Mobilization in Russia for Sept. 13-20, 2026 CIT Volunteer Summary

Army Recruitment

In Russia’s constituent republic of Mordovia, as of Sept. 15, the sign-up bonus was reduced from the 3 million rubles [$35,400] set on Aug. 20 this year to 800,000 rubles [$9,450]. Thus, including the federal payment of 400,000 rubles [$4,730], those signing a contract with the Ministry of Defense will receive a one-time total of 1.2 million rubles [$14,200].

In the city of Yaroslavl, a sign-up bonus of 200,000 rubles [$2,360] has been introduced for signing a contract to join the mobilization reserve (BARS) to protect infrastructure facilities from UAV attacks. Residents who sign a contract between Aug. 18 and Dec. 31, 2026, through the Yaroslavl Higher Military Air Defense School and are sent to special training sessions to protect critical facilities and the city’s essential infrastructure will be eligible for the payment. In 2026, the city budget plans to allocate 20.4 million rubles [$241,000] in payments for 102 reservists, and another 4 million rubles [$47,300] in 2027 for 20 people.

At least 61 court rulings have been identified involving municipal officials fined for failing to meet recruitment quotas for contract soldiers. The number comes from the Vot Tak [Like This] media outlet and the Anti-War Committee that reviewed the court decisions. Thirty-six court rulings describe the recruitment system in detail. The courts rely on regional laws enacted after a decree on operations control centers took effect. Under those laws, regional operations control centers set quotas for the number of residents who must sign a contract. Officials now bear direct responsibility for failing to carry out a decision by a governor or an operations control center in 51 regions, and they face related liability in 21 more regions. Officials who fail to meet army recruitment quotas face warnings or fines ranging from 10,000 to 30,000 rubles [$120 to $350]. Officials who failed to meet their quotas argue in their defense that people sign contracts voluntarily, and they complain about competition among regions. They also cite the number of recruitment events they held. In the Stavropol region, authorities punished several officials for attracting only 11, one, and 16 recruits instead of the required 19, three, and 19. In Bratsk, authorities raised the 2025 quota from 548 to 645 people, but by Nov. 1 officials had managed to recruit only 369. To meet the quota, they canvassed more than 14,000 addresses, held nearly 3,000 conversations, and tried to recruit debtors, conscripts, foreigners, people with criminal records, and orphans. Of 261 "processed" orphans and graduates of children’s homes, one person signed a contract.

Irkutsk State University allocated almost 1 million rubles [$11,800] for recruiters to find four people from the university to enlist in the Unmanned Systems Forces. On Sept. 5, the university hired a recruiter for 300,000 rubles [$3,540] and gave them two days to find someone willing to sign a contract with the MoD. On Sept. 17, it posted a notice on the government procurement contracts portal seeking a contractor for 670,000 rubles [$7,920] to recruit three people between Sept. 17 and 30.

The administration of Tyumen State Medical University is offering medical graduates and students the opportunity to go to war by signing a "special contract" for one year, which will allegedly count as statutory military service. The information was published on the university’s official website and social media accounts. According to the announcement, after signing the contract, a medical worker will receive a sign-up bonus starting at 800,000 rubles [$9,450], a federal payment of 400,000 rubles [$4,730], and a regional payment of 3 million rubles [$35,400], as well as an additional monthly allowance equal to two monthly salaries. Students are also promised transfers to state-funded places after completing their service and academic leave for the duration of their participation in the war.

In Novosibirsk, MoD personnel are urging men outside a polling station to sign contracts with the MoD and are also handing them draft notices.

Mobilized Soldiers, Contract Soldiers and Conscripts

According to a tally by the Lyudi Baikala [People of Baikal] independent media outlet, four years after mobilization was announced, 752 of the 4,000 people mobilized in Buryatia [Russia’s constituent republic] have been killed, along with 961 of the 5,000 people mobilized in the Irkutsk region. If these figures are extrapolated to Russia as a whole, 60,000 of the 300,000 Russians mobilized have been killed. According to the outlet, however, mobilized soldiers account for only 14 percent of all Russian military fatalities. The average age of those mobilized from the Baikal area was 34 at the time they were drafted and 37 at the time of their death. The first people mobilized from the two regions were killed two weeks after being drafted.

A 55-year-old St. Petersburg resident, Vitaly Smidovich, was killed in the war after being sent to the frontline instead of to the job he had been promised. As his daughter said in June, Smidovich, who suffered from epilepsy and lived alone, had been unable to find work for a long time and was offered a job repairing houses in the Moscow region that had been "damaged by drones." A day later, he called his daughter and said that military personnel would come to pick him up and take him to repair houses. The man’s phone was unreachable for several days. He later told his daughter that he had signed a military contract and was in the city of Luhansk, where he would undergo two weeks of training before being sent to the frontline. An unidentified man sent his daughter a copy of the contract, which her father had signed on May 7 in Balashikha. Smidovich was no longer reachable after May 27. When his daughter contacted the draft office, she was told that on June 30, criminal proceedings had been opened against her father for going AWOL, and that on Aug. 17 he had been placed on a wanted list. His name remains in the database. At the end of the summer, his daughter received her father’s death certificate, which stated that he had been killed on June 2 "while carrying out a combat mission" in the Donetsk region.

Emil Zhenishbekov, a 28-year-old conscript who had spent more than a year challenging a contract with the MoD because, according to him, his signature on it had been forged, was sent from Yurga through Novosibirsk to the Rostov region in the early hours of Sept. 15 before being deployed to the war. The serviceman says he was assigned to the 1435th Assault Regiment and is being sent to the frontline against his will. Earlier, he had been transferred from the 5th Separate Railway Brigade in Abakan to a unit in Yurga, where he was classified as a disciplinary offender and prepared for combat missions.

Sentences, Legal Proceedings and Incidents

The Luzhsky City Court in the Leningrad region has sentenced the general director of Yastreb PMC LLC, Dmitry Antonov, to five years in prison on charges of fraud. According to investigators, Antonov was appointed to the position by his father-in-law, Aleksey Marushchenko, the founder of Yastreb PMC, who was previously sentenced to 18 years in a penal colony on a string of charges, including fraud, kidnapping, and abuse of authority involving torture and the organization of a murder. Antonov recruited people for the PMC directly from an office in the administration building of Saint Petersburg's Vyborgsky district, promising recruits better terms than the MoD offered. After signing a contract, the men were fictitiously placed on the payrolls of state-funded organizations and issued 400,000 rubles [$4,730] to 500,000 rubles [$5,910] apiece, then sent to a unit where Marushchenko extorted various sums from them, ostensibly for paperwork and equipment. All told, investigators believe, the organization's leadership collected more than 8.8 million rubles [$104,000] from nearly 90 servicemen. Those who refused to hand over money were kidnapped, tortured, and killed. Antonov pleaded guilty and testified against Marushchenko.

In the Ivanovo region, a contract soldier who, along with an acquaintance who worked as a taxi driver, kidnapped a man and demanded that he sign a contract with the MoD is on trial. The court earlier sentenced the taxi driver, Sergey Pankratov, to three and a half years in a penal colony in the case. The case against the contract soldier was split into separate proceedings. The victim, a man with a Group II disability, was visiting the town of Yuzha. Prosecutors say he dropped his phone during the taxi ride. An acquaintance of the taxi driver who was a contract soldier and had taken part in the war in Ukraine helped find the phone but did not return it, suggesting instead that they drive around town. The men ultimately took the victim to a forest, where they tried to force him to sign a contract and began beating him when he refused. They then drove him to a frozen body of water and threatened him with being made to fall through the ice. They assaulted him again in the car, but he still would not agree to sign. In the end they brought him home and ordered him not to tell the police. He called anyway, and the soldier and Pankratov were detained.

Assistance

The Saint Petersburg Legislative Assembly proposed providing free legal assistance to the families of servicemen who have gone missing or been killed in the war. Under the bill, state legal aid offices and attorneys would be able to represent citizens free of charge in cases seeking to have a serviceman declared missing or legally presumed dead. The initiative applies, among others, to servicemen of the Russian Armed Forces and the Rosgvardia [the Russian National Guard], as well as mobilized soldiers and volunteer fighters. A court ruling would allow families to resolve inheritance matters and obtain payments to which they are entitled.

Children and Militarization

Starting this school year, the number of classes devoted to basic military training in Russian schools has increased 2.5-fold, Education Minister Sergey Kravtsov said. It now accounts for 50 percent of the course "Fundamentals of Security and Defense of the Motherland," up from the previous 20 percent—a total of 68 hours over the four years from grades 8 through 11. At the same time, ninth-graders have fewer class hours devoted to safe behavior online, mental health, countering extremism and terrorism, and a number of other topics. Lessons on infectious and noninfectious diseases, healthy lifestyles, and mental health have been removed from the 11th-grade curriculum. Instead, 10th-graders will now study "the organization, weaponry, and tactics of foreign armies," "the deployment and daily life of military personnel," "rules of conduct in the event of a missile threat or the threat of UAV attacks," "combat robotic systems," as well as terrain reconnaissance and drill training with weapons.

In the Nizhnetavdinsky district of the Tyumen region, 100 teenagers are taking part in an intensive basic military training project called Yozhik [Hedgehog], for which the organization Shchit Rossii [Shield of Russia] received a gubernatorial grant of 1.5 million rubles [$17,700]. Participants will be trained in tactical operations on water, setting up field camps and day-long forced marches, and will meet with war participants and security and law enforcement agencies. The project is named after a Tyumen region native with the call sign Yozhik, who volunteered for the war with no prior military experience and was killed on his second combat mission.

Longreads

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reports on how conscripts are dying while serving in border regions.

Nastoyashcheye Vremya [Current Time], an editorially independent U.S.-funded Russian-language outlet, reports on how Russian schools are expanding drone training and which companies are making money from equipping educational institutions.