Mobilization in Russia for Oct. 18-25, 2026 CIT Volunteer Summary

Authorities and Legislation

The Prosecutor General's Office has proposed creating a "special personnel reserve" of the agency's employees who took part in the war against Ukraine, giving them priority consideration for appointments to leadership positions. The general reserve now in place is made up of prosecutorial employees with the required qualifications who have demonstrated their abilities. According to the proposal, war participants will be able to seek the posts of regional, city, and district prosecutors, their deputies, and heads of directorates and departments of the Prosecutor General's Office. The office also proposes that employees of the "prosecutors' offices" created in the occupied territories of Ukraine receive priority consideration for appointments to leadership positions. Members of the reserve who took part in the war will be eligible to take part in a professional development program and will also receive individual psychological support.

Army Recruitment

After speaking with a number of human rights organizations, the Vyorstka media outlet established that men are forcibly detained in at least 33 Russian regions and annexed Crimea to compel them to sign military service contracts with the Ministry of Defense. The complaints, received between Aug. 12 and Oct. 12, came from ordinary civilians who had been pressured into signing contracts. Conscripts were not included in the tally. Most often, men are detained on the street, often while intoxicated. Some are also taken from their homes or workplaces. After being detained, the men are taken to draft offices, sometimes in other cities, where they are offered military service contracts or pressured into signing them. During that period, the largest number of complaints came from Udmurtia and the Omsk and Penza regions. Complaints also came from Moscow; the Moscow, Orenburg, Chelyabinsk, Novosibirsk, Rostov, Tomsk, Murmansk, Pskov, Arkhangelsk, Tula, Tambov, Nizhny Novgorod, Ryazan, Vladimir, Kaluga, Astrakhan, Kemerovo, Saratov, Kursk, Krasnodar, Zabaykalsky, Primorsky, and Krasnoyarsk regions; the Jewish Autonomous Region; the republics of Karelia, Buryatia, Tatarstan, Chechnya, and Dagestan; and annexed Crimea. For example, on Sept. 5 in the Rostov region, a man disabled by a stroke was abducted—he signed a contract and was sent to a training range.

In the Irkutsk region, a 47-year-old resident of Sayansk who had been declared unfit for military service was forced to sign a military service contract with the MoD while being held at a pre-trial detention center in the town of Tulun over a case involving failure to pay child support, according to his relatives. The man had previously been assigned service fitness category "D" (unfit for military service) due to burns and had refused offers to sign a contract. However, after being detained, he underwent a military medical examination, was assigned category "B" (fit for military service with minor restrictions), and was assigned to the 239th Tank Regiment. His relatives paid off more than 400,000 rubles [$4,930] in child support arrears and planned to inform the court at the next hearing on Aug. 26. But before the hearing, the man signed a contract and was transferred to another pre-trial detention center, after which they lost contact with him. In September, the Military Prosecutor’s Office informed his relatives that irregularities had been identified in the circumstances surrounding the signing of his contract and that an order had been issued to rectify them. However, the man’s whereabouts remain unknown.

An Armenian citizen living in the city of Nizhny Novgorod was allegedly tricked into signing a contract with the MoD after being promised a warehouse job. According to his brother, the man has physical and mental health problems, weighs about 45 kg at a height of 150 cm, and does not fully understand the consequences of his actions. According to an excerpt from an order dated Oct. 4, the man was enlisted in the army with the rank of private and assigned as a rifleman in a motorized rifle regiment. Upon signing the contract, his phone was confiscated, and his relatives lost contact with him. They are now trying to get the contract terminated.

Rapper Yevgeny Anyamov, known as Bizzo, who performs songs in the Mansi language, was sent to fight in Ukraine without signing a contract with the MoD, according to people close to him. The man worked on a rotational basis at a construction site in the city of Yekaterinburg. Shortly before being sent to war, he visited the military enlistment office in response to a summons and signed several documents. However, he said none of them was a contract. Nevertheless, a few days later, he was told he would be sent to war on behalf of the construction company. His tickets and hotel accommodation were paid for, after which contact with him was lost.

The draft budget for the Samara region in 2027 allocates 4.44 billion rubles [$54.72 million] for payments to recruiters. At the same time, a comparable sum of 4.96 billion rubles [$61.13 million] is planned to be allocated for sign-up bonuses and other payments to military personnel. In total, spending by the regional Ministry of Security is projected to increase from 3.55 billion rubles [$43.75 million] to 14.11 billion rubles [$174 million]. The regional budget deficit is projected to exceed 11 billion rubles [$136 million].

The authorities of Chuvashia [Russia's constituent republic] have introduced payments for shooting down or damaging drones. Russian Armed Forces personnel will receive 50,000 rubles [$620], while Rosgvardia [the Russian National Guard], police and private security personnel will receive 100,000 rubles [$1,230]. The funds will be split equally among members of a mobile fire team, provided that no critical infrastructure or essential service facilities were damaged while repelling the attack.

Mobilized Soldiers, Contract Soldiers and Conscripts

Based on open sources, Mediazona [independent Russian media outlet] and BBC News Russian, together with volunteers, have verified the names of 282,933 Russian servicemen killed since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, including 20,866 mobilized soldiers. Since the last update, 1,180 names have been added to the list.

Nineteen-year-old David Fyodorov, a resident of Cheboksary who was forced to sign a contract with the MoD through threats and violence by police officers, has been killed in the war. The young man was detained on the street on May 15, then beaten and forced to sign a contract under threat of imprisonment. According to his mother, the signature on the document differs from the one in his passport. She had specifically instructed her son to use a different signature if he was ever coerced into signing anything. In her view, this indicates that he signed the contract involuntarily. On May 16, he was sent to a military unit in Yekaterinburg, and on May 18, he was transferred to Donetsk. Although Fyodorov had been promised that he would serve in the Unmanned Systems Forces, on July 22 he was sent on a combat mission with an assault unit and has not been in contact since. According to a response from the Military Prosecutor’s Office, on July 23, Fyodorov was driving a buggy he had purchased with his own money near the village of Maiak when it was struck by a UAV. His remains have already been delivered to the Center for Receiving, Processing and Transporting the Remains of Fallen Soldiers in Rostov-on-Don for onward transport. Following his mother’s complaints, the Interior Ministry said it had found no violations in the police officers’ conduct, while the Prosecutor General’s Office maintains that the contract was signed voluntarily.

In the Khabarovsk region, 19-year-old conscript Nazar P. from Magadan was forced to sign a contract with the MoD under threat of confinement in a military guardhouse and physical violence, his relatives said. He was drafted on Oct. 14 and assigned to the 7th Railway Brigade in Komsomolsk-on-Amur. Three days after his arrival, his commander forced him to sign a contract. The conscript later attempted to submit a written request to renounce the contract, but it was not accepted. His relatives contacted the Military Prosecutor’s Office, but according to the young man, his commanders said he would be sent to war regardless of any complaints.

The military investigative department of the Investigative Committee for the Penza Garrison has launched an inquiry into the staff of a contract military service recruitment center in Penza following an appeal from relatives of 63-year-old confectioner Aleksandr Glebov. In September, unidentified men in civilian clothes detained him, beat him, forced him to sign a contract, and sent him to war three days later. His relatives claim that the signature was forged and that Glebov has chronic medical conditions and had never served in the military. Following their complaint, the prosecutors launched an inquiry into suspected abuse of authority.

Russia and Ukraine conducted a 270-for-270 POW exchange. According to the I Want to Find project and the Nash Vykhod [Our Way Out] Telegram channel, 35 mobilized Russian soldiers, 21 officers and 70 sergeants were returned from Ukraine. Forty percent of those released had spent no more than a year in captivity, while 17 percent had been held for more than two years. Also returned to Russia were fighters from the so-called Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) and Luhansk People's Republic (LPR) who had lived in the occupied territories. Most of the Ukrainian servicemen released in the exchange had been held captive since 2022. Five had survived the strike on the Olenivka penal colony. Ten of those exchanged had been convicted by Russian courts two or three times. Russia and Ukraine also conducted a civilian exchange. Seven people will return to Russia and seven to Ukraine. They include elderly people, people with limited mobility, and a young woman with a child.

Sentences, Legal Proceedings and Incidents

A jury acquitted Sergey Namtaev, a 31-year-old Buryatia native who fought in the war against Ukraine, of murdering two people and committing assault. The exact circumstances of the alleged crimes are unknown. According to his lawyer, the jury found that Namtaev had acted in self-defense. However, before the court issued its final ruling, he returned to the war, and proceedings in his case were suspended. Namtaev had previously been prosecuted several times for violent offenses. In 2023, he was sentenced to three and a half years in a penal colony for attacks on two people. According to his lawyer, however, he did not serve the sentence because he returned to the frontline.

The Central District Court in Chita sentenced Adam Isluev, a former aide to United Russia State Duma member Andrey Gurulyov, to nine years in a penal colony in an especially large-scale fraud case. According to the court, Isluev collected 1.5 million rubles [$18,500] per person from servicemen and their relatives, promising to negotiate with military commanders to transfer them to rear-area assignments, arrange their return from the war, or secure postings near their homes. He had no real ability to fulfill those promises and kept the money for himself. Isluev worked as Gurulyov's aide until December 2024, when he was dismissed following a drunken disturbance aboard an airplane.

In the third quarter of 2026, Russian courts handed down 186 verdicts involving 203 defendants on charges of treason, espionage, confidential cooperation with a foreign state or organization, and aiding the enemy—the highest figures since monitoring began. For the second quarter in a row, courts issued at least 50 verdicts every month. Courts issued 459 verdicts in the first nine months of 2026, already surpassing the full-year figure for 2025. For 42.9% of defendants, the charges also included "terrorism-related" offenses, while the personal information of 82.3% of defendants was withheld. Treason ranked second among politically motivated charges by the number of people convicted, after public calls for terrorism or its justification.

Children and Militarization

The Higher School of Economics launched a program called "Service + Education," offering free tuition to 100 people who sign one-year military service contracts with the Ministry of Defense to serve in the Unmanned Systems Forces. The university will cover the full cost of bachelor's, specialist and master's degree programs at its Moscow campus, regional branches or online.

In the Krasnoyarsk region, students who fail their state exams after ninth grade will be allowed to enroll in free six-month drone operator training programs. Three colleges in the region have set aside 47 state-funded places for the program, which will offer teenagers training in operating drones weighing up to 30 kilograms.

Assistance

Employment services in 71 Russian regions have identified 449,000 job openings for veterans of the war, according to a report by the Federal Service for Labor and Employment. Yet statistics show that in 2025 only 15,000 war veterans sought help finding work, and 7,800 of them, or 52 percent, were placed in jobs. About a third of those who applied, 5,000 people, have disabilities; 2,100 of them, or 42 percent, found work. Of the 1,200 previously convicted servicemen who applied, 638 were hired.

In the Kirov region, companies with more than 100 employees will be able to meet their quota for hiring veterans of the war in Ukraine by funding their employment at other organizations. To do so, firms subject to the quotas will need to sign an agreement with another company or an individual entrepreneur and transfer funds to it each month to cover a "veteran's" salary of at least the minimum wage, plus mandatory insurance contributions. The terms of the agreements will be confidential.

In the Smolensk region, regional payments to the families of those killed in the war in Ukraine have been cut from 1 million rubles [$12,300] to 700,000 rubles [$8,630]. Compensation for wounded servicemen has also been reduced: from 500,000 rubles [$6,160] to 300,000 rubles [$3,700] for minor injuries, and from 700,000 rubles [$8,630] to 500,000 rubles [$6,160] for severe injuries. Smolensk has become at least the 10th region to cut or eliminate payments to the families of servicemen killed in the war in 2026.

Tambov State University has launched a retraining program for war veterans. The project aims to "integrate" those who fought in the war against Ukraine into civilian life and involve them in "mentoring" students.

Moscow plans to open a "Palace of Special Military Operation Veterans" by the end of 2027 at the site of the existing social rehabilitation center for war veterans in Catherine Park, Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said. The building will be converted into a rehabilitation complex for participants in the war against Ukraine. It will include a swimming pool, a gait training facility, physical therapy and yoga facilities, and creative workshops.

Longreads

The Sibir.Realii [part of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty] online media outlet has published a report on how Russian regions are cutting spending on military sign-up bonuses and benefits for the families of fallen servicemen.

The Vot Tak [Like This] media outlet reported that students at no fewer than 40 educational institutions across Russia are involved in manufacturing combat drones for the army.