Mobilization in Russia for May 3-5, 2026 CIT Volunteer Summary
Authorities and Legislation
Lawmakers introduced a bill in the State Duma [lower house of Russia's Federal Assembly] to exempt members of indigenous minorities from military service. The proposed amendments to the Military Conscription and Military Service Act and the Mobilization Training and Mobilization Act would allow 18- to 30-year-olds from these communities to apply for exemptions, while retaining the right to volunteer or choose alternative civilian service. Eligibility requires inclusion in the official Register of Indigenous Small-Numbered Peoples of the Russian Federation. The legislation also offers them deferments from mobilization and allows for early discharge of those already mobilized. An explanatory note states that the measure aims to preserve small ethnic groups.
Army Recruitment
Relatives of convicts from the Penza region report that authorities are coercing their loved ones into signing contracts to fight in the war. Officials are torturing those who refuse and threatening them with sexual violence. Specifically, on April 25, authorities brought several convicts from penal colonies No. 5 and No. 3 to a draft office in Penza, where they took blood samples and forced them to sign contracts, claiming they would be sent to "rebuild houses." One convict, 57-year-old Igor K., told his family that after he refused, officials assaulted him, kept him in a stuffy room dressed in warm clothing, suffocated him with a bag, and threatened him with rape. Unable to withstand the torture, he signed the contract. Despite a medical board classifying him as fitness category "D" (unfit for military service), the military sent him to a unit and assigned him to an assault company. Relatives of other convicts reported similar cases, noting that authorities also took their loved ones to the Penza draft office and forced them to sign contracts after beatings. They are currently in the same military unit. Previously, a convict from another Penza penal colony, No. 7, reported a similar practice.
According to the VChK-OGPU Telegram channel, inmates serving sentences at Penal Colony No. 8 in the Yaroslavl region are also being coerced into signing contracts and going to war. Those who refuse are reportedly sent to solitary confinement until they agree, and prison authorities also obstruct their eligibility for parole.
A paramedic from the Omsk region said her hospital has been instructed to send volunteer medical personnel to the war. The 34-year-old employee of a rural medical station in the village of Krasnoyarka said that by the end of the year, her hospital must send one member of its mid-level staff to the front line, with the contract to be signed voluntarily for a one-year term. The directive, which she said "came from above," was signed by the head physician of the district hospital. According to her, similar notices have been sent to other medical institutions. She added that she and her colleagues have draft deferrals as the only medical workers in the village and expressed doubt that a volunteer would be found.
The Siberian State Automobile and Highway University in Omsk published a post about third-year student Aleksandr Kononenko, who signed a "one-year special contract" to serve in the Unmanned Systems Forces on the day of his wedding. A representative of the university administration attended the ceremony, and the institution’s post described the contract signing as an expression of "patriotism, civic responsibility and education," noting that the student’s engineering skills would be applied in the military sphere.
Thirty-five-year-old Eduard Seredyuk, who is accused of attempted contract killing, has gone to war in Ukraine. He signed a contract with the Ministry of Defense in March while being held in a pretrial detention center. In 2015, Seredyuk was sentenced to 12 years in a penal colony on charges of attempted large-scale drug distribution. He was released in 2023 and later worked at the Wagner Center. It is likely that he signed a contract with the Wagner Group while in prison. According to investigators, on Jan. 12 of this year in Yekaterinburg, Seredyuk threw acid on a local woman, Alyona Fominykh. After the attack, the mother of four sustained burns to her face, hands, neck, back and ears and was hospitalized. According to the victim, she will require skin grafts in some areas. Law enforcement officials consider Seredyuk to be the perpetrator of the attack. The assault was allegedly ordered by Nikolay Yermakov, with whom Fominykh had lived for 17 years before leaving him in February 2025 due to domestic violence.
The Idite Lesom! [Flee through the woods/Get lost you all] Telegram channel has reported that at least three conscripts who received electronic draft notices have managed to leave Russia through Belarus. One of them received an electronic draft notice for a medical examination. Previously, temporary restrictions had been imposed on him. However, with help from the Idite Lesom! project, he managed to leave through Belarus. Another conscript lived abroad and had never previously experienced problems with departure and entry. However, in October 2025, he was placed in the Unified Military Register, and has received two draft notices since that time. After his first failure to report to a draft office, temporary restrictions were imposed on him. After his second failure to report, he was prohibited from leaving Russia. In March, he crossed the border from the Republic of Abkhazia [a Russian-occupied territory] into Russia, but was banned from returning to Abkhazia, which he discovered at the border. The young man decided to try to fly out of Minsk, the capital of Belarus, and was successful. Previously, there has been a report on the first case in which a conscript was prohibited from leaving Russia at the border with Belarus due to a draft notice and was twice denied departure from Minsk airport.
Mobilized Soldiers, Contract Soldiers and Conscripts
In Russia's constituent Republic of Buryatia, between 2021 and 2024, the number of men decreased by 15,500, while the number of women increased by approximately 2,000, according to the latest available data from Buryatstat [the Buryatia branch of Rosstat, Russia's Federal State Statistics Service]. Statistics for the region, including the total population count, have not been published since 2025. Previously, demographic changes among men and women occurred at the same rate. It is known that at least 4,600 men from the region have been killed in the war, with the fate of approximately 11,000 others remaining unclear, which may also include those who have departed from Buryatia. The decline in the male population is primarily concentrated among adults with minimal change observed among children. At the same time, in the Irkutsk region, the latest available data indicates that the decline in the male and female populations has not been skewed.
Residents of Cheboksary have received anonymous messages inviting them to attend a “memorial event” on May 9 outside the city’s draft office and to bring portraits of soldiers killed in the war against Ukraine. City officials called it a provocation, saying the messages were an attempt to gather people for an unauthorized event, with photos and videos to be used to "discredit the families of servicemembers and destabilize the information environment."
Sentences, Legal Proceedings and Incidents
In annexed Sevastopol authorities detained a fighter from the volunteer Española Battalion and ordered him held in custody on suspicion of illegally selling weapons in two incidents and selling explosives as part of an organized group. Officials have not disclosed the detainee’s name or the specific charges against him. The Española Battalion, which emerged in spring 2022 as a volunteer unit of soccer ultras, disbanded in October 2025. In December, reports emerged that the battalion’s leader, Stanislav Orlov, had been killed, apparently shot by law enforcement officers during his detention.
The Southern District Military Court upheld the conviction of Renat Karashaev, a contract soldier from Chechnya [Russia’s constituent republic], who was sentenced by the Grozny Military Court to two years of probation on charges of going AWOL. According to the prosecution, the serviceman was absent from duty for fewer than 10 days. On appeal, Karashaev argued that he had notified his commanders of the need to extend his leave and undergo outpatient treatment and had provided supporting medical documents, but the court rejected his arguments.
Contract soldier Yevgeny Kostrykin from the Stavropol region has been sentenced to seven years in a penal colony for three counts of leaving his unit. According to prosecutors, Kostrykin did not return to his unit from a hospital on March 16, 2024, and was detained on June 7. He was later hospitalized again, but a week later left once more. On July 2, Kostrykin again sought medical assistance and was detained. The last time he left his service was two weeks later; however, he turned himself in at a draft office seven months later, in February 2025.
Officers of the Federal Security Service (FSB) in the Kursk region have detained a local resident suspected of treason. According to investigators, the man established contact via the Telegram messenger with an officer of the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine and agreed to collect and transmit information and photographic materials concerning military and civilian facilities in the region. In return, the man was to receive money. To carry out the assignment, he involved at least four residents of Kursk from among his close acquaintances.
In Donetsk, the FSB has detained a medical facility employee suspected of treason. According to law enforcement officers, the man transmitted to Ukrainian intelligence services information about the locations of units of the Russian Armed Forces in Khartsyzk and the "Makiivka municipal district," as well as information about patients injured as a result of attacks by the Armed Forces of Ukraine who were admitted to the medical facility.
The Southern District Military Court in Rostov-on-Don has sentenced Stavropol bikers Sergey Dudchenko and Nikolay Murnev to seven years in a maximum security penal colony in a case of preparing an act of terror. Taking his previous sentence into account, Dudchenko's combined term will reach 10 years. Earlier, a court in Yessentuki had sentenced him to 7.5 years on charges of illegal arms trafficking, illegal trafficking of explosives and illegal drug trafficking. Mediazona [independent Russian media outlet] has published Dudchenko's closing statement. Murnev had previously received a probationary sentence in a drug trafficking case, which has since expired. Dudchenko and Murnev are defendants in the so-called "Stavropol bikers’ case" (more details: 1, 2, 3). Together with their friend Kirill Buzmakov, the men were detained on various pretexts in October 2022, and after two weeks of administrative arrest, they were charged with preparing an act of terror — they had allegedly planned to set fire to a draft office in Pyatigorsk on orders from Ukrainian intelligence services. All three reported being subjected to torture during the investigation, including electric shocks, beatings and suffocation. Buzmakov was released from a pre-trial detention center on health grounds and died in 2024 from an illness that had developed as a result of the torture.
The Second Eastern District Military Court has sentenced activist Yury Izmailov to 18 years in prison on charges of high treason and participating in the activities of a terrorist organization. According to investigators, he did not support Russia's invasion of Ukraine and had allegedly intended to join the Russian Volunteer Corps. In 2024, a Ukrainian serviceman sent the activist several application forms for organizations fighting on Ukraine's side, one of which belonged to the Freedom of Russia Legion. In their correspondence, Izmailov was asked to mark "certain urban facilities" on a map. The man was detained in August 2024. During the arrest, his head was struck against the floor twice, after which he began bleeding and suffered an epileptic seizure. Following searches, he and his wife were taken to the FSB headquarters and interrogated for more than a day. During that time, Izmailov lost consciousness several times. His wife was later released, while the man was sent to a pre-trial detention center. Initially, he faced only the charge with participation in a terrorist organization, but high treason was added later.
Drawing on data from the Judicial Department of the Supreme Court, the Vyorstka media outlet has found that in 2025, the share of women among convicted defendants reached a historic high of 19.9 percent (by comparison, in the final pre-war year, the figure stood at 14.3 percent). They are most often prosecuted under "mass" articles: illegal drug trafficking, theft, fraud, failure to pay child support, and fictitious registration of foreigners. At the same time, the number of women prosecuted in political cases is also rising: over the course of 2025, 46 sentences were handed down in high treason cases, 68 under "terrorism" articles, and 88 under "extremism" articles. In all, the lists of politically prosecuted individuals include 1,366 women, 503 of whom are behind bars. Sentences for female political prisoners have, on average, turned out to be a year longer than those for men.
Children and Militarization
A unified program will be introduced in Russian children's camps, including "patriotic education," militarized children's game Zarnitsa and marching drills. According to State Duma member Nina Ostanina, the law unifying camp activities was passed as early as 2024. The program is based on the experience of major children's centers like the Orlyonok children's camp. Throughout the session, children are expected to participate in technical and local history events, maintain squad newspapers and blogs, and work on projects. They will also elect leaders and form councils. Additionally, they will take part in militarized games such as Zarnitsa, as well as marching and song competitions.
Assistance
Governor of the Novosibirsk region Andrey Travnikov has requested that state and municipal employees donate a portion of their salaries to purchase equipment for the 24th Special Forces Brigade and "in the interests of our mobilization regiments."
In Yekaterinburg, municipal authorities plan to transfer cultural institutions to draft offices in the event of mobilization. A draft proposal has been submitted to the City Council that would allow the premises of the local zoo, theaters and the municipal park to be used for military training free of charge and without a bidding process. These measures are intended to take effect if martial law is declared.
In Bashkortostan [Russia's constituent republic], 438 land plots have been allocated for individual housing construction to war participants and the families of deceased servicemen: 114 plots were granted to veterans, and another 324 to the families of those killed in action. As an alternative to the land, there is an option to receive a one-time cash payment of 250,000 rubles [$3,330].