Mobilization in Russia for June 28-30, 2026 CIT Volunteer Summary
Army Recruitment
Moscow universities have begun urging students to join the BARS [Special Combat Army Reserve] volunteer unit to help counter UAVs. For example, the Moscow branch of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration sent students and staff an advertisement for the BARS-Moscow unit, promising monthly payments of 200,000 rubles [$2,580], bonuses for downed drones and social benefits for family members. The message states that the contract is with the Ministry of Defense, but that the volunteers "are not military personnel" and supposedly will not be deployed to a combat zone. The Higher School of Economics posted a similar advertisement on its Telegram channel, while the Moscow Aviation Institute placed one on its website. The universities suggest students take a leave of absence during their service and promise 30 days of training in Moscow and the Moscow region.
The Idite Lesom! [Flee through the woods/Get lost you all] Telegram channel reports that a man was coerced into signing a contract with the Ministry of Defense in the Ulyanovsk region. According to relatives, military police took the man—who is missing one eye and is severely visually impaired in the other—from his home to a draft office, claiming a draft notice had been issued for him. There, officials forced him to sign documents alongside other detainees, without allowing him to read them. Authorities then took the men to Ulyanovsk, where they signed additional paperwork after being cleared by a military medical board. His sister stated that officials denied the family's request for an examination by an ophthalmologist, despite his medical condition. She also claimed that military personnel gave the detainees alcohol and then sent them to a combat zone. He now communicates only via short messages.
The SOTAvision independent media outlet has published accounts from the wives and relatives of men detained during the recent roundups in the Penza region. According to their testimonies, the men were forcibly taken to draft offices, where they were pressured into signing contracts with the MoD. The women told SOTAvision that the detainees were not allowed to properly say goodbye to their families, were escorted outside to smoke under armed guard, had their communication with relatives restricted and were sent to the frontline shortly afterward.
Mobilized Soldiers, Contract Soldiers and Conscripts
The Lyudi Baikala [People of Baikal] independent media outlet has analyzed the list of servicemen from the Irkutsk region and Buryatia killed in the war, which has now reached 11,000 confirmed names. Of those, 6,122 were from the Irkutsk region and 4,878 from Buryatia. According to the outlet's analysis, roughly one in every 80 working-age men from these areas has been killed in the war. According to the outlet’s tally, about three-quarters of the dead were volunteer fighters, although their share has been declining over the past year. An increasing proportion of those killed are servicemen who signed contracts before the full-scale invasion began, as well as conscripts who signed contracts during their compulsory military service. Since the start of the war, 247 such servicemen from the Irkutsk region and Buryatia have been killed, half of them within the past year. The outlet also estimates that 1,620 of the roughly 9,000 mobilized men from the two regions have been killed, equivalent to about one in five.
Servicemen from the 1st Motor Rifle Regiment have lodged numerous complaints that the unit is refusing to discharge personnel or grant leave even in cases of serious illness. One serviceman was diagnosed with HIV in September 2025, after which a military medical board declared him unfit for military service and recommended that he not be deployed to a combat zone. According to his relatives, however, the command continued assigning him to missions, justifying its refusal to discharge him by citing unpaid utility bills and a previous disciplinary offense for going AWOL. Another serviceman in the regiment remains on active duty despite suffering from hepatitis C and liver cirrhosis. Although he was assigned service fitness category "V" (partially fit for military service), he was returned to his unit after completing treatment and medical leave. According to a lawyer representing servicemen, the unit has recently seen an increase in cases where discharges on medical grounds are denied on questionable pretexts, such as minor administrative offenses or past criminal convictions. Such personnel are reportedly being placed into a special category alongside servicemen who were recruited from prisons.
A serviceman with a prosthetic leg is reportedly being held against his will in the 1st Motorized Rifle Regiment. Twenty-seven-year-old Nikolay Selivanov, a native of Kotovsk in the Tambov region, lost a leg on the front line in March 2026 and was subsequently granted permanent Group II disability status. A military medical board also classified him as unfit for military service (fitness category "D"). In June, Selivanov submitted a request to his commanding officer seeking discharge on medical grounds. Instead, he is reportedly being held in the unit against his will and threatened with being sent back to the front line in Ukraine in the near future.
The Movement of Conscientious Objectors [a human rights organization supporting those who refuse to perform military service] reported new cases of conscripts in Boguchar, Voronezh region, being pressured into signing contracts with the MoD. One such case involved a young man from Bashkortostan [Russia's constituent republic] who was drafted in early 2026. Five days later, he arrived at his unit in Boguchar, and two days after that—before taking the military oath—he signed a contract with the MoD. According to his mother, his commanders subjected him to sustained psychological pressure. They promised him training and assured him that he would under no circumstances be sent to the front line. The conscript wanted to submit a request to withdraw from the contract, but his commanders allegedly prevented him from doing so. After taking the oath, he was transferred to the 752nd Motorized Rifle Regiment, also based in Boguchar, and five days later was sent to a training range in Pochinovo to prepare for combat operations. Earlier, the Astra Telegram channel and Echo reported similar cases of pressure on conscripts in Boguchar despite a criminal case opened over the practice in November 2025.
Sentences, Legal Proceedings and Incidents
Thirty-eight-year-old contract soldier Sergey Moskalenko was sentenced to 18 years in a penal colony after being convicted of murdering his wife, going AWOL, assaulting a law enforcement officer, and stealing a car. In August 2025, Moskalenko deserted from the front line and returned to his home in Chelyabinsk. There, he strangled his 37-year-old wife, Kseniya, and hid her body in a closet. He was detained on Aug. 8 on the grounds of a factory dormitory and placed in a pretrial detention center. According to media reports, Moskalenko had previously been sentenced to nine years and two months in a maximum security penal colony on charges of murder and making death threats. Taking the unserved portion of that sentence into account, he will spend a total of 18.5 years in a special-regime penal colony.
Criminal cases have been opened against officers Pavel Gudochkin and Gennady Kazakov on charges of abuse of authority, bribery, multiple counts of murder and attempted murder, extortion, theft, illegal trafficking of weapons and explosives, as well as theft or extortion of weapons. According to case records, the officers are charged with a total of 108 criminal episodes. Gudochkin will be tried on 46 episodes and Kazakov on 62. Previously, both officers were accused of executing their subordinates.
In Russia's constituent Republic of Khakassia, police have detained two men and three women suspected of stealing money from servicemen. According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the detainees found three men from Krasnoyarsk, helped them sign contracts with the MoD, and arranged fictitious marriages between the recruits and group members. After the servicemen departed to their duty stations, the suspects stole money from the men's bank cards. The total amount of damage exceeded 9 million rubles [$116,100].
In the Volgograd region, two sisters were detained for fraudulent obtaining of state benefits. They have been sent to a pre-trial detention center by a court. According to police, one of the women, who worked as head of the military registration office of the district administration, found a single man who was about to sign a contract with the MoD and convinced her sister to enter into a fictitious marriage with him. After the marriage was concluded, the man was deployed to the frontline and soon killed. Then his wife filed a claim for a payment of 15 million rubles [$193,500], however, the women were detained. The sister who worked in the district administration is currently under investigation for potential involvement in similar episodes.
In Bashkortostan [Russia's constituent republic], a 50-year-old local resident has been arrested in a case related to an attempt on sabotage. According to the FSB, the man received instructions through a messaging app to set fire to a cellular tower, after which he purchased the necessary tools and flammable substances and attempted to carry out the arson. According to the intelligence services, he was unable to carry his plan through to completion.
The Irkutsk regional court is hearing the case of Andrey Padalka, a 53-year-old farmer and dump-truck driver from the Altai region [Russia's federal subject], who is charged with cooperation on a confidential basis with a foreign state or an international or foreign organization. He was detained on Oct. 16, 2024, in Ust-Kut, Irkutsk region. Afterward, his relatives did not know his whereabouts for six months. Under the pretext of state protection, FSB officers held Padalka in a safe house for about six months, and in the pre-trial detention center he faced beatings, threats of rape, and injured himself in protest. The circumstances of his case were classified, but during the court hearing it emerged that the man is accused of passing information to the Crimean Tatar pro-Ukrainian organization Atesh. According to a witness—an employee of the Irkutsk Polymer Plant where Padalka worked—five photographs that appeared on the Atesh Telegram channel were taken on the plant's premises. Using satellite monitoring system data, the staff concluded that the images were taken by Padalka precisely at a time when his schedule called for him to be making freight deliveries. Padalka himself confirmed that he had photographed an ore storage yard with sand and gravel on the plant's premises. However, he insists that the pictures were intended for a logistics coordinator, to clarify exactly which material needed to be loaded into the dump truck. Padalka says he does not know how or why the photos were published on the Atesh Telegram channel.
The Samara regional court has sentenced a local resident to 13.5 years in a maximum security penal colony in a case involving treason and participation in the activities of an extremist organization. According to investigators, the man collected and forwarded information about the movement of military vehicles across the Samara region on assignment from a foreign "handler," as well as data about a railway hub used for military purposes.
The Saratov regional court has sentenced 36-year-old Volgograd native Sergey Subbotin to 14 years in a maximum security penal colony on charges of treason and laundering money acquired through criminal means. According to investigators, in the spring of 2024, while in Ukraine, the man agreed to cooperate with the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU). After receiving an advance of $1,200, Subbotin returned to Volgograd, bought a mobile phone and traveled to Saratov, where he rented an apartment overlooking Engels posing as a courier. There, he collected information on certain "objects of intelligence interest," participated in the transfer of explosives and explosive devices via caches, and prepared diversionary and terrorist acts against Russian military personnel. He converted the funds received from the SBU (210,000 rubles / [$2,710]) into cryptocurrency before withdrawing them to a Russian bank card.
The Russian-installed "Sevastopol City Court" has sentenced 45-year-old local resident Olga Tsirik, who worked as a chef, to 16 years in a penal colony in a treason case. The FSB reported Tsirik's detention in September 2025. According to investigators, in 2023, the Sevastopol resident contacted Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate and, on its instructions, "collected information on the locations of units, equipment, and military facilities of the Russian Armed Forces." Among other things, she allegedly transmitted photos via WhatsApp to Ukraine revealing the deployment sites of Black Sea Fleet ships in Sevastopol Bay, which the Armed Forces of Ukraine subsequently targeted with missile strikes. Following her detention, it was claimed that the woman also "intended to poison servicemen of the special military operation." In September 2024, Tsirik was fined in a case involving the "discrediting of the Russian Armed Forces."
The 1st Western District Military Court has sentenced 56-year-old Saint Petersburg resident Andrey Bogodarov to 18 years in prison in a case involving participation in the activities of a terrorist organization, high treason and the attempted illegal manufacture of explosives. According to investigators, Bogodarov was linked to the Russian Volunteer Corps, though the exact actions attributed to him by the investigation remain unknown. It previously emerged that testimony against him was provided by Andrey Vasyurenko, a student from Karelia [Russia’s constituent republic]. Vasyurenko had been sentenced earlier to nine years in a case involving incitement to high treason and inducement to terrorism, and began cooperating with the investigation to mitigate his own punishment. Bogodarov’s daughter claimed that her father pleaded guilty to the charges following threats made against his family members.
The 2nd Western District Military Court has sentenced three men to prison terms ranging from 12 to 25 years in a case involving high treason, participation in a terrorist community, an attempted terrorist attack and illegal explosives trafficking. According to law enforcement, Dmitry Zaitsev, Dmitry Dmitriev and Alexey Zhuravlev “entered into correspondence with representatives of Ukrainian intelligence services” via Telegram and collected information regarding defense enterprises and critical infrastructure facilities in the Kostroma, Smolensk and Tula regions. Additionally, they were preparing to carry out terrorist attacks in these regions.
Children and Militarization
In the Perm region [Russia’s federal subject], a children’s military-patriotic camp called Groza has opened enrollment for militarized programs named Shturmovik [Assault Trooper], Razvedchik [Scout] and Spasatel [Rescue Worker] for children ages 8 to 17. According to the program description, students are taught elements of tactical, weapons and physical training, as well as basic outdoor skills. The camp also features an interactive museum with examples of Soviet and Russian military weapons and equipment. The Primorsky region, previously reported the opening of a children’s camp called Shturmovik [Assault Trooper], where children attend classes on UAV operation and meet with participants in the war against Ukraine.
At School No. 62 in Izhevsk, fifth- and sixth-grade schoolgirls were assigned to sew underpants for soldiers fighting in the Ukraine. A sewing club called Igolochka [Little Needle] was formed at the school for this purpose. The school’s social media page said "fifth- and sixth-grade girls worked tirelessly for two weeks." The underpants will be sent "to soldiers in a regiment from Udmurtia stationed in the special military operation zone."
Assistance
Meduza, an international Russian-language online media outlet, published a study on the advancement of war participants into Russia’s power structures. According to the outlet’s tally, at least 1,305 war participants have received 1,311 positions in government bodies and state-affiliated institutions since the start of the invasion. At least 848 of them had prior experience in government, military or law enforcement service before the war, leading researchers to conclude that participation in the war has served as a career boost primarily for those already embedded in the state system. The study also documents rapid growth in such appointments, from 45 in 2023 to at least 754 in 2025.