Mobilization in Russia for May 19-21, 2026 CIT Volunteer Summary
Army Recruitment
Authorities in the Voronezh region have stepped up recruitment into the mobilization reserve to form the BARS-Voronezh volunteer unit, which will protect the region's critical infrastructure from drone attacks. Officials plan to recruit men 65 or younger into the unit, including employees of private security companies. According to a document obtained by journalists, authorities need at least 40 "trained citizens—private security company employees" to guard facilities. Unit members will undergo training once a quarter in sessions of up to six days and once every six months in 15-day sessions. After training, they will guard critical infrastructure sites on 45-day rotational deployments. Volunteers will retain their jobs and regular pay for the duration of their contracts. Media reported earlier that similar units were being formed in several other regions as well.
A new case of recruitment of female students into UAV troops has come to light. At the Krasnoyarsk College of Radioelectronics and Information Technology, a man in military uniform and a woman from the administration held a meeting for female students. They urged the students to enlist, telling them that modern combat operations "have reached the level of information technology" and that "it is easier to lose a 'bird' than a person." They also listed selection criteria: ages 18 to 34, no criminal record and no children. The media previously reported similar recruiting meetings at least seven other Russian universities and colleges. Authorities in the Tomsk region also urge women to sign contracts.
Nikolay Khrychov, head of the Chunsky municipal district of the Irkutsk region, reported that three students from the Chunsky Multidisciplinary Technical College have gone to serve in UAV units. According to Khrychov, a total of 20 students from the college have signed military contracts since 2023. Including graduates from previous years, 60 people affiliated with the institution are currently serving in the war. The college has 479 male and female students in total.
Mobilized Soldiers, Contract Soldiers and Conscripts
The mother of 21-year-old conscript Rodion Yurchenko has alleged that her son was subjected to abuse and beatings by his commanders. Yurchenko took the military oath on Nov. 30 and was transferred on Dec. 9 to the 80th Motor Rifle Brigade, where he was reportedly supposed to receive UAV training. According to his mother, instead of training, sergeants beat conscripts, cut off their contact with relatives, and forced them to perform various tasks without adequate rest. She says that after Yurchenko complained to Boris Fomichev, commander of the 14th Army Corps, he was told that he "didn’t care about the prosecutor’s office," that he had "thousands like him," and had no intention of responding. Afterward, the conscript was allegedly beaten again and threatened with retaliation if he filed further complaints. According to his mother, the command ignored the complaints, and an attempt to submit a transfer request was blocked with the explanation that "there aren’t enough personnel."
Twenty-eight-year-old Donetsk resident Aleksandr Ryabykh, who holds neither Ukrainian nor Russian citizenship, was forcibly sent to war in February 2022 despite never receiving a draft notice. Armed men abducted him directly from the street while threatening to kill him. The only document he possessed was a Ukrainian birth certificate. Ryabykh, who suffers from a congenital heart defect and had been registered at a psychiatric hospital due to suicide attempts, was among a group of men held in a school gymnasium before being sent to the frontline. In December 2022, he sustained a severe lung injury, but after treatment his commanders demanded that he return to forward positions. In February 2023, he fled his unit, after which he was declared wanted on charges of going AWOL. He received no compensation for his injury, and his salary amounted to 18,000 rubles [$250]. In August 2025, acquaintances turned him over to the military commandant’s office for 50,000 rubles [$700]. There, he was beaten, then handed over to the Investigative Committee and sent to an assault brigade. On May 20, 2026, a military medical board in Donetsk declared Ryabykh fully fit for service despite his health problems, and he is now reportedly facing redeployment into assault operations.
Sentences, Legal Proceedings and Incidents
Serviceman Denis Gopparov was sentenced to 24 and a half years in a maximum security penal colony on charges of murder, desertion, robbery and theft. He had previously served in a military unit in Chechnya [Russia's constituent republic] under the surname Polovnikov, but in March 2024, after treatment at a hospital in the Amur region, he failed to return to his unit and instead relocated to the Sverdlovsk region, where he changed his surname and found work. In August, he was detained by police, and in September of the same year he was flown from Yekaterinburg to Rostov, from where authorities planned to send him back to the war, but he again fled to the Sverdlovsk region. In March 2025, he met 44-year-old Oksana Mukhitova, the widow of a war participant, and learned that she had received 12 million rubles [$168,100] in compensation for her husband, who was killed in Ukraine. He also gained access to her banking app. Gopparov asked the woman for 1 million rubles [$14,000] to buy a new car, but she refused. On May 8, he drove her out to a field and again demanded money. After she refused a second time, Gopparov began beating and strangling Mukhitova, then killed her with a hammer and buried the body. The serviceman transferred money from her bank card both to himself and to his wife—550,000 rubles [$7,710] and 450,000 rubles [$6,300], respectively. He had previously been convicted multiple times on charges of murder and theft.
In Yekaterinburg, a court sentenced Sergey Anagurichi, a 39-year-old serviceman, to 20 years in a maximum security penal colony on charges of grievous bodily harm resulting in death, and desertion. Initially, Anagurichi was charged with murder with extreme brutality, causing minor bodily harm and battery, but the court reclassified the murder charge as a lesser offense. According to investigators, in 2023 Anagurichi fled the frontline after artillery shelling and returned home to the Yamalo-Nenets autonomous region [Russia’s federal subject], where he lived with his girlfriend. In October 2023, a battery case was opened against him after a quarrel with a friend, and in December another case was opened after he assaulted another acquaintance while intoxicated. The Interior Ministry twice closed the case because it could not locate the serviceman. In May 2024, Anagurichi got into a fight with another drinking companion, who called him a convict and asked whom he was defending on the frontline. After the beating, the victim died in a hospital. Anagurichi had previously been convicted twice of grievous bodily harm. In 2014, he was sentenced to 12 and a half years in a maximum security penal colony for beating two drinking companions to death after they refused to give him money for vodka. In June 2023, he signed a contract with the Ministry of Defense while in a penal colony and was sent to the frontline. During the current trial, he asked the court to consider the case more quickly because he was planning to go back to the war.
In the Moscow region, a Garrison Military Court sentenced contract soldier Artyom Lipezin to five years in a penal colony on a charge of injuring himself to evade service. According to case materials, the man twice fired a round into his foot with an assault rifle in order to "take a break from military service and avoid being sent to the special military operation zone." Lipezin pleaded guilty in court.
In Saint Petersburg, three men ages 28, 35 and 40 were detained in a case involving fraud and illegal banking activity. According to investigators, they stole payments intended for participants in the war. The group operated in Saint Petersburg and in the Leningrad and Novgorod regions. They found people in difficult life circumstances and, using connections at draft offices and local administrations, persuaded them to sign contracts with the MoD, after which they gained control over their payments. Investigators also alleged cases of sham marriages to obtain posthumous compensation. The total losses are estimated at 10 million rubles [$140,100]. According to The Sever.Realii [part of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty] online media outlet, the suspected organizer of the scheme was Andrey Yeliseyev, a former employee of the Russkiy Mir [Russian World] Foundation. One of the detainees was arrested, and the other two were placed under house arrest.
The Second Eastern District Military Court increased the sentence of Ukrainian POW Anton Saikhiev by two years in a case involving the justification of terrorism. Taking into account his previous conviction for serving in the Azov Brigade, his total sentence now amounts to 16 years of imprisonment. Earlier, Saikhiev had already been fined for "defamation of the Russian army" due to anti-war statements made in a penal colony. Saikhiev himself claimed that he was held in solitary confinement and did not speak to anyone. Saikhiev defended the city of Mariupol and was captured on May 20, 2022.
The Southern District Military Court sentenced 54-year-old military retiree Viktor Kuzmenko from Mariupol to 18 years in a maximum security penal colony on charges of participation in a terrorist community and undergoing training for terrorist purposes. The man was accused of serving in the Azov Brigade, although he denied this, insisting that he had served in an escort unit that has no connection to Azov. Thirty years ago, he joined military unit No. 3057, which, after a series of reorganizations, was renamed the Azov Brigade in 2023, but by that time Kuzmenko was already retired. After the occupation of Mariupol, he was detained and forced to undergo so-called "filtration" procedures. At the end of 2023, he was released after being deemed "not involved in any crimes." In 2024, he obtained a Russian passport and sought to secure an international passport in order to leave for Europe. However, when trying to depart, he was detained again and first sent to a temporary accommodation center, and from there to a pre-trial detention center.
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) announced the detention of a local resident in Krasnodar who is suspected of preparing a terrorist attack, participating in the activities of a terrorist organization, discrediting the Russian army, calling for actions against state security, and treason. According to the intelligence services, the detainee was acting "on instructions from handlers in Ukraine," received via a messaging app, and was preparing to set fire to an energy infrastructure facility on the railway. He is also alleged to have posted calls on Telegram to fund an "illegal armed group operating under the patronage of the Armed Forces of Ukraine."
In the Altai region [Russia’s federal subject], two teenagers aged 16 and 17 were placed in a pre-trial detention center in a case involving an attempted act of sabotage. According to investigators, on May 16, they set fire to a relay cabinet on a railroad near the city of Biysk in exchange for a payment from an online "handler." However, the fire was quickly extinguished and train traffic was not disrupted.
The Baltic Fleet Military Court ordered a resident of Kaliningrad to undergo compulsory psychiatric treatment in a case involving the preparation of a terrorist attack. According to investigators, the man inspected railroad facilities for subsequent arson attacks on the orders of a "Ukrainian handler," and also studied the route of the Immortal Regiment rally and selected a location for placing an explosive device by May 9, 2025. The court released the man from criminal responsibility, recognizing that he suffered from a chronic mental disorder and required compulsory treatment in a hospital.
Aleksandr Yancharuk, a 41-year-old resident of the Sverdlovsk region, was sentenced to 12 years in a penal colony on charges of attempted terrorist attack. According to investigators, the man planned to set fire to a relay cabinet near the Stantsionny-Polevskoy railway station. Despite Yancharuk's decision not to proceed with the arson, he was detained. In court, law enforcement officers did not disclose the source of their information regarding the planned arson, but stated that they waited for Yancharuk near the planned crime location for several days. Upon being detained, Yancharuk was found to be in possession of a crowbar, a lighter and a solvent.
The Kaliningrad Regional Court sentenced a 22-year-old resident of Guryevsk to 12 years in a maximum security penal colony on charges of treason. According to investigators, in August 2023 the defendant contacted representatives of a foreign organization through Telegram, which allegedly was "acting against the security of the Russian Federation." Acting on instructions from his contact, the young man plastered leaflets across Guryevsk and Kaliningrad urging residents to join the organization, and conducted surveillance of ships operating in the Baltic Sea. He then forwarded the information to the organization’s representative. Authorities did not specify which country the Guryevsk resident was accused of collaborating with.
The Southern District Military Court sentenced Sochi resident Andrey Miroshnikov to 16 years in prison on charges of treason and participation in the activities of a terrorist organization. According to investigators, in June 2024, he established contact with a representative of the Russian Volunteer Corps and, acting on instructions, photographed air defense installations and an airport radar complex in Sochi before transmitting the images to the Russian Volunteer Corps.
A military court sentenced 35-year-old design engineer Mikhail Guryanov to 20 years in a penal colony on charges including financing terrorism, participating in a terrorist organization, treason and escape from custody. According to investigators, between 2022 and 2024 Guryanov made several money transfers totaling 7,800 rubles [$110] to accounts allegedly linked to the Artpodgotovka movement. He subsequently received an electronic "membership card" identifying him as a participant in a terrorist organization and later began administering a Telegram channel that, investigators said, published information aimed at "destabilizing the socio-political situation in Russia." Authorities also allege that Guryanov established contact with Ukrainian intelligence services, which tasked him with gathering information on facilities belonging to the Sibur-Kstovo company. He was detained in February 2025 and placed in a hospital. He later escaped from the hospital and was apprehended again three days later.
The Crimea Supreme Court, established by Russia, sentenced a Dzhankoi district resident born in 1984 to 17 years in prison on charges of high treason. According to the prosecution, the man contacted a Ukrainian intelligence representative on social media and received instructions to collect data on the locations of weapons, military equipment and fortifications in Crimea. Throughout 2024 he filmed military vehicles and aircraft, and passed photos and videos to his Ukrainian contact until he was detained.
A court sentenced Aleksandra Krasnikova, 49, a native of the Donetsk region of Ukraine, to 15 years in a penal colony on charges of high treason. According to investigators, in 2023, while in Kyiv, Krasnikova agreed to cooperate with the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU). In August 2023, she traveled to Crimea and obtained Russian citizenship, and in March 2024, acting on instructions from her handler, went to the Krasnodar region. There she surveilled the Black Sea coastline and monitored cellular and satellite communications in Gelendzhik and Novorossiysk. She then passed her handler information on GPS satellite positioning, including signal strength, satellite count and data transmission speeds.
A couple from Yalta, in Russian-annexed Crimea, were sentenced to 17 and 15 years in a maximum security penal colony. The woman, who did not hold Russian citizenship, was convicted of espionage, while the man, who had obtained a Russian passport, was convicted of high treason. According to law enforcement, the 39-year-old local resident contacted the SBU and photographed military vehicles in the city, while his 35-year-old partner filmed military vessels in the port.
Children and Militarization
Russia’s Minister of Sport Mikhail Degtyarev announced the inclusion of UAV piloting in the Ready for Labor and Defense fitness standards. Passing the standards will now require operating a 75-mm drone.
The authorities of Novosibirsk will spend 207,000 rubles [$2,900] on a camp session titled "Generation UAV" at a recreational camp during the summer holidays. There, teenagers aged 12-17 will obtain basic skills in piloting drones.
Longreads
The Tochka [Point] project has reported on how universities in Rostov are campaigning for students to sign contracts for service in UAV units, promising benefits and career prospects.
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty has released a report on how conscripts are being forced, threatened and coerced into signing contracts with the MoD.