representative of the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine." Following this, he began collecting information on critical infrastructure facilities "for subsequent transmission to the Ukrainian side in order to launch drone strikes against them." The detainee was placed in a pre-trial detention center.
The Maykop City Court has sent Andrey Shcherbakov to a pre-trial detention center in a high treason case. He is accused of carrying out tasks to "discredit the authorities" in Russia. According to investigators, the man, being an opponent of the war, contacted the administrator of an unspecified Telegram channel in 2025. He provided his name and region, and then received an assignment. To complete it, he filmed unspecified railway stations and their access tracks. In the summer of 2025, he received an assignment to set fire to a locomotive along with instructions on creating an incendiary mixture—however, he refused to fulfill the request, citing the tightened security regime at the stations. In early September 2025, the man threw a pig's head onto the territory of a mosque in the Kozet aul and filmed it. According to investigators, this was also an assignment—this time aimed at "stoking ethnic and interfaith discord." For completing it, the executor was transferred $500. On Sept. 14, law enforcement detained the man. For the pig's head, a magistrate court fined Shcherbakov 50,000 rubles [$690] in December under the article on offending the feelings of believers.
FSB officers detained a woman born in 1967 in Russian-annexed Crimea on suspicion of high treason. Authorities are holding her in custody. According to the Memorial Rights Defense Center, the woman is Marina Kovalenko, 58, a former director of an arts school in Luhansk. According to the FSB, Ukraine’s Security Service recruited her while she was crossing the border with Poland, using her son’s service in the Armed Forces of Ukraine as leverage. Acting on instructions from her handlers, Kovalenko gathered and passed information "on the activities of scientific, educational and other institutions in the Luhansk People’s Republic and the Republic of Crimea to which she had access through her work." She was also required to track the movement of Russian military vehicles. According to the Memorial Human Rights Defense Center, Kovalenko was abducted on June 10, 2025, in Alushta and held in isolation in pre-trial detention for more than eight months without being charged.
The Moscow City Court sentenced Roman Karetsky, 59, a Saratov native, to 13 years in a maximum security penal colony on charges of attempted high treason and smuggling of toxic or explosive substances, weapons, equipment, technology and scientific and technical information. The specific nature of the charges has not been disclosed.
A court established by Russia in Sevastopol sentenced Leonid Goretsky, 50, a Simferopol resident, to 17 years in a maximum security penal colony on charges of high treason and illegal possession of explosives and explosive devices. According to investigators, in January 2025 Goretsky traveled to Sevastopol on instructions from Ukrainian intelligence to move explosives from one cache to another. The FSB detained him shortly afterward.
The Krasnodar Regional Court has sentenced Sergey Rostavetsky, 33, from Novorossiysk, to 18 years in a maximum security penal colony in a treason case. According to law enforcement, Rostavetsky joined a public chat used by Ukrainian intelligence services in May 2023. In August, he published photographs and information about "forces and resources of a border outpost unit" there, which he had obtained while serving in the military in Novorossiysk.
Vladimir Yevstigneyev, a former member of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation from Russia's constituent Republic of Komi, has been revealed to be one of two residents of the republic shot by the FSB officers on suspicion of preparing an explosion at an oil facility. In a statement from April 27, the FSB claimed that the men had planned to blow up the facility using drones carrying improvised explosive devices and had "offered armed resistance" during detention. Izvestia [The News, a Russian pro-Kremlin daily broadsheet newspaper and a news channel] has published a photo of Yevstigneyev's driver's license and his wife's bank card, which were allegedly found among the belongings of the killed man. The article also included a new photo of Yevstigneyev's body at the murder scene, with his bloodied face blurred out, and a photo of his grave at the cemetery, with the date of death listed as April 24, 2026. Mediazona [independent Russian media outlet] has confirmed that the same date appears in state registries. Vazhnyye Istorii [IStories, independent Russian investigative media outlet] has verified that Yevstigneyev's tax identification number was invalidated on the same day.
Longreads
Vazhnyye Istorii has examined court sentences to study how Russian servicemen injure themselves and fellow soldiers or pass off injuries not sustained in combat as combat wounds to receive benefits.
Mediazona has published an article on the war's devastating impact on the lives of the Galka family from the Zaporizhzhia region of Ukraine. 47-year-old Nonna Galka and her nephew Viktor were sentenced to 15 years by a Russian court on charges of espionage. Nonna's older sister Natalya passed away two months after her detention. Lyudmila, their mother, died before seeing her daughters released. Last year, one of Natalya's two sons was killed on the frontline, and the second continues to serve in the AFU.
The Cherta [Boundary] independent online media outlet has interviewed human rights advocates and researchers from the Civic Evidence group about the system for handling civilian prisoners from Ukraine and the effect it has on Russia.