Mobilization in Russia for Nov. 1-8, 2026 CIT Volunteer Summary
Army Recruitment
Authorities in Saint Petersburg cut the regional sign-up bonus for signing a contract with the MoD from 1 million rubles [$12,200] to the recommended minimum of 400,000 rubles [$4,890]. Including the federal payment, people who sign a contract with the MoD will receive 800,000 rubles [$9,790]. This is already the second reduction in less than a month. In mid-October, the regional bonus was cut from 3.5 million rubles [$42,800] to 1 million rubles [$12,200].
In Chuvashia [Russia’s constituent republic], authorities also cut sign-up bonuses from 3.1 million rubles [$37,900] to the recommended minimum of 400,000 rubles [$4,890]. They kept the previous bonus amount only for those enlisting in the Unmanned Systems Forces. The changes apply from Nov. 1 until the end of the year.
In the Smolensk region, authorities lowered the sign-up bonus by nearly half, to 1.1 million rubles [$13,500], from the 2.1 million rubles [$25,700] they introduced in July. The cut came in two stages: to 1.6 million rubles [$19,600] on Oct. 7, then to the final amount of 1.1 million rubles [$13,500] from Nov. 2. At the same time, for contract soldiers joining the Unmanned Systems Forces, the bonus fell from 2.1 million rubles [$25,700] to 1.6 million rubles [$19,600], and for convicts from 600,000 rubles [$7,340] to 400,000 rubles [$4,890]. The changes remain in effect at least until the end of the year. Earlier, regional authorities reduced compensation for the wounded and payments to the families of service members killed in the war.
The Rostov region tripled the sign-up bonus for foreigners who are not citizens of CIS countries, from 1 million rubles [$12,200] to 3 million rubles [$36,700]. A sign-up bonus of that size was already available to Russian citizens, citizens of CIS countries, and stateless persons.
The Nenets autonomous region [Russia's federal subject] has introduced a payment of up to 1.6 million rubles [$19,600] for each foreign national recruited to fight in the war. The funds will be allocated to a single nonprofit organization, which will be able to enter into agreements with intermediaries to find prospective foreign contract soldiers. The funding will come from budget reserves set aside for additional expenses related to the "geopolitical situation."
Job postings for IT specialists that actually recruit applicants for military service have appeared on the Russian freelance platform FL.ru. The ads seek software developers and digital systems specialists aged 18 to 35 to serve in the Rubikon unit, promising salaries starting at 300,000 rubles [$3,670], a signing bonus of up to 2 million rubles [$24,500], and debt cancellation of up to 10 million rubles [$122,300]. The postings make no mention of participation in the war, despite being published by Dobrovolets-Center, an organization involved in recruiting contract soldiers.
Another case of forced recruitment for the war through Omsk’s Sirius-55 contract military recruitment center has come to light. According to the mother of 42-year-old Ivan Isaikhin, on July 10, her son was detained near his home under the pretext of child support arrears and taken to the recruitment center, where he was severely beaten and forced to sign a contract with the MoD. He then spent the next month and a half in hospitals with a traumatic brain injury, a brain hemorrhage, and fractured ribs. In August, he was sent to the 1308th Regiment in Yekaterinburg, from where he was transferred to Millerovo in the Rostov region. There, he was granted 45 days of medical leave starting Sept. 13. However, instead of being allowed to recover, he was immediately sent to the frontline as part of an assault group belonging to the 102nd Motorized Rifle Regiment. Isaikhin last contacted his family on Oct. 3, when he was already in the Donetsk region. He said that he had paid 450,000 rubles [$5,500] to people who promised to get him excused from a combat mission. Nevertheless, on Oct. 6, he was sent on an assault mission. Since Oct. 18, he has been listed as missing in action near the village of Sofiivka in the Donetsk region. This case once again illustrates how socially vulnerable people are coerced into signing military contracts.
In the Penza region, a Federal Penitentiary Service officer tricked a man into going to a draft office, where he was pressured to sign a contract with the MoD and then sent to war. According to the victim, Aleksandr, in mid-June the inspector with whom he had been checking in because he was on probation took his passport under the pretext of undergoing a medical examination and registering for military service, and drove him to the Penza draft office. The next day, Aleksandr was taken to a military medical board, where about 20 other people were also present. He says that two unidentified men in military uniform beat and intimidated those waiting for the medical examination, demanding that they sign contracts. He refused, but was sent to war anyway, and his documents were allegedly signed on his behalf by someone else. Aleksandr was assigned to an assault company. He later ended up in a hospital in Donetsk because of health problems, and from there he repeatedly filed complaints with the Military Prosecutor's Office and other authorities over his abduction and forced deployment to the frontline, but was unable to get the authorities to investigate his complaints.
Sergey Mulivanov, a 59-year-old activist with the Latvian Russian Union party who moved to Russia two years ago over his disagreement with his country's policies toward its Russian-speaking population, has been forcibly sent to war. After settling in the Moscow region and obtaining Russian citizenship, Mulivanov took a job as a courier, but according to his relatives, he became involved in a fraud scheme and in April 2026 was detained. Back in April, at the pre-trial detention center, he was tricked into signing a contract with the MoD that bore no date; a date was added retroactively in October. Despite Mulivanov's written refusal to serve in the military, on Oct. 30, after a court hearing, he was taken not back to the pre-trial detention center but to the Investigative Committee, and from there he was sent by bus to Rostov-on-Don. After he called his relatives from the bus, contact with him was lost. Nothing has been heard of him since. According to his family, he suffers from type II diabetes and polyneuropathy, and he did not undergo a military medical examination before being sent to war.
The Saint Petersburg City Court has suspended the criminal case against Albert Morgan, 41, who is charged with murder with extreme brutality, repeated physical abuse and death threats, after he signed a contract with the MoD to fight in the war. In December 2025, Morgan tracked down and killed his ex-girlfriend in Dubai, a 25-year-old flight attendant for the airline Pobeda. He entered her hotel room and stabbed her at least 20 times with scissors, then cut off her hair and doused her body with brilliant green. He had previously stalked, threatened and beaten her. After the murder, he returned to Saint Petersburg, where he tried to enlist for the war but was arrested. Proceedings in his case have now been suspended at the request of the head of a military recruitment center.
Mobilized Soldiers, Contract Soldiers and Conscripts
Based on open sources, Mediazona [independent Russian media outlet] and BBC News Russian, together with volunteers, have identified the names of 285,881 Russian servicemen killed since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, including 20,966 mobilized soldiers. Since the last update, 858 names have been added to the list.
According to Mediazona’s tally, at least 350 conscripts have been killed during the war. Although Russia officially does not send conscripts to fight, the first reports of their deaths date back to February–March 2022. The deadliest episode involving conscripts was the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ incursion into the Kursk region in August 2024, when at least 60 were killed in a single month. In addition to combat along the border, conscripts are also regularly killed by Ukrainian strikes. Mediazona also reported that at least 668 conscripts signed contracts during their statutory military service and were killed after becoming "professional" soldiers, with the highest number of deaths in this category also recorded during the AFU operation in the Kursk region.
Relatives say a 19-year-old conscript from Ulan-Ude was coerced into signing a contract through threats. Danil was drafted in May last year and assigned to the 7th Railway Brigade in Komsomolsk-on-Amur. By October of that year, he had signed a contract without undergoing a military medical examination. After a cell phone was found on him, he and his fellow servicemen were summoned to the command staff’s office and given an ultimatum: "Either seven years in prison or sign a contract." Danil eventually agreed and signed the documents. He later submitted a written report requesting that the contract not be finalized, but it was ignored. His family filed complaints with the Military Prosecutor’s Office and the Investigative Committee, but the authorities refused to open a criminal case on charges of exceeding official authority. Command staff members who were questioned said they had not exerted any pressure. Nevertheless, in October 2025, a prosecutorial review found that the command staff’s actions "formally bore the hallmarks" of a criminal offense under the article on exceeding official authority. The unit then received a formal request to "consider whether there were grounds to terminate the contract" and to conduct military medical examinations of Danil and several of his fellow servicemen. But according to his family, nothing had changed, and a year later he was still on the frontline.
Sentences, Legal Proceedings and Incidents
In the Perm region [Russia’s federal subject], three people were killed in a car crash involving a war veteran who had lost a leg. In the early hours of Oct. 17, a BMW driver crossed into oncoming traffic in the settlement of Zvyozdny and collided with a car carrying five people. Three of them were killed, including a married couple who left behind two children. One of the survivors was diagnosed with 12 broken ribs; doctors removed her spleen, and she remains in intensive care. Another sustained fractures to her arm and leg. Local residents say the BMW belongs to a 20-year-old fellow resident who took part in the war and lost a leg there. He now uses a prosthesis. His social media accounts contain photos of him in military uniform, as well as photos of a BMW resembling the one involved in the crash. For a long time, the relatives of those killed were not told who had caused the accident or whether the driver had been sober. A timely alcohol test was not conducted. In addition, for nearly three weeks, they were not informed whether a criminal case had been opened and were denied access to the materials of the police inquiry. According to media reports, police have opened a criminal case over violations of traffic rules and vehicle operation regulations. Law enforcement officials also confirmed to the relatives of those killed that the driver was indeed a war veteran. He is currently hospitalized.
The Moscow Garrison Military Court refused to terminate the MoD contracts of two conscripts, Arseny Tolkachev and Bogdan Khalturin, despite the findings of an independent examination confirming that their signatures had been forged. The court also dismissed the conscripts’ allegations of torture, refused to hear witnesses, and ruled that the contracts were valid. Tolkachev and Khalturin were among 38 conscripts sent from a military unit in the Moscow region to Kursk in May this year, where they were pressured into signing contracts. They were forced to run in gas masks for six hours in the heat, pelted with stones, shot at with blank ammunition, and subjected to stun grenades. According to their relatives, all the conscripts were given an ultimatum: either sign a contract with the MoD or sign a document agreeing to be transferred to a unit near the Ukrainian border. At least 13 servicemen agreed to sign contracts, after which the group was sent to Russian-occupied territory in the Luhansk region.
On Nov. 6, the Voronezh Garrison Military Court began hearing a criminal case against Yury Stroitelev, a former commander of a military unit in Boguchar, charged with exceeding his official authority, resulting in grave consequences. He forced conscript Aleksandr Korolkov to sign a contract with the MoD, despite knowing that Korolkov had attempted suicide, had a psychiatric diagnosis and was assigned a service fitness category "V" (partially fit for military service), all of which rendered him ineligible for contract military service. According to Korolkov’s mother, Stroitelev explained that he feared receiving a reprimand for not meeting the recruitment quota for conscripts on contract service. Korolkov was deployed to the frontline. He has been listed as missing in action since May 1, 2025. The criminal case against Stroitelev was opened after the woman’s persistent appeals. Materials concerning other involved officials have been transferred to separate proceedings. Despite the criminal case, Stroitelev continues to serve as military commissar of the Boguchar district in the Voronezh region.
The Vladimir Garrison Military Court received 36 criminal cases under the military desertion statute in 2026, accounting for 90 percent of all such cases received by the court since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Two additional cases were sent to the court in each of 2025 and 2024. Since the start of the full-scale war, the same court has also received 469 criminal cases involving going AWOL.
The Odintsovo Garrison Military Court sentenced Capt. Mikhail Martynov to eight and a half years in a maximum security penal colony under three combined sentences for bribery and fraud. The court also stripped him of his military rank. According to investigators, Martynov, who served as commander of the security and defense company of the 49th Antiaircraft Missile Regiment, and two fellow servicemen offered four men the opportunity to sign contracts with the MoD in exchange for 150,000 rubles [$1,830] each from their initial payments, promising that they would not be sent to war. His accomplices, Roman Zamikov and Maksim Ptyushkin, were each sentenced to seven years and three months in a penal colony. In 2025, Martynov had already been convicted of accepting 50,000-ruble [$610] bribes from three servicemen who wanted training in operating the Pantsir-S air defense system. He was also convicted of fraud involving equipment donated to his military unit as "humanitarian aid": Martynov appropriated the equipment and attempted to sell some of it.
The Rostov-on-Don Garrison Military Court ordered the pre-trial detention of Cpl. Sergey Frolov, a member of the 22nd Separate Special Purpose Brigade of the GRU [Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation], on charges of committing a terrorist attack as part of a group in conspiracy. The circumstances of the alleged crime and the date of Frolov’s arrest are unknown. His pre-trial detention has been extended repeatedly, for a total of 11 months. According to his defense, Frolov made a confession during the investigation.
A court in Kaliningrad ordered the head of a criminal investigations unit and a deputy chief of a district police station held in custody on fraud charges. According to the prosecutotion, the investigations chief persuaded an acquaintance who struggled with alcohol dependence and money problems to sign a contract with the Ministry of Defense. He then offered to arrange for the man to serve at a unit in the Kaliningrad region, far from combat operations, for 100,000 rubles [$1,220], and brought in a colleague to help. After the contract soldier received his payments, the officers took the money and split it. A week later, the deputy chief repeated the scheme on his own, recruiting another acquaintance and collecting 100,000 rubles [$1,220] for a promised "exemption" from combat operations.
The Central District Military Court on Oct. 28 sentenced Nikita Bogomolov, 36, a serviceman, to 17 years in a maximum security penal colony on charges of high treason, going AWOL, aiding terrorist activities and participating in a terrorist organization. According to investigators, Bogomolov, a former junior sergeant who had previously taken part in the war, began messaging a member of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on the Russian social network VKontakte in July 2023. In January 2024, he left his unit in Novorossiysk, went home to Kirov and joined the Russian Volunteer Corps. That July, he began urging Vorobyov, a classmate from his military school, to join the unit as well, assuring him that serving in the corps carried no criminal penalty, and gave him instructions on how to get to Ukraine. Bogomolov was detained in August 2024 and immediately admitted guilt.
In the Iglinsky district of Bashkortostan, a Russian constituent republic, law enforcement officers detained Aleksandr Vyugov on suspicion of kidnapping. According to investigators, Vyugov beat men who were heavy drinkers or had no permanent address and forced them to sign contracts with the Ministry of Defense, then kept their payments for himself. He kidnapped a young man in the village of Ulu-Telyak and assaulted him in an attempt to force him to go to the front. The victim escaped and told others what happened, and police detained Vyugov. He had previously been convicted of theft, fraud and robbery.
During the first nine months of 2026, Russian military courts handed down a record 1,865 verdicts in terrorism cases, involving 2,013 people, already 5% more than in all of 2025. Of these verdicts, 449 were handed down in the first quarter, 696 in the second and 720 in the third. The peak came in July, when courts issued 295 verdicts. On average, courts convicted 12 people per working day. Meanwhile, the median time required to hear a case fell from 47 to 37 days. The identities of 1,312 convicted people (65%) were not disclosed.
Children and Militarization
In Moscow, students at School No. 179 were asked to sign a preliminary consent form agreeing to enter into a contract with the MoD upon turning 18 during a five-day military training course at the Avangard training center, the Idite Lesom! [Flee through the woods/Get lost you all] Telegram channel reported, citing the mother of one of the students. According to her, none of the students signed the form. Minors were also encouraged to enlist in counter-drone units, with promises of a one-year contract and the opportunity to serve in the Moscow region.
A Russian school textbook for the subject "Fundamentals of Security and Defense of the Motherland" now includes information on how to sign a contract with the MoD. Some of the material in a section titled "10 Steps to Becoming a Contract Soldier" is already outdated. For example, it still lists an age limit of 40, which was previously abolished, and says that people under investigation or with criminal convictions are barred from signing contracts. The textbook also explains the criminal penalties for going AWOL and draft evasion.
Assistance
Beginning Nov. 1, families of service members killed in the war in the Saratov region will receive a one-time payment of just 100,000 rubles [$1,220], down from 1 million rubles [$12,200]. According to a tally compiled by Vazhnyye Istorii [IStories, independent Russian investigative media outlet], Saratov is the twelfth Russian region to reduce, postpone, or cancel death benefits this year. Earlier this fall, four other regions introduced similar restrictions: the Belgorod, Samara and Smolensk regions, as well as the Stavropol region, where local authorities postponed payments to families of killed soldiers until 2027. Between January and August, ten other federal subjects took similar measures: the Kemerovo, Kirov, Omsk, Nizhny Novgorod, Orenburg and Ulyanovsk regions, the republics of Bashkortostan and Khakassia, as well as the Zabaykalsky and Khabarovsk regions. In total, tracking by the independent outlet ChTD indicates that 15 Russian regions have reduced or restricted payments to families of soldiers killed in the war since the full-scale invasion, with two-thirds of those decisions made in 2026.
A legislative proposal introduced in the Omsk region would impose fines on businesses that fail to provide job openings for war participants or reserve jobs for military personnel. Proposed fines would range from 20,000 to 30,000 rubles [$240–$370] for company officials, from 30,000 to 50,000 rubles [$370–$610] for individual entrepreneurs, and from 50,000 to 100,000 rubles [$610–$1,220] for legal entities.
The third cohort of the Time of Heroes personnel program for war participants will admit applicants without university degrees. According to Aleksey Komissarov, Rector of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, the training program for the third cohort will last three years—a year longer than for the previous two cohorts. During this period, participants will study full-time toward a bachelor's degree in State and Municipal Administration. A total of about 80 people will be enrolled in the third cohort of Time of Heroes. The program is scheduled to begin in September 2027. The authorities plan to allocate 256 million rubles [$3.13 million] from the budget for the program in 2027, compared with 639 million rubles [$7.82 million] in 2026, when only participants with university degrees were enrolled.
Miscellaneous
Russian authorities have spent at least 322 million rubles [$3.94 million] from public budgets on monuments to participants in the war against Ukraine, according to calculations by the Govorit NeMoskva [NonMoscow Is Speaking] Telegram channel. The number of government procurement contracts for new memorials has increased annually: journalists identified three such contracts in 2023, 13 in 2024, 36 in 2025, and already 43 in 2026. The most expensive projects were located or planned in Tosno in the Leningrad region (about 17 million rubles [$208,000]), the Mozhaysky district of the Moscow region, and Vladivostok (over 15 million rubles [$183,500] each).
Longreads
Sibir.Realii [part of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty] has published an article about Russian soldiers who remain on the frontline for weeks with serious injuries and are forced to make their own way back or pay their commanders for evacuation.
Sibir.Realii has also reported on how foreigners are recruited into the Russian army through deception, threats, and recruitment agencies promising civilian jobs.
Sever.Realii [part of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty] reports on the market for intermediaries recruiting soldiers for Russia’s war, where recruiters are promised payments of up to 1.25 million rubles [$15,300] for each recruit who signs a military contract.
Vot Tak [Like This] calculated that at least 105 new companies specializing in prosthetics manufacturing have been registered in Russia since the start of the full-scale invasion. In 2025 alone, their combined revenue amounted to nearly 18.5 billion rubles [$226 million].