Mobilization in Russia for Nov. 9-11, 2025 CIT Volunteer Summary

Authorities and Legislation

The Russian government’s legislative commission has endorsed amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code that would bar the extradition of foreign citizens and stateless persons who sign contracts with the Ministry of Defense. The change would shield them from criminal prosecution or sentence execution in other countries. Experts interviewed by the independent Russian investigative media outlet Vazhnyye Istorii [IStories] suggest this move has dual aims: recruiting foreigners facing criminal prosecution abroad into the Russian Armed Forces and protecting foreign contract soldiers from liability for war crimes they may commit during their service. The government also prepared two additional bills affecting the status of these foreign recruits. One bill proposes replacing any expulsion order mandated by law with fines of up to 50,000 rubles [$620] or up to 200 hours of compulsory labor for contract soldiers facing such orders. The second bill would effectively prohibit the deportation of these foreign citizens, the shortening of their periods of stay, or the denial or cancellation of their residence permits. Any such restrictive decisions made after Feb. 24, 2022, would be nullified and rendered unenforceable.

The State Duma [lower house of Russia’s Federal Assembly] has approved, in its third and final reading, a bill that lowers the age of liability from 16 to 14 years for several sabotage- and terrorism-related criminal offenses. These offenses include most sabotage-related articles, though charges for assisting sabotage, assisting terrorism or organizing terrorist groups are excluded. The bill also abolishes statutes of limitations and prohibits sentences below the prescribed minimum for all sabotage articles. Furthermore, the legislation makes parole more difficult for those convicted under these articles and requires them to serve 75% of their term. It also prevents suspended sentences for individuals convicted of participating in "sabotage communities." Additionally, the law introduces punishments up to and including life imprisonment for "inducing minors into sabotage activities" and "involving them in terrorist activities."

The MoD has published amendments to the Regulations on Conscription for Military Service, on Military Medical Examination and on the Procedure for Performing Alternative Civilian Service, as well as to a number of other regulatory acts. The main goal of these amendments is to align legislation with the transition to "year-round conscription." In particular, the MoD proposed shortening the notification period for IT companies to inform draft offices about the dismissal of employees who have previously received draft deferments. According to the document, accredited organizations will be required to report the dismissal of such employees within five days, down from the current two-week period.

The MoD has published a draft government decree regulating the procedure for conducting special military training sessions intended for the mobilization manpower reserve. According to the MoD, the reservists will be tasked with protecting critical infrastructure and other essential facilities. The duration, location and time of the training exercises will be determined by the MoD, and their total duration may not exceed six months. Earlier, officials had stated that the training sessions would last for two months. Draft offices will be responsible for summoning and dispatching reservists to the training exercises, with the number of those called up to be determined by the president. Despite statements by military officials that reservists will be deployed only within the territory of their respective native regions, current legislation and the recently adopted amendments do not explicitly impose such restrictions.

Army Recruitment

At least 20 Russian regions have deployed groups of reservists to guard essential facilities. In Russia's constituent Republic of Tatarstan, the recruitment of reservists began as early as October 2025, before the law came into force. They will be involved in protecting oil facilities in Kazan. In Russia's constituent Republic of Bashkortostan, reservists will guard the Bashneft oil refinery as well as Ufaneftekhim and Gazprom industrial sites. Reserve units have also been established in Saint Petersburg and the Tver, Pskov, Rostov, Leningrad, Kaliningrad, Yaroslavl, Bryansk, Kursk, Tula, Smolensk, Samara, Tyumen, Nizhny Novgorod, Perm and Krasnodar regions. In the Belgorod, Bryansk and Kursk regions, which share a border with Ukraine, BARS (Special Combat Army Reserve) volunteer units subordinate to local authorities were created as early as 2024. Under the new law, additional units are planned in the Bryansk and Kursk regions. In the border regions, reservists will also be tasked with suppressing the activities of sabotage and reconnaissance groups, assisting in civilian evacuations and enforcing the counterterrorism operation regime. In the event of a reservist's death, his family will be eligible for compensation and benefits similar to those established for military personnel.

In Kemerovo, Ivanovo and Voronezh, men with HIV, hepatitis, syphilis and tuberculosis are being recruited for the war, according to advertisements posted in Telegram channels. A representative of the MoD told a journalist who called the phone number listed in one of the ads that volunteers would be assigned to separate battalions based on their illnesses and would not have contact with healthy soldiers. She also said that, with a 90% likelihood, such volunteer fighters would serve as assault troops.

A conscript from Ufa who had received an electronic draft notice "for medical examination or related procedures" managed to leave Russia. In 2024, his mother had officially removed him from the military register by proxy on the grounds that he was residing abroad; yet in October 2025, he nevertheless received a draft notice. Despite that, he was still able to fly out of the country.

Conscripts have begun receiving email notifications sent through the Gosuslugi public services portal outlining the restrictions they may face for failing to appear after receiving an electronic draft notice. The messages are titled "Warning about the application of restrictions due to failure to appear at the enlistment office." Recipients are informed that if they do not report to the draft office within five days, restrictions established by law will be imposed. The notices have been received by both conscripts who have already missed their reporting date and those whose reporting date has not yet arrived. Previously, similar messages were sent via SMS, but those carried no legal force, and there have been no reports to date of any such restrictions being enforced.

Mobilized Soldiers, Contract Soldiers and Conscripts

Ilyas Sh., a 34-year-old employee at a Kazan defense plant, was declared a deserter and forcibly transported to the "LPR" despite holding a valid draft deferral certificate. Human rights advocates say this is the first such case. In the fall of 2022, authorities had already attempted to send him to the army by mistake, but the mobilization order was canceled after two weeks, and he returned to the plant. However, in the spring of 2025, unidentified individuals in uniform took him from his home under the pretext of a data check-up at the draft office. There has been no contact with him since; only a month later did his family learn that, despite his confirmed draft deferral certificate, he had been declared a deserter and was being held at a military unit in the town of Kreminna.

Igor Tishchenko, a 53-year-old native of Donetsk living in the Moscow region, signed a contract with the MoD in October 2023. A year later, he sustained a spinal injury during training exercises and, during treatment that lasted over a year, was also diagnosed with coronary heart disease and diabetes. Despite the doctors' findings, the military refuses to send him to a military medical board to receive a service fitness category "D" (unfit for military service). On Nov. 7, he was taken from a medical facility in Donetsk and sent to a combat unit in the town of Avdiivka.

Residents of several villages in the Zabaykalsky region have reported cases of torture related to the pursuit of soldiers who went AWOL. According to their accounts, unidentified individuals—apparently military police and personnel from military unit search teams—are attacking relatives and friends of the fugitive soldiers, beating them, including with stun guns, and demanding they reveal the fugitives' whereabouts.

Sentences, Legal Proceedings and Incidents

Vyacheslav Gladkov, governor of the Belgorod region, reported the detention of an accomplice of Aleksey Kostrikin—a serviceman who broke into the home of a married couple in the village of Novaya Tavolzhanka, killed the homeowner and raped his wife. Kostrikin is also suspected of assaulting a woman a day before the first murder and of committing another murder after his escape from custody. He was recently detained again. Kostrikin’s accomplice turned out to be another serviceman, 33-year-old Maksim Pogodin, who had been previously convicted. He confirmed that he and Kostrikin entered the house where Kostrikin killed the man and raped his wife. Pogodin also confessed to involvement in the murder of a man committed in Novaya Tavolzhanka on Nov. 3. According to him, before his detention, Kostrikin handed him a pistol and fled. Pogodin threw the weapon away in the forest.

A court in Novosibirsk has sentenced eight city residents to terms ranging from five to ten years in a penal colony for kidnapping a war participant in July 2024 for the purpose of extortion. According to investigators, on July 18, 2024, the men, threatening the victim with a flare pistol, put him into a car and drove him into the forest, where they assaulted him, demanding 1.5 million rubles [$18,500]. Fearing for his life, the victim transferred 95,000 rubles [$1,170] to the men through his partner. Later, the kidnappers released him. The victim did not attend the court hearing, as he had returned to the war, where he was killed.

In Bashkortostan [Russia's constituent republic], eight local residents have been detained on suspicion of attempted sabotage. Investigators believe that a resident of the city of Salavat was offered to set fire to a cell tower and damage a fiber-optic cable—he allegedly recruited his acquaintance, who in turn recruited six more people. All suspects were detained "during the attempt to commit sabotage."

The Federal Security Service (FSB) arrested a 45-year-old man from Moscow on charges of participation in a terrorist organization and treason. According to law enforcement officers, the man "proactively established confidential cooperation" with Ukrainian intelligence agencies and was then ordered to gather information about the residence, vehicles and movements of a Russian serviceman. He was also allegedly tasked with "committing sabotage at a railway station in the Moscow region." Furthermore, according to the FSB, the detainee planned to leave for Ukraine to join the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

A court in Yekaterinburg has sentenced 47-year-old Roman Linkov from Penza to 14 years in a maximum security penal colony, after finding him guilty of participating in a terrorist organization and confidential cooperation with foreigners. According to investigators, Linkov filled out an application to join the Freedom of Russia Legion, took the oath and disseminated leaflets in Penza bearing the unit's symbols and criticizing the war in Ukraine. The Memorial Human Rights Defense Center reported that after his arrest, law enforcement officers took Linkov to the woods, where they beat and threatened him, demanding a confession. The defendant insisted he only shared the leaflets because he opposed the war and had friends living in Ukraine. Linkov, a native of the Saratov region, lived in Ukraine and served in the army there. In 2000, he moved to Russia and received citizenship.

According to the Ostorozhno, Novosti [Beware the News] Telegram channel, the Meshchansky District Court in Moscow arrested 31-year-old Kirill Kostygov, a native of Kerch, in September on charges of treason. Kostygov was initially detained on July 14 at Domodedovo Airport while attempting to leave Russia. At the time, FSB officers accused him of using profane language outside his apartment building. He was subsequently arrested twice more on petty hooliganism charges through the end of August. It was only later that authorities escalated the case, formally charging him with treason.

The 2nd Eastern District Military Court in Russia has sentenced 19-year-old Georgy Tyrkov, a resident of Omsk, to eight and a half years in prison on charges of treason and justification of terrorism. According to investigators, Tyrkov operated "pro-Ukrainian Telegram channels," posted content in support of designated terrorist organizations and incited violence against individuals described as "Russian patriots." Authorities also accused him of raising funds to support the AFU. Additional charges claim he expressed support for separatist movements advocating Siberian independence and intended to travel abroad to join Ukrainian forces.

The Central District Military Court in Yekaterinburg has ordered 65-year-old activist Andrey Fogel, a resident of Nizhny Tagil, to undergo involuntary psychiatric treatment. Fogel was charged with attempting to establish a terrorist organization. According to investigators, he had plotted the assassination of senior executives at Uralvagonzavod [Russian state-owned machine-building company] as well as the city’s police chief. However, according to reporting by Mediazona [independent Russian media outlet], the elderly man may have been the target of a provocation orchestrated by the FSB.

Assistance

Governor of Bashkortostan Radiy Khabirov said that in 2025 the republic spent 26 billion rubles [$320 million] on "support measures for the special military operation." "We need 32 billion," Khabirov added. Meanwhile, the region’s budget deficit this year is expected to reach 22 billion rubles [$271 million].

In St. Petersburg, authorities plan to allocate 98 million rubles [$1.21 million] to support a sled hockey team that helps rehabilitate wounded servicemen with disabilities. Most of the players are participants of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine who lost their legs.

In Khanty-Mansiysk, the Defenders of the Fatherland Found distributed adaptive clothing to war participants. The garments are designed for people wearing prosthetics.

Longreads

A recent Regional Aspect longread tells the story of Konstantin Gladkov, an excavator operator from the Belgorod region, who says interrogators nearly cut off his ear to force a confession of collaboration with the AFU.