Mobilization in Russia for Oct. 23-26, 2025 CIT Volunteer Summary

Authorities and Legislation

Russia’s Ministry of Defense is launching an initiative to optimize economic and administrative processes outside combat operations, RBC [Russian media group] reports, citing sources. The effort to gradually phase out paper orders and logs will involve reorganizing document flow, state defense order procurement and repair processes for equipment and armaments. Minister of Defense Andrey Belousov created a "department for increasing the efficiency of activities" tasked with improving communication between units, reducing paperwork and eliminating non-core and redundant functions. This should, for example, accelerate military construction, medical services and the receipt of benefits for military personnel or their family members.

The federal government introduced a bill in the State Duma [lower house of Russia’s Federal Assembly] amending the Law on Defense to let the MoD use members of the mobilization reserve for certain tasks without a formal declaration of mobilization or war. The ministry claims that it plans to deploy these reservists to protect critical infrastructure and other essential facilities from drone attacks deep inside the country, restricting their service solely to their home regions. To facilitate this, a presidential decree would authorize sending the reservists to special training sessions lasting no more than two months.

Army Recruitment

The Leningrad region will establish a paramilitary unit designated "BARS-47" tasked with "protecting and controlling the Leningrad sky," Governor Aleksandr Drozdenko announced. Authorities expect to recruit 105 individuals, including "veterans of the special military operation." Unit members will receive small arms, civilian vehicles and electronic warfare equipment. According to Drozdenko, the MoD supports the initiative. The region will become one of the first to create such a unit.

An elderly resident of the city of Krasnoyarsk, Viktor K., was abducted on the street and forced under threat of violence to sign a contract with the MoD as part of a unit composed of convicts. Viktor said that on March 18, 2025, he was stopped by unidentified men who offered him to enlist voluntarily. After he refused, they forced him into a car and took him to a draft office, where he was coerced into signing a contract. He was then taken to a Civil Registry Office, where he was forcibly married to an unknown woman so that she could receive his military payments. His bank card was also confiscated. After that, Viktor was sent to serve in the 1437th Motorized Rifle Regiment, attached to the 15th Motorized Rifle Brigade, which is fighting near the town of Pokrovsk and is among the units with the highest casualty rates.

The Yaroslavl branch of DOSAAF [Russian Army, Air Force, and Navy Volunteer Society] has begun suing Russians who completed government-funded UAV operation courses but did not go on to sign contracts with the MoD. The Vyorstka media outlet found at least four such court rulings in judicial databases. The lawsuits started appearing in regional courts in late April. In one of the cases, it was noted that a resident of Russia's constituent republic of Bashkortostan, Artur Igtisanov, did in fact sign a contract despite DOSAAF’s claims. However, he was dismissed by his unit commander "for failing the probation period" and "was never actually assigned to service." In June, the court ordered Igtisanov to pay 300,000 rubles [$3,700] to DOSAAF—double the cost of his training, which the organization demanded as a penalty for breaching the agreement.

Fall Conscription Campaign

The Idite Lesom! [Flee through the woods/Get lost you all] Telegram channel reports that police roundups of conscripts in Moscow are continuing. One young man was detained in a store, taken first to a police station and then to the central military collection point on Ugreshskaya Street. He was later released and given a summons to the enlistment center on Yablochkova Street "to check-up military service register data." On Oct. 20, another conscript was detained near a metro station, taken to a local draft office and is reportedly still being held there, with plans to send him to the front within ten days. In another case, a conscript with asthma was stopped at Otradnoye metro station and sent for a medical evaluation. He has been ordered to return for further examination on Nov. 17.

In Moscow, a student with a valid draft deferment was declared fit for service and given a deployment date. The young man received an electronic draft notice. His university instructed him to obtain a certificate of enrollment and bring it to the military commissariat. There, he was sent to a medical evaluation board where no actual examination took place, yet he was deemed fit for service and informed that he would be sent to the army in two weeks. The student filed an administrative lawsuit, a motion for interim protective measures and a complaint through the Multifunctional Public Services Center, and also obtained a sick leave certificate covering the scheduled deployment dates. He has since left his registered address to avoid being unlawfully sent to serve while awaiting the court’s decision.

In the Belgorod region, electronic draft notices have begun to be issued even to men who have already completed their statutory military service. One such notice was received by a resident of the Starooskolsky district. The notice stated that he must report to the military commissariat or "temporary measures" would be applied against him. The man completed his statutory military service nine years earlier. The reason he received the notice remains unclear.

On Oct. 23, a 21-year-old man was stopped from leaving the country at Pulkovo Airport after receiving an electronic draft notice, the Telegram channel Pogranichny Kontrol [Border Control] reported. This marks the first known case of an exit ban since the launch of the Draft Register in Saint Petersburg, and the second in Russia overall. On Oct. 22, the young man received an SMS notifying him of a draft notice "for medical examination procedures" scheduled for Oct. 28. He purchased a ticket to Istanbul for Oct. 23 but was stopped by border officers during passport control. They asked whether he had completed military service and told him that a "travel ban flag" had been placed in the system. He was issued a written notice prohibiting him from leaving Russia and informed that the restriction was connected to the draft notice. Border officials told him he must report to the military commissariat, where the ban could potentially be lifted. The man later wrote that he had graduated from university in May, had not served in the military and did not possess a military registration certificate.

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 140,101 Russian fighters killed in Ukraine, including 15,562 mobilized soldiers. Over the past week, the list has grown by 3,815 soldiers, 157 of whom were mobilized. Over the past two weeks, the number of named dead has increased by nearly 5,000 people, while the typical growth rate is 2,000-2,500 new names every two weeks. This increase is not related to the situation on the frontline, but rather to the addition of soldiers previously listed as missing in action, whose information has appeared in the National Probate Registry, which allowed their deaths to be verified.

Sentences, Legal Proceedings and Incidents

In Russia’s constituent Republic of Tatarstan, on the evening of Oct. 24, unknown assailants attacked a military convoy in Kazan and helped a man evading military service to escape. Two men in an unmarked car approached the vehicle of the military commandant's office convoy, which was transporting the detainee from Naberezhnye Chelny, attacked the escorts, removed the detainee from the vehicle and fled with him. The Ostorozhno, Novosti [Beware the News] Telegram channel identified the alleged escapee as 32-year-old Fadis Garipov, who had been mobilized in 2022 and previously detained for escaping from his military unit. In August 2025, Garipov was awarded the Medal for Courage and the medal for participation in the war in Ukraine. According to local media, the man was detained in Naberezhnye Chelny the next day after the escape and brought back to the military commandant's office in Kazan. The Kommersant daily newspaper reports that the men who assisted him in his escape have also been detained and are being questioned by police.

A court in Ulan-Ude sentenced former serviceman Roman Khlyzov to seven years in a maximum security penal colony after convicting him of attempted murder, unlawful entry into a dwelling and theft. According to investigators, a drunken Khlyzov broke into an acquaintance's home and stabbed the victim multiple times. The victim survived the attack.

The Southern District Military Court sentenced Ukrainian serviceman Anatoliy Bezkorovainyi of the Azov Brigade to 17 years in a maximum security penal colony. He was convicted of involvement in a terrorist community and undergoing training for terrorism. Prosecutors claimed that Bezkorovainyi joined the Azov Brigade in the fall of 2020 and, for the next two years, served as a tank gunner who "participated in armed attacks on settlements and shelling of the civilian population." He was also charged with participating in combat operations against Russian soldiers and law enforcement officers of the "DPR." Bezkorovainyi defended the Azovstal Steel Factory in Mariupol after the start of the full-scale invasion and was taken prisoner in May 2022.

A court in Saint Petersburg has sent Diana Chistyakova, a psychologist and blogger with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), to a pre-trial detention center in connection with a criminal case on an attempted act of terror. She is accused of throwing three Molotov cocktails at a building belonging to a security and convoy regiment. Chistyakova acted under the instructions of scammers and fully pleaded guilty. The defense requested that she be placed under house arrest, arguing that she "had been misled by scammers, requires medication and needs a psychiatric evaluation."

A 63-year-old resident of Saint Petersburg, Pyotr Pustovoy, has been sentenced to 11 years of imprisonment in a case concerning an act of terror. According to prosecutors, on Nov. 29, 2024, Pustovoy set fire to a switching post near the Rybatskoye railway station for a promised reward of 3,000 rubles [$37]. On Dec. 1, he was detained and placed in a pre-trial detention center. The investigation estimated the damage at about 13 million rubles [$160,400]. In court, Pustovoy stated that he had been influenced by scammers and fully pleaded guilty.

Russian authorities have opened a treason case against Valeria Lisovskaya, a woman born in Moldova who holds Russian citizenship. 39-year-old Lisovskaya spent most of her life in Russia before moving to Crimea with her minor son in 2022 and settling near Sevastopol. She was detained in the fall of 2024. According to investigators, Lisovskaya, who spoke out against the invasion from the outset, surveilled the car of a high-ranking military officer. In November 2024, she was ordered into a pre-trial detention center, while her son was taken by guardianship authorities. Lisovskaya has said she moved to Crimea to be "closer to Ukrainians."

In another case, a resident of the Kherson region, Yuliia Stanika, was sentenced to 12,5 years in a penal colony for treason after donating money to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, according to prosecutors. They claim that from September 2023 to January 2024, the 30-year-old Stanika made several transfers through a foreign bank that were allegedly used to support the "material and technical supply of Ukrainian armed formations."

Meanwhile, the Kostroma regional court sentenced 35-year-old Gleb Smirnov to 19 years in a maximum security penal colony, and 40-year-old Vladimir Filatov to 15 years on charges of treason and attempting to sell explosives. Smirnov faces additional accusations of manufacturing explosives and attempting to sell narcotics. According to prosecutors, he used Telegram to reach a supposed Ukrainian contact, agreeing to film and pass along coordinates of government facilities, industrial sites and officials’ and soldiers’ vehicles for payment, and that he enlisted Filatov to help gather information. Investigators also claim Smirnov made an explosive substance "using a provided recipe." The two men were arrested while allegedly transporting the material to a drop site dictated by their supposed Ukrainian "handler."

Russia’s financial monitoring agency Rosfinmonitoring is adding between 250 and 350 new names each month to its registry of "terrorists and extremists," according to Novaya Gazeta Europe [the European edition of the independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta].The list now includes 18,771 people. Since 2024, the registry’s growth rate has doubled compared with the first year of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In just the first nine months of 2025, 3,031 people have been added, an average of 319 per month. Over the past two years, the share of minors has risen sharply: since July 2025, one in ten new entries has been under 18. The number of Ukrainians has also increased, including prisoners of war and civilians convicted in Russia under "terrorism"-related charges. As of July 2025, roughly one in five new additions is Ukrainian.

Assistance

A bill under review by the Russian government would exempt "special military operation" veterans along with large families and people with first-degree disabilities from paying the vehicle recycling fee. The benefit would apply to only one vehicle per person.

Longreads

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reports that regional governments across Russia are gradually reducing the one-time sign-up bonuses offered to those entering contracts with the MoD.