“They put him in a car and forced him to sign a contract…”
“Currently he is listed as a missing person…I do not fully accept that he is likely already dead.”
“It’s a paralyzing fear.”
These are all quotes from people who say they have personal experience of forced conscription in Russia.
Their stories, told directly to CNN and corroborated by a growing number of accounts from human rights groups, individuals and social media, paint a picture of the quiet changes underway in Russia’s war recruitment machine, now in its fifth year. We are hiding their identities for fear of retaliation.
Since a mass mobilization campaign in 2022 that triggered a panicked exodus of citizens across its borders, Russia has relied primarily on large financial incentives to lure soldiers into combat. Evidence now suggests that it is gradually being replaced by coercion and deception.
Russia has repeatedly denied Ukraine’s claims that it is planning a new large-scale mobilization, despite rising casualties on the front and falling conscription numbers. But as Russia escalates its attacks, this “creep mobilization” as some call it threatens to undermine public acceptance of the war, exactly what the Kremlin needs most.
“I have an uncle (or rather, I had an uncle),” he wrote in a message to CNN. “He’s a sick old man with vascular problems and alcoholism who can barely walk.”
The person said that in July, his uncle, a man in his late 50s who works for a defense company, was approached by several men in civilian clothes outside his apartment building and taken away in a car. They didn’t know where he was being taken, but that day “they asked him to sign what appeared to be a ‘notice of being there,'” he said. It turned out to be a deal (to join the army). ”
The story, which took place in a town in western Russia, fits an all-too-familiar pattern, said Artem Kuliga, a Berlin-based Russian military lawyer who advises Russians about their rights to military service. Since the start of the summer, he said he has seen a spike in people contacting him about these types of incidents. “Now it’s a daily practice,” he told CNN. Most of the cases he sees involve vulnerable men who are in debt or have health or alcohol problems. “They just don’t have the opportunity to say no, they just don’t know their rights.”
Call to Conscience, a coalition of lawyers that supports Russian conscripts and reservists with advice on conscientious objection, told CNN that reports of forced conscription spiked in July and August, and that the tactics are “getting tougher by the day.”
In this case, the uncle returned home after signing the document, but disappeared a week later, relatives said. A few days later, he called to say he was at a training range in Luhansk, in Russian-controlled eastern Ukraine. In late September, word arrived that he had gone missing while on duty.
“He has difficulty falling asleep and sometimes has nightmares about being captured by them,” a relative told CNN.
Another Russian who contacted CNN through a human rights group said his brother was “detained” in mid-July “by an unidentified employee in a state of alcohol intoxication.” The suspect’s relatives may have worked at a local military recruiting office.
In this case, CNN has seen the military contract the brother ultimately signed and footage of what appears to be his final tearful farewell to his mother before getting into a white van. The relative also shared a written response from the local military prosecutor’s office to the family’s plea for the man’s release. The report concluded that he went to the recruitment office “of his own free will and without coercion,” adding that “nothing to the contrary has been proven or documented.”
Less than a month later, word arrived that he too had gone missing in action.
“He had a very difficult life with alcohol problems,” a relative told CNN.
I am emotionally devastated. I always knew that my rights in the Russian Federation were being systematically violated, but I didn’t fully understand what it meant. ”
Message to CNN from relatives of Russian military recruits
In June, Russia’s Penza region, about 395 miles south of Moscow, emerged as a particular hotspot for forced recruitment, according to social media accounts and human rights groups. Videos and accounts of people being forcibly mobilized on the streets have surfaced online.
In a video from June that CNN located at a military recruitment center in Penza, women crowd around a bus and demand the release of the men inside. A woman points on the bus and says, “What do you think? Did they sign it voluntarily or didn’t they?” she shouts into the camera. One of the men on the bus seemed to be shaking his head. “They forced you and beat you,” another woman shouted. Russia’s Ministry of Defense dismissed reports of forced mobilization in Penza as fabrications.
Reports of violence in cases of forced recruitment are common, as are disregard for medical exemptions. “This contract was signed under physical and psychological pressure,” wrote one relative who told CNN that his uncle was taken away in August. He reportedly had broken ribs at the time.
Another feature common to many of these stories is that the person taking the man on the street is not clearly identified and is often in civilian clothes. This has raised concerns that they may be civilians looking to cash in another type of military bonus paid to those who help recruit new soldiers. One relative called them “bounty hunters.”
“Recruiters know they are willing to put people to death for pay, and there is no sympathy for contract soldiers or their relatives.”
Message to CNN from relatives of Russian military recruits
CNN has not been able to confirm this in any specific case, but local authorities have made no effort to hide the fact that these payments exist.
In August last year, Pavel Markov, the governor of Russia’s Ryazan region, announced at the regional parliament that he would “encourage those who provide support for attracting nationals to sign contracts.”
“We provide financial payments to each contracted soldier. The bonus amount varies from 50,000 rubles to 300,000 rubles ($590 to $3,500), after taxes.”
CNN found evidence of these public payments in multiple regions, as well as dozens of job ads offering recruiters large sums of money for each candidate signed to a military contract, with payments varying by region.
“It’s literally a ‘bring your friend’ type of promotion, where you drag anyone, in any state, in other words, drunk, homeless, or whoever, into the enlistment office, force them to sign a contract, and take your money,” said the founders of New Alternative Roots, an anti-war group founded this spring.
Founded by exiled Russian IT experts, it collects information on forced mobilization practices and advises people attempting to leave Russia. Representatives from the group also spoke to CNN anonymously out of fear for their families who remain in Russia.
“I am outraged that poverty dehumanizes people so much that they are willing to send others to their deaths for a little money.”
Message to CNN from relatives of Russian military recruits
Russia has long sought to differentiate itself from Ukraine, where conscription is compulsory for able-bodied men between the ages of 25 and 60, and where there have been reported incidents of violent or forced recruitment by gangs.
In early September, Russian President Vladimir Putin said: “Every day in Ukraine we see on TV and on the Internet how homeless people, like dogs, are grabbed and forcibly dragged to the front lines. As you know, here people come voluntarily and sign contracts.”
Janis Kluge, head of Eastern Europe and Eurasia at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, said military recruitment in Russia is managed at the regional level through quotas, and while this increase in coercion tactics is unlikely to be directed by the Kremlin, it could still be seen as a convenient solution to Russia’s human resource problems.
“A system where essentially recruiters are doing the dirty work… is at least tolerated,” he told CNN. “In the eyes of the authorities, it may be part of the solution.” Russia’s Defense Ministry did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.
Still, in the eyes of some Russians, it is a turning point. Rights groups told CNN they are receiving more inquiries about immigration options.
Igor, a 21-year-old from central Russia, who CNN is using a pseudonym out of concern for his family’s safety, left the country three months ago after years of planning to escape what he called “totalitarian madness.”
In the year before he left office, he said he was pressured twice to sign military contracts. The first time was from the university, and the second time was when I visited the local military recruiting office to renew my medical exemption. “I panicked a little bit,” he told CNN. “I was worried someone would sign it for me. There was nothing I could have done.”
Fears of a new wave of mass mobilization also raised immediate practical concerns. “I was worried that the border would be closed and I would never be able to leave,” he told CNN.
“We cannot imagine a scenario where we suddenly hire 300,000 people tomorrow,” the founders of New Alternative Routes told CNN.
Instead, they predict “a quiet and creeping mobilization brought about by coercive measures. In other words, what happened in Penza… is all preparation.”
