Mobilization in Russia for March 26-29, 2026 CIT Volunteer Summary

Authorities and Legislation

Dmitry Medvedev, Deputy Chairman of Russia’s Security Council, said that 80,000 people have signed contracts with the Ministry of Defense since the start of the year, excluding volunteer fighters. According to him, troop recruitment is proceeding at a "fairly solid pace," and there is therefore "no need whatsoever" to announce a new wave of mobilization in Russia at this time. Earlier, Medvedev reported that 422,704 people signed contracts in 2025, with another 32,000 joining volunteer formations.

Russia’s Ministry of Emergency Situations has prepared a draft decree that would expand eligibility for draft deferments from regular conscription to include graduates of colleges and technical schools who enroll in a higher education institution run by the ministry. The proposal also introduces a cap of no more than 200 people per year. At present, draft deferments generally do not apply to those entering university after completing secondary vocational education, except in cases where the individual finished college before reaching the age of 18.

Army Recruitment

Human rights advocates from the Movement of Conscientious Objectors [organization supporting those who refuse to perform military service] report emerging evidence that restrictions imposed on conscripts are being actively enforced rather than merely appearing in the registry. In particular, some conscripts say that notaries have refused to register ownership of land plots, citing asset freezes. Others have been denied driver’s licenses after paying the state fee, because the restrictions are visible in the traffic police database. The Movement of Conscientious Objectors advises challenging such restrictions first through pre-trial administrative procedures and then, if necessary, through the courts.

The student media outlet Groza has calculated that at 15 universities in Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine, students have been actively encouraged to join Russia’s Unmanned Systems Forces. They are being offered the incentives typically used in this kind of recruitment campaign: preferential admission to the next level of education, academic leave, transfer to state-funded places, and the repayment of educational loans. In total, Groza says it has identified 194 universities where students are being pressured or urged to sign contracts with the Unmanned Systems Forces.

According to Akhmed Adaev, head of the Federal Penitentiary Service for the Chechen Republic, 571 people have been sent from correctional facilities in the region to the war.

Lawyer Olga Evstigneeva said she managed to terminate a contract with the Ministry of Defense that her son had signed under pressure from law enforcement. According to her, the 18-year-old was detained by police in Yekaterinburg, where he had traveled "for work." After spending a night in a police station without food or water, he agreed to sign the contract despite being a full-time university student who had no intention of joining the military. Evstigneeva said she traveled to Yekaterinburg and filed complaints "with every possible authority," as well as a lawsuit in a military garrison court. She ultimately obtained an order from the head of the recruitment office canceling the contract as "not executed."

In Saint Petersburg, authorities conducted a raid at a retail company’s distribution center and a vegetable warehouse, checking more than 700 people, including over 500 foreign nationals. Sixty-one naturalized Russian citizens were handed over to representatives of draft offices.

Tomsk activist Anton Isakov, who had applied to hold a rally against Telegram blocking, was summoned to the police and then served with a draft notice "to verify personal records." Earlier, city officials had denied approval for the rally, stating that all 15 proposed locations were already booked. At the police station, a local officer said he had received complaints about calls for protests on his Telegram channel. He issued a formal warning, after which a military recruitment officer arrived and handed him a draft notice.

Statutory Military Service

The Ministry of Defense held a briefing (1, 2, 3) before the start of the spring conscription campaign, which begins on April 1 and lasts until July 15. During the briefing, Vice Adm. Vladimir Tsimlyansky, deputy head of the Main Organizational and Mobilization Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, announced that the current conscription campaign will be conducted using the Unified Military Register, the database of Russians subject to military service. Authorities will use digital draft notices to notify conscripts, and officials will enter information regarding the issuance of these notices into the register. If there are sufficient grounds for granting a draft deferral, authorities can process it without requiring the conscript to appear in person at a draft board meeting. Tsimlyansky also indicated that the military will not send conscripts to serve in the occupied territories of the Donetsk and Luhansk "people's republics," or the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. He also noted that a draft board's decision on conscription is now valid nationwide for one year from the date of adoption. Furthermore, Tsimlyansky stated that the military met the target for the 2025 fall conscription campaign, drafting 135,000 people into the armed forces. According to a decree signed at the end of 2025, the military plans to draft 261,000 people into the army in 2026, although it remains unspecified how many will be called up during the spring period.

Mobilized Soldiers, Contract Soldiers and Conscripts

Based on open sources, Mediazona [independent Russian media outlet] and BBC News Russian, together with volunteers, have verified the names of 206,202 Russian fighters killed in Ukraine, including 18,268 mobilized soldiers. Over the past week, the list has grown by 1,576 soldiers, 42 of whom were mobilized.

Magomedhabib Saykhanov, a 24-year-old soldier who signed a contract with the MoD in November 2024 and served in the 291st Motorized Rifle Regiment, was sent to a camp for refuseniks after requesting medical assistance. Saykhanov had previously experienced kidney problems while at the forward positions, and he refused to continue fighting until he received the necessary medical care. As a result, he was transferred to a camp for refuseniks, which was established in 2022 on the premises of a former penal colony in the town of Perevalsk in the Russian-occupied Luhansk region of Ukraine. Later, it became known that Saykhanov was sent from the camp to an assault troops training range for the 4th Motorized Rifle Brigade. In response to Saykhanov's concerns regarding his health, military officials said that the head of the medical unit would arrive at the training range, after which the commanders would decide what to do with him.

Sentences, Legal Proceedings and Incidents

The Southern District Military Court in Rostov sentenced three more servicemen of the Azov Brigade, who were captured in 2022 during the siege of the city of Mariupol. Serhiy Bliznyuk was sentenced to 18 years in a penal colony, Hennadiy Bybochkin was sentenced to 19 years in a maximum security penal colony, and Volodymyr Reva was sentenced to five and a half years in a penal colony. Bliznyuk and Bybochkin were charged with participating in a terrorist organization and training in terrorism, while Reva was charged only with participating in a terrorist organization.

In Tyumen, two women were detained after they set fire to a draft office on the evening of March 28, throwing four Molotov cocktails at the building. As a result, only the doormat at the entrance caught fire, and it was extinguished before firefighters arrived. Videos published online appear to show the women being detained at the scene. According to local media reports, the arson is being investigated as a terrorist attack, and the detainees—a mother and daughter—were "promised 5 million rubles [$61,400]" for carrying it out.

In Udmurtia, two 18-year-old men who set fire to a cellular base station in the city of Votkinsk in February of last year were sentenced to six years and nine months, and six years and three months, respectively, in a penal colony on charges of sabotage. According to investigators, on Feb. 15, 2025, while still minors, the young men carried out the arson on instructions from an unidentified individual on Telegram, who promised them 20,000 rubles [$250]. Law enforcement officers reported their detention and arrest several weeks later. At the same time, authorities also announced the arrest of a third suspect in the case, who was a year older than the other two.

The Federal Security Service (FSB) reported that it had thwarted a terrorist attack in the Stavropol region. According to the security service, a man acting on instructions from Ukrainian intelligence had been surveilling a law enforcement officer and his family. He allegedly planned to blow up the officer’s car and had retrieved an improvised explosive device from a hidden cache. Authorities did not specify which agency the targeted officer worked for. When FSB officers attempted to detain the man, his "Ukrainian handler" reportedly detonated the bomb remotely, killing the suspect. Law enforcement has opened a criminal case on charges of preparing a terrorist attack.

The Southern District Military Court sentenced Pol Lukashevich, a 24-year-old resident of Stavropol, to 20 years in a maximum security penal colony for charges including treason, participating in the activities of a terrorist organization, aiding terrorism and inciting extremism. According to the prosecution, in June 2023, Lukashevich submitted an application to join the Freedom of Russia Legion to one of the unit's members. Subsequently, he allegedly attempted to recruit two acquaintances into the Legion. Furthermore, law enforcement alleges that while working as a bartender in Stavropol coffee shops, Lukashevich attempted to poison six men in military uniform by adding a chemical descaling cleaner to their drinks. Investigators also claim that Lukashevich identified the coordinates of three military units and a Rosgvardia unit's home base in Stavropol in 2023. He is also accused of posting a Ukrainian-language comment calling for the killing of FSB officers. His detention was made public in the summer of 2024.

Assistance

The government of the Krasnoyarsk region approved a proposal by Vladimir Vakhtel, a member in the regional Legislative Assembly, to prioritize participants in the war with Ukraine when hiring school security guards.