Mobilization in Russia for May 31-June 2, 2026 CIT Volunteer Summary
Authorities and Legislation
The Russian Society of Psychiatrists updated clinical guidelines on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Among other things, the document sets recommended timelines for rotating personnel, aimed at preventing depletion of adaptive resources and lowering the risk of PTSD. In the group’s view, troops on the frontline should be relieved every six months, and every three months if possible. During sustained active combat, relief is needed after two weeks; after heavy losses, relief is needed after only a few days. Members also propose identifying signs of a complex disorder that differs sharply from ordinary "civilian" PTSD in service members. These include persistent disturbances in emotional regulation, negative self-perception, a sense of humiliation or defeatism, and pronounced difficulty maintaining relationships. After public discussion, the Society sent the guidelines to the Health Ministry for approval. Legislation and departmental regulations do not currently establish maximum limits on continuous deployment on the frontline. Commanders decide when to withdraw units to the rear based on conditions on the ground. The guidelines neither require commanders to follow those timelines nor give service members the right to demand removal from the front line. Only the Ministry of Defense or the General Staff can alter that by adopting new policies.
Army Recruitment
According to an analysis by Vazhnyye Istorii [IStories, independent Russian investigative media outlet] based on national budget data, the pace of recruiting contract soldiers had fallen by roughly one-third by the end of 2025 compared with the same period a year earlier. While an average of 1,500 people per day signed military contracts in the fourth quarter of 2024, the figure had dropped to 1,100 per day in the fourth quarter of 2025. The decline may be related to the fact that, beginning in 2025, the national sign-up bonus was no longer available to people signing contracts from correctional facilities. In total, nearly 100,000 people signed contracts in the fourth quarter of 2025, while 363,900 people did so over the course of the year. That is up to 10% fewer than in 2024, when between 374,200 and 407,200 people reportedly signed contracts. The national government spent 145.6 billion rubles [$2 billion] on these payments. According to Janis Kluge, a researcher at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, estimates based on regional budget data suggest that 407,000 people were recruited under contract in 2025. At the same time, Dmitry Medvedev [Deputy Chairman of Russia’s Security Council] claimed that 422,700 people signed contracts with the MoD in 2025—about 14% more than the figure implied by budget expenditures. Kluge also estimates that recruitment slowed by roughly 20% in the first quarter of 2026 compared with the same period in 2025. Whereas daily recruitment during the first three months of 2025 was around 1,000–1,200 people, it fell to 800–1,000 per day during the same period in 2026. Overall, approximately 70,500 people may have joined the Russian Armed Forces during the first three months of 2026.
In the first quarter of 2026, Russian banks granted 46,300 payment holidays to people who signed contracts with the MoD and to their family members—the lowest figure in two years. The last time the number of newly approved payment holidays fell below 50,000 was in the second quarter of 2024. At the same time, 2025 was a record year for the program: nearly 250,000 loan agreements belonging to recruits and their families were suspended. Over the three and a half years since the program was launched alongside mobilization in 2022, Russian banks have frozen approximately 765,000 loans with a combined value of more than 356 billion rubles [$5 billion]. Since the law prohibits payment holidays for loans taken out after a person has been deployed to the frontline, trends in the use of the program can serve as an indirect indicator of the number of recruits joining the invasion of Ukraine. The authorities recently expanded a separate debt-relief measure for those who sign military contracts on or after May 1, 2026. Under the revised rules, debts of up to 10 million rubles [$139,300] may be written off, provided enforcement proceedings were initiated before May 2026. Prior to the amendment, the benefit applied only to debts for which enforcement proceedings had begun before Dec. 1, 2024.
Authorities in Ufa have introduced a payment of 689,655 rubles [$9,600] for recruiting new contract soldiers to fight in the war against Ukraine. The corresponding decree was published on the city administration’s website.
The first 25 members of a BARS (Special Combat Army Reserve) volunteer unit in Udmurtia [Russia's constituent republic] have received weapons and been deployed to guard facilities against UAVs, according to regional authorities. Before deployment, they completed a two-week training course at a MoD training range. According to the Astra Telegram channel, similar volunteer units financed by the Moscow city budgetary institution Automobile Roads of the Central Administrative District are also being established in the Moscow region. Earlier, authorities in Chuvashia [Russia’s constituent republic] reported the creation of the first regional BARS unit dedicated to countering drones, while officials in the Voronezh and Vladimir regions, as well as the Perm region [Russia’s federal subject], announced the formation of similar units.
Governor of the Vladimir region Aleksandr Avdeyev issued a decree providing payments of up to 80,000 rubles [$1,110] from the regional budget to residents who sign contracts to participate in the BARS-Vladimir unit, which is tasked with protecting the region from drone attacks. The payments are intended to cover the period of military training.
Authorities in the Leningrad region have established a payment of 100,000 rubles [$1,390] for members of mobile fire teams for each drone they shoot down. Reservists are formally employed as firefighter-rescuers with Lenoblpozhspas, the regional emergency response service, and also sign contracts with the MoD. During their service, reservists receive dual compensation—one salary from Lenoblpozhspas and another from the MoD. Earlier reports indicated that the contract provides payments of 25,000-30,000 rubles [around $350-420] per month during training periods and 2,500-3,000 rubles [$35-42] per month outside those periods. In addition, they receive an extra 10,000 rubles [$140] for each day of combat duty.
In the Primorsky region [Russia's federal subject], Aleksey Borisov and his friend Sergey Vesyagin were deceived into entering a military unit territory under the pretext of a job offer and then forced to sign a contract with the MoD through threats and physical violence. Borisov has an intellectual disability and attended school under a special program. On May 20, a serviceman gave Vesyagin a ride to Ussuriysk and offered him a side job for 5,000 rubles [$70] per day. Several days later, Vesyagin and Borisov agreed. Two men in civilian clothes arrived to escort Vesyagin and Borisov to the location of the 394th Motorized Rifle Regiment, where their phones and documents were confiscated and they were locked in a room with other people in the same situation. After several hours, two soldiers approached them demanding to sign up for contract military service. At first, they were promised that they would be stationed at the unit and not deployed to the frontline. However, after both refused, they were assaulted. Fearing for their lives, Vesyagin and Borisov signed their names "on three pieces of paper." When they were being put in a car to obtain bank cards for the contract payments, Borisov's sister managed to rescue her brother, but Vesyagin was taken away. He is currently held in an unknown location where he is being prepared for deployment to the frontline. There has been no contact with him.
The Movement of Conscientious Objectors, a human rights organization supporting those who refuse to perform military service, has reported that educational organizations have been offering students who have applied for alternative civilian service the option to sign a "special contract for alternative civilian service participants" instead of facing expulsion. Students are offered the same benefits as those promised in contracts for UAV forces, including one year of service, rear deployment and substantial payments. Human rights defenders emphasize that such contracts do not exist, while alternative civilian service does not involve signing any contracts.
The Vyorstka media outlet has reported postings offering contracts for service in the "rear of the special military operation" in Belarus or China that were placed on Avito, the largest Russian classified advertisements website. At least six employers placed around 50 such vacancies in May. The postings are nearly identical in wording and formatting. Candidates are promised 10 million rubles [$139,300] as a sign-up bonus and debt forgiveness of up to 10 million rubles [$139,300]. The vacancies are open to applicants of any nationality, including those "over 45 years old," elderly people and people "with health issues" without experience or a military ID, but with settled convictions or suspended sentences. They are offered positions such as rear warehouse security guards in Belarus. Additionally, Belarus and China are seeking security guards for UAV factories, electronic warfare facilities and training grounds, KAMAZ truck drivers, drone factory operators, assemblers, technicians and drone testers. The salary for these positions ranges from 230,000 [$3,340] to 260,000 rubles [$3,620] per month, with sign-up bonuses ranging from 2.3 million [$32,000] to 3.1 million rubles [$43,200].
The administration of the Uinsky Municipal District in the Perm region has published an announcement on its page on the VKontakte social network recruiting women for positions as UAV operators for participation in the war and category B drivers. The age limit is 35 for applicants seeking positions as drone operators and 45 for drivers. They are promised a salary starting from 210,000 rubles [$2,920] per month, as well as a sign-up bonus of 1.5 million rubles [$20,900] for signing a one-year contract.
In Krasnoyarsk, a family has been unable to sell an apartment because of restrictions imposed by a draft office. A 22-year-old man, who is one of the apartment’s owners, had failed to register for military service.
Sentences, Legal Proceedings and Incidents
A court in Ulan-Ude has sentenced contract soldier Aleksandr Khoroshikh to 16 years in a maximum security penal colony on charges of attempted murder, property damage and drunk driving. The prosecution alleged that, while intoxicated, the man assaulted strangers with a poker and his fists while inside their apartment, then locked the victims inside and set fire to a sofa on the veranda near the house. The victims ultimately managed to escape. Khoroshikh had previously been convicted multiple times on charges including theft, insulting a government official, drug acquisition, robbery and other offenses. Apparently, he enlisted for the war from a penal colony, and as early as May-June 2024, he was convicted under the article on going AWOL. In 2025, he was sentenced to five years in a maximum security penal colony for two thefts and car theft.
The Southern District Military Court in Rostov has sentenced two Ukrainian POWs, Dmytro Kishchenko,30, and Vsevolod Shyrokykh, 32, to 19 and 20 years in a penal colony respectively under articles concerning participation in a terrorist community and undergoing training for the purpose of carrying out terrorist activities. Both were accused of serving in the Azov Brigade.
Prison sentences ranging from 15 to 21 years in a maximum security facility for captured Ukrainians from the Aidar battalion have been upheld. In October of last year, a court in Rostov-on-Don sentenced Dmytro Fedchenko to 15 years; Andriy Sholyk, Vitaliy Krokhalev and Vyacheslav Baydyuk to 16 years; Volodymyr Makarenko and Ihor Hayokha to 18 years; Mykola Chuprina, Taras Radchenko, Semen Zabayrachny, Serhiy Nikityuk, Oleksandr Taranets and Vladyslav Yermolinsky to 20 years; and Vitaliy Gruzinov, Roman Nedostup and Serhiy Kalynychenko to 21 years in a maximum security penal colony. Two other defendants in the case, Liliya Prutyan and Maryna Mishchenko, returned to Ukraine as part of a prisoner exchange, while the fate of Yevhen Pyatigorets has been unknown since December 2023, when the case against him was severed into separate proceedings.
The 2nd Eastern District Military Court in Novosibirsk has sentenced a resident of Omsk to 15 years in a penal colony for an act of terror and an attempted terrorist attack. According to investigators, the defendant was recruited online by an unidentified individual who offered him cash to sabotage local communications and rail infrastructure. While the man successfully set fire to a cell tower, he was arrested by Federal Security Service (FSB) officers while purchasing accelerants to target a railway relay cabinet.
In Murmansk, 23-year-old Rafael Mamedov, a student at Arctic University, was sentenced to 15 years in a penal colony on charges of treason and participation in a terrorist organization. Mamedov administered the Telegram meme channel Free Lapland, which had 300 subscribers and also published photographs, facts from the region’s history and mythology, posts criticizing the Russian authorities and reflections on the need to preserve the cultural identity of peoples in Russia’s northwestern regions. In early 2025, Free Lapland was placed on the list of terrorist organizations as a unit of the Forum of Free States of Post-Russia. Shortly before that, the forum had been declared a terrorist organization. According to prosecutors, from 2023 to 2025, the student had allegedly published information on his channel "in the interests of the Security Service of Ukraine" about recruiting informants and intelligence operatives to collect data on military facilities and routes used by military vehicles, and had also prepared articles "aimed at destabilizing the situation in the country." While in custody, Mamedov twice attempted suicide. The terrorism case against him became known in November 2025. Later, in May 2026, the student was also charged with treason.
The Pskov Regional Court sentenced Mikhail Loshchinin, 48, to 16 years in a penal colony in a treason case. Loshchinin moved to Europe in 1999 and also has Belgian citizenship. In the summer of 2025, he set out from Germany for Saint Petersburg to visit his father, who had undergone two heart surgeries. On July 1, Loshchinin was stopped at the Ubylinka checkpoint on the Latvian-Russian border. The FSB officers found messages on his phone with an ex-girlfriend from Ukraine. Under the pretext of an illegal crossing into a border zone, the programmer was detained and arrested for two weeks, and was placed at his own expense in a border-area hotel. The messages with his ex-girlfriend, who had asked him for financial help in 2022, became the basis for a treason case. According to investigators, the recipient of the money allegedly was a Ukrainian servicewoman who spent the money on gear. Loshchinin was accused of transferring 18,000 rubles [$250], which investigators deemed "aid to a foreign state against the Russian Armed Forces." During the investigation, Loshchinin was sent to the Stary Oskol pre-trial detention center, where captured Ukrainians are held. There, he was subjected to violence and torture.
The 2nd Western District Military Court sentenced Tatyana Lonskaya, 58, a Ukrainian national, to 17 years in a penal colony on charges of preparing a terrorist attack, espionage and aiding the enemy. The court found that Lonskaya held "radical pro-Ukrainian views" and in June 2025 decided to help Ukraine. She contacted a representative of a foreign intelligence service with ties to the Ukrainian military via Telegram and agreed to prepare an explosion on a railway line in the Yaroslavl region, as well as pass information that could be used "against the security" of Russia. For this she received 30,000 rubles [$420]. Lonskaya purchased components for an explosive device, placed them in a cache and began assembling an improvised explosive device but was detained before she could complete it. She was also charged with passing a Ukrainian intelligence representative messages and photographs relating to the "socio-political, industrial and military" situation in the Yaroslavl region, as well as information on railway traffic and cargo. She did not plead guilty but did not deny acting on instructions from a Ukrainian intelligence officer.
According to a tally by Mediazona, an independent Russian outlet, at least 240 minors have been detained in Russia for arson since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, with the youngest known detainee just 11 years old. Most were detained for setting fire to railway infrastructure. The count also includes attacks on cell towers, transformers and military facilities such as helicopters and aircraft. Most minors carried out the attacks for money, having been promised between 10,000 [$140] and 5 million rubles [$69,600] depending on the target, though they were not always paid. Most faced charges of terrorism or sabotage; terrorism convictions carried real prison terms of at least three years in a juvenile penal colony. Human rights advocates at the Memorial Human Rights Defense Center argue that law enforcement officers unjustifiably charge minors under terrorism statutes to avoid age restrictions. Based on the cases reviewed, the teenagers were unaware that they were targeting facilities connected to the war, while law enforcement and courts attributed such awareness to them. Some cases involved entrapment by law enforcement.
Children and MilitarizationÂ
The Astra and Ne Norma [Not a Norm] Telegram channels have documented how Children’s Day celebrations in several regions were transformed into events that promote the militarization of children.
According to the Memorial Human Rights Defense Center, a memorial to local residents killed in the war against Ukraine was unveiled in the courtyard of a residential building in Vladivostok. The memorial plaque was installed on a children's playground. The building's residents initiated the project. The plaque commemorates four residents who were killed on the frontline, two of whom had prior criminal convictions.
Longreads
The Lyudi Baikala [People of Baikal] independent media outlet published a report on a mobilized man from Novosibirsk who had previously deserted from the frontline. He was later taken from a pretrial detention center and sent back to the war.
The Vot Tak [Like This] media outlet tells the story of Dmitry Karmanov, a prisoner who voluntarily joined the war but fled to France after being wounded.
The Memorial Human Rights Defense Center has published an extensive study on the political persecution of children in Russia.