Mobilization in Russia for Sept. 7-9, 2025 CIT Volunteer Summary
Authorities and Legislation
The Voyennye Advokaty [Military Lawyers] Telegram channel reports that the federal government introduced amendments in late August to the Regulations on Military Medical Examination, a document defining the examination rules for military personnel and conscripts. The new rules introduce an exception: the validity of rulings for service fitness category "V" and "D" (partially fit and unfit for military service, respectively) now extends to the entire mobilization period and for one year after it concludes, instead of the previous one-year term. Additionally, the maximum period for medical treatment and leave has been extended to 10 months from four. The duration of sick leave can now vary between 30 and 90 days, compared with the previous 60-day period. It can be extended by up to 90 days (previously 30), though the total continuous leave cannot exceed 180 days. Moreover, the changes affect the Schedule of Diseases, which lists conditions that exempt individuals from service. For several diseases, military medical boards can now assign the "V" category, whereas previously they would have used the "D" category. Finally, the new rules affect mobilized and contract soldiers with hepatitis. Whereas military medical boards would have previously assigned them the "V" category, soldiers with 'insignificant functional impairment' will now receive an "A" category and will no longer be eligible for discharge, mirroring the established rules for officers. Previously, the independent Russian investigative media outlet Vazhnyye Istorii [IStories] discovered that recruiters had posted advertisements for Ministry of Defense contracts on Avito, Russia's largest classifieds website, targeting people with HIV and hepatitis.
According to the Vedomosti [The Record] business daily newspaper, citing its sources, Vladimir Putin has extended the service of 70-year-old Chief of the General Staff General Valery Gerasimov. Since 2021, the military service term for army generals and marshals can be extended after they reach the age of 70. Also, on the day of the Chief of the General Staff’s 70th birthday, Putin awarded him the Order of Courage. Gerasimov has headed the General Staff since 2012.
Army Recruitment
A Russian man who is on the national wanted list received a draft notice from a military commissariat. The 29-year-old Vladimir emigrated from Russia seven years ago, when a criminal case was opened against him. Years later, the man was detained abroad at the request of Russian law enforcement. Since then, the court of the country where Vladimir is located has been deciding on his deportation. This spring, representatives from the enlistment office came to his registered address in the Moscow region to deliver a draft notice. They were unaware that the man was on the national wanted list, even though this information is available in open databases of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
In the Gaynsky municipal district of the Perm region [Russia’s federal subject], a payment of 50,000 rubles [$610] has been introduced for each person brought to a military commissariat who then signs a contract with the MoD. The payments will be made from the district budget until Dec. 31 of this year. Similar payments were previously introduced in the city of Berezniki, the Cherdynsky municipal district, the city of Perm, and the Perm and Lysva districts.
In Russia’s constituent Republic of Tatarstan, a court in Kazan has suspended the criminal case against Eduard Soldatov, a former judge accused of driving under the influence. The defendant signed a contract with the MoD and went to war. The man had a prior record of similar offenses. In June 2010, while intoxicated, he exceeded the speed limit and fatally struck 23-year-old Marat Gainutdinov in Kazan. At the time, he avoided punishment by reaching an agreement with the relatives of the deceased. In 2025, Soldatov was charged with yet another incident of drunk driving.
As Vladimir Kozorog, a candidate for the city council of Krasnodar, visited a university with a request not to apply pressure on students before elections, an enlistment office employee attempted to serve him a draft notice.
Mobilized Soldiers, Contract Soldiers and Conscripts
Maksim Suvorov, a resident of Russia's constituent Republic of Buryatia born on June 5, 2007, has been reported killed in the war against Ukraine. He is the first Russian citizen born in 2007 to die in combat. On June 25, 2025, after graduating from a technical school, he was conscripted for statutory military service. According to the authors of his obituary, Suvorov signed a contract with the MoD just two days after conscription, on June 27, and just one month later, on July 24, he was killed near the village of Novyi Komar in the Donetsk region of Ukraine at the age of 18 years and one month. At the outset of the war in February 2022, Suvorov was 14 years old. He is the youngest participant in the war in the list maintained by the Lyudi Baikala [People of Baikal] independent media outlet.
Sentences, Legal Proceedings and Incidents
In the "DPR," a previously convicted 32-year-old serviceman from the Sverdlovsk region, Aleksey Chumachenko, was detained on Sept. 7 on suspicion of rape and murder of a 9-year-old girl. Katya Demidova went missing on Sept. 5 in the village of Vilkhuvatka after a walk. According to the Astra Telegram channel, Chumachenko attacked the child that same afternoon on the bank of the Bulavin River in the village of Ilyinka. He raped the girl, struck her on the head and body, and then strangled her. He threw Katya's body into the river near the murder site. Two days later, on Sept. 7, the girl was found. After his detention, Chumachenko said that he had killed the girl and buried her 500 meters from her grandmother's house, where he had been living since 2024 after deserting his military unit. He worked as a handyman for the girl's grandmother and lived with them, performing household chores. In 2021, Chumachenko was convicted in a criminal case of rape. He went from a penal colony to the war with Ukraine. Before that, he had also been convicted for grievous bodily harm, theft of items of special value, theft, and robbery.
In the early hours of Sept. 7, near the town of Vasylivka in the occupied Zaporizhzhia region, two Russian servicemen attempted to assault their own military checkpoint. The incident began when their vehicle was stopped for a routine document inspection. At that moment, the men reportedly tried to seize weapons from the guards before attempting to flee. The individuals were later identified as 35-year-old Corporal Georgy Bekuzarov and 30-year-old Artur Fattakhov, both serving in the 429th Motorized Rifle Regiment and originally from the Republic of North Ossetia–Alania [Russia's constituent republic]. According to Astra, Bekuzarov had been listed as AWOL for over three months prior to the incident. The confrontation resulted in Fattakhov’s death at the scene, while Bekuzarov sustained injuries.
In the town of Labytnangi, in the Yamalo-Nenets autonomous region [Russia's federal subject], a 28-year-old serviceman from the 1308th regiment, Fyodor Salinder, is a suspect in the rape of a 19-year-old student. The crime took place in his apartment on Sept. 6, and a criminal case has been opened. According to Astra, Salinder was previously convicted of murder in 2015 and was released from a penal colony in 2023.
On the night of Sept. 8, after a six-hour pursuit near the village of Medny, law enforcement officers detained 24-year-old Aleksandr Cherepanov, who together with 24-year-old Ivan Koryukov had escaped from SIZO-1 prison in the city of Yekaterinburg on Sept. 1. Last fall, the two friends were sentenced to seven and nine and a half years in prison respectively for attempting to set fire to an enlistment office in May 2023. The search for Koryukov continues.
In the Arkhangelsk region, two teenagers were arrested on suspicion of sabotage committed by a group of persons by prior conspiracy. The names of the defendants in this case are unknown; they were sent to a pre-trial detention center. According to investigators, on August 4, a "representative of the Ukrainian intelligence services" contacted one of the teenagers, who was born in 2009. The teenager was asked to damage the railway infrastructure in exchange for money. The young man agreed and involved a peer in this. Together, they set fire to relay cabinets at the Konosha-1 station.
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) detained a citizen of Azerbaijan in the Stavropol region on suspicion of plotting terrorist attacks. According to the agency, the man, a former member of Azerbaijan’s military special forces—had planned to target security agency buildings and transportation infrastructure in the cities of Stavropol and Essentuki. The FSB claimed the suspect told investigators he had come to Stavropol for work in 2025 and during that time made contact with a Ukrainian representative. Officials said he recorded a video pledging allegiance to what they described as a "national liberation battalion." The agency alleged he surveyed government buildings and transportation facilities, purchased materials for explosive devices, and hid them in a cache. A court ordered him held in pre-trial detention.
A court in the Altai region [Russia’s federal subject] sentenced 62-year-old Sergey Dudinov to nine years in prison on charges of intended treason and participation in a terrorist organization. According to investigators, in March he contacted representatives of the Freedom of Russia Legion, and expressed a desire to join. A month later, he attempted to travel to Ukraine in transit through Kazakhstan but was detained.
A resident of Khabarovsk has been sentenced to 15 years in a maximum security penal colony on charges of cooperating with a foreign state, participating in the activities of a terrorist organization, promoting terrorism, and desecrating graves. According to investigators, in 2023 the man joined the Freedom of Russia Legion and, acting on instructions from Ukrainian intelligence services, distributed leaflets with the group’s symbols and anti-Russian slogans. He allegedly placed them on the graves of war participants.
In Moscow, individual entrepreneur Sergey Derevyanko has been arrested on charges of treason, according to several pro-Kremlin media outlets. Details of the criminal case have not been disclosed.
The Saratov regional court sentenced 46-year-old Yevgeny Dubsky, a resident of the Samara region, to 19 years in a maximum security penal colony on charges of treason and the illegal possession of firearms and munitions. Prosecutors allege that between October and November 2023, Dubsky established contact with officers of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and provided them with a schematic of a defense industry enterprise along with information about its employees. He is also accused of monitoring the command of a local military unit in February 2024 at the direction of his Ukrainian handlers.
The Moscow Times notes that since the beginning of the year, courts have received 43 criminal cases related to state defense contracts—an absolute record since the start of the war. For all of 2024, 34 cases were referred to courts, compared to 36 in 2023 and 32 in 2022. In the three years preceding the war's start, the number of state defense contract-related cases filed in courts did not exceed 23. The verdicts and details of most criminal cases remain unknown, with courts concealing parts of the information. Cases are heard behind closed doors, and courts also do not publish information about who is being prosecuted or the texts of verdicts.
Children and Militarization
Universities in the Belgorod region enrolled 101 participants in the war in Ukraine and 212 children of war participants—representing 11% of all enrolled students. Vocational education institutions in the Belgorod region admitted 402 children of war participants in Ukraine—4.2% of the total number enrolled. A separate admissions quota is provided for war participants in Ukraine and their children. It comprises no less than 10% of state-funded places. War participants and their children can enroll in colleges and technical schools without competition.