Mobilization in Russia for May 10-12, 2026 CIT Volunteer Summary

Authorities and Legislation

Vladimir Putin signed a decree that expands the grounds for granting a deferral from regular conscription to graduates of vocational and technical schools when they enroll in a higher education institution run by the Ministry of Emergency Situations for full-time study. The new measure caps the number of such deferrals at 200 per year. Previously, this draft deferral did not apply to individuals entering such an institution after completing secondary vocational education, unless the potential conscript finished their vocational program before turning 18.

Army Recruitment

The 252nd Motor Rifle Regiment in the town of Boguchar, Voronezh region, continues to pressure conscripts into signing contracts with the Ministry of Defense, despite a criminal case opened back in November 2025. The investigation was launched following the case of a 21-year-old conscript from the Moscow region who had been diagnosed with a personality disorder. He began his statutory military service in June 2024, and after suicide attempts and treatment in a psychiatric clinic, he was discharged with a diagnosis of mixed personality disorder and a recommendation for early demobilization. Despite this, the unit commander forged a contract on his behalf for service as a UAV operator in September 2024, and the conscript was sent to the war against Ukraine in January 2025. Around the same time, 260,000 rubles [$3,520] were transferred from his bank card to a number registered in the Nizhny Novgorod region. In April 2025, he went missing during a combat mission involving 11 men—one was captured, while the others remain missing. According to fellow servicemen, the conscript was killed on May 1 in a UAV strike. The conscript’s mother succeeded in having her son’s contract declared illegal and is now trying through the courts to have him officially recognized as dead. On Nov. 12, 2025, a military investigative department opened a criminal case on negligence charges. One of the unit’s former commanders is listed as a suspect and remains in active service.
Case materials indicate that at least seven conscripts were forced into signing contracts. However, the criminal investigation did not put an end to the practice in the 252nd Regiment. For example, on Nov. 18, 2025, the unit processed a contract for conscript Rafael Karabakhtsyan on the basis of falsified reports. Following media coverage, an inspection was carried out in the unit, and the contract was eventually annulled. Less than two weeks later, another conscript signed a contract after arriving at the unit only the day before. He was reportedly not given an opportunity to submit paperwork refusing the contract, and since then has lost contact with his relatives.

In the town of Kronstadt, law enforcement officers carried out a raid targeting migrants. In total, 350 people were checked, and four of them were forcibly registered for military service.

Mobilized Soldiers, Contract Soldiers and Conscripts

The BBC Russian Service identified the first student known to have been killed after going to war as part of a campaign to recruit university and college students to serve in the Unmanned Systems Forces. Valery Averin, a 23-year-old who grew up in an orphanage in Buryatia [Russia’s constituent republic], was in his final year at the Buryat Republican College of Construction and Industrial Technologies. He signed a contract on Jan. 3, 2026, and trained as a drone operator. He completed his training on March 24 and called his adoptive mother for the last time on April 2, saying he was heading to an area with "no network coverage." She was notified of her son's death on April 8, two weeks after he finished his training, and officials told her he was killed on April 6 in a "mortar attack near the city of Luhansk."

Conscript Danila Aksyonov was sent to the frontline on the day of a court hearing regarding his lawsuit seeking to terminate his military contract. According to the Movement of Conscientious Objectors [a human rights organization supporting those who refuse to perform military service], on Feb. 9, 2026, the conscript, who was serving in the 64th Motorized Rifle Brigade, was pressured for several hours into signing a contract after completing a 24-hour duty shift. He was allegedly held in a storage room and subjected to verbal abuse. The following morning, during a search, officers found a phone that his mother had given him to record a video refusing to sign the contract voluntarily. His commander then threatened him with espionage charges, insisting that signing the contract was the only way to avoid prosecution. Human rights advocates say that after two days without sleep and under pressure, Aksyonov eventually signed the paperwork. He later refused to sign additional documents and submitted a written explanation stating that the contract had been signed under duress, along with a request to terminate the contract, which the command refused to accept. Fellow servicemen prepared to testify about the circumstances were unable to appear in court because the command allegedly obstructed their summons. After the family filed complaints with the Military Prosecutor’s Office, Aksyonov’s personal belongings were confiscated, and he was then sent to a guardhouse for 10 days for allegedly using a phone while on duty. On April 17, he was released and informed of a court hearing scheduled for April 20 regarding termination of the contract. However, that same day, he was transferred to another unit in the settlement of Knyaze-Volkonskoye and later sent to the Rostov region. On April 26, Aksyonov made contact from near Mariupol.

Maksim Bybko, a Donetsk resident with one kidney who was mobilized before the start of the full-scale invasion, was declared AWOL and, after being detained, sent to an assault unit. According to his wife, he signed a military contract in June 2022, and in 2023 he suffered a hand injury and was later discharged from contract service. Despite this, he was declared wanted, and in 2026 military police detained him and returned him to a military unit, where he underwent an examination by a military medical board, although the results were not provided to him. He was later placed in a basement detention facility in Donetsk, where he spent a month. On May 9, he was transferred to an assault unit. He has not been in contact since then.

Sentences, Legal Proceedings and Incidents

A serviceman has been sentenced to 15 years in a maximum security penal colony on charges of murder, the use of violence against a superior officer resulting in grave consequences, and the attempted murder of two individuals to conceal another crime. According to investigators, the convict had a conflict with his commander, who was demanding money from him. While in the basement of a school building, the serviceman opened fire on a junior lieutenant, killing him on the spot. Fearing his crime would be exposed, the convict then opened fire on another serviceman. The man sustained serious injuries but survived.

A court in Abakan has sentenced contract soldier Aleksey Babushkin to 10 years in a maximum security penal colony on charges of desertion, embezzlement and four counts of vehicle theft. In July 2024, Babushkin failed to return to his unit and was detained in September of the same year. In August and September 2025, he fled his unit twice during deployments to other regions, but was apprehended each time—the last time at the end of September. During his absences from the unit, he and an accomplice managed to steal and sell four vehicles. The accomplice himself was sentenced to a year and a half in a penal colony on probation. Since 2014, Babushkin had already accumulated six convictions on charges of vehicle theft and robbery, and he received a pardon for his participation in the war.

The Novocherkassk Garrison Military Court has sentenced previously convicted serviceman Salman Abdulguseyev to a year and a half in a penal settlement in a case of negligent homicide. He was released in the courtroom, with the time he had spent in custody credited as the full term of his punishment. According to investigators, in June 2025, the serviceman went to the home of a 28-year-old resident of the town of Shakhty in the Rostov region to "settle a conflict" and force him to apologize for threatening a young woman. During the altercation, the serviceman struck him, causing him to fall and hit the back of his head on the ground. The man later died in the hospital. The case was initially investigated under the article on intentionally inflicting grievous bodily harm resulting in death, but the court reclassified the charge to a less severe one. The victim's mother secured 1.3 million rubles [$17,600] in compensation for moral damages.

The same court sentenced Issa Tsuroev, 20, a conscript from Ingushetia, Russia’s constituent republic, to six years in a maximum security penal colony on charges of assaulting a superior officer. In May 2025, he had been wrestling with a fellow soldier when an officer scolded him. Tsuroev responded rudely, and the officer slapped him in the face. The officer later summoned Tsuroev to his office "to resolve the conflict," where Tsuroev attacked him, striking him several times and leaving him with bruises and abrasions. Other soldiers intervened to separate them.

In the Tyumen region, a serviceman with prior convictions for murder and drug trafficking faces a new trial on charges of attempted drug distribution as part of an organized group. In 2005, he was sentenced to 12 years in a penal colony for murder, and in 2019, to 12.5 years for large-scale drug trafficking. Four years into that sentence, he signed a contract with the Ministry of Defense from prison and was pardoned. In 2024, he faced new drug charges but again went to war before a verdict was reached. He soon went AWOL, returned to Tobolsk and, according to investigators, began working as a drug courier. He was detained in August.

Victoria Sergeyeva, 55, a Crimea resident who was detained in Sochi after arriving on a flight from Turkey and held for months through a series of rolling arrests, has been ordered held in custody on charges of high treason. According to the First Department media outlet, the case stems from transfers in Ukrainian hryvnias that investigators consider aid to the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Sergeyeva insists she did not make the transfers. After her arrival, Federal Security Service (FSB) officers demanded her Ukrainian passport, saw stamps indicating travel to Ukraine, and gained access to her phone and banking apps. According to Sergeyeva, law enforcement officers threatened to open a criminal case against her children, then began filing consecutive administrative charges against her—first for failure to present a passport, then for resisting police. She was later charged criminally and transferred to a detention facility in Borisoglebsk, where, according to Sergeyeva, inmates were insulted, forced to sing the Russian national anthem and made to undergo medical examinations naked in the presence of masked men. Sergeyeva also said that she was tortured. Under pressure she gave a confession, but after being transferred to Krasnodar she retracted it and denied any wrongdoing.

In Kemerovo, a 17-year-old youth has been detained on charges of attempted sabotage. Law enforcement officers believe that scammers recruited the teenager, who lived in the Primorsky region [Russia's federal subject], to set fire to a locomotive. For this purpose, they created an account posing as a girl and contacted the teenager, then sent him a link to a phishing website imitating the Gosuslugi public services portal. After he followed the link, they began blackmailing him and convinced him to travel to Kemerovo and set fire to a locomotive at the Kemerovo-Sortirovochnaya station. He was subsequently detained.

The Southern District Military Court is considering the case against 29-year-old Igor Gerter, a former firefighter from the city of Langepas in the Khanty-Mansi autonomous region–Yugra, accused of incitement to terrorism and preparation for the crime of joining a terrorist organization. According to investigators, while serving a sentence in a penal colony in connection with another criminal case, Gerter decided to enlist for the war in Ukraine in order to later surrender and subsequently join the Russian Volunteer Corps. On Dec. 4, 2023, the man signed a contract with the MoD, and just a few weeks later, on Dec. 21, wrote to the bot of the Ukrainian Hochu Zhit [I Want to Live] project and filled out an application to join the Russian Volunteer Corps. Between June 7 and 12, 2024, while in the city of Luhansk, he told a fellow soldier about his plans and urged him to join him. According to the official version, Gerter was detained on June 17, but according to the Memorial Human Rights Defense Center, just three days after arriving in Luhansk, he was placed in a basement and held there for about two months, during which he was beaten and tortured. Later, the former prisoner with whom he had spoken in the penal colony about surrendering was brought to Gerter. He was forced to stage conversations about "persuading a fellow soldier to join the Russian Volunteer Corps," which were recorded by a hidden camera.

Children and Militarization

The Vot Tak [Like This] media outlet has published an investigation into the Avangard and Voin [Warrior] networks—military-patriotic centers used by Russian authorities to systematically prepare schoolchildren for military service and recruit them for the army and law enforcement. These military training camps for 16- and 17-year-olds include marching drills, firearms and tactical training, first aid, drone operation, and meetings with combat veterans. According to parents, schools often pressure students to attend, threatening them with failing grades in Fundamentals of Life Safety or blocking their promotion to the next grade. Since 2020, at least 36.5 billion rubles [$495 million] has been allocated to create and run Avangard centers across 39 regions. The Moscow branch alone received 13.6 billion rubles [$184 million], with roughly 200,000 teenagers passing through that facility. In occupied territories of Ukraine, the Voin centers and local organizations carry out similar activities: Ukrainian children are taken to camps in Russia, where they are taught military skills and integrated into the Russian military-patriotic system.